#and every other song with a lyric thats really depressing if you think about it but the rhythm slays

[sapybara]

Chano is also signed with universal how do we make a ft with Dream happen

[dansevilpianotea]

what are some phancoded songs?

hiiii omg thanks for the ask!! i absolutely love talking about songs i associate with my interests!! (autism has been activated to the highest degree so this will be a long post, you have been warned)

here are some of what i think are classic dnp coded songs:

Guys by The 1975 (i see this as more about the phandom than about dnp tbh but its very very dnp coded no matter how you interpret it) That's So Us by Allie X Still into You by Paramore The Only Exception by Paramore

i have a whole ass 100 song long playlist about dnp but let me give you my favourites that aren't the usual classics:

Eighteen by Pale Waves

This city depresses me But you try to be everything I need We sat on the corner kissing each other Felt like I could finally see in colour I was 18 when I met you Poured my heart out, spilt all my truth I finally felt like I could feel for the first time When I met you

i mean????? thats 2009 dan and phil????? dip and pip??? hello!!??

also fun fact!!: this band is from manchester and this song was written by their non-binary drummer and lesbian lead singer (who lowkey gives lesbian version of dan). you should rlly listen to pale waves. idek if theyve heard of dnp but theyre true phannies to me.

Starlight by Muse

this song, man. never heard of muse until i got into dnp and then i this song was the first one is listened to.

Hold you in my arms I just wanted to hold You in my arms

i feel like it says sth about the expectations of being in a relationship while also presenting yourself on a massive public platform. wanting to be authentic and produce content^tm vs. being closeted and wanting to protect your relationship. 'I will be chasing a starlight, Until the end of my life, I don't know if it's worth it anymore'. Is worth it to constantly push the content out while feeling like a fraud for being inauthentic about your identity? 'And our hopes and expectations, Black holes and revelations'. the future may seem very dark and hopeless sometimes, it may not turn out how we expect or hope, but only once we face instead of fight it (embrace the void etc) we will forgive our past selves and see that the future really is bright. so yes, very dnp coded.

Anniversary by Autoheart

Years of nothing have subsided We have fixed each other up Giving you up? What are you on about? I'll never give up believing in us Giving you up? Now why would I do a thing like that? No I’m not giving you up, no way I will never stop when it comes to you

this song is not only dnp coded (kind of an october 19th theme song) but also has gained a new meaning since the return of dnp games <3. they didnt give up on us. they came back. and we really helped each other get here <3. think about it like that when listening and i guarantee you will be sobbing. the song also has some marriage themes bc theres wedding vows during the bridge so i will just let you live with that <33

Where the Lines Overlap by Paramore

Tracing patterns across a personal map And making pictures where the lines overlap No one is as lucky as us We're not at the end but oh, we already won Call me over And tell me how Well, you got so far Never making a single sound I'm not used to it But I can learn

we werent ready for their comeback / we're still learning to get used to it / just look at them / boiling frog theory / hard phaunch / do i need to say more

Yellow by Coldplay

this song became part of my playlist when phil didnt know a single coldplay song. unfortunately i cant take it serious anymore after dan was turned into a golden pig, then was literally glowing golden during a book event all while #pissyourself4dan was trending and every phannie on twt made their pfps yellow. i will curse your mind to with the lyrics and mental imagery: (im sorry but im also not bc this is how my autism thinks humour works)

Look at the stars Look how they shine for you And everything you do Yeah, they were all yellow ✨✨ Your skin, oh yeah, your skin and bones Turn into something beautiful ✨✨✨ And you know, you know I love you so 💛

✨✨✨

(im sorry again)

Safe & Sound by Tonight Alive

Dan in BIG: "for the first time since I was a tiny child I actually felt safe."

Nothing compares to what we share I don't have a care in the world Cause even if it all came crashing down, As long as you're around, I'll be safe and sound. 🧡

ending it with a nice one because its beautiful and sappy and its so them afterall. they really won rpf.

thank you for this ask, i enjoyed answering it!! (im sorry for taking so long. im on day 11 of a cold so ive not had much energy.)

[fuck-you-upmusicbracket]

Splitter Girl (weevildoing)

Another night, I’m all alone, enthroned within a screen/RGB light reflects uncut orgasmic tragedies...Oh, I can’t stand these awful thoughts inside of me/Only way to compensate is lead and metal, sharp and clean!

"VIOLENCE. ITS ALL ABOUT VIOLENCE it got its mv censored to start. its not even justified but hey i cant say that about many songs lmao its about the glorification of violence from mental illness (and some other things, but really its generally all about mental illness), and is done extremely well. its extremely clear that theres a lot of care put into this song, and like... determination? i barely ever see representation of things like this (violent/intrustive thoughts, glorification of it, etc) in music, so seeing it here (and in a way that shows that weevildoing truly gets it + isn't patronizing) is really nice. really this song is like... a community? something to show that you arent alone. and i love that so much, i love how much has been put into this song, every single lyric and instrumental choice shows an abundance of love and care and understanding. and this song has an entire developed character to go with it, and is alongside multiple other songs! its a part of the post-traumatic manifesto, and the character featuring is Splitter Girl (no other name, which is on purpose). the song is basically her mind, and the mv (uncensored) her internet life. showing what she's searching, listening to, shopping for, etc. once again it hits the nail right on the head for what mental illness is like. the visuals are very unafraid and purposeful in the clips and websites it shows, up to blade shopping, #guro and how to tie nooses being included. it pulls no stops in showing what it's truly like to be so low, what it really feels like, the highs and lows of it. it's like a love letter to me, to everyone who feels this way, and thats why i love it so much. it doesnt demonize us. it offers a hand (with a glittery pink gun) and an understanding i said its all about violence but man. its all about being *understood.* and violence too"

Karma (AJR)

I've been so good, I've been helpful and friendly/I've been so good, why am I feeling empty?/I've been so good, I've been so good this year/I've been so good, but it's still getting harder/I've been so good, where the hell is the karma?/I've been so good, I've been so good this year

i try to explain the good faith that's been wasted / but after an hour, it sounds like complaining / wait, don't go away, can i lie here forever? / you say that i'm better, why don't i feel better? / the universe works in mysterious ways / but i'm starting to think it ain't working for me / doctor should i be good, should i be good this year?

You say that I'm better, why don't I feel better?/The universe works in mysterious ways/But I'm starting to think it ain't working for me/Doctor, should I be good, should I be good this year?

"The song embodies what it feels like to try with everything you have just to be unrecognised and pushed aside. To be overlooked and for people to not see your struggles. Each line is written with so much energy and emotion, not to mention how the last verse hits you like a truck. It's become a song that I resonate a lot with and so do a lot of other people."

"It makes me want to cry every time I listen to it, the emotion build at the end of the song makes my chest hurt, and the lyrics fit me way too well and its. aaoiuuhhgg"

"It is exactly what it feels like to struggle with depression, self-loathing, etc. I sob every time I listen to it or even think of it (I’m tearing up right now). It’s just so painful to be reminded that I genuinely used to feel that way constantly, and that I still struggle with it. And of course, the instrumental just feels like the inside of my brain."

"It's like, the feeling when you're trying your best, to be a good person, to be liked by everyone, and still end up getting nothing, your not happy(er) or better, you just still feel lonely and like it was all for nothing, and you end up asking yourself "does it even matter?" and you want to get help, to get better, to feel better, but still, it all feels the same."

POLL RUNNER HERE - VOTE KARMA THE LYRICS WILL DESTROY YOU. Especially the final verse/bridge where the singer just launches into one long breath of really raw lyrics - that's what ajr is all about. Destroying you with words that are real

Splitter Girl submitted by @uniquezombiedestiny

Karma submitted by @space-shuttle-discovery + others

[chuuuvi]

Alright I’ve avoided saying anything about the new Taylor album but I think I’ve spent enough time thinking about it now to give my opinion. As a lifelong fan of her music TTPD has been the weirdest experience of any album of hers for me.

First listen was just basic front to back while doing some nonograms and my immediate thought was that this is the worst thing she’s ever released. Like I for real had to take a break to go listen to some 1989 to double check that I don’t just dislike her music as a whole now. (False alarm 1989 is still one of my favorite albums of all time). I spent some time trying to figure out what wasn’t working for me. Most obvious was that the songs feel really dull and samey? They aren’t fun pop songs but they also aren’t the beautiful folksy ballads of folklore/evermore. They felt like they went on forever but also didn’t go anywhere.

All that to say that I was really fucking bored. Thats not enough to make me give up on an album though. I made that mistake with folklore and I wasn’t about to do it again. (I found folklore kind of dull at first listen and just wrote it off as “not for me” before coming back months later and finding a real appreciation for it) What was more concerning is the writing though. I had already seen people joking about the lyrics on this album before I listened and yeah it’s not great. It feels at times like someone doing a parody of Taylor Swift’s writing style. Some of these lyrics are undeniably cringe and thats coming from someone who can withstand a lot of cringe. It’s truly bizarre to listen to because I do think she’s a talented songwriter and she has proved that in past projects but it rarely shines through here.

I was feeling really negative about this album and overall just kind of bummed out that we got a new album from literally my most listened to artist of all time and I didn’t enjoy it with the exception of like 3 songs: Down Bad, Clara Bow, and, the immediate standout for me, I Look In People’s Windows. Heres where things take a turn though. I get a call from my dad (shout out to him! He’s the best ever and I love him) and he was telling me that he listened to the album and wanted to share our thoughts. In case you’re interested his favorites are Fortnight and So High School. I felt kind of bad because I wanted to be excited but I couldn’t give him more than lukewarm opinions on anything.

He then asked me if I could explain to him what certain songs were about with my swiftie knowledge and that kind of perked me up because I realized that I hadn’t done an in depth look into the lyrics yet. I had only listened to it very passively. I basically told him that and said I’d get on it and I could answer any questions he had the next time he called. So with that I went headfirst into listen number 2! I was ready to go with genius lyrics open, taking notes, checking twitter and tumblr and googling stuff. I built a case for my interpretation of every song to present to my dad. And the thing is I was having an absolute blast. It was a complete turnaround from my depressing first listen. I felt like a detective and I spent almost all night on this. I went to work the next day on like 4 hours of sleep but I felt nothing but pure joy and excitement.

I had to ask myself though.. is this a good way to engage with music? Is it possible to say you enjoyed a piece of art if you can only find that enjoyment through picking apart the personal life of the artist? The fun I’m getting from this isn’t the fun I feel when listening to good music it’s the fun I feel from watching reality tv. I mean yes I also have felt the same satisfaction from other Taylor Swift albums but it’s a secondary feeling. Like for example my favorite song of hers is All Too Well 10 Minute Version. I think that song being autobiographical gives it a lot of power but I think it would still be a masterpiece if the whole story was entirely unrelated to Taylor’s real personal life. On the other hand I think most of the songs The Tortured Poets Department would be entirely uninteresting to me if it wasn’t for the clues into her personal life and feelings.

And that brings us to my subsequent listens. This has just been me listening to it in my regular life. In the car, at work when I was away from the counter doing some pricing, at home doing laundry, etc. I haven’t been able to feel the joy I felt during my deep dive into the lyrics again but I also haven’t felt the misery of my first listen either. Theres still more skips than the average TS album but a lot of the songs have grown on me especially after going in depth into the lyrics. The cringe lyrics are immediately obvious but after going line by line like I did I realized that theres still plenty of lyrics that feel like the old Taylor Swift I’ve loved for so long. After all the emotional ups and downs I’ve landed at a fairly neutral position. It’s not a very good album as a whole but I’ve made my peace with that. It’s not as bad as some people are saying it is either. In the end I’m moving my favorites to a playlist and the rest I will not be going out of my way to listen to again. If you are considering listening to TTPD and haven’t yet.. you would probably have a better time with one of her other albums instead. I’d recommend 1989!

[lesbianjoannaharvelle]

gygsyugiau ive tried writing this asks a few times before and i always chicken out but i need to tell you how much i love your destiel his hands amv. i have no idea how i first saw it because i wasn't following anyone in spn circles when you first posted it and had no context as to what spn was outside of tumblr memes, but i still fell absolutely in love with it, and would rewatch it almost weekly (then i lost the link for a few years but thats not important-). about half a year ago i started watching spn, and am currently around the season ten mark. every few seasons ive revisited the video and just like??? the way you laid out the clips in accordance to the lyrics??? the lines you included???? the non-linear-ness????? ahsgaiuhsiugaiugskashdiuhadiuhdoiqhdoiqhwdoihq

i want it played at my funeral

oh my God, thank you so much, I feel so honored! ;_;

This really means so much to me since that amv is the one I put the most work into and it also was the first full song I edited (although I cut out one small part; but it's still the longest amv I ever made). It's so crazy to me that you didn't even know spn and it still moved you in a way! That really is the greatest compliment. <3

I remember listening to the song the first time but I wasn't really paying attention to the lyrics but when the "And you know you love him" part came I was immediately like "this would be so cool for a destiel amv". And then I actually listened to rest of the lyrics closely and I think especially the "prolonged eye contact in casual conversation" part was sooo destiel-coded that I decided I would do the whole song! And it was so much fun. I worked on it several months, I actually had a script for it and once I started working I very quickly knew which scenes I would use for which lyric. And the chorus was planned very early on as 1.) early Destiel 2.) Dean and Cas beating each other up 3.) them being happy and smiling at each other and 4.) Dean losing Cas over and over again.

Oh, and I didn't want to end the video with the confession/Cas gets taken to superhell scene because I found that depressing, so I took the scene with the happy reunion and I think it fits very well!

So, I hope these little background facts were a bit interesting jshdfjdshfjds

Again, thank you so much for sending this ask, it really made my day!!!

[captainshyguy]

with the last chapter posting tomorrow, i'm yeeting my playlist for something to believe in right here! song choice/reasoning's under the cut. most of it is simple plan bc thats kinda the sound i built the story around. i wanted something a little edgy, a little prickly, a little 2000s (but ultimately not too hardcore)

(some spoilers under the cut for story beats kjfnjskgsd)

playlist here!

anyway, song reasonings

young the giant- something to believe in: eyyy, its song i named the fic after, and the theme for the fic! a bunch of the core themes come from here. mainly the idea of being given 'something to believe in' obviously fkjnsjd, like luke learning to open up and believe in and trust others again, his mum learning to believe in him, being a "slave to your mind". plus 'tragedy has a hold of my mind, but i can see the light between the lines' really fits luke once he befriends arven.

sleeping at last-eight: luke's overall theme. i dont think a single song sums up his journey better. its about someone who has clearly closed themself over very guardedly to avoid getting hurt, with a lot of motifs of brokenness. as the song goes on the subject learns to open up, be vulnerable, and becomes stronger as a result. all the lyrics are perfect, i particularly enjoy 'now i'm a broken mirror' 'i'm standing guard, i'm falling apart' i am strong enough, to let you in' 'im shattered porcelain, glued back together again'

simple plan- i'm just a kid: a good moody one that sets up his general demeanour at the start of the fic. 'i'm just a kid and life is a nightmare' 'what the fuck is wrong with me, dont fit in with anybody'

simple plan- you don't mean anything: early story, dealing with nemona and feeling isolated and distant and frustrated about it. 'I know you think you know me, you don't know anything'

simple plan- welcome to my life: early treasure hunt dealing with the first titan/base/gyms. the kids very disgruntled an not in a fantastc place. 'Are you sick of everyone around, with the big fake smiles and stupid lies, while deep inside you're bleedin'

simple plan- me against the world: song for the big low point, one i think he identifies with a lot i think. harsh, edgy, and pained. defiant, snarled spiteful yelling. 'i'm a nightmare, a disaster, that's what they always said, i'm a lost cause, not a hero, but I'll make it on my own'

simple plan- fire in my heart: song for the moment arven wakes the kid back up and pulls him out of that depression slump and back to earth by explaining the whole mabo situation to him. upbeat, not edgy. 'i bet you didn't know, you started up a chain reaction'

simple plan- everytime: theme for the boys, at least, from luke's pov. the song has a sort of melancholy and longing to it (heck, the lyrics imply the singer is talking about a past relationship) but i think thats the lens he'd view this developing relationship through anyway. 'every time I see your face, every time you look my way, it's like it all falls into place, everything feels right'

owl city- bird and the worm: representing arvens music taste and also luke branching out and connectign with his friend. listening to each others songs and sharing their hobbies. song is sweet and upbeat and a little romantic. 'swirl me around your room with feeling, and as we twirl, the glow in the dark stars on your ceiling, will shine for us'

simple plan- gone too soon: luke opening up about the death of his dad. the song fits how he feels about it all. a lot more subdued than most of the simple plan ones. 'oh I miss you now, i wish you could see, just how much your memory, will always mean to me'

pokemon- area zero: we know why this is here >:] theme for the kids going down into the crater.

simple plan- holding on: latter half of the crater, the quiet talk in research station four, and parts of the climax. mainly here for 'in the night there's a fire in my eyes, and this paradise has become a place we've come to cry'

simple plan- take my hand: aftermath, luke and arven kinda sticking together as the latter tries to navigate his grief. the song is a lot more upbeat, but i see it as almost like...determination on luke's part, to be there for him. its a good song for them in general too actually. splashes of romance since he's aware of his feelings now. 'take my hand tonight, let's not think about tomorrow'

simple plan- last one standing: song for luke's fight with the other miraidon and resolve to finish his pokedex. defiant, confident and reckless. 'did you think that I would surrender easily, that just like that, you were getting rid of me'

simple plan- when i'm gone: this song is an interesting one. its unanimously turo's theme for me, but also luke's in his worst moments.(parallels, narrative foils, all that) like when he recklessly explores area zero by himself to finish his pokedex. 'another day, another casualty, but that won't happen to me'

simple plan- promise: luke coming clean to arven, panicked but resolved to fix this. a little fast paced, scattered, but still determined. 'i promise, i won't let you down (you down), if you take my hand tonight'

ed sheeran- celestial: BOO ed sheeran jumpscare. gkjngjkds no but seriously i did really like this one as a credits theme. the space theme still doesnt really fit the game or story, but i cant resist 'you make me feel like my troubled heart is a million miles away'. like what a great summary of how luke feels now that he has friends, his mum, and his pokemon by his side.

[ctommyisnt]

1:A song you like with a color in the title

OKAY my first thought was blistere in the sun by Violent femmes but i only just now realized its violent not violet. anyway. Violet by Wild Party!!!! One of my FAVORITE songs for sure. Could listen to it forever

2:A song you like with a number in the title

Second child restless child by the oh hellos (does this count? yes. it does). My favorite song by this band and it makes me feel so FREE and EXCITED and HOPEFUL.

3:A song that reminds you of summertime

I HAVE TOO MANY!!! summer is my favorite season and i have so many good memories of dancing in my neighborhood taking three hour walks just listening to music i loved (i wasnt allwoed to listen to my own music or wear earbuds in my house so it was my only chance to listen to music that wasnt christian or broadway) If i had to choose ONE though it would probably be talk too much by COIN. i would play this on repeat and just DANCE in the middle of the street.

4:A song that reminds you of someone you would rather forget about

Hmmm this ones hard. I luckily dont have any songs associated with people but whenever i hear about eurovision i get a bad taste in my mouth so we're going with that.

5:A song that needs to be played LOUD

Already answered this but slingshot by good kid! If i want to go more mainstream it's gotta be I love it, that is the ultimate clubbing song and makes me feel so cool

6:A song that makes you want to dance

Arhghh i already used Talk too much so ill have to go with dance with me by sir, please. Typical but cmon man

7:A song to drive to

I only really listen to music while driving (i NEED to buy a speaker) but Heart of a Dancer makes me feel SO cool and i always go at least 20 over the speed limit when listening to this on the highway.

8:A song about drugs or alcohol

Uhhh? I don't listen to lyrics OH WAIT bullet by hollywood undead. I fucking loved that song when i was sixteen which if you know the song you know what i was like back then LOL

9:A song that makes you happy

Most songs but also Kaleidoscope by a great big world. THIS is a summer camp prologue montage music type beat but UGH it always makes me so happy. I think its been on almost every playlist ive made this year (i make my playlist by seasons so this is a good cold winter song AND summer song)

10:A song that makes you sad

Anything by Everybody Worries about Owen, Obsessed with his Denton lake album that shit was my depression music for a year. Not a big fan of his newer music.

11:A song that you never get tired of

Shawshank Demo by the toyston club, its been one of my top played songs for like three years and i have it in almost every playlist.

12:A song from your preteen years

uhhh i cant do shawshank or talk too much again so i think OH WAIT nothign by bruno major. I was so sad over this and would listen to it over and over again just imagining myself dancing to this song with my fictional or irl crushes. I was cringe but i was free and those daydreams kept me alive for those years.

13:One of your favorite 80’s songs

UPTOWN GIRL BY BILLY JOELLLLLL hes such a guy and i want to be the uptown girl so bad. or everybody wants to rule the world thats a CLASSIC

14:A song that you would love played at your wedding

Im doing two for this one because one of them is Marry You by bruno marrs which will be played as my partner and i walk down the aisle after the ceremony and everyone cheers and throws flowers. My other one is Cinderella by Steven Curtis Chapman because thats going to be my father daughter dance if he still loves me when i get married.

15:A song that is a cover by another artist

FROM THE START. BY GOOD KID. this one one of my FAVORITE songs right now and i have screamed along to it at karaoke before. Amazing song

16:One of your favorite classical songs

Anything my sisters play on the piano but i Do Not have a distinction because there is not universe in which i can make out a distinct classical song.

17:A song that would sing a duet with on karaoke

LITTLE TALKS BY OF MONSTERS AND MEN!!! this song is SO fun and id love to sing this a drink and a half in with my friends OH OR THAT TICK TICK BOOM SONG ive done duets to that with my sisters before.

18:A song from the year that you were born

I cant NOT say american idiot by greenday like cmon. Are you gonna be my girl by the jets AND mr brightside also came out htat year.

19:A song that makes you think about life

............. Maybe I was boring BUT ALSO. hello my old heart iwasplanningonkillingmyselftothissong BUT its not a very nostalgic 'i got through this shit' song

20:A song that has many meanings to you

I have a playlist called 'Nothing is right and your looking for yourself in the suburbs but cant find it' which sounds metaphorical but was actually a very literal thing i used to do as a teen, spending hours walking around my neighborhood listening to this while trying to figure out who i was. Its my ultimate existencial crisis playlist and it's just the Maybe I was Boring thirteen minute demo cut ten seperate times. I play it whenever I feel lost and dissociative. It usually helps but it also reminds me of dark times.

21:A favorite song with a person’s name in the title

natalie by bruno mars that song is SO fun WAIT NO grace by the hatchetman this song goes crazy

22:A song that moves you forward

Shy by Saint Blonde! Its very hopeful and gives me 'this is just the start of a great day/month/summer/year' you need to listen to it.

23:A song that you think everybody should listen to

You were perfect & im sorry by mickey darling!! I just saw one of his concerts and MAN this song goes crazy. it tells a story and really delves into this guy and just ADSJFASLKDASLDK

24:A song by a band you wish were still together

Sobbing. Great Lake Drifters. They have 7 monthly listeners and havent done anything since 2015 OH MY GOD I JUST LOOKED THEM UP THEY HAVE A NEW SONG???? WHAT THE FUCK???????????? EVERYONE GO LISTEN TO IT RIGHT NOW my favorite song by them is verbal chess

25:A song by an artist no longer living

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i dont recall any artists ever. is elton john dead? I like that song im still standing but only the taron edgerton sing cover.

26:A song that makes you want to fall in love

Lucky girl by fazerdaze makes me SO upset because i WANT To be a lucky girl and listen to this song while walking down the street with my lover but nOOOoooo i CANT. BECAUSE I DONT HAVE A LOVER. someday.

27:A song that breaks your heart

Saline solution by wilbur soot was also one of my depression songs and i just. arghgjh reminds me of sad times. I cant listen to it anymore without a sinking feeling in my gut.

28:A song by an artist with a voice that you love

i dont know who autoheart is or what he looks like but i want him to fuck me. lent by

29:A song that you remember from your childhood

Again, i didnt listen to music much as a kid because it was just the christian stuff my parents played but my most nostalgic one would be See, what a morning by Keith and Kristyn getty. The song tastes like swedish pancakes drowning in butter and syrup while the sun beats through the kitchen window, dappled by the vines. It's so visual to me and i always mourn my childhood when my mom plays it.

30:A song that reminds you of yourself

Scrawny by the wallows is the song i want to embody. I genuiknely want people to hear that song and be like 'yeah thats nells, thats her' But right now maybe Drifting by good kid? i dont pay attention to lyrics but this one is NICE

I love my songs and cherish them deeply so this took a long time. I love questoins. PLEASE LISTEN TO ANY OF THESE music is so intigral to my life and i dont listen to a lot so yeah. I also only like like three genres of music so if you like one of these youll like them all LOL

[omegalomania]

I think tumblr ate my ask or it just didn't sent but what are your favorite Bastille songs / what are some songs you recommend?

i did NOT get this ask im very sorry anon.

it's genuinely hard for me to narrow down cause bastille is pretty up there in terms of favorite artists. i love all their shit, but a special mention goes out to their second studio album wild world since it's the one that made me a Fan

uh so here's a primer i guess i spent too much time on this lmao.

if you wanna listen to their big hits:

flaws - their first single in the uk. if you ever listened to ship playlists on 8tracks in like 2013-2015 then you've probably heard this song or a variant on it at some point.

pompeii - this is the song that really put them on the map and you definitely know it. it dominated the charts all over the place.

happier - the marshmello song that you've definitely heard before too. i think bastille wrote this for justin bieber or some shit but then decided they liked it too much to give it to him? lmao. anyway if you're not digging the version you hear on the radio all the time i recommend trying the stripped down version

good grief - their big hit off their second album. big in the uk, didn't really make as many waves elsewhere, but it's a really solid song anyway. one of those "upbeat tunes that's actually really fucking sad" ones

things we lost in the fire - another one off their first album. if you live in a wildfire area this might not be one to turn to. or maybe you'll find it cathartic idk i certainly do!!

quarter past midnight - a song about escapism, as was fitting when it was released in 2018 and equally fitting now. running away for a night of fucking around with friends, craving any kind of brief departure from the chaos of the modern world

skulls - this one was not a hit or a single and is technically a bonus track but i'm including it because once again if you ever clicked on a ship playlist on 8tracks in like 2013-2015 you've heard this one. and you know what that was justified this one is also good

if you wanna feel existentially depressed:

their whole discography. i mean i kid but i also don't. that's just kind of how bastille does it. BUT IN ALL SERIOUSNESS ones that hit me in particular would beeee

two evils - kind of a grim, haunting one introspecting about morality of the self.

oblivion - musing about the afterlife, love, and how time changes all of us.

those nights - contemplating what it is we seek when we plunge into reckless escapism, and the inherent loneliness of it; how even when surrounded by people there's still the pressure of the world outside, continuously coming to pieces

the draw - this one was written about the pull of pursuing a career in music vs. staying home with family and friends. in a broader sense, it can apply to a lot of things. i always felt it resonated with feelings of paranoia and displacement

winter of our youth - discusses childhood, nostalgia, and regret. if it feels like everything's slipping away, is it easier to relive the past, especially if the past is tinted rose?

sleepsong - loneliness, desperation, and the cyclical, abyss-like nature of all it encapsulates

if you want discussion of serious topics:

final hour - a bonus track off their second album that also became a bonus track off their third album? anyway this song talks about climate change and gun control. happy stuff

doom days - this one talks about, uh, everything! doomscrolling, political divides, escalating national tensions, climate change again, etc.

the currents - a song centered on political rhetoric and the power that figureheads have over the masses, the way they can orchestrate hate. basically it's not so subtly aimed at donald trump lmao, dan's literally sung it as much in a few live settings

WHAT YOU GONNA DO??? - social media addiction and the way capitalism and corporate interests have annexed our online experiences, fighting desperately for our attention as they seek to monetize every available aspect of our lives

four walls (the ballad of perry smith) - well this one is about uh. perry smith. who was charged with the death penalty for killing 4 people in the late 50's. but it's less directly about him and more a discussion of the morality of the death penalty and capital punishment

snakes - burgeoning anxieties and the impulse to turn to easy outs, like ignorance or alcoholism, to escape the world's global problems

if you want some pop culture sprinkled on top:

icarus - greek mythology. i like this one because it addresses something that i feel isn't addressed enough in discussions of this myth, which is that icarus is a very young lad. less about the pride of the fall, and more about the inherent tragedy of that.

laura palmer - the whole song is a david lynch shoutout. i've never seen twin peaks myself but the song still slaps.

daniel in the den - christian mythology. discusses the biblical tale of daniel in the lion's den and links that up to themes of betrayal and family.

poet - this one's a double feature, referencing both william shakespeare's sonnet 18 and edmund spencer's sonnet 75. also one of my favorites.

send them off! - this is another one of my favorites of theirs. it's also been described by dan as "othello meets the exorcist" and it very much delivers there

if you want something uplifting:

joy - while bastille (understandably) has a bit of reputation as a band that makes sad music about sad things, they've definitely got some happier songs in their catalogue. pun intended cha ching. this one's one of their more straightforwardly happy tunes

survivin' - this was a song they wrote while they were touring and then felt weird about releasing once the panini hit because it felt a bit on the nose. they ended up releasing it anyway and i am so glad they did cause it's a mood

act of kindness - the "happy" part here is debatable but i'm gonna include it anyway. it’s when someone does something nice for you and that impulse Changes you way down deep you know???

warmth - one of those "the world's going to shit but at least we have each other" kinds of tunes

the anchor - one of those "the world's going to shit but you're the one fucking thing that's still keeping me here" kinds of tunes

give me the future - their latest single as of this writing and one of the more optimistic tracks in their catalogue imo! it's yearning, but it's also with a genuine hope for the future.

and LASTLY. because im going to take every chance i can to plug this band. im going to throw some collabs and covers at you because there's one thing this band does SUPER well and it's collabs and covers.

of the night - this is the big one. it mashes up rhythm of the night by corona and rhythm is a dancer by SNAP! and it's so good they still do this one live and it goes off every time.

no angels - a mashup of "no scrubs" by TLC and "angels" by the xx, poured into a strangely mournful tune with clips from the hitchcock movie psycho. doesn't sound like it should work but it does. kinda really does.

torn apart - with GRADES and lizzo no less!!! it's got two parts but they're both excellent listen to them both

weapon - collab with angel haze, dan priddy, and F*U*G*Z and one of my absolute favorites

remains - remix of their song "skulls" but featuring rag'n'bone man and skunk anansie that adds an entire new dimension to the song, really fucking excellent

old town road mashup - lil nas x's old town road meets lizzo's good as hell meets radiohead's talk show host meets talking heads' road to nowhere meets the osmond's crazy horse. "what the fuck that shouldn't work" i KNOW and yet here it is!! BLATANTLY BANGING!!!

we can't stop - one of the few times dan smith subtly changes the lyrics of the song he's covering (most of the time he opts to keep the original pronouns and the like, which is very nice to see). anyway this one mixes miley cyrus's we can't stop with eminem's lose yourself and billy ray cyrus's achy breaky heart. and also the lion king's i just can't wait to be king is there. yes i know it sounds batshit especially because the whole thing is surprisingly melodic and heartfelt and you know what it works.

anyone but me x nightmares - mashing up joy crookes' anyone but me with easy life's nightmares and absolutely one of my favorites.

bad guy mashup - how many songs can they include with the word "bad" in the title? we've got bad guy (billie eilish), bad decisions (bastille), bad romance (lady gaga), and bad blood (taylor swift). bastille even has a song called bad blood and they didnt use it. they used taylor swift's version. also the distinctive guitar riff from dick dale's misirlou is there.

somebody mashup - how many songs can they include with the word "some" in the title? someone like you (adele), somebody told me (the killers), somebody to love (queen), use somebody (kings of leon), and someone you loved (lewis capaldi). seriously these guys take mashups to a new level.

final song - this is a cover of MØ's final song. it also adds in craig david's 7 days and, impossibly enough, europe's final countdown. how does it work. how.

ALL RIGHT. THATS ALL IVE GOT IN ME. HOPE THIS HELPED ANON AND IM SORRY IF THIS IS TOO MUCH

[okcomputeroknotok19972017]

if you don't mind me asking... how did you start liking radiohead so much? what is it about them that puts you on a chokehold. random question i know but whenever i see someone who's deeply moved by an artist i always wonder how that love came to be :)

bwbwbwbwbwbwwb i love you i love you this is such a nice question to ask and makes me so happy :)

<3 i’d heard creep years ago on a television show and didn’t think of it for a long time, i think once when i was 12 my dad played kid a and wasn’t really listening to it but i told him to turn it off because it was bumming me out? LOL anyways flash forward to age 15 in late october 2020 and i’m playing rockband 2 with my family, and recognize one of the songs that’s on there: creep. i remember how the verse goes a little bit so we try it… i’m no good at singing it because i haven’t heard it in years and years, but i think “damn that was a bummer. good song though!”

that night i decided to look up the music video on youtube so that i can familiarize myself more with the song to sing it, and wtf, they have a song called weird fishes! i have a pet fish i like fish! i listen to it and WHAT THE FUCK. it's like nothing i've EVER heard before, so vivid and rich and what the FUCK. WHAT THE FUCK. immediately obsessed with weird fishes. see jigsaw falling into place in my recommended, think lol thats a funny name, listen to it and go WHAT THE FUCK again. feel something shift inside me. after a 24hour weird fishes LOCKDOWN i go to the radiohead wikipedia page and recognize "oh ive heard of ok computer, dont know much about it other than everyone loves it," decide to listen to paranoid android first & then the full album. What the Fuck again. What the shit. Whag the hell.

i don't remember which album i listened to next, i want to say the bends? either way, by late november i was BIG into radiohead. hadn't finished all the albums yet, but the shift inside me furthered until i could hear a little "click" somewhere in my brain or my chest. ask for a radiohead shirt for christmas. get the DAEHOIDAR shirt from the website as a gift :-). radiohead is my 2nd favorite band. start watching interviews and learning bits and pieces about the guys. watch live performances. giggle and send everyone i know the winter wonderland cover. become clinically depressed. get through the rest of the albums. go inpatient. be half-awake one morning before the insanely early breakfast time, unable to move and DESPERATELY trying to remember the lyrics to faust arp. i fucking KNOW THIS. it was tearing me apart, i was so distressed....when i finally Woke up it all came flooding back and i was so relieved. i just think that memory is so funny. go back home and listen to more radiohead. cry to scatterbrain more times than i can count. that becomes My Song. start explaining who thom yorke is in casual conversation. get sent a lot of creep memes. radiohead has long since taken over as my favorite band ever and very soon my streaming stats reflect that. work the shittiest most miserable job imaginable at an extremely poorly-managed dog daycare and mumble the entirety of each radiohead album to myself to keep me occupied and pass the time as i very illegally was not allowed to sit down or take a break for 8 full hours. friends start knowing me for my radiohead obsession. therapist interrogates me over whether my obsession with my favorite band causes problems in my life. get a lot of merch and a lot of cds. watch THE SMILE's second livestream in january '22....

this is insane why am i going into so many pointless details. very sorry i got carried away....long story short i am the biggest radiohead fan in the world i regularly train myself in case someone stops me on the street and asks me to list every single song in their discography in chronological order and/or recite the lyrics to all of them and my parents know a lot about each member of the band and don't really like it when i involve radiohead trivia in every single conversation. i had a catastrophic level 5 radiohead moment at work a few months ago where a customer bought the suspiria soundtrack WHICH I DIDNT EVEN KNOW WE HAD and my vision got blurry and i couldnt type and could barely say anything coherent to him. my manager was unimpressed. a little embarrassing looking back but kinda funny.

why i love radiohead? perhaps because theyre the greatest band of all time. perhaps because im a greep. perhaps because he has to squeak and mewl while singing

[getofy]

the karasuno first years and the kind of music i think they listen to...

genre: headcanons | wc: tba | characters: tsukki, yams, kags, and hinata | cw: none | no spoilers!

a/n: i fr NEVER post. that’s my bad guys. take these headcanons i made while i was procrastinating as my apology </3. i have fics and hcs in the making but like,,, school gets in the way. anyways, ily. pls enjoy! hehe >_<.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

TSUKISHIMA KEI -> MALE MANIPULATOR MUSIC

click here for my tsukishima kei male manipulator playlist!

DISCLAIMER: i do not associate him with the manipulative/toxic side of the male-manipulator persona, only the music part.

ex. boys don’t cry by the cure | i won’t share you by the smiths | watching him fade away by mac demarco | c’mere by interpol | it’s only sex by car seat headrest | black madona by cage the elephant | the joke isn’t funny anymore by the smiths

yeah you cannot look me in the eyes and tell me this man is not a music SNOB. like hello???? HE CARRIES HIS HEADPHONES EVERYWHERE.

tsukishima listens to the most ALARMING music a man can listen to and he is proud of it

like,, radiohead? yep. neutral milk hotel? STAPLE.

he likes being on aux

he genuinely thinks his taste is SUPERIOR to everyone else’s

and what can i say? it definitely is...this kind of music is so good bro

and no, this is not me feeding into the fanon toxic tsukki thing

it just truly gives off such *him* vibes???

LIKE TELL ME HE WOULDN’T DO HIS HW WHILE JAMMING OUT TO THE FRONT BOTTOMS!!! THATS RIGHT! YOU CAN’T!

literally idc this is SO canon in my mind

he likes super niche bands as well. it’s his thing.

music is a very important aspect of his life, and this kind just happens to suit him the best.

he def shames people for their taste in music too lol, but justifiably so since his taste is TOP TIER!!!!

“you listen to the radio? interesting...”

i hate him

he’ll put you on GOOD songs

would def dedicate a song by the cure to you

btw, he prefers the cure to the smiths

my little male manipulator vball bf <333

honorable mentions: lofi, folk-rock, whatever yamaguchi decides to play when he’s on aux (he’ll pretend to hate it but he doesn’t), also he definitely stares into the void w/ ricky montgomery playing softly in the background, also!! he had an emo phase so every once in a while he’ll relapse and binge the entirety of MCR’s discography

YAMAGUCHI TADASHI -> BEDROOM POP

ex. daft pretty boys by bad suns | oh klahoma by jack stauber | are you bored yet? by wallows | hot rod by dayglow | oh, honey baby by mustard service | generation why by conan gray | loverboy by a-wall

yams has a very diverse music taste because of tsukki, but i think this is what he gravitates towards the most. he enjoys upbeat tunes w/ depressing lyrics. and ngl i can’t blame him bc..same.

he’s the kind of guy that wouldn’t make fun of ur music taste if it was different from his (unless tsukki is with him)

idk just overall enjoys the way bedroom pop sounds!! he likes indie music and stuff like that :>

fairly proud of his music taste

i feel like he wouldn’t want to have aux though just bc he’s afraid of people judging him????

same yams, same

yeah but he totally has little dance parties in his room to clario

he’ll 100% listen to dayglow to hype himself UP before games

oh baby :((( i love him so much

misc: him and tsukki send each other songs and it’s adorable

KAGEYAMA TOBIO -> RAP?

ex. element. by kendrick lamar | u-rite by they. | idk i don’t listen to rap

okay i literally have NO CLUE what this man would listen to LOL but like,,, rap seems...fitting? after all, he IS a student athlete. as the sister of one, i can say with confidence that this is what most of them listen to.

i really can’t imagine kageyama caring too about what he listens to so i doubt he’d put a lot of thought into his music taste??

idk he’d just listen to popular stuff and vibe tbh

he wouldn’t be partial to any kind of music but this suits him the best i think

actually i take that back! i don’t think he’d willingly listen to songs with a slower tempo UNLESS he was trying to focus

stuff like classical would fs bore him

he’ll just go for whatever makes him feel empowered/hype before a game/workout, as well as whatever’s catchy

i don’t hc him to be a guy who’s super big on music so yk ://

he’ll just put on whatever he’s feeling ig

the type to respond with “oh i just listen to whatever” when asked what kind of songs he enjoys

doesn’t care abt being in aux or not

but like if he’s with hinata/tsukki he’ll want to be just to spite them

tsukki is appalled by kags’ nonchalant attitude when it comes to music

misc: his music taste would be so pitiful guys pls. Help him. HELP THIS POOR MAN!!!!!! he’d probably enjoy whatever music u put him on so long as ur nice abt it.

HINATA SHOYO -> “WHATEVER’S ON THE RADIO”

ex. fr whatever is on the radio/whatever is playing/feel-good music/rap

hinata is also not the kind of guy who is super particular about what he listens to. i think before games he’ll listen to rap/upbeat stuff to get hype (similar to kags), but overall, he’ll just listen to whatever comes on

this terrifies tsukishima. Yeah.

hinata is such a positive person that i feel like he’ll bop his head to anything with a nice beat :]

it just,,, makes sense to me idk

he’ll go on aux fs and play some nice throwback songs tho

whatever you play, he’ll like

i don’t think that he would be opposed to slower stuff tbh

that being said, he def has a playlist called ‘good vibes 🌴🔥’ filled with songs people have recommended to him that he thought were extra-good

he’ll let it play while doing hw

tbh his and kags’ brains r so full of volleyball i doubt they’d think abt trivial things like this haha

misc: in the timeskip, he listens to really calm music he can meditate to

*do not repost my work without proper credit and my explicit permission

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[acaciapines]

Hnnnghgngh

Having,,, gender

LISTEN. Jim’s theme from treasure planet is the Ultimate Ftm Vibe Song. It’s the song I listen to every time I become boy. And the immediate follow up is IRIS by goo goo dolls bc ITS IN THE SAME GENRE… SAME VIBE….. ABSOLUTE GENDER BANGER. ALSO FEELS

so um I’ve also decided that iris is Hei’s theme song for 3rd year bc that’s how his heart will ache while he’s. going Thru It. and by the end of the year…… he will be well enough to be have Jim’s theme instead as his theme.

Basically I’m going to listen to iris on repeat while writing the depressing parts of 3rd year. is what I’m saying

ALSO HEI WOULD GO FERAL OVER THE JWST IMAGES IF HE SAW THEM. HE WOULD

hope y’all are doing okay! Gal says hi :) Remember to eat and drink something, take breaks, and look after yourselves and each other! We love you! This has been a Daily Interaction Ask <3

okay before anything else: YOU ARE SO RIGHT ABOUT JIMS THEM IT IS. for me its not a gender song but it IS a species song!! there is just Something About This Song man it hits so hard...like every time i hear it come up on my playlist i go into hawk mode so hard. there are some songs that have really good beats for flying to (and this is one of them) AND THEN THE LYRICS......literally top ten songs of all times. its got gender its got species it truly has it all.

also IRIS....god that is such a good song too!! out there listening to the BOPS ive never considered it as a gender song but i just listened to it and yeah. YEAH its about the and i dont want the world to see me / cause i dont think that they'd understand / when everything's made to be broken / i just want you to know who i am LIKE YEAH THATS GENDER BABEY!!!

man yes you really do have to find the songs that fit your characters and just listen to them forever when writing about them....literally such good songs to pick for hei. thank you bc of this ask i listed to them both and YEAH. YEAH!!!!

in return you get one of my current songs. its not a gender song its just a Vibes song idk the other day i heard it for yknow. 100th time or whatever but THIS TIME i sat there like oh my god. i understand everything now. anyways the song is so long by abhi the nomad idk WHAT about this song is hitting me but now i start tearing up whenever i hear it....the lines cause there's many many places you could be yeah / there's many many places you could see yeah / but you're stuck right here waiting for my words / to change your point of view just keep hitting me every single time.

literally this ask goes on my blog i think everyone should listen to these songs actually. time for another music recs with wyn and acacia.

also god yeah hei deserves to see those amazing stars....

ANYWAYS. we are doing good over here. hope you are too!

[p0gue420]

Hold me

Requested: @wanniiieeee​

summary:the band sunset curve fall into a coma what will happen next read and find out.

word count:1580

A/N: I was really deep into a depressive state writing this so sorry its bad!

Warnings:not a warning but reader can touch the boys

pairing: Luke Patterson x reader 

“Maybe I’ll try tonight…” Julie finishes talking to Ray, Flynn and I rush from the top of the stairs back to Julies room after listening to the saddened voices speaking about moving.

“Quick, act natural.” Flynn whispers as we hear Julies footsteps coming up; we both unpreparedly get into the most unnatural position, trying to act “Natural”. Jules walks in furrowing her eyebrows after a glance at the two of us.

I pick at my nails pretending to be casual as I try to spark a not so subtle distracting conversation. “Hey Jules, funny seeing you here..” I say looking up curiously.

“You heard?” she says blankly.

Flynn and I turn to each other; she stands up from the edge of the bed stalking slowly to the girl with big slippers.” If by “heard” that, you mean the fact, we get to go through the cool stuff in the loft...then...yeah.” she says with a smile on her face as she rubs the girl’s arm in comfort.

I stand from my spot at the desk wrapping my arms around the girls, putting our heads together.

“We can all do it together Jules... if that would help…” I nudge the girl’s arm putting a small smile on her face. She leans her forehead on mine, speaking up. ”That would be nice.”

__________________________________________________

“Woah dude how did we get back here!” The shaggy-haired boy says after sputtering up a cough looking around as the other two guys check out the studio. Flynn, Jules, and I scream growing terrified of the new presence in the room; The guys begin to join in on the screaming scared of the sudden noise.

First instinct and a smart one, we all begin speeding past the boys out of the studio running into Ray.

“Woah slow down, You look like you've seen a ghost” He didn’t know-how on the spot he was about our expressions. We all stare at him traumatized like as we say in unison “We have!”

Carlos cuts in “cool!” I thump him in the head with my middle finger and thumb to make him shut up but I’m quickly cut off by Ray scolding me, “Y/n, We’ve talked about the thumping.” he says as Carlos mimics his actions of pointing his index finger at me as to be stern. before Ray turns back to him with his eyebrows furrowed.

I huff turning to Carlos to apologize but quickly speed off so I don’t have to.

------------------------------------------------

Flynn, Julie, and I walk in a huddle back to the studio holding a cross. I start to giggle remembering a TikTok, I begin to speak up before I could be interrupted.”Shiver me timbers...am i right..?” I say giggling, we turn around at the sound of little giggles at my TikTok reference 

We begin screaming again when we’re cut off by our blonde friend who we just visited at the hospital not that long before, his soft voice asking us to please be quiet and stop screaming. 

“Guys, do you understand what’s happening?”  I ask say sadly as everyone looks at me.” If we’re seeing ghosts then that means they passed…” my eyes begin to well up with tears at the sight of our sweet boys standing there confused as to what’s wrong. 

Luke stares completely and utterly confused as he attempts to touch Julie and Flynn to test the “Ghost logic” when his hand fell through with a chill he was filled to the brim with sadness, his heart dropped in his stomach, tears in his eyes as his head began to pound and his throat felt like it was clogged, making it hard to breathe. “I don’t understand..” Reggie shakes his head.

My boy with his shaggy brown locks decides to attempt to touch me; Slowly reaching his hand out towards my face , he hesitantly brushes the pad of his thumb against my warm tear-stained cheeks, so caught up in the moment it felt like no one else in the room. He grabs my shoulder pulling me towards him to engulf me in a hug..

---------------------------

Time skip brought to you by Owen joyners EpiPen

3 weeks passed.

I lay across the couch thinking of lyrics in my head trying to put it all on paper, I sing the song in my head trying to find the melody when a certain boy walks up behind me sticking his fingers to my side tickling me.I know exactly who it is by the scent filling my nasal passages, I turn around prepared with a small nerf gun from my hoodie pocket shooting him, but the bullets going through him.

He snorts staring at me in awe as if he knew it wouldn’t work.”What, you think it’s funny I can’t shoot you, huh..huh?! I saw as I jump off the couch onto his back kissing and bear-hugging the boy as he lets out wild laughs; fouling my heart with warmth. I slide off his back but he’s still holding on to my leg making me stumble, he quickly loops his arm around my waist catching me before I can fully reach the ground. Our eyes linger on each other for longer than normal when we hear a faint but clear whistle behind us.

“Come on lover birds, we have songs to write and instruments to play,” Reggie says walking up to the two of his, blushing and warm cheeks clearly showing. We finally look down and realize we’re still conjoined at the hip making us move away from each other abruptly.

---------------

“Hey luke it’s me again, I know your soul is technically still in the studio and I just saw you but it’s still nice to come to check on your body.” I saw as I bring my hand to the luke laying on the hospital bed, caressing his rough calloused fingers with my own soft ones.

I giggle as i remember a fun time we had when he was quote “alive”.

“You remember that one time we went down to-” I was quickly cut off by Lukes’s nurse coming in to tell me visiting hours were over, but I can still hang out with ghost luke, right? All these thoughts in my head; what if he doesn’t wake up, what if he never gets to be seen again,to play his music the way he wants to.what if I never have my best friend back.

---------------------------------------

“In and out y/n, just like we practiced, in and out.” Alex had me leaned against his chest to  help with the tightening of my muscles as he brushed the hair out of my face helping with my panic attack.“Luke-Lu-Luke, where is-where is he.” I managed to get out in between breaths.

“He said he was on his way, It okay he’ll be here.” he stroked my hair, as I struggled to breathe at all, my test tightened, I felt cut off from the world. It was like watching myself struggle but unable to help with the pain. Just about that time, I was bursting into hot tears, luke ran into the studio immediately cupping my face with his calloused hands trying to calm me down while repeatedly asking whats wrong;I bury my head in the crook of his neck as I continue to squall about how he’s my best friend. “ Y/n you smell like pure vodka, did you drink anything?” He holds my face in his hands staring at me lovingly

“I drank some- I drank a lot of Smirnoff- a little of a lot,  cus i visited you in the hospital and started thinking about how I need you back-I -I need you back Luke, I need-need you. Please just hold me..” I trail off into whimpers as he pulls my head in his lap, caressing my hair softly as he thinks about everything I just said.

-------------------------------

 I sit in the hospital when nurses begin to run into the rooms of the  boys,I hear ther voices and thats all i need before i start falling on my knees crying happy tears,falling from my eyes salty droplets as i begin to run straight to lukes bed but begin to be pushed out and i know somethings wrong; And my heart drops to my stomach as i hear “Whos the pretty girl?” my boy asks.my heart stops...what did he just say 

A/N: WHAT DID SHE SAYYYY, SUPRISEEE SHAWTYYYY HE DONT REMEMBER YOUUUUUUUUU

“Luke it’s me,it’s your best friend?” i said in more of a question.

---------------------------------------------------

Weeks passed by and luke still doesn’t remember me,and i have no clue what to do.weeks feeling overwhelmed without my bestfriend.weeks crying every second thinking about how ive already lost him when lukes ghost walks in at the same time as luke when they run into each other the sight in front of me is crazy as it looks as if his soul has been  sucked into his body when i hear “Y/n?” 

I run as fast as my legs can carry me into his arms and place a harsh kiss onto his lips knocking him back but he responds kidding back. Long minutes of being in eachothers arms when he pulls back smiling that signature smile i’ve always loved 

“I love you Y/n” He says with tears in his eyes.

“I love  you too” i say as i pull him back  in for another kiss.

[ah-yes-paris]

beatles harmonies that cured my depression.

It is important that i discuss this. Well, not really important I just really wanted to share. This is in no particular order either it's just the ones that come to the top of my head lol. Feel free to reblog and share your own 😎

1. The "Woahoooah AHHHHH" from When I Get Home.

Not even words can describe the battery power that starts coursing through my veins when I hear this harmony. I cant even,....LIKE HELLO??? i have never heard such a blessing... Such a well-fitting triplet of voices singing a vowel thats made me feel like i can run 10 miles straight. They aren't real. The Beatles, of course. To this day I don't understand how this harmony exists in this universe. My ears melt everytime. One of my favorites, in case you couldn't tell.

2. The obvious.. "yeah yeah yeah YEAHH" from She Loves You :)

LET ME TELL YOU. oh my god let me tell yo u .. Way back when, when I was a new fan... Good lord. I was literally ascending. ASCENDING. i felt every inch of my body start to lift off the ground. Im sure im not the only one who's experienced this. I remember thinking 'how the wiggle wubble do 3 men sound so GOOD TOGETHER' IT DOES NOT ADD UP PEOPLE THE BEATLES HAVE TO BE SOME SORT OF ROBOTIC BOY BAND GROWN IN A LAB THIS ISNT POSSIBLE how do we live on the same dimensional plane that this harmony lives on..

3. "The magical mystery tour, is coming to take you away, Coming to take you away!" from Magical Mystery Tour.

...

guys. Guys you dont understand. This one line, adds, YEARS. LITERAL YEARS TO MY LIFE SPAN. At this point I am fully immortal. The "coming to take you awayyy" makes my heart POUND. i love this song so much... And this line especially... It makes me go insane. Basically the beatles are manic melody genuises that have successfully spread one of the biggest diseases in musical history. Personally, I think this line was a clear example of why.

4. "Last night I said these words to my girl", "Please pleaase me, oh yeah, like i please you...", "...With you! Oh yeah, why do you make me blue" from Please Please Me.

do i even have to say anything. Well, i dont but i will for the sake of the post. There is so much. So much. About this song that I. I cant even,,. I would choose this song over SO MANY BEATLES SONGS DUDE. not that its cause i think its better than all the others but it just holds such a special place in my heart. Its the only song thats Ever made me feel some intense wave of nostalgia for a decade i wasnt even born in. Its one of the songs that continue to make me question the beatles existance. How could something like this ever come to reality. My brain has never been so pleased in its life.

5. "Carve your number on my wall and maybe you will get a call from me" from If I Needed Someone.

The way that this song was added into my Liked playlist SO QUICKLY...... God. I love george. Hes my favorite after all. Rubber Soul as a whole makes me feel warm inside but this song and this one line just hits so much more intensely for some reason... Their voices just flow insanely well and I just DONT UNDERSTAND HOW. its like an angel choir making its way through the clouds as you see the gate to heaven start to appear. Wonderful song and mind-blowing harmony... The beat is so good too and i just explode.

6. The "ahhhhh Ahhhhh AHhhhh *inhale* AHHHhhhh AHHHHH *inhale* AHHHHHH" from Day Tripper.

HOLY JESUS CHIRST THIS SONG HAS SO MUCH TO UNPACK... There are undeniably A BUNCH of other flawless harmonies in this song but my god the beatles knew what they were doing. Thats all I'm going to say really.... But once again. Power. In my veins. A few listens to this song and you'll find yourself having the strength of 1,000 men.

7. "Oh, now", "All I want is you" from Dig a Pony.

FIRST LYRIC... ITS LITERALLY 2 WORDS AND YET IT CONTINUES TO BLOW MY MIND. Something about the "Oh" ...... Its like an arrow passing through my heart I dont even know guys. Im not lying when I say it makes me feel like im floating. It makes me feel like i can quite literally grow wings and fling myself towards the sun. Dont even get me started on "All I want is you".......it literally triples the effect. It makes me go ballistic. The song is just mindless lyrics but the harmonieeesss.....

8. "Ah girlll.... *inhaeahelrlsseeesh* Girrll...." from Girl.

no words. Like. No words. I cant even. I seriously dont need to explain this one. Im just going to drop the isolated vocals version because if you havent listened to it you are MISSING OUT... you thought the originally recorded song was the greatest cause of your heart palpitations? Well you thought WRONG.

THIS IS.

9. "I love youwoowooowoowoooo...", "ask me WHYY..", "I can't believe.. Its happened to MEeee", "i cant concieve *doo doo doo do doo* of anymore *dun dun dun* MISERY" from Ask Me Why.

GOD OK LISTEN im just gonna say this now i absolutely adore and favor the please please me album so much i dont care what anyone says ok im such a sucker for their early sappy love songs ITS SO MANY GOOD HARMONIES ESPECIALLY FROM THIS ONE. MY GOD i listen to this and i feel like im with a lover late at night and we're like at one or the others house keeping each other warm and being all romantic and happy. Specifically the part that goes "ask me whyy I say i love you.. (OOOOHHHOOOO) and im always thinking of youuhoohohoo..." LIKE COME ON PLEAEE IT MAKES ME FEEL SO WARM INSIDE AND I SMILE IN AN INSTANT GOD I LOVE THIS SONG SO MUCH. Whenever i think im sad i go "no im not because Please Please Me." And its like all the sudden everything im sad about just poof disappears!

10. "If theres anything that you want.. IF THERES ANYTHING I CAN DOOOO" from From Me To You.

I am so in love with this song you guys i have no idea I LOVE IT SO MUCH. IT HAS THIS LITTLE SWING TO IT SPECIFICALLY BETWEEN THESE 2 LINES THAT MY BRAIN SEEKS FOR NEARLY EVERY DAY. the amount of blessing i get from this song is more than i can comprehend its literally insane i cant even. How does someone do this how did the beatles make music guys I am seriously so dumbfounded like they just sat there and wrote banger after banger like WHAT. this song makes me believe that life isnt as horrible as it seems and if im lucky enough i can just sing and dance to this song for all of eternity. There are also so many other good harmonies in this one as well...

---

In conclusion the beatles have had a chokehold on me for 3 years but I mean their stupid groundbreaking songs keep drawing me back in so.... This has also made me come to the conclusion that the Beatles simply arent real because I still dont believe a band can not only write consistent hits, but also harmonize in a way that causes me to spin around while doing backflips.

Thank you for your time.

[ifyouseekay468]

what do YOU personally think the teenagers (mcr) lyrics are about my friend ? like i keep thinking about them but im not sure im going somewhere

okay, ive answered this ask twice on mobile and each time my phone deleted it, so here I go, the FINAL version of this post

It's been a hot minute since I listened to teenagers so I decided to do a quick run-through of the lyrics, and while Gerard&Co were raised catholic the lyrics seem to REEK of protestant trauma, so that's what I'll be going off of, but I'm pretty sure the two denominations overlap here. The first verse is about kids in youth group, Christian GirlsTM especially, who are put there to pressure you into being "normal" into "cleaning you up with the lies in the book" (bible), although the pastor is the one giving the teaching THESE are the people who will get you to BELIEVE, who will get you to lie to yourself, who will get you to church camps that on some level utilize brainwashing techniques, and will DESTROY you with the idea that you're "Just one of them, and just need to change everything about yourself and fake your way through every last sermon to be just a part of the gang",

The part about sleeping with a gun and keeping an eye on you is about two things: one, about the idea that God can see all your thoughts, that THINKING about "sin" (ie; fantasizing about sex) is as bad as COMMITTING sin (which is fucked up entirely on its own because fantasy is SO FUCKING DIFFERENT FROM REALITY and that is a CRUCIAL aspect of sexual expression in order to safely engage in sex), AND the fact that these kids will pretend to be your friend, will prod you into doing things with them, into telling them things about yourself all the while making you feel like "part of the group" when really they're just blabbing either to religious leaders, or are ostracizing you and bullying you behind your back.

"The drugs never work"

This in my opinion points to the fact that this song is specifically about being QUEER in a christian culture. It is common for trans people to turn to drugs or psychedelics in an area that has little to no access to gender affirming care, or acceptance because they both change reality and disconnect one from the body that is causing their dysphoria. It can also help burn away the guilt, so to speak.

The methods of keeping you clean is about two things: one, about purity culture, no smoking, no drinking, no friends who drink, no sex, no porn, no masturbation, no impure thoughts. The second, is the way they're able to subtly manipulate you into hiding yourself, into lying to yourself, into forcing yourself to the point of death into being cishet. They're keeping you clean not just from the vices of addiction, but the vices of the flesh, the vice you can't escape because it's a part of you from the day youre born. On a darker note, this could also be referring to c*nversion th*rapy, given this second interpretation of the lyrics

"Ripping your head and aspirations to shreds," Is again about two things in my opinion: both the idea of "losing yourself to God's will" that usually leads one to losing their identity and getting depression and fucked up mental health, and the "shift" that happens at church when you reach a certain age. You know the kind, right? You're four years old, and church is FUN! You get to go to this big room and sing and dance on stage with all your friends! You get to play GAMES! You get to talk to the ~cool teenagers~ who are ~Just like you~ and ~think youre a "cool kid"~, you have ~best friends~ who will be with you like Jesus and the 12! but then, one day, something happens, something SHIFTS. maybe the Sunday school teacher leaves, maybe there's a new family at church, maybe the church changes buildings. Maybe none of that has to do with any of it, all you know is that now things are forever different. Church isn't fun anymore. The kids classes are repetitive, they're bribing you into memorizing bible verses with money, they DONT reward critical thinking or analysis, but they do call you smart, that's because they dont want SMART kids they want OBEDIANT ones. You have no choice but to stat going to REAL church. Suddenly, your best friends are not your best friends. Suddenly they're avoiding you. Suddenly they're lying to you. Suddenly you're too... well they don't know the word yet but "gay" for them...

"Teenagers scare the living shit out of me"

This is what youth group does to you, it isolates you from your entire generation because there are few people your age and a whole lot older than you, and everyone is so much DIFFERENT from you for some reason, but neither of you know why, not yet anyways. This makes you distance yourself from teenagers, because you can't SEE yourself as a teenager, because youre nothing like other teenagers.

"They could care less as long as someone will bleed,"

This is the martyr complex that permeates youth culture like the smell of wine, the problem? these kids love to make a show of themselves and their martyrdom, but they're unwilling to martyr themselves, so what do they do? They throw someone else to the wolves and take the glory. They ostracize and eliminate the unique in the name of preserving their faith. They convert and convert and god help anyone who doesn't want to convert.

"So darken your clothes and strike a violent pose"

This is about deconversion, how the moment you leave the church you never want to see another cross till the day you die, that you want to avoid christians of all costs because you don't want them To drag you back into the pit that devoured you. So you do anything and everything you can to make yourself repulsive to Christians, which actually coincides with your indulgence of mundane activities previously considered as "sin"

"Maybe they'll leave you alone but not me,"

There's a different between a cishet ex Christian and a queer ex christian, and that difference is that a cishet atheist is more likely to be left alone than a queer one, especially a queer one whose whole demeanor screams "Christians be gone," that shit is like... it summons christians faster than free winter jam tickets! They swarm to you frothing at the mouth with holy water waiting to either convert you or exorcise you into purity, depends on if you want them or not. Again, you don't even have to be OPENLY gay, they can TRACK this shit. it's like fucking... INSTINCT or something.

"The boys and girls in the clique, the awful names that they stick, you're never gonna fit in much kid,"

as alluded to above, this lyric is about how, even from a young age, BEFORE youth group, this toxic culture kind of develops. ESPECIALLY around christian girls. They don't have the vulgarity of slurs, but they can make up for it with slang like "tomboy" "nancyboy" "too boyish" "a sissy" "Weird" etc, youre NEVER going to fit in, because the moment that "shift", from fun games and songs to Real Church, occurs, you have a target on your back.

"But if youre troubled and hurt what you got under your shirt will make them pay for the things that they did,"

This is probably a gun. But that's a tad too boring for my taste. If you were raised protestant you KNOW that being an ex protestant, after the craziness of evangelicalism, you would not hesitate to burn down your old church. It could be a secret tattoo, top surgery scars, hell maybe even nipple clamps. Whatever it is, it's symbolic of revenge. I know that anytime I wore my labrys necklace to church I would always hide it under my shirt. I hid books and CDs under there too. Again, it's about revenge, it's about breaking free, gun or no gun, the point is getting out and getting back at them.

and thats pretty much my take on the song. Again, this is not about artist intent this is just what the lyrics reminded ME of personally (as you can see from the over biographical bullshit I wrote), I'm always open to contradicting interpretations though as I always have like 2+ interpretations of a song or book! I never really saw the song through the lens of youth group specifically but when I went over the lyrics again in retrospect it all seemed to really click (pun not intended) well! Thanks for the ask!

[demenior]

Dem’s Big Post About The Spn Fics Part 1/2

aka The Wrap Up to celebrate To Exist Again and To Become a Man now being finished!

(This will be a long post. This is your only warning.)

Admittedly this is a bit of a weird thing to be doing, but I wanted to try it out for 3 reasons: 

I love talking about my own work and 

It functions really well as a self-reflective tool for me to improve on, and 

I can answer some big questions people might have because there was a LOT of worldbuilding in these stories. 

We’ll start off with reflective stuff, and move into the juicier world-building focused stuff later into the post. There will be major spoilers for both fics to come!

To begin with a funny anecdote, Why Did I Write These Stories?

I was beginning to write and work out the story that I wanted to write for Spn (what will now be To Destroy a Man. As I was writing the scene, I realized I had a LOT of ideas and while I was trying to avoid as much exposition as I could, it became quickly apparent that I was needing to create my own au (this scene eventually became chapter 34 of To Become a Man). A short prequel seemed like a good idea, to quickly hash out the ‘prior’ events that I needed to go through so all the readers could be on the same page. While plotting out prequel points, I realized Sam and Dean were going to have drastically different experiences during the same time period, and I was trying to figure out who’s pov would be better for which scenes, and how to keep momentum when they’re going through such radically different types of changes. Ultimately I decided to split their povs, which I also thought would be a fun project! And I naively assumed each pov would take about 2 chapters each, rounding out to maybe 15k total.

I had my ending points: Dean n Cas soul-merged and (basically) married, Cas on the lam from heaven and a complete anomaly, and Sam juiced up full of powers and a weird mix of archangel and antichrist but still 100% human and ready to fight God. 

Now I needed to add weight to these changes, so I wrote 200k of build-up.

Am I proud of these fics?

OF COURSE I AM!!! These are the longest fics I’ve ever written AND finished AND in the fastest freakin turnaround ever (both were finished writing, barring edits, in like 6 months holy shit)

I didn’t write a single scene that I “didn’t” want to write. If I had trouble writing it, as in it was fighting me, I scrapped it. Most obviously was the scene in Dean’s pov where he and Sam were intended to meet some other hunters and Dean declines working with them because he’s nervous about being outed as queer. It was meant to be a good scene! I wanted to introduce some new characters! But it just wasn’t working so I said ‘thank you, next!’. 

But it means this story was an absolute joy to write. Because for a while all I was doing was ‘if I wanted to write one scene into supernatural, what would I write?’ and then just DID that!! It’s why there’s a lot of ‘Salmondean do dumb shit or have really dumb heartfelt conversations’ scenes.

Would I change anything?

If I’d been less eager to start sharing, I might have planned out the story beats a little tighter so there were less ‘soft’ chapters and a draw/pull for people to come back and keep reading. I felt Dean’s story specifically lagged at points and could have used some tighter editing (there was a noticeable lull in directed movement between Dean n Cas getting together, until Sam corrupts Amy).

I also probably would have held Sam’s story until I’d finished Dean’s so I could make the two line up better! Probably could have inserted more scenes into Sam’s fic that way, and made sure things were a little more consistent. In an ideal world one concept I had was to release 1 chapter from each pov every week that would correspond to the same time frame so we’d be getting real-time SalmonDean pov narrative. Unfortunately that didn’t work!

The biggest takeaway overall is for me to focus more on what moves the plot, and to make my scenes do more than 1 thing so I can cut down on wordcount and increase my efficiency. 

Of course every writer will find things they want to fix in anything they’ve ever written, so these are minor “mistakes” at best. I’m so dang proud of these fics. 

Onto more interesting things!

How Did I Put These Fics Together (because it’s different than anything I’ve ever done before)

Normally when I write a story, I plan out the beats I need to hit, see where I need to insert any kind of foreshadowing/buildup, and then write from A to B to C and so on and so forth. Hence, this is why I can normally post things as I complete chapters, because it’s all a linear progression. 

For these two stories, rather than linear plot/a normal story structure, I just sat and free-wrote any and every scene that came to mind and then pieced them into a kinda-linear form like putting a quilt together. You’ll note that this is why there’s not a lot of internal callback or a feeling of sense of time flowing within the fic (save for points where I went back and specifically edited it in). How long does the story take place over? Hard to say! Your author has the barest grasp on linear time even on a good day (how many times did I say ‘see you on [wrong day]’ at the end of chapters lmaaoooo)

This also meant EXTENSIVE editing on the back end once I decided in what order I wanted my ‘quilt pieces’ to be. Hard to say if this is a bonus or a negative!

But I did want to try and capture the vibe of the lives they lead, as a bit of a ‘slice of life’-style story, when the slice of life is the profound weirdness of the Winchester roaming life, and how things are status quo- until everyone almost dies oh shit!! And then they have to keep living because no therapy we die/undie like Winchesters. Do I think I captured this effectively? Hmm. Good question. 

Dem where the FUCK did the inspiration for a lot of the magic and creature weirdness even come from?

Honestly? Music, primarily. And completely mishearing lyrics!

Nightwish ‘Ever Dream’: the line is ‘my song can but borrow you grace’ and because my brain is scrambled eggs on a good day, I heard ‘grace’ ‘song’ and ‘borrow’ in that order and have had, for YEARS, the mental image of Cas borrowing Dean’s soul to power himself up for battle.

From there I’ve always been enamored with the ‘wavelength of celestial intent’ descriptor that Cas drops in s6 for “what he is”. 

I also really like ocean metaphors mostly because I’ve been obsessed with the ocean and things in it since I was like… 5??? So really this was me just rolling with what I know lmao. I love using (somewhat) accurate scientific metaphors for very intangible things!

I was also finishing my degree in biology/ecology while writing these fics and I think it shows

Stars ‘The Night Starts Here’ gives us the series title and the fic titles. Except for ‘To Exist Again’. TEA was almost titled ‘The Upwards Fall’ because I wanted all 3 of the Main Stories to have titles from this song, but I couldn’t make anything else work in tandem with the series name ‘The Love It Takes’ while also working for Sam’s personal story. So Sam, as always, is the rebel <3

Stars ‘Up In Our Bedroom, After The War’ is basically the vibes of the whole story. TFW has been, literally, to hell and back!!! There’s a bit of melancholy and sadness, a lingering dark, but the chance of a bright new tomorrow and a soft start.

Let’s Talk About Themes in The Story! What were you looking to accomplish? 

My earliest notes for TFW are, as follows:

Dean’s journey of self-discovery (who am I when I’m not trying to be Dad?)

Dean wants to settle down! He wants a big family! He wants to be domestic!

Basically: Dean doesn’t want to have a short life of hunting. He wants to live!

Dean’s journey of realizing he’s bi, and him accepting that

Dean’s relationship to Sam is both older brother/parent 

And continuing Dean balancing these roles while also letting Sam be an adult 

Dean’s Big Issues/Fears about never being good enough for people to want to stay with him (these are effectively highlighted in that Cas thinks he’s not useful enough to be wanted)

Sub Plot:

Castiel’s autonomy

Cas’ fall from grace, to trying to restore Heaven, to wrecking it further

He’s majorly depressed by the end of s7 (before purgatory)

Wants to stay in Purgatory but doesn’t tell Dean

Remains depressed after leaving, but resolved to keep living on because he’s clearly meant for something

After the seraphim reveal: does he have free will?! How does he grapple with this? How does he live in a way he can be proud of?

And lastly

Sam gets his powers back CAUSE THATS HOT

where tf did they go????

he got them from Lucifer?????

sleeper agent??????

Sam is The Chosen One

Accepts that he is More Than Human and to celebrate all parts of him

Lucifer and Sam friends?? Work together????

Sam needs autonomy in his choices/his life

If you compare these to the overall arc of TFW within the two stories, I think I got a lot of them! But you’ll also note a lot of these things aren’t concrete goals that are easily measurable (ex: Dean wants to learn to bake pie. In chapter 1 he starts a fire in the kitchen. By the end of the story he finally makes A Good Pie.) part of the lack of concrete milestones was why I felt it was important to tell Dean (and Cas’) story by going back to the point they meet, in s4! Dean’s gradual change towards his feelings for Cas, his relationship to Sam (heavily influenced by the s7 events of this fic) and then his own relationship with himself were such slow burns that I felt it would be a disservice to try and cram a change like that into a timeline like “1 year”.

I felt like these subtle changes and adjustments actually felt a lot truer to life-- people often change in very small, gradual ways over time, even without realizing it and often times not consistently! If only we could all gain skills like the sims, where we can easily level up and remain at that high level of performance! 

So the Guy Who Ate Satan, A Celestial Nuke that Developed Sentience, and Dean walk into a bar…

Sam’s story in Spn The Show has always been a ‘chosen one’ kind of narrative. Sam is living with one foot in the realm of the monsters, and I wanted to bring that back full force! It really makes sense for him that he should only continue to grow in power, might, and magic!! As the story progresses.

Cas also got a power up! I do desperately love in the show that he was kind of a grunt/nothing angel, and so even when he defected to TFW he was a huge help for them, but in the scale of things he was an annoying fly to most other angels. It really worked for the underdog story of s4/5. In this I wanted to give him a power up, and originally it was actually going to be close contact with Sam that eventually changed Cas into something unknown (you can still see traces of this in ch34 of TBAM, where Death remarks ‘Castiel could be [Sam’s] first creation’. But for a combo of reasons: how Sam’s magic needed to have intent, the entire concept of free will and consent, and how much I wanted Dean and Cas to have their effect on each other, I decided to go with the route that Cas has actually always been something angel-adjacent rather than becoming something new. TFW/Supernatural has always been about free will and making your own story, so I amplified that with Cas.

Dean has always been A Normal Guy, which is part of the appeal of him and Sam (2 normal dudes!) taking on the Very Not Normal. As explained above, Sam’s story is ‘normal guy finds out he’s the chosen one’ and so, in a story about very large concepts and huge monsters and acts of magic, I felt it was very important to keep Dean as normal as possible. To the point it became a running gag to me, personally, in that ‘no matter what cool shit happens around him, Dean has to stay as Just A Guy’. And it’s a very humanizing role that allows the story to have the scale it does!

What were the most important themes in your story?

Sam’s Autonomy

I wasn’t even going to include the plot about Lucifer’s death in this story— that was going to come up in a later story, actually! And rather than Sam having ate Lucifer, the original idea was that they’d become a SamandLucifer entity (this harkens back to a concept I wanted to write when Swan Song first aired). 

That storyline would have involved a lot of mental ‘Sam and Lucifer discuss what it means to live, which one of them is more worthy of life and if they do deserve to destroy the world for the pain they’ve been forced to go through, just to create the dichotomy of good and evil for everyone else’ discussions. There would be a lot of talk about how Sam hates and fears Lucifer for the pain Lucifer put on Sam, how Lucifer hates Sam because he and Sam are the same but Sam’s brother loves him anyways, etc. 

Ultimately that was scrapped because Sam’s entire story in the show is always about how the world and everyone around him manipulates him and that he never actually gets to make choices about his own life or body that aren’t influenced or part of someone elses’ design. And that always bothered me that Sam was never allowed to be himself without having to be ashamed of it, and I wanted to make sure that Sam’s triumph of being proud of himself/proudly choosing to exist (again) was evident in his story

In the end I needed Sam to have this visceral win over his tormentor. As the story shows, in this case Lucifer was abused and put into a position where he was incapable of empathy and could only express himself in violence. Sam even understands this! But it doesn’t change the fact that Lucifer tortured Sam in unimaginable ways for thousands of years. 

With that in mind I didn’t like the idea of Lucifer and Sam having “co-ownership” of their new identity, so I made the choice that Sam had to be the survivor. This tied in well with Sam’s new crusade to restore free will to the universe, because he’s breaking the narrative of his own story!

While Castiel wasn’t a pov character, his own autonomy and free will was equally as important. You’ll note that many, many paragraphs and conversations revolved around that theme and that in the end Cas followed himself (and love!) which ensured his freedom of self <3

The Brothers are WEIRD PEOPLE!!!! And Codependent to a Worrying Degree, but It’s Also How They Survive

It’s very hard to show “unusual” relationships when you’re writing from the pov of the two people who don’t think there’s anything weird about their relationship. Sure, they say ‘yeah it’s probably weird that we still share a bed’ but that’s kinda more in line with ‘I had a nightmare and I want to be close to the person who makes me feel safe’. Hashtag normalize co-sleeping when you need it!!!

From there I did try to point out how the boys have a weird perception of lifestyle in the little things they did. 

From thrifting everything from clothes to appliances to books (thrifting is a valid lifestyle! It’s incredibly handy when you’re on a budget.) 

To never actually having condiments or knowing how to use a dishwasher cause they’ve lived in a car, a motel room, or squatted in old houses their whole life.

I tried to have them wear each others’ clothes or casually swap things as much as possible. They live out of each others’ pockets!

Also the brothers are just weird people!! It’s hard to show from their pov, cause they don’t know how far off from normal they are, but like…

Everything about Sam and Amelia was NOT right like holy shit those two were wilding in their grief. They are very lucky things worked out for them and that they got to be hashtag Weird Girls together

Dean explicitly, in the story, gets horny after killing stuff!! Violence has done a number on his psyche and he’s gotten some wires crossed that maybe shouldn’t have been, or maybe could be worked out in a safe space but… uh… how likely do we think Dean is gonna go find a safe space to deal with any of his shit???

LOVE!!! Love is truly what this whole story is all about

If you’ve read the stories, you know how much emphasis I put on love. Love is the strongest force in the Spn Universe! It’s what averted the apocalypse and saved the world (Swan Song), it’s what created free will (Cas’ entire arc!) I love love!!!!

I went out of my way to not put any definitions on platonic love vs romantic love because I think love is love is love and how you express that is the difference. Neither is more powerful than the other because LOVE is powerful!! Sam and Cas are the most important people in Dean’s life and he loves them equally! He shows this by giving Cas kisses and stealing Sam’s socks.

It’s a personal pet peeve of mine when I have to hear explanations like ‘I love you, like a brother’ or ‘I love you, but like, as a friend because I’m a lesbian and you’re a man’ etc etc in media. If you have to continuously define how your characters love each other, then I don’t think you’re doing a good job of portraying their relationship. So you’ll see that I never put those parameters in any conversation. Dean DOES muse that he loves Cas differently than he loves Sam or Bobby, specifically because there is a romantic and sexual tone that his feelings for Cas takes, but not because he loves Cas more or less than he loves Sam or Bobby.

Which means, if you haven’t realized it yet, the Series + Fic Titles are meant to be a complete sentence because the power of love IS the thesis of this series:

The Love It Takes To Exist Again (Sam’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Become a Man (Dean’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Destroy a Man (TBA)

And now for fun stuff. Behind the scenes!!

What’s Something People Probably Don’t Know?

The demonic fungal/hydrothermal vent growth on Sam’s arm was thrown in literally as I was posting the chapter because I had just finished a 48 hour cram session of writing a report on tube worms for an ecology class (I was chanting my tube worm song as I wrote it) and it ended up being a HUGE hit with both readers and myself. But it was so last minute I had trouble fitting it in more throughout the rest of Sam’s story!

Cas’ orders? That may or may not have bound him to Dean and removed his free will? Were written into Sam’s story and I went ‘oh SHIT that’s compelling’ and then left them there as a ‘guess I’ll figure that out when I get to Dean’s story lol’

Originally Dean and Cas were supposed to get together after having their souls bonded, and have been in a UST limbo the entire time before that. Mostly because I think the entire concept of ‘we just got married of the soul I guess we should try dating?’ is very funny. CLEARLY the two of them were way more eager to fall in love than I anticipated (thank you Cas for your honesty) but you can still see shades of this original idea here and there (especially in ch35 of TBAM)

I never intended Dean and Benny to connect so well!! Benny was going to reunite with Andrea, she was going to live, and they were going to go off into the world and leave the story. And, uh, here we are. I’m still debating if I need to adjust the relationship tag or not haha. Polyamory is fun, especially when I was planning for Sam to be the polyamorous brother...

Speaking of, I can’t believe I forgot about Sam and his sexuality! If I rewrote TEA I would have had Sam contemplate more on his lack of sexual appetite due to trauma, up until he meets Benny and he gets to rediscover how he wants to be a sexual person

Many of Sam and Dean’s absolutely stupid sibling conversations were lifted near-verbatim from conversations I’ve had with my siblings

And lastly...

Dem where’s Kevin????????????? Where is our sweet baby boy????????

He’s SAFE!! He’s in the Hunter pipeline somewhere cause Sam handed him off to Bobby’s people. He and his mom are safe and at some point they probably got rib sigils like SalmonDean did against angels, but for demons. I didn’t have room in this story for him!!! But my baby boy is SAFE and I want to get him back to university because it’s WHAT HE DESERVES!!!!

To that point: god there were/are SO many characters that I just didn’t include in the story so far because I didn’t feel comfortable including them without stalling the story for them. To that point: pretty much everyone who is alive/dead in s8 is that way in this story, except Bobby who gets to live.

[Check Out Part 2 for reader questions!]

[ewdaviddd]

folklore think piece

for a lower case album such as this, i will be writing a lowercase think piece on the subject. i will not explain why. you get it or you don’t.

the 1: i have never been in love or any type of romantic relationship that left me with lasting feelings of any kind. but, on my fourth listen through of this song today, what once was just a promising and fun intro to this peasant girl summer gut punch, brought me to actual tears as i sat on the toilet in my lime green childhood bathroom as if i were mourning the one that got away (another great song). however, i am an expert on being hung up on the past, the “what could have been”, and made up hypotheticals. this song also introduces the film motif seen a lot in this album. i think dating an actor has really gotten to her. anyway what a killer way to begin, top notch stuff. how can a song be so fun and so soul crushing at the same time?

cardigan: when did taylor wear black lipstick? this is important to me. an old cardigan is an inherently bisexual article of clothing. that is not an opinion. i read it somewhere today and i believe it. this is the tip of the queer-coding ice berg in folklore, never fear. another reference, “tried to change the ending / peter losing wendy”. this year i wrote a movie script where both peter and wendy were both gay. coincidence? probably. basically this one is classic taylor poetry on every level and it being one of a trio in a larger story makes it that much better. yet again, high school romance is not a universal experience (like for me for instance) but haunting my “what-ifs” is going to haunt me for a long time. and the thought of someone saying i was their favorite cardigan makes me want to scream into a pillow.

the last great american dynasty: my favorite ts songs have always been the ones with detailed characters and stories and this one introduces the trope of the “mad woman” who comes back later on as well a long with many fun character details. at first this song is just cheeky and cute, very visual, a fun world to jump into. but then this particular stretch of lines makes your heart drop into your chest and reminds you why taylor isn’t just always fun and always cute and always creative, she also holds the ability to nimbly sock you in the gut when you least expect: “fifty years is a long time / holiday house sat quietly on that beach / free of women with madness, their men and bad habits / and then it was bought by me.” my jaw is still on the floor. and i’ve never bought a house myself. but i’ve spent numerous christmases having a marvelous time ruining everything (so i’ve been told) so this song still applies to my life.

exile (ft. bon iver): i’m gonna be honest. for as long as i can remember i have strongly disliked bon iver and i never remembered why. it is a matter of principle at this point. i just don’t trust him. but then taylor announced she wrote a song with him which filled me with tremendous anxiety. but i can rest easy. much like “the last time” this song is a ts and male artist collaboration i can get behind. also the film motif again: the only time i’ve left a theatre when i didn’t like a movie was never because movie tickets are so expensive and if i’m shelling out 11 dollars to sit in a chair, i’m staying the whole time no matter how bad the ending. but i probably would have left my sister’s keeper if i had seen it before if i’m being honest. so i get it. thats why i read spoilers for everything i watch before watching it, because the anxiety of worrying about how it ends make me not enjoy it in the first place. the end of this song: the call and response felt… ethereal? i felt like i was watching a broadway musical from the splash zone seats, crying as i was spat on.

my tears ricochet: this song is what i picture stepping outside in the middle of the night when an inch or so of snow has just fallen and i can see the flakes fall in front of a street light sounds like. or the scorned secret ex lover throwing themselves onto the coffin demanding to know why they weren’t enough.   which is to say it feels like a sign from some sort of god. yet again, haunting is brought up, an overt reference to the fact that this album will live in my brain rent free for eternity. for some reason this song reminds me of the relationship between hamilton and burr when burr kills hamilton. that could be because i just watched the disney+ recording last week. one lives, one dies, but neither survive, both pay for it. Which is a super romantic and understanding view on murder. both musical experiences equally chilling and moving. if i die under mysterious circumstances this will for sure be played at the funeral.

mirrorball: first off, this is my mom's favorite which is very important. also, it has skewered a very specific but also universal insecurity of mine; existing just to please others and yet miserably failing. it is comforting that ts is not a “natural’ and feels she must always “try try try” because i too lack natural ability, but also rarely “try” even just the one time. the best way i can describe listening to this song is walking through a silent disco where everyone else is listening to some classic lady gaga jam and you are listening to a calming lullaby sung very far away. but don’t let the soothing sounds fool you. it still will have you reflecting on what it means to look and be looked at. a dark rabbit whole, like falling through the looking glass. i’ve never actually read that book though so i could be wrong.

seven: i’m dumb and on my first listen of this song i thought she “hit her peak” at 7 clock as opposed to age seven. but i always saw taylor swift as someone with an early bedtime. also a fun discovery while writing this, “seven” is the 7th song on the track list. clever. although this song is young and innocent and so nostalgic for a time when screaming ferociously was a widely accepted form of expression, it also sounds like a very old secret someone is whispering to me. a love from long ago that lasts beyond the person being in your life, passed down to me and it all just sounds a little gay. not just because of the specific line to hiding in the closet. but that certainly doesn’t go unnoticed. when i was seven i was definitely in love with girls and assumed that was just what friendship was, playing pirates and making plans of running away together.

august: the eighth track for the eighth month. her mind. also my birth month so that’s special. controversial opinion: from what i’ve read most people seem to think illicit affair is the third song in the triage of teen love. i will strongly make the case that it's actually this one. first of all, the subject: a short lived summer fling, which is specifically mentioned later in “betty”. the central heartbreak of this song is liking someone who always belonged to someone else. yes, this song is a window into a different summer, far from pandemic central and the escapist imagery is delightful. but a whole song from the pov of the “other woman” to james and betty is just so much more fun. and there are two more specific lyrics that prove my point. “remember when i pulled up and said "get in the car”” you will see later comes back from the other person’s perspective. and most of all: the repeated line, “meet me behind the mall”? only teenagers make plans to meet up behind a mall. i rest my case. so now we have cardigan and august. two pieces of the puzzle.

this is me trying: i’m glad i now have a succinct message to send to anyone when they ask me what the hell i’m doing at any given moment. this song just sounds like regret and waste in the most self-assured and confident way. this is “back to december” with the training wheels off.  i have no apologies for my efforts at wasting all my potential. but in this song, taylor has opened her arms to me in a warm embrace and has forgiven me for all i’ve done wrong and reminds me to not take for granted the “try”. okay mom. i’m crying again, but okay.

illicit affair: this is the kind of thing that makes you feel sixteen, living in a dull suburb, while secretly screwing your 38 year old married neighbor who’s rich but wants to be an artiste. aka like a character in euphoria or something. it’s sexy and dangerous until you think about it and then it's just dingy and creepy. but this song starts and stays beautiful. most importantly, this song is too sad and depressing frankly, to be a part of the trilogy. we could never forgive james for leaving such a mess and making her a fool. you don’t want to be this girl. you want to walk up to her and shake her and yell “you exist and will not be ruined by any dumb man”. and that’s feminism.

invisible string: is it reductive if i say this one’s about joe? all my non-stan friends have asked me which ones are about him. we forgive them and point them in this direction. because it is lovely and beautiful that we are all tied to our soulmate for our whole lives before we ever meet them (because that would in fact mean that there is someone out there for everyone which might be naive or dumb but i am both of those things and whats the point of living if you don’t believe in the power of love). this honestly gives me “begin again” vibes in the best way. it’s red-era level with the wisdom of lover-era tay. sublime.

mad woman: the second mention of the “mad woman” as both taylor herself and the character in the story. as usual, tay stays calling out double standards and the manipulation of women into “going crazy” for expressing reasonable anger. I, personally, wish i could say “fuck you forever” without someone saying i’m “overreacting”. this is my least favorite song on the album and i’d still listen to it three times in a row and need to resist the urge to set a man’s lawn on fire. just girly things.

epiphany: i know she said this one is about her grandfather’s experience in the military but all i imagine is a slow montage of harry style’s character in “dunkirk” on the beach. and it’s beautiful. and much like my sophomore in high school self reading “all quiet on the western front” it evokes a pain from deep inside me that engulfs a loss i could never describe and a sadness too awful to witness. you will listen to this song and feel absolutely powerless to the will of the universe and it’s cruelty. and the faint but steady heart monitor beep in the background… i’ve never seen “grey’s anatomy” but i can imagine why it has so many fans sobbing. and let me end on this: two soldiers in some old war (meaning both men based on dunkirk) watching each other like this and living and dying together…gay.

betty: the first verse was pulled directly out of my subconscious fantasy of being in love in high school and it being so wonderful and painful and dramatic. and taylor riding a skateboard… is a mood. the song has been out for less than a week and it’s already a cold take to talk about how this is her gayest song to date (close runner-ups being reputation’s “dress” and “cardigan”). but of course i will still talk about it. the lyrics embody such authentic awkward gay energy (see the lesbian in booksmart for reference) and having been a 17 year old only three years ago, i can say with reasonably good authority that no 17 year old straight boy could stand in front of a crowd of peers and beg forgiveness from a girl he hurt. it’s just not realistic. these are all awkward, over-dramatic, young girls stumbling through love. and it’s awesome. james is the speaker of this song, and the subject of “august”, the summer fling that was never truly there due to james’ love for betty, the titular role of this song. thus completing the love triangle. and there are so many obvious references in this song to both “august” and “cardigan”. rhyming cardigan with car again makes me want to light myself on fire in the best way. i love it. “i dreamt of you all summer long” is the final nail in the coffin for the girl in “august” who was clearly just a place-holder. totally separate from taylor swift, my favorite word is porch. so the amount of times it appears in her lyrics is wonderful. say it out loud. it just feels nice. anyway, this song makes me want to be young and dumb and in love. the second can really only be tolerated because of the first and third. i hope the story has a happy-ending. if james were a boy i’d wish him the plague.

peace: the coming-of-age movie starring james and betty (and inez) is over. we have come to “the age” i guess. there’s a thought that’s gonna fester. if this song was just the line, “would it be enough if i could never give you peace?” over and over for four minutes it would still smash me to pulp and fill my body with helium gas. i can and will cause a car wreck when this comes on the aux. if this song is what being grown up is like (bare in mind grown up to me is like, 30) then i’m ready to be done coming of age. because i already worry if i’ll be at all enough for anyone and way too much for someone at the same time. but like all good poetry, this song isn’t about what it “means”, but how it “feels”. and this is new york city, the summer, pouring rain, a long walk home, desperately fearing and hoping they are there waiting for you.

hoax: a one-sided conversation between me and my stubborn clinical depression. i too, constantly stand alone on the cliff demanding a reason. one has not yet been presented. it operates both within and and against me. i could be bigger and stronger than it. but instead i tend to it like a prickly plant. (“no other sadness in the world will do”). there is nothing both sadder and funnier then the scene in “avatar: the last airbender” when prince zuko stands alone on a cliff screaming at the sky for lightning to strike him. i don’t know why this song reminds me so much of that. what a way to end such an emotional rollercoaster. it is so emotionally draining that it simply forces me to start folklore again from the top and listen to it all over again.  or take a long therapeutic nap.

there are no skips. and it will still surprise you on your 267th listen. proceed with caution.

i knew you, in a past life maybe. i have not met you yet, but folklore has made me believe you exist.

@taylorswift 10/10 good work

@taylornation this had to be shared and i don’t have a twitter so