#also there were more altos than sopranos which never happens and I was really damn impressed!

[narrativerehearsal]

The RSNO (Royal Scottish National Orchestra) has started doing a ‘Come and Sing’ event every season. I went to the first one when 900 of us turned up to sing Mozart’s Requiem for a day, which was just insane. We filled the entire damn stalls of Glasgow’s concert hall, the audience for the informal performance had to sit in the choir stalls.

The second one happened today and nearly 400 of us turned up to sing Brahms’ Requiem. In a smaller venue this time but again the choir was in the audience seats and the audience (of about 100 people) was in the choir stalls. I thought Mozart was tricky but I can now say that Brahms is fucking hard and I loved it but I am so tired.

Apparently the whole thing was just a crazy idea their chorus director suggested and then it kind of...took off.

[essayofthoughts]

For the headcanons: Wanda, Pietro, Clint, and Natasha! (because I'm predictable af and also i want to see what different ones we come up with for the twins! :D

send me a character and i’ll tell you:

Wanda Maximoff

1. 2-4 songs that are probably on their iPod

I can’t say exactly? But probably something like Ammunition by Aviators, a song about protests and how, when you have no weapons, you are the weapon, the ammunition against those who would oppress you. The song is in English, so I imagine Wanda has a similar song in Sokovian.

… Okay, I may just give in and be Aviators trash, because my next two suggestions of things that Wanda might have on her iPod are again, things like Aviators songs. Namely, Bulletproof, the importance of ideals and continuing those in the face of those who would crush you down, because you might fight and you might die, but the ideas and ideals you’re fighting for, the desire for freedom and for justice you yearn for is something bulletproof, that cannot be killed.

The next one is for after the experiments, Aviators’ We Are Not Machines, a rising denial in the face of someone trying to turn you into a tool, a refusal to be what someone else makes you - not a weapon in their hands, but a weapon in your own hands, of your own choices and not some simple input-output  machine - for you are a person, not a machine. I imagine that a song like this would also gain additional meaning to Wanda on meeting Ultron and on meeting Vision - Ultron who is constantly fighting against what he was made to be and in doing so, allowing that to shape him, and Vision, who knows how he was made and what he was made to be and yet is simply… not. Is simply his own. Is, because of all of this, not a machine.

Last song… hmm. IAMX, My Secret Friend. U will understand Nell. U will understand.

2. the one place they sometimes end up falling asleep — where they’re not supposed to

Less, “Not supposed to” and more “others frown at it”, Wanda often falls asleep against her brother, sitting beside Pietro and just tilting her head to his shoulder and sleeping, or after nightmares when he comes to see if she’s ok, falling asleep in the comfort of a hug.

After he’s gone, Wanda falls asleep in the shower, the warm water and the noise dulling the grief of her mind and giving the illusion of a warm presence. Vision finds her like this, some late evenings.

3. the game they’d destroy everyone else at

Truth or Dare or Never Have I Ever

Wanda has no fear because Pietro has always been there to protect her, and even when he isn’t anymore the lingering strength and certainty it gives her, the fact she has had that strength to fall back on all her life and yet often tried not to in order to keep Pietro safe and well means she has a confidence in-and-of herself that means she’s unafraid of a lot. Also, living on the streets kind of means she takes a practical view of a lot of things.

And then for the truth aspects - Wanda can tell when people are telling the truth with her powers and I imagine that even before the powers she had a knack for reading people and understanding them in a way Pietro always lacked. In turn, I imagine Wanda has a knack for telling almost-truths, that are truth enough that people will take them as truth, but that allow her to hide things she doesn’t want to talk about extensively.

This would make her rather hard to provide counselling for, I fear, as well as the fact that I don’t think she’d trust anyone enough to talk about even the least of her issues with.

4. the emoticon they’d use most often

That depends on who she’s messaging and when. Usually it’s just “frownyface” but Stark occasionally gets a middle finger emoticon (and if one doesn’t exist I would point out that with the Avengers she’d probably use a Starkphone and if Tony Stark designed it then it 100% has a middle finger emoticon. Because Tony Stark Would).

5. what they act like when they haven’t had enough sleep

If just “without sleep” then quietly grumpy, somewhat bitchy (very bitchy, according to Pietro but he thinks it’s amusing) eventually tapering off to just conking out wherever is comfortable enough.

If caffeinated and sleepless: very very giggly, Laughing at the oddest jokes the weirdest puns and also things that are not jokes or puns but that are, to her sleep-deprived brain, very amusing.

6. their preferred hot beverage on really cold nights. or mornings. or whenever.

Tea. Herbal tea, black tea, green tea. She uses chamomile, mint and lavender for headaches, spiced black tea with a lot of milk to wake up, green tea when she needs to think. She’ll drink coffee if she has to, for the sake of pure biting caffeine and also because the taste is so foul it always wakes her (no matter how much sugar she adds and she finds this infuriating), but her fallback is always tea.

7. how they like to comfort/care for themselves when they’re in a slump

Before the events of AOU she’d curl up beside Pietro and talk to him about whatever it is happens to be niggling inside her brain, whatever is worrying her and making her doubt and loose sight of their goals and Pietro would pull her from it and pull her into a hug and possibly go off and “find” her some chocolate (whether he found it or stole it depends on how much money they had at the time and how much he cared about “stealing will get you killed Pietro”. The worse off Wanda seemed the less he cared about the latter).

After the events of AOU, she curls up in her room or in her chair or at the bottom of the shower and tries not to get lost in the twisting grieving paths of her own mind. Sometimes Vision finds her and says something so wholly unexpected it makes her laugh and consider and pulls her from it. Other times Steve alerts Clint who proceeds to drop by and go “right, come on, holiday time. The kids are begging me for a barbecue and no one knows how to make that sauce for the lamb skewers like you do” and drag her off to the farm. Lila and Coop and little Nathaniel Pietro Barton pull her from her slump more quickly than anything.

8. what they wanted to be when they grew up

Free. Safe. Well. Secure. With Pietro. With their vengeance completed. In Sokovia.

And now Sokovia’s capital is a hole in the ground because of her actions, their vengeance has been shed in the face of a bigger threat, Pietro is gone, and any hopes of safety and security and freedom and wellbeing were stolen from her with the Accords and the Raft.

9. their favorite kind of weather

When you are high up enough in the mountains, or ringed by them, the sky can be clear and yet you are shaded, and though it is sunny it is softly cool.

When the weather is this mess of contradictions it reminds her of Sokovia, of Novi Grad, of home, and sometimes she needs that.

10. thoughts on their singing voice (decent? terrible? soprano? alto?)

She can sing and sings softly, she sang lullabies on those rare occasions Pietro had nightmares and woke her, she sings lullabies to Lila and to Cooper and to Nathaniel Pietro Barton when he is fractious, and she sings them in soft Sokovian, so softly that only Vision can really hear all of the words.

She can sing louder, but too often she has had to sing quietly unless she be found by those who would do her harm. 

11. how/what they like to draw or doodle

Wanda can’t draw much. Oddly enough Pietro can, and after his death, Wanda doesn’t dare try for the rising, grieving memories of her brother.

Pietro Maximoff

1. 2-4 songs that are probably on their iPod

So uhh… I’m gonna give in and pick Aviators songs like songs Pietro would have liked if they were in Sokovian.

First of all, Lowborn by Aviators - the hope of rising against impossible odds, of even those at the bottom finally getting recognition and all that they have earned. I mean. “Honor means nothing when war is unfair/ We’ve come here to battle and return to nowhere” and “I’ve nothing to lose, with no debts left to pay” and “The gods have not listened /Though prayers turned to cold-blooded screams” and “Vengeance igniting the fire in my blood” I mean. Goddamn Aviators.

In many ways, Pietro is the more cynical of the twins - he’s had to be, to keep Wanda safe, and so the next song is Aviators’ Welcome to Paradise, which has a lovely thread of “oh, you thought there was hope here?” throughout. I mean. “A wishful thought won’t take you far/ When hell on earth is where you are”and “Our lives are on the line/ In ruins we strive/ We’ll never thrive/ Without the will to survive”. Goddamn Aviators.

Next, This Means War by Aviators. Which is a song they wrote specifically for AOU. I am horrendously predictable. The song is a rush of fighting and having to fight and “a world worth fighting for” and my gods. It’s Pietro racing and the entire Battle of Novi Grad. 

Lastly, Diamonds and Guns by The Transplants. I don’t know why, but this song has always felt rather Pietro to me.

2. the one place they sometimes end up falling asleep — where they’re not supposed to

Um. Pietro is a hard case to judge because well… Look do you honestly think he’s going to sleep if he has to watch over Wanda. He sleeps when exhausted or when Wanda makes him, so the place he falls asleep when he’s not supposed to is like for half an hour outside the backdoors of the Bakers and the Butchers who he runs deliveries for. The managers open the door and hear a thump as Pietro falls over because the door is gone.

3. the game they’d destroy everyone else at

It. Obviously. Even before his powers he was fast, and with his powers he is uncatchable. And, with his speed, he can search and find you in a fraction of the time it would take you to find him and once you’re it good luck catching him. Your best bet is waiting for him to fall asleep and we all know how he is about that ^^.

4. the emoticon they’d use most often

In Sokovia he never really had a phone and so had no use for them. Then he died. 

If he was still around, however, probably the built in “middle finger” emoticon that all Starkphones come with as standard. That said, he does make use of that one Japanese emoticon - ✿＼(｡-_-｡) (“i got your flower”) - whenever Wanda wants to go and fight someone. It is saved in his phone for regular use.

5. what they act like when they haven’t had enough sleep

He never has enough sleep. He sleeps in fits and starts and has done this for so long that he’s functional. The question is What does he act like when he has had enough sleep.

The answer? Like a… mostly normal person, actually. Not reckless, not (quite) as ADHD. I say mostly, however, because he won’t have had enough sleep for long - his dedication to Wanda’s safety makes sure of that.

6. their preferred hot beverage on really cold nights. or mornings. or whenever.

Not a hot drink! Pietro prefers orange juice, no matter what. He does exercise when he wants to warm up, as he always has the energy for it.

7. how they like to comfort/care for themselves when they’re in a slump

Pietro is rarely in a slump; he has his focus on keeping Wanda safe and so he subsumes just about everything to this one purpose, no slump lasts long when he has the eternal focus of making sure Wanda is safe, that they have enough food and a place to sleep that night, and can get to their jobs in the morning and survive each protest with minimal police brutality.

The only time Pietro is in a slump is when he fails to protect Wanda, and that rapidly turns into guilt and a desire for vengeance (“I’ll kill him”) which is only tempered by Wanda (“No, no, I’m all right. I want to finish the job.”) who is the only one who can redirect him when he’s like this.

Pietro comforts himself by taking care of Wanda.

8. what they wanted to be when they grew up

Safe, Happy, with Wanda and with their vengeance completed. In Sokovia.

He dies before he can see any part of this, and gives up on vengeance in the doing so.

9. their favorite kind of weather

Rain. While Wanda likes the bright-shade sunny-cool of the mountains, Pietro likes the rain and the snow, but mostly rain because he finds it so so refreshing.

Also it makes Wanda laugh when he shakes his hair to try to get the worst of the water out.

10. thoughts on their singing voice (decent? terrible? soprano? alto?)

He can sing, but only does so for Wanda. Mostly old Sokovian lullabies.

11. how/what they like to draw or doodle

Draws kind of mechanically - not for artistic reasons but so he can have a visual representation of something. While Pietro’s memory is fantastic, he trusts Wanda’s recollection of things more than his own because Wanda will read things in the behaviours of other people that he’ll miss. So, instead, he draws out scenarios and situations from memory so Wanda can name the ones they know and tell him what each was thinking and who they’ll need to be wary of. He also draws the faces of the people who attack them and burn down the flats they stay it, so the twins can track them down, and do the same to them.

Fair’s fair, after all.

Clint Barton

1. 2-4 songs that are probably on their iPod

Right. Okay.

Love To Hate You by Erasure, because of course. Every time he and Natasha have any kind of disagreement when on a job with SHIELD he’d start playing it at full volume. To which Natasha would respond “ITS NOT SAFE HOUSE IF THEY CAN HEAR US THREE BLOCKS AWAY CLINT”.

All the same, its their theme song, because they are one another’s dearest friends (and possibly have been lovers at some point maybe I don’t know) and also they sometimes hate each other, mostly for being right.

They’re Taking The Hobbits To Isengard. I don’t care if this is a meme, you cannot tell me that Coulson or Fury or Natasha didn’t play this at him at full volume (I mean. He is hard-of-hearing) at some point.

Probably the ten hour version, to be honest. Clint thought it was jammin’ and now will sometimes be found singing it under his breath.

2. the one place they sometimes end up falling asleep — where they’re not supposed to

In the Quinjet. At the controls of the Quinjet. This is why he almost always pilots with Natasha.

He may or may not have also fallen asleep on stakeout at least once.

3. the game they’d destroy everyone else at

Darts. Obviously.

4. the emoticon they’d use most often

I don’t care if they’re not real emoticons, he’d probably have a Starkphone and his favourite emoticons would be a high five one and fingerguns.

5. what they act like when they haven’t had enough sleep

Trying not to nod off. Unless he’s had caffeine pills, in which case he’s trying to stay still. When dealing with a baby at home, Laura has vetoed the use of caffeine pills and so, instead, he makes do with very very very big cups of frankencoffee.

6. their preferred hot beverage on really cold nights. or mornings. or whenever.

Coffee. Specifically, frankencoffee, aka, “so what happens if I have this coffee and this coffee and then also some chocolate and some cinnamon and oh is that butterscotch syrup, yeah, sure, and oooh, Laura won’t mind me borrowing half a bottle of peppermint essence and oh look we also have orange extract-” until he has a pint mug of the most unholy thing you could ever drink.

And I say this as someone who created coffeetea for all-nighter essay writing.

7. how they like to comfort/care for themselves when they’re in a slump

Spends time with Laura and the kids, and sometimes takes the kids out to a paddock where she shows them how to shoot. They’re getting almost as good at him at regular archery, but he dreads what Laura will say if he starts them on trick shots too young.

What he doesn’t know is that Lila and Cooper are already practising trick shots, just without him around.

8. what they wanted to be when they grew up

“not arrested” I think is the closest. Then he was arrested, and Coulson said, “so, hey, would you like a job?” and then he was SHIELD, and though he got arrested many times after that they always got him out.

… though after he brought Natasha in Coulson did leave him to stew in a cell for almost two days before going to fetch him. But Clint thinks that’s fair payback for bringing in a possibly-evil opposing agent when tasked with killing her.

9. their favorite kind of weather

Sunny, clear, not too windy. He can hear more easily and he can see for miles, which really helps with his archery.

10. thoughts on their singing voice (decent? terrible? soprano? alto?)

Clint can… kind of sing? Laura calls it a “warble”, mostly to tease him about the bird thing. He mostly sings to their kids, though he has been known to serenade Laura on occasion.

11. how/what they like to draw or doodle

Angles for shots when he’s got to stakeout and snipe.

Natasha Romanoff

1. 2-4 songs that are probably on their iPod

Tachikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Because cannons and also Russian. In The Hall Of The Mountain King because she kinda likes the ominousness.

I Knew You Were Trouble - the Gollum version, because memes, and Pocketful of Sunshine, which she considers a “Laura Song”.

2. the one place they sometimes end up falling asleep — where they’re not supposed to

You think that Clint climbing through vents is bad? You’ve never had to deal with Natasha falling asleep in them.

3. the game they’d destroy everyone else at

Any drinking game. The only one who could beat her is Vision, except Vision doesn’t generally drink, because he doesn’t need to. That said, the twins come close, as did Stark, before he decided that he really needed to cut back on the self-medication via alcohol.

4. the emoticon they’d use most often

Is there one for a frownyface with one raised eyebrow? That’s Natasha’s fave.

5. what they act like when they haven’t had enough sleep

Absolutely normal until the moment she keels over. Common procedure with SHIELD was to debrief her and give her one cup of coffee, as soon as the coffee was finished, debriefing would be delayed until she’d got some sleep.

6. their preferred hot beverage on really cold nights. or mornings. or whenever.

She doesn’t really have a preference; the chance to have options is her preference and she’ll generally go with whatever her tastebuds are craving at the time, unless it would blow her cover.

7. how they like to comfort/care for themselves when they’re in a slump

Visiting Clint and Laura and the Barton kids.

8. what they wanted to be when they grew up

A ballerina. Not a Black Widow-Ballerina, an actual Ballerina. And she could have been, if not for the Red Room. Now she just wants to make sure that people don’t do that to more kids, and that kids who’ve been shaped so don’t get a chance to destroy the world.

9. their favorite kind of weather

Cold, crisp, biting winter snow.

10. thoughts on their singing voice (decent? terrible? soprano? alto?)

Natasha Does Not Sing. Not ever.

11. how/what they like to draw or doodle

Sometimes she sketches things, not really thinking.

Almost inevitably, its things from the Red Room.