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sunsetkerr · 10 months ago

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Hi there! I got a question:

I've seen a few things with the whole Sam situation and, honestly, I've got no idea what's happening. Would you mind explaining it, because I feel so stupid not knowing anything about what's happening💀

hi love! I am probably not the best person to explain this whole thing, but I will try to the best of my ability! I've broken this up into sections so my brain can compute it all lol.

this is a long post.. so strap in!

(I'm also going to reference this shit so people don't get upset with me)

The Incident / The Accusing / PC Lovell

So January 30th 2023, there is a dispute around a taxi-fare in Twickenham, South-West London. Sam was accused by the attending officer of "[using] insulting, threatening or abusive words that caused alarm or distress to a Metropolitan Police officer who was responding to a complaint involving a taxi fare".

There is zero mention of the case until yesterday (5th of March, in Australia).

We are now aware that the attending officer who accused Sam has been identified in court as, PC Lovell.

(Now, @moonystoes posted a lot of information here, if you would like to read it- and that is where I am getting this next lot of information from.)

There is an officer named PC Lovell, who we will now refer to with the number 1 for clarity, that has been accused, and I believe convicted, of some horrid things in Avon and Somerset (2 hours and 33 minutes away from where the alleged incident occurred).

These incidents include, posting revenge p*rn of three different women, sending unsolicited nude photos to a number of his female colleagues and acted in a described 'predatory' manner towards a cadet who was a minor at the time. He has been given both verbal and written warnings in 2006 and 2016 for his actions.

However, an anonymous person came forwards and communicated with @moonystoes that there is a PC Lovell (2) that works in Surrey (20 minutes away from where the alleged incident occurred), and another PC Lovell (3) that lives in Reading (50 minutes away from where the alleged incident occurred).

!There is no knowledge on if these officers are the same person!

So please, do not jump to conclusions as people do not want to be dismissing the claims on an innocent man.

There is lots of speculation that if it is PC Lovell (1) from Avon & Somerset, that the claims and allegations against Sam could hold little validity, due to his past.

But please remember, we are not aware of the full story and these allegations against Sam are serious and not to be taken lightly. Racism is a serious issue and is not okay. Please take caution when approaching this issue and be kind.

The Case / The Law / Potential Imprisonment / Comments from Football Australia and her Coaches

Sam's teams original defence has been reported as this: "she didn’t intend to cause alarm, harassment or distress to the officer and that her behaviour did not amount to it and it was not racially aggravated".

If Sam is convicted, these are the laws that will be applied: "Under Section 4 or 4a of the Public Order Act 1986, under which she was charged, the racially or religiously aggravated version of an offence can attract a maximum penalty on summary conviction, which is six months imprisonment or an unlimited fine or both."

Football Australia and Matildas Coach, Tony Gustavsson have only just found out about the news at the same time that the public did. There has been talk about stripping Sam of her captaincy, but this has not come from Football Australia themselves, they have denied it.

Football Australia CEO, James Johnson, has communicated that he will not be asking Sam to stand down from her captaincy. This has been decided due to the fact that she (most likely) will not be playing for the remainder of the year as she recovers from her ACL injury.

Johnson also said this about Sam: "Sam has rights as an individual. She has pleaded not guilty. I think we need to remember that and we need to respect that.” // “I haven’t spoken to Sam other than a text message just to check in on her well being at the moment because she is an employee of ours and also a player.”

Tony Gustavsson had this to say: “I can’t comment on the offence because there’s a legal matter at this point. The only thing I can comment is my experience and interaction with Sam as a person and as a footballer, and I have only positive experience with that,”.

The Defence / Throwing the Case out

Moving onto the case itself, Sam's team is now fighting (as of the 6th of March, Australia) to get the case thrown out before it reaches the court date, which is February 3rd 2025.

On April 26th, Sam's defence team is going back into court and fighting to get the case thrown out after it took over 12 months to even lay the charge on Sam.

"Court documents released on Tuesday show their plan is to argue an abuse of process by Crown prosecutors after it took almost 12 months to lay the charge."

So until April, we most likely will not know anymore information. Again, please remain kind. These are not allegations to be taken lightly.

Hopefully this answered any questions that you had! The articles that I got this information from are linked below for your convenience.

Much love, celeste

Articles:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-06/sam-kerr-criminal-charge-no-comment-from-fa-chelsea/103550968

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/kerr-s-legal-team-seeks-to-have-charge-dismissed-over-abuse-of-process-20240306-p5fa5b.html

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/samantha-kerr-to-face-trial-in-england-accused-of-harassing-police-officer-report-20240305-p5f9up.html

https://www.news.com.au/sport/football/plan-to-turn-sam-kerrs-racism-saga-on-its-head-emerges/news-story/645078ee226373d13a19e84284d5958e

https://www.foxsports.com.au/football/matildas/sam-has-rights-football-aus-responds-as-matildas-coach-blindsided-by-kerr-allegation/news-story/6b1bc996c897856bb0ebd8e8f1f90038

https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/samantha-kerr-to-face-trial-in-england-accused-of-harassing-police-officer-report-20240305-p5f9up.html

#asks • . * .#sam kerr

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simptasia · 1 year ago

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I was actually going to send an ask about that cause i was talking with a friend recently, and we were talking about how much we love that Charlie was Made Mancunian instead of something like a Londoner as I know they were going for the Britpop/Oasis 'troubled British musician' aesthetic, but Mancunians are like some of the nicest people in the UK, its gotta be that tram. We were talking about How they never met, but if they did, how Charlotte and Charlie could have formed a really funny friendship due to that North/South Divide. Like people joke but as someone from the UK that north-south divide is nasty, like you tell someone from the North you're moving to London they look at you like you've gone insane/Bonkers if you will. I cannot overstate just how snarky that friendship would be. Especially since Charlotte is from Sussex, a manc like Charlie is going to be bullying her as soon as she walks through the door. Like the poorest part of Sussex still gets more money than the most deprived part of Manchester, which also leads me to believe due to how it is, both Naomi and Charlie's snark might have a lil venom in it due to it really is a battlefield between Northerns and Southerners. Desmond also like Desmond is half Peruvian which is probably why he isn't like this, but I'm surprised he doesn't just full ham sarcastic talking to other British characters again that north-south divide is nasty, and he's a Scotsman everyone south of him is a southerner even Charlie and Naomi who were probably like a three-hour car drive away. My final point is i really think it would have been funny as to an American audience and every non-British character (Except people like Daniel who spent time in the UK ) it must look like a really advanced form of hate like imagine seeing people with nonsense accents bully someone else who lives an hour away with a nonsense accent cause they get their drinking water from caves instead of vast lakes.

miles: whoa naomi and charlotte really hate each other huh

daniel, who knows better: they're good friends actually

miles: [confused in american] ???

alas lost was written by americans who had no idea of the nuances of british culture. like, the only reason charlie specifically has manc energy is because it comes from dom's own brick soaked soul

like without being told, i am sure than it was dom's idea for charlie to coo over baffonee pie, a beloved northern dessert

(that's banana and toffee pie, babes!)

i woulda loved to have known how they woulda written charlie interacting with my beloved science trio. sure it wouldn't have been my delightfully indulgent internal fanfics but I Want it

i think des never made any playful jabs about charlie being english because he's not the type of person to give a fuck. yes i know the rivalries run deep but des is 1. pretty non-judgemental, 2. he has more important things to care about and 3. english pussy got him acting unwise. uh basically class and money divide fucks over des' mind, not country/culture divide

the show was never equipped to handle this so this is just my imagination but it seems more like charlie would be the one who cares about things like where you're from. not in a nasty way, but he'd at least think about it. his relationship with that posh girl lucy would have, deep down, made him feel worthless. espech with charlie's fixation on Taking Care Of His Loved Ones

and charlie being a manc really does add a lot to his character in ways i doubt the writers even realised. the dream version of megan pace cooing to charlie that he's going to save them with his musical talent, like he grew up with this need to make himself better than how he started. the punk aspects of him also tie into him being a manc because the Fuck The System and I Wanna Escape attitudes are super fucking common amongst northerners. it's a running joke that northerners suffer and whine all the time. charlie is a very northern character, almost stereotypically so. this is partly cuz of dom and partly cuz they based him on aspects of the northern music scene

i'm not saying all northerners are whiny angry little punk bitches. but charlie is and him being a manc adds like, a layer to it? also also the intersection between lower class english views of masculinity + the idea that charlie is bi and trans is utterly fascinating to me

but i digress. i don't get to talk about charlie being from the north enough, partly because like, i know most lost fans are americans who would just be smiling and nodding dumbfounded as i meme'd

but i do like to be educational. long story short, guys? manchester is a highly industrial part of the north of england and is riddled with poverty and violence and basically everybody who lives there are like the most depressed people in england (dom himself has expressed that he's proud to be a mancurian but happy he escaped)

so, like, manchester is the detroit of england. i hope that helps

#lost is an american show so they can bring up nuances of american culture #like michael pointing out that where he's from black people and koreans don't get along #but at the risk of sounding condescending #a lot of americans don't know shit about UK history and dynamics #except maybe knowing that england and ireland no beuno #and thats not ur faults its a lack of education or a lack of watching british media (which is a shame)#also like i dunno everything either. i have no idea why the north and south of england hate each other #just that they do. im sure its about something stupid #maybe it was wars. maybe its a class thing. maybe its run of the mill ''You Talk Different Than Me So Fuck You''#i've mainly heard the jokes #like that all southerners are sadists and all northerners are masochists #anyways im rambling. thanks for the messages

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theshelbyclan · 2 years ago

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Trust Issues

Summary: While Yelena is waiting patiently, you have the growing feeling you are being followed (part 3)

A/N: Part 3 already! Thanks so much to everyone who’s supported me on this one; it means the world to me :)

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

Words: 1724

*****

When Yelena woke up the next morning, you were gone. She got up and called out your name, but no answer came. Then she checked the different rooms, while trying to suppress the worry she felt growing inside of her, but you weren’t there. “I’ll make you some breakfast, little fish,” she spoke out loud to the empty apartment, “Maybe you’ll be hungry when you get back.”

Meanwhile, you were walking around London. For the last couple of weeks, you’d gotten to know the city well. It was a strange place, almost opposite of Berlin where you’d stayed before London, but you liked this city better. Maybe Berlin had been a bit too nice for you.

You pulled the hoody you had on over your eyes. Eyeing the people carefully, you were always checking if no one paid a little more attention to you than they should. Most people assumed you were any regular school girl, on your way home or whatever. For a second, you’d even contemplated buying a school uniform to blend in even more. But you didn’t think you’d need it, because who really watches some preteen in a black hoody? London was overcrowded with them.

“Hi, John,” you greeted the old man by the door. With a small smile, you entered the church.

The reverend granted you a bigger smile, “Good morning, have you come for the service?”

“Just the music,” you replied, as you’d done every day so far, even though it wasn’t true.

Slowly, you made your way to the back of the church. The first time you’d ended up here was when you’d only been in London for 24 hours. As a city, it had overwhelmed you and all of a sudden you’d found it hard to remember your training and how to adapt. But then you noticed the old building and a seemingly even older Anglican priest that left the doors unlocked for the homeless to sleep inside, and you’d found solace there. You told him you came for the music, but it was the atmosphere of the place and the prayers that managed to calm you down just as much.

After Morning Prayer, the few people that had attended hurried off to work, but you lingered. Somehow, it was always hard to leave and enter the real world again. The reverend took this moment as an invitation and sat down next to you.

You looked at him carefully and smiled a little shyly.

“What do you like best about my church?”

You pointed upwards, towards the south windows, “Those. The birds in the window.”

“I like those too,” he nodded. He was soft and familiar, like a grandfather almost. You lived by certain rules and one of those was to never let anyone get too close or take a special interest in you, but you’d broken your own laws here. He continued, “What about that one, next to your birds. What do you think of that one?”

You followed his pointing finger and asked, “What is that?”

“It’s a wounded raven,” he explained. “The window was damaged during the war and they replaced it with this one, to commemorate it.”

“The raven’s been shot with an arrow,” you squinted, “but the wound would not have been fatal. Not straight away.”

He looked down at you and frowned, “You know an awful lot about hunting for a city girl.”

You cast your eyes downwards and cursed yourself for talking too much. Instead you mumbled, “I’m not a city girl.”

“Oh, I know.”

Again, you’d betrayed yourself. Just shut up, you told yourself.

And it was like he could read your mind: “Don’t worry, I won’t ask you all sorts of prying questions. But just tell me this, if you can: are you safe?”

You wanted to tell him ‘no’. In fact, you wanted to shout out ‘no!’ You wanted to ask him for help and beg him to take you away and plead with him to take you in, but you knew you couldn’t. Not only could you never get the words out, but it would also mean putting his life in danger.

“You’re not, are you?” he filled in, observing you with sad eyes.

“I think I might be soon,” you told him, partially to comfort him and partially believing yourself too, “My sister is coming for me.”

*****

About an hour later, you climbed in nimbly through the window.

“Hi!” Yelena called out, over the sizzling of the full English breakfast she was cooking, although with a Russian twist to it. “You are hungry. I knew you would be.”

You didn’t speak, but sat down at the table. And for a moment you wondered: is this what having a family feels like?

Yelena walked over to the table and placed a plate piled with food in front of you. Eagerly, you started eating.

“Rybochka, eat slowly. I won’t take your food.”

You looked at her through your eyelashes and continued wolfing down the breakfast. Then you told her, “Don’t you remember?”

“The Red Room?” she asked nonchalantly. “Yes, I remember. They used to reward us with food and take it away just as easily.” “Exactly.”

“The Red Room is gone,” and she offered you more food by way of proof.

You took it enthusiastically.

Yelena watched you while you ate. After a while she wondered out loud, “Where did you go?” “Church.” The word had left your mouth before you could stop it.

“Ha!” she laughed, “Why? God won’t help you.”

“Maybe he will,” you shrugged, picking up a piece of bacon defiantly.

The widow narrowed her eyes and emphasised, “If there is a God, he isn’t there for us.”

“How do you know?”

Yelena seemed to think about this for a long time. Then she confessed, “When they locked me up, I used to pray.”

“So did I.”

“And what happened?” she asked, with a small smile playing about her lips. “Nothing,” you answered, as the images of your ruined childhood flashed across your eyes. “I may believe in God, but I’m not sure he believes in me.”

Yelena nodded slowly and let you finish the rest of your breakfast in silence. Finally, you decided to break the silence again, “Did you talk to your sister? What does she want with me?”

The blonde dug a small knife from her pocket and started carving her initials into the table. Absentmindedly, she said, “It depends. Do you have anyone?”

“No.” You suddenly felt very small. She looked at you with sudden sympathy. It’s funny, you realised, with Yelena it always seemed as if her mind was elsewhere and like she didn't really care, but then, all of a sudden, she was all emotion, every emotion. Like she was now: “You have me.”

“What are you to me?” You tried to keep the emotion out of your voice.

“I am like you, little fish, I am the only one like you.”

You eyed her in silence.

“But you do not know yet if you can trust me.” “I don’t,” you confirmed.

Yelena handed you her knife, “This is the only weapon I have. You are the only one armed now.”

“Liar,” you smirked, and you pointed at her sleeve. “Fine, have this one also.” She handed you her second throwing knife.

You narrowed your eyes at her even more, but you couldn’t help but smile a little too. This felt like a game now, a game that only child assassins knew how to play.

Yelena threw up her hands in mock defeat and played along, “Again, I lie! You caught me!” She stood up and fished a small revolver out of her pants, and put it down on the table.

There was no way you could keep the mirth from your face now, “Were you any good at the ballet taught in the Red Room?”

“I was not graceful enough,” she shrugged, “Madame B, she called me a svinya.”

You snorted in laughter. Sitting back, you demanded, “Go on. Do a pas de chat.”

She got up and awkwardly performed the leap. As she did, a few rounds of ammunition fell from her pockets. You clapped your hands excitedly and exclaimed like a child, “I knew it!”

Yelena grinned, “Knew what? That I was always bad at ballet or that I still had more weapons on me?”

“Both,” you smirked smugly.

“Vseznayka,” she winked at you, before reaching out to try and grab you playfully. You jumped out of the way with a giddy squeal. You couldn’t remember the last time you played, really played, without fearing for what would come next. And all of a sudden, you paused and it brought tears to your eyes.

“Oh, detka,” Yelena breathed when she saw, “Come here.” And before you could protest, she’d pulled you in for a hug. “Don’t be afraid. I understand.”

You relaxed in her arms and let your head fall against her chest, basking in the sense of safety you felt. It was so strange to you, so unfamiliar, yet so warm.

After a few moments, she carefully asked, “Do you want to come with me?”

“To your sister? The one in New York?”

“Yes, we could go see Natasha,” Yelena mused, “And then you could help me track down the other Widows. The ones that still need saving.”

You pulled yourself back and looked up at the older girl, “What would Natasha think of me coming with you?” Obviously, you’d never talked to the other Widow, but you’d quickly realised that Yelena held her in high regard and that she called the shots from wherever she was. And in some strange way, this made you look up to Natasha already.

Yelena scrunched her nose a little in a comical manner, “She would probably tell me that I am putting you in unnecessary danger.”

“I’m already in danger,” you shrugged.

“Thank you!” she threw up her hands like someone finally agreed with her, “Please call my sister and tell her that!”

“I’ll help you,” you decided, “but not just in helping the other girls.”

Yelena looked at you with questioning eyes.

“The Red Room may be gone, but the people behind the operation are still there. We need to dismantle the entire system.”

“Tell me.”

You chewed your lip nervously. “Someone was following me on my way to the church. I think they know I’m here.”

*****

Masterlist

#yelena #yelena belova x sister!reader #yelena belova #natasha romanoff #yelena x natasha #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff x platonic!reader #natasha x y/n #natasha x reader #yelena x reader #marvel imagine #marvel #marvel x reader #marvel fanfic #avengers x child!reader #avengers #avengers x y/n #avengers x platonic reader #the avengers

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classical-crap · 4 years ago

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Black Classical Composers

I’ve been searching for lesser-known works recently, and I stumbled upon a ton of music written by composers of african descent. I was listening to a work by one of these composers on youtube and I saw this comment:

and I thought it would be a good start to just make people aware that these composers exist.

so, I am only listing black composers who have at least some works in the public domain for this post (usually means music published before the 1920s), so that way any musicians who read this can find at least some sheet music on imslp, learn the music, and perform it for others. so here’s just 10 of the great composers I found:

1. samuel coleridge-taylor: he was born in 1875 and died in 1912. he was born in london, where his mother lived, and his father was from sierra leone. he was quickly recognized as a prodigy and he went on to become a very successful composer, often being compared to mahler.

here is one of my favorite works by him, the hiawatha overture

here is his wikipedia bio, which is fascinating, and here is a link to free sheet music written by him on imslp. he was a great violinist, and he has a lot written for the instrument.

2. avril coleridge-taylor: she was samuel coleridge-taylor’s daughter and become a conductor and composer, which was no small feat for a woman in the early 1900s. however, I was not able to find much about her. I found a pretty lengthy list of compositions, but very few links to recordings or sheet music, possibly because she sometimes wrote under the pseudonym of peter riley.

I found one unlisted youtube video with some of her vocal songs, but that’s all I found.

here is her wikipedia page, and if you can find more about her (links to public domain sheet music or more performances), please add it to this post.

3. ignatius sancho: even if you’re not interested in classical music, ignatius sancho is such an important figure in black history. he was born in 1729 and died in 1780, he was a composer, actor, and writer, and he was bluntly against slavery. you can read more on his wikipedia page.

here is a recording of one of his minuets transcribed for guitar

he has a small amount of sheet music on imslp, which includes the sheet music for the minuet above.

4. amanda aldridge: her story is so cool. her father was a professional actor who was famous for playing shakespearean roles, amanda was an opera singer herself, and her siblings were also musicians and singers. amanda was particularly accomplished. she studied voice under the famous jenny lind at the royal college of music, and she later lost her voice, but she still remained a reputable teacher and composer.

it’s difficult to find works and recordings, but this video has a brief biography and performances of some of her vocal pieces.

she has only two works on imslp. I believe that many of her works are out of print, and if you can find more of her works, please add them to this post.

5. scott joplin: not exactly a classical composer, but probably the most well-known name on this list, and for good reason. he wrote fantastic music and was known as the king of ragtime, which is a genre that eventually evolved into jazz and swing. you can read more about his life on his wiki page.

here’s his famous maple leaf rag

he has tons of works on imslp, and these are a great resource for pianists.

6. chevalier de saint-georges: he was a fencer, composer, colonel, violinist, and conductor. he is the first known classical composer of african ancestry.

here is a really beautiful recording of one of his violin duos, played by a world-class violinist.

here is his wikipedia bio, and here is a link to the limited amount of works he has on imslp. other sheet music is available here, but it’s not free.

7. robert nathaniel dett: he was born in canada in 1882 and moved to the united states when he was 11. he got his education there and had a successful career, which included performances at boston symphony hall and carnegie hall.

here is an excerpt from his magnolia suite for piano, probably one of the prettiest pieces of piano music I’ve heard in a while

he has a good amount of sheet music available for free on imslp

and here is his wikipedia page

8. clarence cameron white: white was a neoromantic (a genre of classical music that came about in the early 20th century) composer and violinist. his early music was heavily influenced by african-american spirituals.

here’s one of his early pieces

here is his wikipedia page, and his imslp page, which only has two works.

9. florence price: price was the first african-american woman to have one of her pieces performed by a major symphony orchestra, and I’ve recently seen some of her works performed by other major symphonies. she wrote classical music, but it’s heavily influenced by her southern upbringing. she was also very religious, and drew upon the music she heard in african-american churches.

here is a wonderful recording of her second violin concerto, which is steadily becoming a more popular piece

here is her wikipedia bio, and a limited amount of works on imslp

10. thomas wiggins: also known as “blind tim wiggins.” his biography is the hardest to read. he and his family were enslaved to the first newspaper editor in the south who was openly in favor of southern succession. when they found out thomas was blind, they considered killing him because he couldn’t do work, but they decided against it. they later found out that tom had a knack for music. he could imitate every sound he heard, and when he was granted access to the piano, he played it every hour that he could. he was a true prodigy. he toured the states and europe performing and earned an enormous amount of money, which was not given to him.

he also likely had autism, but at the time, it was not recognized. ultimately, he was an incredibly talented man who was taken advantage of. he wrote music that was used by the confederacy, so he was criticized by many black newspapers. ultimately, I believe he was just someone who really loved music and any pro-slavery themes attached to his music were not truly his doing.

here is one of the beautiful piano pieces he left behind

here is his wikipedia page, and the small amount of music availabe on imslp

again, that was only ten black composers who were writing music between the early 1700s and mid 1900s. there are many more. some lost to history, others who wrote under pseudonyms and we may never know their true identities, but there are some like the ones above who simply need more recognition for their accomplishments and contributions to history.

please add more information and links to this post!

#music #classical music #orchestra #violin #viola #cello #bass #sheet music #classical composers #black lives matter #black history #piano

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natromanxoff · 3 years ago

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Mercury Roadrunner's Interview about Freddie Mercury with Peter Freestone – Part I

Thanks very much to Mercury Roadrunner (Pavel Strashnyy) for letting me share his amazing interviews! Originally shared here. Check the tag "MR interview with Phoebe" to see the other parts.

Here are the 5 topics of this interview, beginning of each topic is written in bold:

1. Live Aid

2. The Works tour

3. "Mr. Bad Guy" album and recording period

4. "Heaven For Everyone", Freddie's habits about listening to music, opinions on Madonna, Montserrat

5. Swimming and memories about Los Angeles, Ibiza, Japan

Mercury Roadrunner: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We welcome you to the unofficial Russian Queen fan club special program. You can find our website at www.vk.com/queenrocks. I am knownn as Mercury Roadrunner. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Queen. And I’m very happy to say that this evening we have a very, very special guest here with us, and it is an opera critic, a book lover, biographer and writer, and close friend, confident and personal assistant of Freddie Mercury, Mr Peter Freestone. Hello, Peter. How are you? Peter Freestone: Hi. I am… okay. I’m good, I’m good. What can I say? I’m good. PS: You are good and you are very happy to join the other Queen fans who would be very happy to hear you finally talking. And the first topic is about your personal memories. It’s a historic date but what are your own personal memories of 13th of July, the Live Aid day, what were your feelings in general on that day? PF: For me, I suppose, it was just another show… [laughs] PS: Really? PF: Because I worked for Freddie and he was going to do a show. I didn’t separate that from all the other performers that were going to be there, that made it such an incredible day. And not only in London, when they were also performing in America as well at the same time. When the satellite was showing something from London, then it showed something from Philadelphia, then back to London again. So to say, for me it was… another day. It wasn’t even as though there were such a big show because we’d played stadiums in South America. So, it wasn’t the size of the audience. I suppose, when it really struck me what was happening was when the band went onto stage. And the roar from the crowd was absolutely amazing. Again, it wasn’t so different from normal shows because they’d actually rehearsed for their twenty minutes. You know, there was four days’ rehearsal. So to say, it was normal, it was normal work, it was a short show. But then, thing is, it was in daylight and Freddie could actually see the audience. And from the back of the stage, we could look through holes in the back, you know, the screen in the back. And we could see what the band could see. And… then it sort of struck me that, actually, this is something very special. And then I was really so very, very proud of them. At the end of their set, when, again, the audience reaction was indescribable. What they had done in those twenty minutes, they had picked up the whole audience, shook it around and put them back down again. PS: Indeed. PF: So, yeah, that was what I felt. PS: And do you remember some of Freddie’s jokes, maybe, during the day, the way he interacted with other superstars, like David Bowie or others? PF: The thing is, he [Freddie] was just one person amongst his peers, you know. All of the bands were names, they were bands. And the thing I have found, and this goes all the way – the real professionals are the most normal, approachable people on earth. It’s the wannabes who have the attitude of “Don’t you know who I am?” and who behave like stars, because stars behave like human beings. Real stars, they can be just like the rest of us. There was a time when Freddie just wanted to be on his own, you know, with just his friends, with his group of people. But I mean, there’s a few photographs of him chatting with various people, like Elton John and David Bowie. I remember seeing them with him, and Adam Ant. And, of course, he had friends along; I think Wayne Sleep was there as well. In his life, he [Freddie] needed people around him that made him laugh. And so, he still had that. David Bowie and he had been friends for so long. Elton [and he] had been friends for even longer. So, it was actually a chance for them to sit and catch up rather than, you know, being in front of the world press. They liked to spend time on their own, you know, talking to each other, really talking, not putting on a show. PS: So, I imagine that backstage on that day Freddie felt pretty much joyful and relaxed, right? PF: Yeah, on the day of the show, I never really saw Freddie nervous…

because, the thing is, it was too late by then [to be nervous]. You know, there was no point in being nervous anymore because the show was going to go on whether you were nervous or not. So, why be nervous? Just, you know, get on and do the show, enjoy yourself. PS: And do you remember, where did the idea of Freddie and Roger joining the Band Aid on stage in the final song, “Do They Know It’s Christmas”, came from? Or was it totally a spontaneous idea for them to join the others? PF: I think the idea at that point was that anybody who was around, who would stay on to the end – because don’t forget the show had started in the afternoon, so not everybody was going to be waiting – but then anybody who was left, who wanted to join, could go and join. There was no strict “You must do this, you have to do this, you have to be there”. It’s “If you want to, by all means come and do it.” PS: And we even have a picture of both of you, Freddie and you, on that day when Freddie wears a white shirt for “Is This The World That We Created”, and you stand right next to him and it’s a beautiful picture. PF: And Queen were the only band that actually kept their dressing room. Because all the other bands had to vacate their dressing room half an hour after they’d performed, so that the next band could come and use it. But because Brian and Freddie were performing “Is This The World That We Created” at the end, they got to keep their dressing room from the time they arrived. [laughs] PS: So they spent the rest of the day after the show in their dressing room? PF: Well, in or around their dressing room, yes. PS: They, like, had their Royal Queen place there. PF: That’s it. Anybody else had to go into the Hard Rock Café. There had to be a tent, you know, hospitality tent there. And most people ended up in there because they were not allowed into their dressing rooms, they didn’t have dressing rooms after that. So… that also helped Freddie relax. [laughs] PS: Like, his little bit of his own, right? PF: Yes. PS: All right. So, the second topic is about you, Peter. And you are credited as a “band party” member on The Works tour. Can you please clarify what a band party meaning is? Because I am assuming it’s like an entourage but it will be nice to hear the expanded definition from you. PF: Yeah, the band party, I think, was about ten or twelve people. It was the band members, their assistants – me, Chris Taylor was there, and Paul Prenter was there. If Jim Beach was on the tour at the time, he would have been part of the band party too. And some of the time Gerry Stickells was there. But often he would be ahead, making sure that everything was ready for when the band arrived. But that was it. There was about ten people. And there were baggage tags for each member of the band party. That’s why I know because I had Number 9, I think. And there were about twelve, I think, altogether, because at one point at the beginning I used to have to collect the band party baggage, so that’s why I always knew which were, even though I wouldn’t know whose bag was what. It would have one of these crew tags on it, so I just picked up and I knew that there were going to be twenty bags, so I just picked the twenty bags. But they were easy to identify because of these tags. PS: I see. And what is your own favourite memory about The Works tour and about this time, like, 1984, 1985? Maybe the Rio shows? PF: Yeah, I mean Rio was… amazing. The feeling from that crowd… you know, something like 350,000 people. Oh, you can’t beat that. And when you’re flying in a helicopter over that crowd, it was stunning. But the thing is, I know this sounds really, really stupid but [laughs]… one thing I will always, always remember from that tour was, remember, in the back of the stage you had these wheels that turned every now and then, not constantly but just every now and then. That was because there was… the guy looking after Roger’s drums and me who actually turned those wheels. And there was no set cue or anything that, “Oh, it has to start on this bar, on this song.” No, it

was when he wasn’t doing anything and I wasn’t doing anything, we’d say “Ok, let’s go and do it.” And we turned the wheels for a couple of minutes and then left them alone. He had then to do something for Roger and I would just sit there like I always did. And then you’d go back and you’d turn the wheels, like a hamster. We were like hamsters… So, that’s my memory of The Works tour. PS: And how technically did you operate those wheels? How was it possible? PF: With your hands. You just grabbed hold, you know, because it was like cogs on a wheel, and you just grabbed hold of them. Because we would be behind, I mean, I was always on John Deacon’s side, so I was hidden behind his bass setup. And you just pulled on the cogs because the whole wheel was on a metal axle and you just held there and you just pulled it down. PS: And the wheels actually were the real wheels, the big ones, right? PF: The very big ones in the back that moved, yeah. And they were made of, I think, polystyrene and plywood. So they weren’t very heavy. PS: So it was, like, actually you taking a part in the show, like, directing this? PF: Yes, I mean, you know, this is how things used to work in the old days before half of you were born. [laughs] You had to use your hands. I don’t think that a Queen tour as it is now is manual anymore. Everything is “push buttons” in it. PS: Yes, so it was indeed like the works, you had to work to make it work, right? PF: Yes, but nobody knew that’s how it works. They just saw these wheels turning every now and then. PS: It’s like a kind of magic indeed… PF: Yes, this was the whole thing with the Queen show – that people saw things happening but didn’t try and think “Oh, how do they do that?” If I see a big show now, I just think “How do they do that?” You’re not listening to the music anymore, you’re thinking “How do they get this to move? How do they get that?” But in the old days, you never did that, you just saw it move and it was part of the show. PS: You were just enjoying it, you didn’t have the time to analyse it. PF: Yeah. PS: I see. That’s a great memory, Peter. So, the third topic is about Freddie’s solo album, “Mr. Bad Guy” Freddie firstly wanted to name his solo album Made In Heaven and he even mentions that title in an interview with David Wigg. Why did he later decide to call it Mr Bad Guy? PF: I think he felt that Mr Bad Guy represented him more than Made In Heaven. And the lyrics to that song, everything. It sort of was very much about him. I think that’s why it changed. I actually love that song because it is real orchestra on it. And I was in the studio. I mean, it’s not a massive studio, so what they had to do, they had to record each section, so the strings section was there and recorded all their parts. And they went out. And woodwind recorded all their parts. Then brass recorded their parts. Then timpani came in and recorded. You know, they could not do everything together, so it was actually really quite complicated. But the end result, I think, is great. It reminds me very, very much of “The Carnival of the Animals”, the old classical piece. That was written by Camille Saint-Saëns. But that is what I’m immediately reminded of when I listen to “Mr Bad Guy”, you know. [starts to hum the song] You know, all the different pieces of the orchestra doing it, repeating it. Now, that for me is my favourite part. PS: I also enjoy it, I adore it. It’s truly a work of art from Freddie. PF: Yes, definitely, definitely. And I agree with him because it does represent him, multifaceted. You know, you never expect… He never gives you something that you expect. He always gives you something that will surprise you. PS: Yes. And why bad guy, why do you think Mr Bad Guy? Why bad? PF: Because… anytime in the press, there was never anything saying what a lovely man he is. So why not live up to his reputation? PS: Yes, it’s like “Yes, I’m everybody’s Mr Bad Guy,” yes. PF: Yes, this is it. This is what people want to believe, so this is what I will be. PS: Yes. And why do you think his first title was exactly not some

other track title but exactly “Made In Heaven”? Why was his first idea about exactly this song, to call the album this way? PF: I don’t know, I really cannot answer that one for you. I don’t know why he thought of that. Maybe he thought that would be the most popular track. A very popular track. PS: Yeah, it’s a hit song, totally remindful, yeah. And what was Freddie mostly like during the recording? What’s your favourite memory of him in this period? PF: That’s a lot more difficult because it was a difficult time. Munich. It took him far too long to create it. In the end, he was more interested in going out and spending time with Barbara Valentin than he was in creating work. I mean, the amount of time… he would turn up in the studio at two o’clock. Because he always turned up at two o’clock. It was pointless staying or coming at ten because he wouldn’t. And the thing is, it’s a singer’s voice, he’s not really ready to use [it] until later on in the afternoon. Once he’s warmed up properly and everything else. But the thing is, by four o’clock the phone would be ringing and Barbara was bored, so Freddie would run over and go out with her. So it was hard. And sometimes it felt like he was forcing himself to enjoy himself. Because he also felt bad, because he knew he should have been working, but he was letting his arm be twisted very, very, very easily. Yeah, I mean, okay, yes, he did enjoy himself when he was with Barbara, but he also had in the back of his mind that he was supposed to be working. PS: But the final result, I think, is totally great, he’s so much presented there. PF: It wasn’t the commercial success that people were expecting, but I think Freddie was happy with it in the end. PS: Yeah, it’s, like, his self-portrait songs. PF: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It got that music out of his system so that when he was back with Queen he was thinking more of the band stuff than, you know, things that the band would be happy with and just him happy with. Also, the thing is, Freddie did miss the rest of the band. He would never admit it but if you listen to some of the instrumentals on some of his solo tracks you could imagine Brian playing the guitar, you could imagine John playing the bass. You know, he missed having the band around him. PS: I see, I see. Even though it was his only first experience as his solo work, he already missed the other boys. PF: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the thing is, all his recording before Mr. Bad Guy had always been with other people around. You know, even when he was producing the Peter Straker album, he had friends around him doing things. This was him on his own and it was all on his shoulders. PS: Yeah, and he worked on this album perfectly, it’s absolutely a masterpiece, yeah. So, the fourth topic is about Freddie’s and Roger’s connection. There is a story that Freddie heard Roger’s song “Heaven For Everyone” and he liked it so much that he wanted to sing it, and in the end The Cross, Roger Taylor’s band, released a version with Freddie’s vocals on it. And do you remember, had Freddie ever listened to Roger’s solo albums at home? PF: Freddie didn’t really listen to very much of anybody’s music at home. The only thing I remember... well, okay, yes, I remember putting on videos of Prince. But, musically, we would put on, we would buy every one that came out. It was a series of CD’s and albums, of course, before the CD’s, Now That’s What I Call Music. And what it would be, would be the sort of top hits of two months or something. And they would all be on Now That’s What I Call Music 1, then Now That’s What I Call Music 2. I think it’s on to Now That’s What I Call Music 373 at the moment. I don’t know. That was the music that he would put on, it was the music of the time. Because, you know, for his own music, for Queen music, that was work for him. And what concerns Freddie listening to Roger’s albums - probably what it would’ve been he would’ve listened to it when he and Roger met up. But it wouldn’t necessarily be at home they would put on the album. They would meet up and Roger would say,

“Oh, you must hear, listen to this, you have to hear this. This is something I’ve been working on,” you know, that sort of thing. PS: I see. And, you mentioned Freddie enjoying Prince, and it connects me with the fifth topic and it’s about the musician of the same age as Prince and it’s, like, a connection of Freddie Mercury from Queen and the Queen of Pop who is known as Madonna. What was Freddie’s attitude to Madonna? Because it’s almost impossible to imagine that he never ever mentioned her or never talked about her. PF: He admired her as… a woman surviving and winning in basically a man’s world. Yeah, because she was a power. And for that he admired her. Some of the music he quite liked. But there’s also the other side of the coin. Freddie, for all he was, had one security with him whenever he went out or everything. And Freddie felt that Madonna was actually attracting attention to herself rather than protecting herself. When she would go running in Hyde Park with ten security, you know, he said, “If she went with one person, people wouldn’t even notice her, but because she’s got ten people around her, then the whole world is going to notice. And you are best safe not like that but if you have just one person.” So, I mean, for that side he didn’t understand her thinking, but for her musical acumen and for her performance he thought she was fine, she was good. PS: And what is your personal attitude to Madonna? Do you like her? PF: Again, some of the things she’s done I think are very, very good. I don’t know, the more recent stuff I’m not so keen on. But all the first ten years or whatever of her stuff, I loved it. Yeah. Because, again, she never copied, she always did her own thing, and she never repeated herself. And I love originality. PS: And what is your own favourite memory about Freddie and Montserrat, Barcelona story in general? PF: I suppose it would have to be the actual recording of “Barcelona” because that was the first track that was completed. Freddie had sent Montserrat a tape giving her a guide vocal. Mike Moran had written out the music for her and sent it. So when she came in, when she arrived, she was fully, fully prepared for what was going to happen. But I remember being with Freddie after she’d done the first tape of her vocals for Barcelona, and… there were almost, almost, I mean, there were tears down his face. He was saying, “I now have the greatest voice in the world singing my music.” And that will always stay with me, always. PS: I see, so it was, like, very deep for him. And what is your favourite memory of Montserrat as a person? PF: Ah, a lot of memories. I went to pick her up at the airport, took her to the hotel, I would go and meet her at the hotel, go with her to the studio, all of that sort of things. And I was only in the studio when Montserrat was there. And when she was actually putting her vocal tracks down, the track was basically finished. I saw her so many times after the recording as well. You know, I went to see different performances of her. And it was because of her that I was actually at the Palais Garnier in Paris. You know, the opera house in Paris. Because she actually did an AIDS Gala there. And she invited me to go. I think… her laughter. It’s just like Freddie’s. Because whenever people ask me what’s my first memory, what is the memory that first comes to my mind of Freddie, and it’s always him laughing. And it’s the same with her. Whether she’s just finished a performance or actually when she’s doing a recital or a concert. And during her encores, she is always giggling and laughing. Amazing giggle. Because she likes to bring the audience in during the encores. And she’s got this infectious giggle. She invited me to the first night ever of her performing Isolde in “Tristan and Isolde” in Barcelona. And talking with her afterwards, I said, “You must know how wonderful it is for me to be coming here, to be seeing it, to be listening to you.” And she says, “Of course, you’re part of the family.” So, that really has always stuck with me. PS: So, the next topic for

today is Freddie spending time just making any kind of normal activities. And the question is firstly about his swimming skills – could Freddie actually swim, and if yes, did he enjoy it? PF: I never saw him swim. Never. I don’t know if he could swim. I’ve often thought about that and I never saw it. He didn’t… thinking about it, we went on a motor boat when we were at Pike’s hotel in Ibiza one time. And he didn’t look the most comfortable. So, I really don’t know if he could actually swim. I never saw him in a swimming pool or anything like that. Even when there was a swimming pool around, I never saw him in it. PS: But speaking of other activities, for example, you mentioned your staying at Pike’s hotel, he liked to play tennis there, right? PF: Yes. And, of course, when he was younger he was very good at table tennis. So, yeah, he enjoyed tennis. When we were living together with Freddie in Los Angeles, in that house, there was a tennis court as well and he played there a few times. PS: I see. And what are your other memories of Los Angeles? PF: Los Angeles. Also I remember in Los Angeles it was in L’Ermitage hotel when Queen were designing the Hot Space album cover there. They were there, maybe, even rehearsing for a tour or something. That’s the hotel I was staying in at that time. It was just this concrete glass and… stainless steel… and chrome. It was a very, very modern hotel. I remember, there were all band members, I was there, Chris Taylor was there, Paul Prenter was there. And they were throwing ideas around. And that’s where Freddie came up with the colours. “That’s the hot space, the space is the colours, hot colours.” PS: Ah, so it has something to do with image, with colour as you see it… PF: Yeah, yeah, yeah. PS: The hot like the bright one, right? A definitive one. PF: Yeah, yeah. PS: And he drew, like, a draught of the cover, right? Because he is credited as designer. PF: They were talking about which colours and then who would be which colour and then what they would put on each colour. You know, when they started talking about, not necessarily a profile but just picking out the aspects that people recognize from each artist, like Brian and his hair, Freddie and his moustache, you know, that sort of thing. PS: And so, each member chose the colour for himself by his own, right? PF: Yeah, yeah, yeah. PS: And how do you think, why Freddie chose the red colour? PF: Because it’s the colour that sticks out the most, although red was not his favourite colour, his favourite colour was yellow. But red is the one that you first look at. If you look at every sale, you know, big sale signs and everything, it’s always red on white. Because red is the colour you notice more. Apparently, whether it’s true or not, I don’t know, but in the old days police stopped more red cars than any other car. PS: Oh, really? PF: Yeah. Just psychologically red is the colour that stands out. PS: And Freddie being so outstanding wanted to strike everybody. PF: Yeah. PS: I see. And you mentioned Freddie and you spending time at Pike’s hotel. And what is also your personal favourite memory of this time. PF: I suppose the swimming pool was actually something nice. To actually think that we were in the swimming pool where Wham had recorded “Club Tropicana”. I mean, yeah, Pike’s. It was a nice hotel. They treated you well. They treated you personally, you know, they took care of you. And so it was a nice place. You really felt well-treated. PS: And what was, like, the top of the top on Freddie’s 41st birthday? What are your memories? PF: The most ridiculous thing is when guests went off into a corner and started smoking, so they weren’t smoking at the table and set light to the decorations. There were all these paper decorations hanging down the walls and everything. And people were there smoking and not looking at what they were doing, and they set light to them with their cigarettes. And then they started throwing alcohol to try and, you know, because it was wet they thought they would put the flames out. I mean, some people are not

very, very bright. [laughs] PS: I see. And what was your favourite memory of his previous one birthday, in 1986, the hat party? PF: Now, the hat party was a one-off, there was no other party quite like that, in Garden Lodge. Not with two hundred and something guests. Because the thing is, the thing that I loved about the fact was that nothing was put away. None of his vases or, you know, anything was put on tables. All the antiques and everything. Everything was left there. Because, okay, there were two hundred people but he actually knew them. He knew he could trust them. PS: And what was it like for him when he arrived back from his magnificent journey to Japan? PF: The thing is, it extended because he was then back home opening up all the packages that had arrived and the crates that had arrived. Because everything was sent over as soon as he bought it. So, the big room, the small room. Everything, all the rooms were full. And these, he had twelve of them. So, it was like Christmas. You know, a six-week Christmas. Because he was away enjoying himself and then opening up and putting it all around the house. PS: So, he was actually in Japan for six weeks, right? PF: No, no, he was in Japan, I think, for about three weeks. But then when he came back, he had three weeks of opening up and putting them all out. PS: So, he had a chance to enjoy his presents one more time, like, actually having them all. PF: Precisely, precisely. PS: So, it was, like, double joy – first to buy it and then to enjoy it at home. PF: Yes, yeah, yeah. PS: And mostly he bought antiques, right? PF: Yeah, I mean, he did actually buy some modern porcelain and things, but almost everything was antique. Almost everything. PS: I see. It was indeed a magic year for him. The Magic tour and the magic holiday… PF: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. PS: I see, I see. So, as we are ending our first part by now, I’m saying to you a very, very big thank you, Peter. It’s amazing to hear all these stories about Freddie. PF: It’s been a pleasure, it’s a pleasure. SPECIAL THANKS TO VALUREX FOR CONTRIBUTION AND ASSISTENCE TO BE CONTINUED

#MR interview with Phoebe #queen #queen band #freddie mercury

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sapnxps · 4 years ago

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(WTL) Chapter One: Greg the Neighbor- Georgenotfound x Reader

If I knew that when I moved to London, I'd have two weird neighbors, I'd laugh in your face. Now I'm friends with an old cat lady. Now I'm enemies with my cute neighbor that's definitely not single, who also screams too much.

Even though he's a dick, why can't I stop thinking about him?

My parents told me I’d regret moving to London from the state before I left because I’d miss them and the US too much.

They were half right.

I’m sitting on a box messily labeled ‘kitchen’ in the hallway of my new apartment complex. I huff, wiping the sticky sweat from my forehead. The moving bill is almost 4 thousand dollars. If I knew moving would be this expensive, I wouldn’t have moved out from my parent’s house until I was 40. Sure, I moved a lot of my belongings across the Atlantic ocean, but 4 thousand dollars? Who do I look like, Jeff Bezos?

Today has been hectic, to say the least. Three of my boxes somehow drifted away to Spain. Don’t ask me how that happened, I don’t even know. I’ve been unpacking by myself all day. A box of my kitchenware got shattered upon arrival. I should’ve listened to my Mom on that one, she told me to just buy plates and glasses here instead of shipping them here. Big mistake I’m never making again. Finally, the biggest chunk of my problems: My apartment is full of boxes and I don’t feel like unpacking. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been sleeping on an air mattress for two days, maybe not, but I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. If one more thing goes wrong, I think I might lose it.

Begrudgingly, I lift myself up from the box I was sitting on. It’s a bit dented now, but the way it felt on my ass, it’s just pots and pans. I open the door, pulling this box into my apartment. I weakly push it into the kitchen. It collides with one of the boxes filled with shattered plates. The sound of the broken glass sliding across the box sounded like nails on a chalkboard. I need to make a note to properly dispose of that. Turning my head to look around my new home, I feel my brain's short circuit. All these boxes unpacked, I’ve barely made a dent. This is going to take for-fucking-ever. Moving is modern-day torture. Oh, that’s funny. Remember to tweet that later.

The next three hours of my life are taken up by filling up my kitchen cabinets and drawers with cutlery and various kitchen utensils. The counter was now less bare, housing my toaster and breadbox. My Tupperware containers sat in a special place in the far-right cabinet by the sink. It looked like this home was lived in, as long as you didn’t glance anywhere else besides the kitchen.

I soon after tackled the bathroom, which was the less intimidating room compared to the living room and bedroom. I got the shower curtain hung up, which made it look nice. The rug found its way to the floor, protecting my feet from the cold, cream tile. The shelves were now stocked with a few fluffy peach towels and soaps. Underneath the sink had cleaning supplies as well as spare toilet paper. Living alone meant having nobody to give you another roll if you finish the other one. Kinda sucks. I had a boyfriend during high school, and two years into college. I dreamed of living with him, we planned it all out. I’d finish college, we’d move to a city and rent out the tiniest apartment we could find. We’d live it out until eventually we made ends meet and the rest would be. Dreams cut short though, he cheated. It’s part of why I left in the first place. Needed a change of scenery, new people.

That’s where I am now. New people. Stuck on that part. Haven’t gotten a chance to meet any, which is oh so tragic. I can’t decide if I want to introduce myself to the neighbors or let them come to me? I’m stuck pondering on the thought until I hear a knock at the door. I wonder if my lost boxes have mysteriously arrived.

Opening the door, I’m greeted with an older woman, holding out a small cake into my space.

“Hi dear, I’m your neighbor to the right. Heard all the commotion, saw all the boxes. I had to see for myself the fresh meat in the complex,” She paused before lightly tapping my arm with her free hand. “Just teasing! It’s great to have another lady on this level. The young man to your left, handsome fella, never comes out much though. Hopefully, we can have a girl posse or something,” Her posh accent made her much different than me. Is it wrong to already feel isolated?

I grin at her, moving out of the way to invite her in. “Nice to meet you, feel free to come in. I apologize for all the boxes scattered around, moving has been proven to not be quite my talent,”

The woman smiles brightly at me, shock plastered on her face. “You’re American!”

“That I am,” I chuckle. She hands me the cake, which I gladly accept. My diet has consisted of soggy hash browns from the complex lobby. She makes her way to what is settled in the living room, politely setting herself on my suede blue couch across from the large wall in the room. I place the cake on my counter by the stove, making a mental note to grab a slice once the woman leaves.

The shock never leaves her aged face, “Oh goodness! How amazing. I have a foreigner as my neighbor. You’ll find London quite lovely. I know how it feels to be isolated and removed from what you’re used to, but I promise you’ll fit right in,” She says as I settle myself on the loveseat a bit away from the couch.

“Where are you from?” I ask. She obviously isn’t American.

She smiles, “Just a bit east of Surrey. South of London. Beautiful area, grew up on a small cottage,” The woman was glowing as she spoke of her hometown. She was obviously proud of where she grew up. Compared to my southern Arizona town, this place seemed like heaven. A cottage? Sign me up.

“Sounds lovely,” I speak truthfully.

“Welp,” The woman slaps her laps, a way of signaling it’s time to end the conversation. Despite only speaking for a small amount of time, she seems like someone I can come to if I ever have questions about London or the terminology that I hear around the city. I’ll need to remember that she’s the neighbor to the right. As she began to see herself out, I remembered the other neighbor she mentioned. The young man to the left. I believe she used the term ‘handsome fella’ to describe him. Once she was out in the hall, I felt the need to find out more information.

“Oh!” I shout, hanging myself out into the hallway. She pauses her steps, turning back to me. “By the way, who’s my other neighbor? The guy you were telling me about. Does he have a name?” I ask.

“Greg,” She nods, resuming her short walk back to her apartment.

Greg. Ugly name.

I completely forgot about the conversation by dinner time. As I was munching down on my cake, delicious by the way, I heard loud yelling from my right side. I wouldn’t even call it yelling, more like high-pitched screaming. Who was my neighbor over there again? Greg? Greg. He was causing a ruckus and a mere heart attack at that. He was screaming so loud I nearly jumped out of my skin the first time I heard it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he’s facing a very, very gruesome murder right now. Well, I guess I don’t know any better. I’m just wishing for the very best.

Another hour passes. The yelling never stops. It’s only 8, but my body is as awake as ever. I still have yet to get used to the new time zone. At times it was difficult, but I’m using it to my advantage now. I have some extra time to unpack and get my actual bed ready. My bed frame was put together professionally during lunch, so that was one thing checked off my list. The mattress I ordered was delivered yesterday. Now it was just the matter of putting the sheets on and preparing my duvet.

Fitted sheets fucking suck to put on a bed. I was currently struggling to put it on my nice mattress. It was edging close to 10 pm. The sky was dark, and I was stuck in some odd mixture of a starfish and the downward dog position. If this moment was a picture, it could be used for blackmail. The closer I got to finally getting the top right corner on my bed, the more stretched out I became. I was like one of those sticky hands you’d get in those toy dispensers at the grocery store. I was just about to get it, when another loud shriek could be heard. In shock, I slammed my head on the bed frame and lost grip of all four corners of the sheet.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I mumbled underneath my breath.

Whatever. He probably has a greater reason to be screaming like this, right? Justified shouting, whatever you want to call it. My bedroom is closer to his apartment than the kitchen was. Is it nosey to try to figure out what he’s saying? I don’t want to be that type of neighbor. I’ll continue minding my business because I don’t want to find out some weird shit about Greg that I don’t want to know.

The screaming never stopped.

In fact, if anything, it got louder. And louder. And louder. Is it okay to call the cops here?

It’s midnight now. The next fucking day. And Greg is still screaming at the top of his lungs as if everyone else isn’t asleep. If I saw some normal citizen just trying to get some rest, I’d be fed up. Well, I’m still fed up. I’m also running on a messed-up sleep schedule, so it’s not like I was trying to sleep anyways. My bed is made now, and comfy as hell. I built a shelf to house some of my small decorations, with the entertainment of my noisy neighbor’s yells to accompany me. For some odd reason, it made me feel less lonely.

At about 2, I began to reject the company. I felt irritation grow in my chest as I heard the same high-pitched shrieks that I heard at 8. The annoyance that bubbled in me overtook my politeness. Before I knew it, I was up and in the hallway banging on his door. I didn’t have the time to care about my Daffy Duck pajamas sticking to my legs due to the heatwave hitting England right now. Before I even realize it, my fist is slamming on his door. I never knew I had the power to knock that hard, but my anger and blossoming resentment overpowered me. I continued banging until the door pulled away from its frame. Now I’m face to face with Greg.

Boy was he handsome.

I was met with a man, about 5 foot 9. His dark brown hair was disheveled. Strands of hair laid across his forehead messily. If he wasn’t screaming, I would’ve thought he was sleeping. He was wearing a fluorescent green hoodie with an odd smile plastered on the front. It was a bit large for his skinny frame, that’s unimportant though. His grey sweatpants were twisted on his legs. What the fuck was he doing? His face was delicately shaped. This jawline looks sharp yet fragile like it was constructed of the most fragile rose crystal I’d ever seen. His brown eyes reminded me of caramel, thick and way too easy to get lost in.

“Hi, uh Greg-” I start. I’m just realizing now how close I am to him. The scent of his spearmint gum floods my nostrils. It’s a bit powerful, crinkling my nose at the smell. It wasn’t gross, just very shocking.

“George,” He spat. That’s fucking embarrassing. I’m meeting him for the first time and I got his name wrong. I’m not taken aback for long though, because his attitude oozing from his simple correction was enough to disgust me. I’ve done nothing wrong to him, except maybe get his name wrong. Was my moving too much of a nuisance to him? Poor little British thing, he can deal with it.

I cringe, “Oh, um, sorry.”

He leans into the door frame, sweatshirt adjusting to the movement. Forget a tiny bit large, he was swimming in this thing. “Yeah, no problem. Can I help you or are you selling girl scout cookies at,” George checks his watch. “2 in the morning. If you are, I’m not interested, sorry ‘bout that,” His outfit makes me feel a lot less aware of mine. Despite his face being rather attractive, the outfit makes him look like he just rolled out of bed.

“Oh, yeah. I was wondering if you could lower the volume a bit, please. Or just stop screaming entirely, if possible. I don’t know if you have some weird shouting fetish, but I certainly don’t,” I chuckle. George, however, doesn’t chuckle. Actually, he looks rather unamused. If a human was an art museum, it would be George. Curling into a ball and falling into an endless void doesn’t sound too awful right now. I think I’ll add that to my itinerary. I’ll do it in my bed so I’m at least comfortable while I’m drowning in my own self-pity.

He grimaces, “Yeah. Sure.”

He’s blunt. Got it.

The second I turn my back to the door, it slams. Wow. What a cunt. Shaking the interaction off, I begin to feel the wear and tear of the day beginning to hit me. Moving all those boxes made my muscles ache. The solution to all my problems today seems to be going to bed. Not that I’m not okay with that, just funny. The day before I left for London, you’d think I was shocked by lightning. The electricity that was running through my veins was no match for any ADHD medicine the FDA had ever approved. Now, my body is beginning to fall victim to the earlier time zone. Not that it was a big deal, it was going to happen eventually. These next few days would just entail a difficult sleeping schedule. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before.

I quickly find my way back to my own bedroom. The yelling was quieter, but I could still hear George through the thin walls. He was murmuring to someone softly. This apartment complex was all 1 bedroom apartments. He didn’t live alone. How lovely! I made a fool of myself to him, and he was most definitely telling his partner right now. Talk about dignity, am I right?

I scrolled through my phone for an hour, before the screaming returned to its original volume. Would it be overdramatic to say I felt my face go red with anger? I don’t think so. I think I handled the situation as politely as I could. Hell, I even cracked a joke so he could know I wasn’t that upset over the situation! If I knew he was going to resume his disruptive noises, I wouldn’t have been so nice or absolutely hilarious. Nobody that douchey gets my amazing humor. He didn’t even laugh! I hear another shout followed by a slam to a desk. What the fuck is wrong with this guy?

Welp. Welcome to London!

#georgenotfound x reader #georgenotfound #gnf x reader #dream smp #fanfiction #enemies to lovers #enemies to friends to lovers #mcyt #mcyt fanfic #mcyt x reader #mcyt imagine #minecraft #smp #minecraft fanfiction

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lastsonlost · 4 years ago

Link

does anyone else remember when someone tried male mortality rate as a dunk

Men must step up and donate their blood plasma to help defeat coronavirus, the NHS has urged, as it is revealed that women make up almost two thirds of donors.

Female patients are far more willing to provide samples and represent 63 per cent of all volunteers (73,369), compared with 37 per cent of male patients (42,809).

However, women's plasma is less valuable as men are three times more likely to produce a sample with a high quantity of antibodies, according to NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT).

Does anyone else remember when someone tried to use the male mortality rate as a dunk on men? I still do.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/coronavirus-deadly-bug-proven-women-22011359

The health service is now urging men who have had the virus to come forward to donate ahead of a possible second wave in the autumn.

Antibody-rich plasma can be transfused into people who are struggling to develop their own immune response to the virus, potentially saving many lives.

Dr Lise Estcourt, head of NHSBT’s clinical trials unit, said: “We’re not sure yet why there is an imbalance in people coming forward but we do know we need more men to offer to donate. Men have a special role to play in fighting this virus. Men who’ve had coronavirus are more likely to be able to save lives.

“We’re urgently asking men who’ve had confirmed coronavirus or the symptoms to offer to donate and help us be prepared for any second wave of Covid this autumn – you could save lives.”

NHSBT is collecting blood plasma samples at 23 donor centres and five pop-up centres around the country.

It takes around 45 minutes and the patient's body usually replaces the donated plasma in up to 48 hours.

Around 230 Covid-19 patients have received plasma transfusions so far. Preliminary trial results are expected later this year.

Paul Carey Jones, a 46-year-old opera singer, donated blood plasma in Tooting, south London.

He said: “I had a persistent cough in late March which progressed over the next few weeks to shortness of breath, a constant high fever, and more. I was pretty much confined to bed or the sofa for 2-3 weeks.

“I offered to donate on the website because I was fairly sure I’d had it. My partner had tested positive around the same time.

“Our whole industry has been in complete lockdown since mid-March, so it feels empowering to be able to play a part in some small way."

If you’ve had confirmed coronavirus or the symptoms, you can volunteer to donate plasma at www.nhsbt.nhs.uk

OK there's a controversial thought....

Now I know this is a controversial thing to say but when your male gender leads most of the civilized world in homelessness ,workplace death and suicide AND NO ONE GIVES A SHOT ABOUT IT.

DON’T BE SURPRISED WHEN SOME OF US MEN RUN OUT OF FUCKS TO GIVE.

YOU NEVER GAVE A SHIT ABOUT US. YOU TREATED US LIKE WE WERE LESS THAN SHIT. YOU TREAT US LIKE WE ARE DISPOSABLE. NOW YOU WANNA TELL US MEN HAVE AN OBLIGATION.

Men ARE approximately 165% more likely to be convicted than a woman

Men are significantly more likely to be the victims of violent crime

Men and Boys are doing worse in all aspects of the educational system, from kindergarten to university.

Men suffer from Paternity fraud

Female business owners get money from the government for being female. Males?no

Some Airlines, have banned male from sitting next to children because they are men.

Rape of males in Prison and jail

Male circumcision is still legal

Men often coerced into sex: study

Boy victims of sex trafficking ignored

Men are 93 % of work place death/violence.

Eating disorders among men and boys

Demonization of Male Sexuality

Catastrophically high suicide male rate

Literally zero male shelters

75-80% of the Homeless are men

Family courts are bais against men.

Breast Cancer gets more funding/research/drugs than Prostate cancer despite affecting men at a similar rate of women.

Divorced men are 40% more likely to commit suicide

Founder of Canadas only male shelter for abuse forced to close due to lack of funding before committing suicide.

An not only have I never seen anyone doing a goddamn thing about any of this but whenever we try to fix our own problems y'all try to stop us. So how about you start actively addressing men’s issues if you want our blood.

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achliegh · 4 years ago

Text

Bronze

Alright, I had this wonderful idea come into my head about Clayton, honestly he deserves his own fic. So here is his version of events! Lots will tie together with Golden so I recommend you read that as well. But you don’t have to of course.

Explaining:

Before Letter is the present.

Letter is updating the lives of the people back home, of whoever wrote it mostly.

After Letter is memory.

The first few letters will be very awkward because writing letters and not being sure what to talk about and what not to talk about is hard and confusing. Stick with me! Yes, this prologue is just a letter.

TW/CW: Discussions of death, miliatry training, smut, cringy jokes, underage drinking, dumb choices, swearing, and more later on.

Beta: @walking-crisis

Some Characters belong to @lumosinlove

Chapter 2:

For You

Chicken Fried

It was silent besides the radio humming faintly over the walkie attached to his vest. Every breath he took in filled his lungs with dust.

Nothing felt real.

The mission was to take out a target. Clay left it at that because he hasn’t been in the military long enough to be able to consider targets… people. He felt sick anytime he put the two together but he knew this is what he signed up for. This target has taken many lives and he was watching through his scope, gun pointed at the door of the building where the target operated.

He had to put himself in the headspace where he couldn’t think about anything other than the trigger where his finger flinched whenever the door opened.

He didn’t have the signal so he didn’t shoot.

His partner sat next to him, completely relaxed tapping his thigh to the beat of the music. Every hit of his thigh almost made Clay flinch. This wasn’t his first mission where he had to take a target out, but this was the first where he didn’t see them actively doing something horrendous. The slight breeze felt like it could push him over with just the right amount of pressure. Everything was sensitive… yet he felt numb.

The door opened for the fifth time in the last hour and an old woman waddled out of the building, she smiled at a small group of children who ran past. She has aged with stress from the lines of her wrinkles. Her baggy clothes looked homemade.

She was sweet, reminding him of his own mother.

He relaxed when he saw her, knowing she couldn’t be the target. Watching her talk to a man on the street he hears the signal. His partner rolls over to lay next to him and takes out his binoculars to look at the woman and gives Clay the signal to get ready.

Two Fingers Pointed Up: Get ready.

Two Fingers Pointed Out: Shoot.

Hesitating for a moment, his partner notices and gives him a look to get his shit together. Swallowing his hesitation. He takes the safety off his gun and ready's himself for the shot.

One he would hear forever.

Dear Honey Bee,

How's my baby doing? Making friends I hope, that’s the one thing you always amaze me with. The way you make friends so easily. I could never, shy little thing like myself. I was terrible at breaking out of my shell. Your daddy always convinced me to go out though.

Which reminds me! You remember Miss Bell down the road? She is pregnant with triplets, and no one knows who the father is. How scandalous! I always thought she would end up with that farmer Micheal across the river but she never liked him much.

Your lovers stopped by last week and Little Miss… what do you call her? Sparky or something. She was absolutely glowing when we gave her a photo album of you and Leo from when you were in middle school. The hunk you managed to catch had hour long conversations with your daddy about the latest sports which I didn’t understand so I did what you always tell me to do.

Smile and Nod.

It’s odd writing letters to you, I remember writing to my family when I first moved in with your Daddy because we didn’t have the email or the phones. But I am so used to writing to you over the phone that writing on paper is odd. I hope you’re getting these letters, everyone has said you haven’t responded but I remember when Wyatt was in the military and Eloise was a mess, long before you and Leo were around. So, I’m not too worried.

I am sending you and your Team the best wishes for safety. Praying y’all all get home safe and make lots of babies. We need more kids, I want grandbabies and I made sure your lovers know that.

Now, on a more serious note. Your Daddy is still upset with you for just leaving like that. He wishes he could have convinced you to stay because he wants you safe. I want you safe too but I know this is something you need to do. From the calls I've had with Leo he is also still angry with you.

I keep trying to convince your Daddy to write but he says it hurts too much. So know that He sends his best anytime I write to you. Anytime you think of us.

We love you so much Clayton London Bruss. Now get some rest, I know you’re tired.

Love,

Your Mama

He knocks on the window of Leo’s truck, horny fuck can’t control himself. Clay doesn’t mind it much though, walking over to Ashley who hands him his phone that she was routinely checking.

“Find anything interesting?” He takes his phone and puts it in his back pocket, putting an arm around her shoulders.

“Nothing besides your terribly gay nudes.” She rolls her eyes. “Just because Leo is a faggot doesn’t mean you have to sink that low.” Clay furrows his brows and is about to say something back when Finn walks over to them, looking like he just had a great make out. Clay smiles.

“How was the truck?”

“Warm, I forgot how hot it gets in the south.” Finn pulls his shirt to get some airflow and Clay nods while Ashley scowls a little at the redhead in front of them. The music starts to play over the speakers. Logan joins them after a couple of minutes.

Clay has gotten a few… interesting vibes from Logan when Leo isn’t looking. He notices the hesitation that Leo can’t see. He sees the way Logan wants to tell Leo to back off and to pull him closer at the same time.

Leo doesn’t deserve that.

Clay likes Finn better because Finn definitely likes Leo, and Logan probably to a point where it's bad for himself. But Finn is someone who cares with all or nothing.

Leo does deserve that.

They start heading over to where Leo has parked, a Bronco in between their trucks, Clay notices Logan hesitate reaching for Finn’s hand. So, it wasn’t only a Leo thing. Lots of people think Clay is an oblivious idiot but that would be sort of wrong. He is very observant when it comes to people, maybe not so much when it comes to safety.

“CLAY!” He looks upt just in time to see Leo chuck a BudLight, yuck, at him. Obviously needing to get rid of it, he pulls out his keys and punches a whole to shotgun it.

Way to start off the night.

Lot’s of drinks later, one of his favorite songs came on over the speaker. Chicken Fried by The Zac Brown Band, it's a great song. Casually singing the lyrics he turns to Ashley who is on her phone, he shrugs not caring and runs over to Leo and jumps on his back. Hopping off after Leo lightly elbows him in the ribs, Leo turns around and joins him in singing the lyrics.

Dancing like idiots he looks at Leo’s infatuations and sees them with sappy looks on their faces but he knows Leo won’t notice them.

As the night goes on they do more stupid shit, crawling into the passenger side of his truck he let’s Ashley drive him home. The blind trust he puts in her is something he will regret later. About 20 miles from his house they see flashing red and blue lights behind the truck. Ashley pulls over and sighs annoyed, crossing her arms.

Clays anxiety is off the charts, he knows he isn’t sober and underage. If this is who he thinks it is then there is a 100% chance he will be taken down to the station. Of course, they would get pulled over when Ashley’s dad knew she would be at a bonfire with her “degenerate” boyfriend.

“Hi Daddy” Ashley smiles a little at the officer as he shines a flashlight into the cab of the truck right into Clay’s eyes.

“Sir, I’m going to need you to step out of the vehicle. Hi Ash, can you drive your car home after you drop his truck off? I’m gonna book him down at the station.” Clay gets out and about falls over and neither Ashley or her dad is impressed.

Getting thrown into the back of a cop car after an aggressive handcuffing and pat down is not how he wanted to spend his night. He honestly just wanted to go to bed.

Having been arrested for no reason so many times he knows the process by heart now. So well in fact that the officers don’t even have to tell him what to do. He just does it and goes to sit in his favorite cell. Where he can throw pieces of paper at the Sheriff’s desk.

He calls his mom with his one phone call and tells her what happened. She is out of town with his dad for a conference about cattle prices in the south this year so Clay gets to spend the night in the cell. Great.

Just what he wanted.

#leo knut #clayton bruss #finn o'hara #logan tremblay #thomas walker #noelle tremblay #james potter #sirius black #remus lupin #sweater weather #lumo

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callmeblake · 4 years ago

Photo

Kerrang Issue #1103 (Sources 1, 2)

Photo Credit: Jeremy Harris

Magazine Release Date: 2006

Issue Label: April 15th, 2006

Transcription below the cut (translated by google from Spanish):

You're not in this alone

April 15, 2006

Kerrang April 15th, 2006

Lostprophets & My Chemical Romance

When it comes to million dollar studios / mansions, Los Angeles, where My Chemical Romance is currently doing pre-production for their new - and as yet untitled - album, is very impressive. Built in 1920 for a silent film star, it is covered in such a way as to simulate an Asian palace, with panoramic views of the city, an outdoor swimming pool, acres of gardens, and - according to vocalist Gerard Way - a ghost that opens and closes doors and even takes baths. Gerard crawled out of bed at noon as his old friend, Ian Watkins is coming soon. He and the Lostprophets frontman will meet to discuss their future performances on 'Give It A Name' - a festival that will see them perform to 30,000 people in two days.

When Ian appears the two greet each other genuinely affectionate, talking about many things; from Gerard's art to Bono's sunglasses and, of course, the ghost guest Gerard admits to fear. The two singers are pleasant company, laughing, joking and obviously relaxed, interrupting and finishing each other's sentences as close friends usually do.

When did you meet?

Gerard: It was at the Slims, in San Francisco and Lostprophets was running a show with Head Automatica. I didn't know them, so I got on his bus and he was the coolest singer I've ever met.

Haven't you met singers before, back then?

Gerard:I had met a few, but singers are usually weird guys. They often have a 'lead singer vibe' and he didn't have one, he was so kind, respectful and personable.

Ian: We knew his manager because he had toured with bands that we had toured with. Even before the first My Chemical Romance album came out, he was already talking all day about them. He sent me the record when it came out and I used to listen to it all the time, it was fucking awesome. Did they get along immediately? Gerard: Yeah. I think everyone in both bands hit it off right away. They were down to earth guys. We hadn't met anyone as great as them, so it was a huge impression on our band that they had that attitude. Ian:

And after that, we keep crashing at events, anywhere, like in Japan….

Gerard: That is a very funny story! You have to fly everywhere when you play (at the Japanese festival) Summer Sonic; you can't drive because Japan is made of a lot of big islands. This was when he still used to get screwed. It was one of the last times that I was drunk or high, actually… Ian was in front of me on the plane and he was turning around to try to have a conversation with me, but he couldn't.

Ian: I hadn't realized it at first. I was talking about the songs on the album I was thinking about…

Gerard:… And at one point I just thought 'I can't deal with this man'. I felt really bad about that I had already thrown up more than I had ever seen in my damn life while trying to get my pills; we were sharing a bus on the way to the plane. I must have looked like the most broke asshole. I was ashamed all the way.

How often do you get together?

Gerard: I would say once every five months, maybe more often. We always collide.

Ian: Yes, when you go on tours you always bump into someone. The strangest thing was when I was in New York, having a snack ...

Gerard:Oh yeah! And we just meet! We were on our way to a place called 'Toy Tokyo', which is one of our favorite stores. We passed a restaurant and Ian was sitting there hanging out.

Ian: They came by and I was like 'Oh shit!' because it was so unexpected.

Gerard: And then we did a full US tour together and it was fun, but Lostprophets was still on the UK schedule, so they would fall asleep on the bus at odd hours and stay up all night.

Ian: That was before the My Chemical Romance record took off, so it was before they became rock stars! But it was cool because we did our own shows on off days.

Gerard:Yes, it was fun doing our shows together, because there was always the same vibe.

Do you keep in touch when you are not on tour?

Gerard: Yes, Sidekick! (controlled email senders)

Ian: You're never in yours! He used to be online all day, but now he's very cool for it.

Gerard: I think I changed my username, but I didn't tell anyone, I just hoped they would notice! So no one talks to me now!

They grew up in places as remote as New Jersey and Wales, what common areas do they share?

Ian: I think we are both working class.

Gerard:When you come from a working class place, you have to leave soon or you will be stuck there forever. Jersey is definitely that kind of place. It's very different if you live somewhere in Los Angeles…

Ian: You don't need to try here, you can go to clubs and gigs every day in LA. It is very easy to believe that you are someone in LA until you realize that there is a whole world outside. It's like the same as London and New York.

Gerard: Yes, but to come from the places that we come from; Where you have shitty jobs, you realize that you are nobody.

Ian: And if you want to do something, make a difference or at least enjoy life, you really have to work your ass off.

Gerard:What's the most shitty job you had in Wales?

Ian: I worked in Iceland. A frozen food store.

Gerard: Oh wow that's weird because my first shitty job was at a frozen food stand at a supermarket. They're both sober now, but Gerard wasn't when they first met: Did his using drugs and alcohol affect their friendship? Gerard: No Ian: I just didn't realize I had a problem! Gerard: Yes, apart from that plane trip. But even though he had a problem, I think the press made him look worse than he already was. When we did that tour together, I was already clean.

The two are working on new albums. Has either listened to each other's new songs?

Gerard: No. We haven't played anything for anyone.

People are predicting that they will both transcend the rock scene and come back with a more pop album this time. Is there any truth to that?

Gerard: I think that's what they expect us to do! On the other hand, some people may believe that our album will be more aggressive to compensate for that.

Ian: A lot of bands do that and screw themselves up. They succeed and say 'we have to prove that we are real' and confuse being real with being shit.

Gerard:That is completely true. So people might expect a more aggressive record from us, or maybe one that makes a lot less sense. But I wouldn't say it's more pop, although it's prettier.

Did you see a lot of bands growing up?

Gerard: Yes, because our only escape was to go and find the local show. There were two places that I would go, ' The Pipeline ' and ' Studio One '. The latter was completely hardcore, bands like Downset, Madball, Dog eat dog…

Ian: Dog Eat Dog! Dammit!

Gerard:The most taboo thing there was as a teenager was Slayer. The [Anti-obscenity lobby] PMRC was so big in the US that they made it almost impossible to get their records. They thought Slayer was satanic. You couldn't get WASP or Venom records, but Slayer was a sure door to evil! I remember when I got 'South of Heaven'; it made a big impression on me. Have you been in front of any other band performance? Gerard: Not in the mosh zone, but I was on the floor for Slim's once. Most of the time, I watch from the side of the stage. Ian:

Everything is ground at Slim's! That was a great show, because we met there. As I said; We got to know each other before these guys took off, and that's nice because I think meeting them after that would have been kind of weird.

So is it weird to meet bands that are already big?

Ian: Yes, because they don't care. As Gerard was saying, singers sometimes have attitudes and it is strange to meet a successful band that is still humble. I don't think My Chemical Romance would have been like that but bands get very reluctant when meeting people. They think 'you only want to be my friend because you want something.' It was great meeting Gerard before they grew up, because I know our friendship is honest.

Do things change when you get to the same level as other bands?

Ian: If we played in the US now, My Chemical Romance would top the list, whereas last time we were on them, but that's okay.

Gerard: Yes, when you go out with a band that you love, there is respect and it shows on stage. But if you play with a band that you don't respect, then you go out and destroy them.

Ian: And it's not like we release two albums at the same time. We left and their time came.

So what if both albums were out at the same time? Would they be aware of the other's sales position?

Gerard: Well we're both rock bands, but we offer something very different to people, so I don't feel in competition with these guys.

Ian:If they were assholes it would be horrible to see them get so successful, because it sucks to see idiots doing well. The only thing they do is add to your stupidity! But when you like band music it's always great to see that they do well.

Gerard: Yes, you will always be supporting your friends even if they are kicking your ass!

Ian: And if they're kicking your butt, it just makes you work harder- It's not a sour rivalry, it's a great thing -a friendship and respect.

My Favorite My Chemical Romance Song (by Ian Watkins)

I love 'You know what they do to guys like us in prison'. The first time I listened to their second album, that song grabbed me as soon as it started playing. It had some really cool changes; the way it starts off with a piano staccato, and the lyrics are fantastic. It conjured up a lot of images and I liked the fact that the verse is on the piano.

My Favorite Lostprophets Song (by Gerard Way)

It's easily 'Last Train Home'! When we were working on Three Cheers for sweet revenge, that damn video came out every five minutes and no one could help but sing it. We were saying 'Man, this is great!' I think the chorus is really beautiful. They weren't trying to capitalize on some kind of junk-young culture, the song really meant something, especially when they were playing it live. If someone is really honest with a song, it will always become a favorite song, and that one really stood out.

Translation: Liz

#ian watkins #gerard way #kerrang #jeremy harris #paramour mansion #K!1103

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lobotomy-maybe-bestie · 3 years ago

Note

RQG for the music ask meme!!

1. Ghosting - Mother Mother

Probably Sasha as the sneakiest, the invisble one in the party, leaving her home, leaving London and then eventually leaving the entire world, but still haunting the memory of the party as they make their way through the destroyed remains of Other London

I've been ghosting, I've been ghosting alone

Ghost in the world, ghost with no home

I mean this was basically her whole life until finding a home in Ancient Rome. No I'm not getting emotional about Sasha again ;_;

2. Morton's Fork - Typhoon

Ok so this is unfortunate because I have that song from an RQG playlist. It's peak "Guard the pack so you that you will succeed together" "Taking a spear for Sasha" "Volunteering for the first night watch in Damascus even though he hasn't slept for 48 hours" Grizzop drik acht Amsterdam.

I won't lie to you, it will be painful

It's in your nature to fear what is natural

I mean just-

We are alone in this together

All alone in this together

Just-

I haven't slept in several nights and I'm not tired

Who protects the ones I love when I'm asleep?

Though there's little I can do, I say a prayer

That when the wolves come for their share

They'll come for me

Yeah. Pretty much.

3. High Hopes - Panic! At the Disco

S1 Amelia Earhart definitely. This song has crazy airship trick vibes.

4. 21 Guns - Green Day

It's angsty enough to fit the whole campaign I reckon but I don't know any specifics.

5. Loose Ends - Imogen Heap

Zolf and Hamid.

It's complicated

This time I think it could be

Triangulated

It could be just what we need

So what do you say, we give it up and walk away?

We're overrated anyway

Need I say more?

Not now, not ever, no, it's never a good time

How will the good times ever roll on?

Comparing photos then and now, now and then

Just wondering where it all went wrong

Just... ouch.

6. Little In The Middle - Milow

Ohhhh okay this song gives me Hamid vibes. It's specifically about a child's dream to join a circus but like...

For the fun and death defying

But in time you forgot life is small in the big top

And your dreams were slowly dying

What you wanted was not a crime

You could have done it

Hamid with his dreams of becoming a wizard which were shattered only for him to be plunged into a terrifying and wonderful adventure that makes him develop a new dream, of being a Hero.

Lions leap through hoops of fire

As the acrobats go flying

But what's the show all about

When did your north get turned to south

And the truth turned to lying

Only for the story to get darker and darker, he loses his sister, he loses his friends, he loses the world. He is more powerful than he could have EVER imagined but it comes at the cost of having to save the world and being ready to sacrifice everything he has.

Always just a little in the middle

It keeps your head from spinning round

And the party around him who are so much more pragmatic! We just saw it again, Cel closing the door because they knew that it was more important to protect the lab than to ensure they can all survive. Hamid really is just a little guy in the middle of everything and it makes me feel so sorry for him!!

7. Atlas Hands - Benjamin Francis Leftwich

It makes me think about Cel's old life. Like when they were living with their husband and his kids? Actually maybe it's that specific scene in the Garden of Yerlick where he appears and they tell him all about what happened since he died.

I will remember your face

Cause I am still in love with that place

But when the stars are the only things we share

Will you be there?

Like just that quiet reassurance there that they still love and remember him? It makes me feel something.

I've got a plan, I've got an atlas in my hands

I'm gonna turn when I listen to the lessons I've learned

Also these lines are very Cel. They're old! They've seen a lot! They've travelled the whole world! And now they're saving it!

8. Cough Syrup - Young The Giant

Early Sasha, definitely. It's about the "I don't have anything to lose", "I just need to get away"

If I could find a way to see this straight

I'd run away

The party being an opportunity for her. Protection, sure, but also a way out and, maybe more importantly, a reason to go. A goal that isn't just "escape".

9. Carrying Cathy - Ben Folds

Alright, so I thought "Haha it's about Wilde bc he sucks so bad at combat that the party has to carry him all the time" and then I thought some more about it and got very, very sad.

So obsessed was I and self-absorbed that I

Didn't see that she was crying

In Paris, when the party was fleeing and treated Wilde like absolute shit (like okay they saved his life but they treated him a little like they treat Barrett now). Especially told from Zolf's perspective to highlight how CLOSE they are now.

And she's different when it's just me and her, and I

After the whole party disappears and Zolf and Wilde found each other. How close they grew in that 18 months but also the fact that Wilde judged himself effectively useless except to do paperwork (tbf he was right and also very good at paperwork but still... ouch)

But to imagine a fall

With no one at all to catch you

There'd always been someone

And then he falls off the ship and dies. And they carry him again, in the hope he may be resurrected.

10. Purpose - The Late Night Call

This song is very Endgame lol. Everyone aware that they might need to sacrifice themselves and trying to find something good in that.

#rusty quill gaming #rqg #this got... mildly out of hand #lol thanks for asking

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deathonyourtongue · 4 years ago

Text

Resurrection | 12

Summary: A ragtag team of Spec-Ops operators are brought out of retirement for all the wrong reasons. When the dust settles, only the best will be left standing. Pairing: Pablo Schreiber x OFC, Henry Cavill x OFC (listen, she gets with the whole team, okay? Don’t lie, you would too.) Word Count: 2K Warnings: Nothing much really. A/N: Sorry this took so long. February really is the worst month.

By the flight manifest, we’re half an hour behind Wallace, and I feel every minute of it on the plane ride from London to Benghazi. Prior to joining the team, I’d only been assigned to Libya once and it was from the comfort of the Whitney parked off the coast of Italy. This will be my first time with boots on the ground, and the history of spec ops in the country isn’t lost to me; it’s just one more reason why I’m glad I no longer have to wear a uniform.

“Ten minutes out,” the pilot calls over the comms, everyone prepping their go bags, ready to make up for any head start Wallace has.

Benina International Airport barely registers in my mind as we pick up two vehicles that were prepped for us courtesy of Uncle Sam, my mind’s sole focus being on saving the hostage and capturing Wallace. All of us want our pound of flesh, none more so than those he’s directly injured over the course of the last few weeks.

“I need everyone on their A game. We can’t afford to let him slip through our fingers again. His behavior is escalating and since he’s so well-connected to the who’s-who, it stands to reason, he’s going to throw everything he has at us. Above all else though, we leave no one behind. Understood?” Rick’s voice is firm but warm over our comms, making it clear that despite the gravity of the situation, he cares about our well-being first and foremost.

“Do you think he’s trying to do a shot-for-shot remake?” Jake asks as we roll into Benghazi proper, grateful for the tinted windows on the late model G wagons no doubt left over from Gaddafi’s rule.

“If you mean do I think he’s going to go to the same village we were patrolling? No. I don’t think he’s that sentimental about things. I think he’s going to pick a spot that’s overlooked by the country and blow it to high hell after he finishes reenacting his sick fantasies. Remember, had we not stopped him that night--”

“I know, he’d have committed war crimes,” Jake cuts Dom off, his sickened expression making it clear that he doesn’t need to be reminded.

“Has intel found him yet?” I ask, hoping we don’t have to waste any more time in tracking him down.

“They don’t have a lock yet, but they are tracking a BMW that came out of Benina half an hour ago. Reports of a blond woman without a hijab and a red-haired man poured in the second they landed.” Rick explains, all of us shaking our head.

“Muslim majority country and she already sticks out like a sore thumb by being blond, but he didn’t bother to make her wear a hijab? If we don’t get to him, the Libyan police will,” I snort, finding little humor in the recklessness with which Wallace treats the lives of others. Like any good narcissist, he cares only for himself and if others get hurt in the process of him getting what he wants, so be it.

“They’re going to attract attention no matter what. All of us are. Keep as low a profile as possible, and with any luck, we’ll be out of here by this time tomorrow,” Rick adds, all of us hoping for the outcome that’s eluded us since we reunited.

Our hideout in Benghazi is simple, yet beautiful. Like most places, it’s heavily fortified, a solid metal gate closing behind us and men standing watch on all four corners as we make our way towards something that resembles a Roman villa of old. Outside, the heat hits me and for a second, I’m brought back to the op that nearly took my life, hoping that this time, things will end differently, at least for our team. Max’s cologne brings me back to the present, and I fall in step with him as we make our way into the blissfully cool war room.

“Oh fuck yeah. Don’t mind if I do!” Jake enthuses as he takes note of the tea and finger foods laid out on the table. Shaking my head, but nonetheless pleased, I take a seat and let out a breath I don’t realize I’ve been holding. Max’s hand smooths over my hair as he sits next to me, his gaze still eyeing my bruise with concern. It’s endearing to say the least, and not the kind of treatment I’m used to in any part of my life.

“Okay, fuel up, but pay attention. Intel has an eye in the sky and they’ve found the BMW. We’re tracking him now. Gonna let him get settled in, then we’ll pay him a house call. He’s also traveling light; only two body men and paid local team which means--”

“Which means a bunch of teenage human shields. Fucking great,” I mutter.

Stephanie Pierce had been dumped half an hour before getting to the airport. Doing her best to save face, she’d made it through security and was intent on getting a little drunk before boarding, if only so she could sleep on the flight. American by birth, she had come to London for school, and had, up until the breakup, been having the time of her life.

Now it's all spiraling into a nightmare.

“Please, just let me get back to the airport! I don’t have anything to do with this! I didn’t do anything! I’m just a student! Please!”

“I can’t do that, darling. For one, you’ve seen my face, and two...Well, you’re my insurance policy. You see, the people that I’m after, they have a soft spot for those they consider innocent. Problem is, no one’s ever truly innocent, are they? No, not even you, dear Stephanie. It only took a few moments for me to do the numbers, so to speak. Young, parents are middle class at best, no real money for school, especially abroad, but here you are in designer clothing, taking vacations whenever it strikes your fancy, and not a dime in debt. Do your parents know what you do on the internet, my darling? Didn’t think so. No, that deep, dark secret won’t be revealed until after you perish, which...will be soon, I’m afraid.”

Her screams make her captor laugh, almost as though he’s delighted by the reaction. It chills her to the bone. Now she understands that this isn’t some wannabe who hijacked a plane and has no real plan; far from it. Whoever he is, he has calculated each and every move leading up to this point.

She wishes she could talk to her mom one last time.

“Night Train to Alpha, confirm visual.”

“Alpha to Night Train we have visual. We count 12 signatures, including the hostage. You are a go.”

We’re no stranger to David and Goliath fights, and 12 is on the smaller side of some of the groups we’ve taken on, but no matter the number, we approach this one with extra precaution, only because of Wallace’s M.O. None of us are looking to be anywhere near another one of his bombs.

The compound he’s made his hideout is run of the mill for this part of the world. Like our own, Wallace’s has high walls, a sturdy gate, and a simple floor plan. It leaves us with two options; come in with a bang, or creep in with a whisper.

“There’s two gates,” I remind the boys, knowing full well that while they all prefer coming in with as much firepower as possible, it opens the door for Wallace to get away in the commotion, and I, for one, want to end this once and for all.

“Alpha, how many signatures on the exterior?” Dom asks, all of us hidden in the shadows, waiting for the deciding factor on how we proceed.

“Looks like 2 on the south side, patrolling the far gate. If you’re going in quiet, now’s the time to move.”

We all nod and immediately get to work. Strapping on my gloves, I grab my wire cutters out of the pocket on my kevlar, and wait until Flip has gotten into position. The tallest of the team, he bends over, providing me with the flat of his back to stand on so that I can cut the razor wire off the top of the wall. Carefully, I peek over the edge, relieved when I find the courtyard empty. Though there are lights on in the compound, every window is covered with an opaque blind, making this way of entering far better suited to our needs.

I cut enough wire away to allow all the boys to climb over, making sure to throw it away from the compound not only for safety, but to reduce the chances of us being heard. Satisfied that everyone has clearance, I pocket my multitool and quickly hop over, landing softly in the dirt.

Rick and Benji are quick to follow, the three of us taking up post so that the rest of the guys can come in safely. It takes less than five minutes for all of us to breach the perimeter, and after a moment to regroup, we move towards our target.

“Alpha, we need your eyes,” Rick whispers, taking point as we position ourselves flush against the nearest wall of the compound. We could clear the place blind, but that increases the chance that someone will sound the alarm as they die, and we can’t take the risk. Though they said they had to wash their hands of it, after Rome, the DOD extended their resources; while they can��t send those currently serving, they can provide a helping hand to those who are willing to risk it all to capture one of our own.

“Two at 3 o’clock, in the first room. There’s two at the back gate you’ll want to handle first.”

Nodding at one another, we split up. Rick and Dom position themselves at the first room, Flip and Benji take up post across the villa in front of another room, while Max, Jake and I edge around to the back of the compound, intent on taking out the two men guarding the rear gate as silently as possible.

With Jake on one side, Max and I move around to the other side, all of us needing to get eyes on the men. As I predicted, they’re young, but I find cold solace when I see that they’re not teenagers, bought out to act as human shields. Checking my gun, I make sure the silencer is on tightly before leveling it into place to look through my scope. At less than 50 feet, it’s an easy shot; it just has to be timed correctly. Max counts us down using only his fingers, and when the time is right, both Jake and I take double-tap shots, killing the men before they have a chance to make a sound.

Over comms, I can hear Rick and Dom breaching their first room, and as we move back towards the center of the villa, Benji and Flip do the same. My relief grows with every room that’s cleared, the body count growing as we approach the spot where Wallace is holed up with the hostage.

“Last room has the prize. Good luck, and godspeed.”

The room in question lies at the heart of the villa. Protected on either side by anti-rooms, We have to work our way through two more sets of men before finally being able to come face-to-face with Wallace once again.

A bright smile is the last thing we expect when we finally level our guns to his head.

“Nice of you all to finally join me. Thought it would take much less time for Uncle Sam to track me down. No matter, you’re here now, we can get to it. In your haste, I’m afraid none of you noticed...” Wallace’s gaze goes to the floor, and as my own eyes follow, I can’t help but feel my heart sink. My eyes dart quickly to Max and Dom, nausea overcoming me as I find that every single one of us has stepped on a trip wire.

“It’s like Russian Roulette, except I’m the one holding the gun.”

Wallace’s laugh will be imprinted in my mind for the rest of my life.

#henry cavill #pablo schreiber #henry cavill x ofc #pablo schreiber x ofc #resurrection #deathonyourtongueoriginals

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dontmindthefangirling · 5 years ago

Text

Pandemic {t.h.}

part 2

Tom Holland x Medic!Reader

Summary: Y/N has to go back to the states as the coronavirus pandemic gets worse and Tom worries about her having to work

Warnings: angst; mention of death; swearing; more angst

Note: This a one-shot based off of my series Broken Nose but you don’t really have to have read it to know what’s going on; this is also a big shout-out to all of the people working to keep us safe during this pandemic and this idea came to me because working on the front lines can be scary and difficult

part 1

“Tom, you have to stop watching the news,” Harry said approaching his brother who was sitting on the edge of the couch, his knee bouncing up and down and his eyebrows permanently scrunched together.

“How?” Tom snapped, turning his head. “It’s everywhere.”

Ever since you left to go back to New York, Tom had been irritable, almost everything getting him angry or worked out. Harry was beginning to lose count of the amount of times he’s seen Tom angrily boxing out his emotions, punching a bag that was beginning to tear.

“I know, mate,” Harry sighed, sitting next to Tom on the couch and shutting the TV off.

“God, (Y/N) is in the middle of it all,” Tom almost whimpered, burying his face in his hands. He angrily ran his hands through his hair, letting out a frustrated groan.

“Have you talked to her?” Harry asked.

Tom shrugged. “Here and there. She’s working sixteen hour shifts every day.”

New York City was all over the news as the world struggled to control the pandemic. It had the most cases in the states, and it was a complete ghost town as everyone was ordered to stay at home. Everyone except you and all the other essential workers.

But you were on the front lines. You were constantly around people being sick and injured because emergency calls didn’t stop even for a pandemic.

Tom constantly worried about you all day and every day. He couldn’t sleep, he was barely hungry, and he felt nauseous with anxiety. The only people keeping him sane were Harry, Harrison, and Tuwaine. They forced him to eat, they forced him to get out of bed, and they kept him going.

Yet you still remained in his thoughts. His biggest fear was of you getting infected with the virus. He wouldn’t be able to go see you, and he was terrified of losing you.

“She’s smart, mate,” Harry reassured Tom, placing a hand on his back. “She knows how to take precautions.”

Tom nodded numbly, staring down at his phone, waiting for you to text back and tell him you were okay for another day.

On the other side of the Atlantic, you were giving chest compressions in the back of an ambulance as it raced down the empty streets of New York City. You were sweating, and breathing was difficult through your mask, but you didn’t stop.

“(Y/N),” your partner James said, watching you. “I can take over if you need a break.”

The patient beneath you was a young patient, probably only in his thirties. He went into cardiac arrest when you had arrived to the scene. The call was initially for shortness of breath, and then things went south when the patient coded and his heart stopped.

You looked down at him, seeing the blue around his lips as you pressed deeply into his chest.

“No, I got it,” you grunted.

James sighed, adjusting the bags of medication that was dripping into the patient’s IV.

Moments later you were pulling into the emergency department of one of the many hospitals in New York. The driver of your ambulance jumped out and rushed to open the doors. You continued compressions as the stretcher was pulled from the truck.

Because of COVID-19, you were no longer allowed to enter the emergency room, and had to do all of your reporting outside while the doctors and techs came out and took your patients from them.

You already called the patient in, telling them that he was a potential COVID-19 patient due to the shortness of breath, so the hospital could properly prepare with appropriate protective equipment.

One of the doctors took the patient from you while you gave the report to the nurse.

"How long has he been down?” the doctor asked you while one of her techs began compressions.

You sighed. “Fifteen minutes.”

“No signal on the EKG?”

“None.”

The doctor sighed, turning to her staff and telling them to call it off.

“Time of death, 14:03,” the doctor called glancing down at her watch while one of the scribes wrote it down. Your heart sank as they moved the patient so your crew could get their stretcher back. A sheet was placed over his face and that was it for you.

You bit back as a sob as you stormed back over to your truck, ripping your mask off and resting your forehead against the truck. James was hot on your heels, running over to you.

“(Y/N)-”

“Fuck!” you yelled, punching the ambulance. Tears swelled in your eyes as you turned around, and looked up at the sky. It was too nice of a day for how you were feeling.

You were exhausted and worn out and your feet hurt from your boots. You had been working from eight in the morning until midnight every day for the last two weeks and you were spent.

You were happy to be working with James, he was your best friend and he had been your partner for years, but this whole pandemic was taking its toll on everyone you knew that was working. Every day was getting harder and harder and you didn’t know when it would end.

There were a few co-workers that had been diagnosed with COVID-19 but they were isolated. Another few had been possibly exposed and were required to self-quarantine for two weeks.

You and James had a few scares, but for every patient tested that you had had, they all came back negative. You knew they would test the poor patient that you just lost for the virus as well, and you and James would know if he was positive or negative in the next day or so.

James was silent as he stood next to you. You knew he was tired too. Every day was a new challenge, but you were in this together.

“We have to go clean the stretcher,” you muttered under your breath.

“I know,” James sighed. “In a minute.”

You were both watching the puffy white clouds float by, and for a moment you felt a little peaceful.

You missed Tom. God, you missed him so much. The time difference made it almost impossible to FaceTime since you got off work at midnight and it was five in the morning in London. Tom said he would get up to talk to you, but it also didn’t help that you needed all the sleep you could get before your next sixteen hour shift.

There were a few times where you were waiting for calls and you managed to sneak in a few FaceTimes while working, but those were rare.

You inhaled sharply before putting your mask back on. You were only given one mask for the day, and you had to re-use it.

“Ready?” James asked, glancing at you.

“Ready.”

Tom was sitting around the fire with his friends when his phone rang. He almost wanted to ignore it, not really in the mood to speak to anyone until he saw that it was you.

“(Y/N),” he almost exclaimed, excitedly answering and stepping away from the fire for a minute.

“Hi Tommy,” you said, your voice bringing a sort of happiness that he could feel in his bones.

“How are you?” he choked out, worried that if he asked too many questions you would have to end the call before you could answer them.

“Tired,” you admitted. “We’re on our way back to the station to pick up some more cleaning supplies before we go back on the road.”

“How’s your day been so far?” he asked.

You sighed. “Not great.”

Your answers were always short, especially when you were upset, and that only made Tom worry more. He knew that you didn’t like to talk about what happened at work, especially when it wasn’t a great day, much to his protests. But he didn’t want to push you either. You’d tell him when you were ready.

“I just...can’t save everyone and it’s getting to me,” you continued, to Tom’s surprise.

“I know darling,” Tom whispered. “That’s what makes you a great medic. You want to save everybody.”

“I guess,” you mumbled. There was a short silence between you before you spoke up again.

“I miss you.”

Tom blinked away his tears and held the phone closely to his ear, like he was holding you closer.

“I miss you, too.”

“Are you okay?” you asked, your voice soft, making Tom miss the nights where he would hold you close.

“I’m hanging in there,” Tom said, running a hand through his hair. “The boys are keeping me sane, but I’m worried about you.”

He glanced over to where his friends were sitting by the fire, Tuwaine and Harry were throwing ping pong balls at Harrison, who was swatting them away while yelling at them to stop. The sight brought a small smile to Tom’s lips.

“Don’t worry about me,” you said sternly. “It’s bad for your health.”

Tom chuckled. He could picture you with your arms crossed and your eyebrows furrowed in a way that he thought was really cute.

“Sorry doc.”

You giggled, the sound sending a warmth spreading throughout Tom’s chest.

“I’m serious though. I’m okay,” you continued. “It’s hard, sure, but I have a lot of support here.”

“I know,” Tom sighed. “I just want you to be safe.”

“Aren’t I always?”

Tom smiled. “Of course darlin’.”

“You’re the one that does flips and shit. Remember when you broke your nose?” you continued, a teasing tone lining your words. Tom chuckled.

“Which time?”

You laughed, and it almost hurt how much Tom missed hearing your voice, your laugh, your everything.

“I’m sorry babe, I have to go,” you said sadly, making Tom’s heart drop. “We’re at the station.”

“That’s okay love,” Tom said though his heart felt heavy. “Go save some lives.”

“I will,” you said. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

The call ended and Tom was left feeling empty, although glad he got to talk to you when he did. He stared at his dark phone screen for a moment, wishing he was still talking to you.

The sound of his friends laughing brought him back to reality as he walked back over to them.

“How’s (Y/N)?” Tuwaine asked.

“She’s okay,” Tom responded, taking his seat. “Tired, but okay.”

After you and James restocked your truck, you hopped back in and headed back out onto the streets to await your next call. New York was empty and it brought chills to your spine every time you drove through Times Square.

James sat in the driver’s seat as you headed to your posting location; basically the place you camped out until you got a 9-1-1 call.

“Tom okay?” James asked.

“Yeah, he said he’s okay,” you sighed, staring out the window as you drove down an empty 5th Ave. “I dunno, I’m worried about him.”

“He’s worried about you, you’re worried about him,” James said. “That’s not good.”

“I told him not to worry about me,” you protested.

James gave you a look and rolled his eyes.

“What?” you demanded.

“(Y/N) for someone so smart, you really can be dumb sometimes,” James laughed.

“Excuse me!”

“You’re a paramedic during a pandemic,” James sighed, bringing the seriousness back to his voice. “My friends and family are worried about me, too. You can’t blame him for worrying.”

You knew James was right, but you hated to admit it. It would only inflate his ego more. You looked out the window, spotting all of your favorite places in the city that you called home. You hated what this virus was doing to it.

“I just want him to be okay,” you mumbled.

“And he will be,” James assured you. “He’s got his friends and family with him. They’ll make sure he’s okay.”

“Isn’t that my job?” you sighed, turning back to look at James. “I’m his girlfriend.”

James gave you a close-lipped smile. “Right now, your job is to make sure the millions of people in this city are okay.”

Your heart twisted at his words. The weight of the situation sometimes didn’t hit you because you were constantly on the move. But when you gave yourself a moment to sit back and reflect on what was going on, it would be a little too much for you to handle. And the thought of Tom thinking of that all day made you upset. You didn’t want him to carry the burden of your problems.

Suddenly a call came in through the radio. James responded and flicked the lights and sirens on as you made your way towards the emergency.

You were looking ahead at the street when your phone buzzed with a notification. You glanced down, seeing it was Instagram. “tomholland2013 tagged you in a post.”

You frowned, quickly opening it as James turned down another street. It was a picture Tom had snapped of you and James on set of Spider-Man: Far From Home in your uniforms. James had his arm around your shoulder and Jacob was playing with one of your stethoscopes in the back.

The caption read: So proud of all of the healthcare workers out there keeping us safe. I may play a superhero in the movies but you guys are the superheroes in real life. Thank you healthcare workers! #stayhome

Your eyes welled up with tears as a smile broke out onto your face. You and Tom weren’t public with your relationship yet, but this was all you needed to keep you going for the rest of your shift.

You texted Tom quickly as you pulled up to the scene.

Y/N: I love you

You jumped out of the ambulance just as Tom texted you back.

Tom: I love you too, my little superhero

You took a deep breath, adjusting your mask as you hoisted the medicine kit up onto your shoulder.

Maybe you could do this.

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imjustthemechanic · 4 years ago

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The Price of a Soul

Part 1/? - Agent Russel Part 2/? - The Letter Part 3/? - Miss Lake Part 4/? - The Stewardess Part 5/? - An Assassination Part 6/? - Fallout Part 7/? - Face to Face Part 8/? - Deals, Details, and Other Devils Part 9/? - Baggage Part 10/? - Private Funding Part 11/? - Just Passing Through Part 12/? - Party of Four Part 13/? - Resolute Part 14/? - The Wreck Part 15/? - Body Snatchers Part 16/? - Out of the Frying Pan Part 17/? - A Miracle Part 18/? - A Matter of Circumstance Part 19/? - Nome Part 20/? - The Future

Kay has big plans.

Peggy had expected them to immediately board another plane and head south again, but it seemed that the aircraft in question was held up in Portland by a terrible thunderstorm, forcing them to spend the night in Nome. There was only one place in town that could really be called a hotel, and it had only four rooms for let, which created something of a problem.

“Well,” said the proprietor, an aging white man with a steel-gray mustache. “Obviously the best room will be for the guest of honour.” He held out the key to Steve.

Steve held up his hands. “Uh, thanks, Mr. Stanley, but I couldn’t, not when we have ladies with us.” He nodded to Peggy and Kay.

“Oh,” said Peggy. “Well, no, Captain Rogers really is the guest of honour here, and he’s been unwell.” Peggy had certainly seen more soft beds in the past couple of years than Steve had, no matter how anyone defined it.

“Peg, I’m fine,” said Steve.

“And I’m not?” Peggy asked.

Kay cleared her throat. “I believe,” she said, “that the guest of honour here is the hero who’s bringing Captain America home – that would be Mr. Masters.” Her voice was dripping sarcasm, but she gestured to the man with a smile on her face.

Masters frowned at her suspiciously, but only for a moment. Then he stepped up to take the key. “Thank you, Mr. Stanley,” he said.

Peggy and Steve both looked at Kay, who shrugged. “If we had to stand here all night listening to you two say I couldn’t possibly, we’d never get any sleep,” she said.

With the best room claimed, Mr. Stanley gave a second key to Steve and a third to Peggy and Kay, and then offered the fourth and final one to Howard. “Sorry to the soldiers,” he added, “but I’m sure you fellows can figure something out.”

“Guess I’ll go sleep in the Skytrain again,” said Jason. He wasn’t angry or bitter, merely resigned, which Peggy thought was probably worse.

“Don’t be silly, we can share.” Howard clapped him on the shoulder and then approached the counter. “What’s there to drink in this place? I’m buying a round for everybody… Steve and Peg have a hell of a story to tell and we’re all gonna need to be fortified for it!” His glance at Peggy told her that he wanted to hear the tale and wouldn’t let her refuse, government secrets be damned.

Half an hour later found Peggy, Kay, Howard, Jason, and Steve all sitting around a table in the nameless hotel’s tiny common room, refilling glasses from a bottle of something Mr. Stanley had confided he distilled himself. It was pretty crude and burned the throat, and Peggy didn’t want to drink too much of it. Jason had nearly choked when he tried it, Steve looked disconcerted, and Howard blinked back tears, but Kay downed it like a shot of whiskey and held out her glass for more.

Peggy took the men through the story of what had happened after she and Kay flew away with the helicopter, and how they’d dragged Steve down to the boiler room to thaw him out. Although she wouldn’t have done so in front of Masters, Peggy confessed that he, herself, had believed Steve was dead, and it was Kay who’d insisted on keeping him intact.

“How did you know?” Howard asked her.

“I just… knew,” Kay replied with a shrug.

That was enough to tell Peggy not to go into the backstory before Kay herself was ready. “The rest, I suppose is, is fairly obvious,” she concluded. “The doctors poked and prodded at Steve to make sure he wasn’t going to drop dead on them, and Masters stopped worrying about arresting us because he was far too busy calling ahead to make sure everybody will give him the credit.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?” asked Jason, who knew what it was like to have other people claim responsibility for his work.

“I could not care less what Vernon Masters says or does, as long as he leaves me alone,” Peggy replied firmly, though it was an utter lie. Whatever the man had against her, she knew he wasn’t going to drop it just yet.

“What about you?” he asked Kay.

“I’m used to working behind the scenes,” she said. She poured the last of Mr. Stanley’s moonshine into her glass, then pushed the empty bottle away. “Anyway, that already happened, and is officially in the past. I’m worried about the future.”

Peggy leaned forward. “What about it?” she asked. Of course Kay had insisted Masters take the best bedroom, she realized… it was on the top floor, far away from anywhere he could hear this conversation from. “You said you had an extensive to-do list.”

“I do. I’ve checked two items off – Ste…” Kay caught herself. “Captain Rogers is back, and Zola is dead. That’s a good start. The next items are Sergeant Barnes and the Red Room. I want to do both at once, because I know how these people operate, and if I do one first, it’s gonna be much harder to come back and take care of the other.”

Almost unconsciously, everybody else huddled in closer, too. “Bucky is dead,” said Steve. “You said the Russians found his body.”

“I said they found him,” Kay said. “You assumed he was dead.”

Steve’s eyes widened, and Peggy had a sudden vision of him sitting in that half-destroyed tavern in France, trying desperately to get drunk off something that was probably no more than soda when compared to Mr. Stanley’s brew. For him that had been only a couple of weeks ago, and the guilt and grief were still fresh. To tell him he’d abandoned not a dead friend, but a live one… Peggy reached to put her hand over his.

“I lied when I told you they found in him the valley,” Kay went on. “HYDRA found him there. They recognized him as one of Zola’s experimental subjects, and were very interested in the fact that he’d survived the fall with only a few broken ribs and a shattered left shoulder, so they put him in suspended animation so they could keep working on him. Of course, only a few days later the Valkyrie crashed and Hitler shot himself like the sniveling coward he was, and the Russians moved in to search their bases and take anything useful. He was nobody to them, just a nameless POW, but his medical records interested them enough that they took him back with them.

“That’s where he is now,” she concluded. “They’ve been training him up and brainwashing him, trying to create the perfect assassin… something like me, but with less free will and higher necklines. They had to amputate his left arm, and eventually they hope captured HYDRA scientists, people like Zola, can build him a functional prosthesis.”

There was silence at the table. Kay smiled sadly at Steve.

“Don’t feel bad, Captain Rogers, you didn’t know. How could you have known? It’s only been three years. They’re not finished yet. It’ll be much easier to save him now that it would be later, when the only thing he’s known for decades is orders and violence.” She glanced at Peggy, and Peggy realized she was the only other person at the table who knew that Kay was speaking from terrible personal experience.

Steve swallowed hard. “How do you know any of this?” he asked. “I mean… why should I believe you?”

That made Peggy think twice, too… if she assumed Kay’s story of being from the SSR of the future was a lie, then how did she have this information? Either she was making it all up, or else she knew an awful lot about what was going on with both the USSR and possible HYDRA holdouts that may or may not exist. Was that awfully convenient, or just awfully suspicious?

Kay seemed to think for a moment. “Sergeant Barnes has a sister,” she said. “Rebecca. She’s the one who named him Bucky, because then their nicknames would match – Becky and Bucky.” She thought a little longer. “Before he was drafted he wanted to be a writer. His favourite book is A Princess of Mars but he’d read almost anything in that genre… not just Burroughs but Wells and Verne and Doyle. When you were twenty-one, some relative living in London sent you a copy of The Hobbit as a gift, and you read the first chapter and then immediately gave it to Barnes because you knew he’d like it.”

Steve stared at her, not knowing how to respond.

“I know that because you would have told it to me, in a future that won’t happen now,” said Kay, “and I know it won’t happen because you’re alive in 1948 and Zola isn’t.”

“Uh, I’m sorry,” said Jason, “are you trying to tell us you’re from the future?”

“That’s what she told me,” Peggy put in, “but I didn’t want to be the one who sounded like a lunatic by bringing it up.”

“I’m from a future, Dr. Wilkes,” said Kay. “It’s not the future anymore, and you wouldn’t want it to be, because it’s a future in which you got crushed to death during a demonstration in Baltimore in April of 1968.”

“If you’re a time traveler, how did you get here?” Howard wanted to know. “We worried that some of the stuff HYDRA was building was for altering time, but I did the math and it just doesn’t work. You’d need more energy than even the tesseract could give you.”

“I don’t know,” Kay told him. “I just woke up naked in an alley in San Francisco, and once I figured out I wasn’t dreaming I sat down and made a list of things that have to change. I need you guys to trust me, because I need your help changing them.”

A moment passed in which nobody spoke, and Peggy realized that everybody was looking at her, as if she were somehow the arbiter of truth and lies in this ridiculous situation. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know what to believe. It sounds absurd… but she did know about Steve. I can’t deny that.” How could she, when Steve was sitting right there at the table, in the flesh, as she’d never thought she would see him again.

That seemed to be enough for Steve himself. “Where is he?” he asked Kay.

“That’s the first problem,” she said. “I don’t know. Organizations like the Red Room don’t exactly keep meticulous records, and the details of their history weren’t part of the raise-a-spy curriculum. When they leave a place, they take everything they need and burn the rest.”

“Which is why you need Dottie!” Peggy realized.

“Exactly.” Kay nodded. “She at least knows where she was brought up and who did it, and that’s a start.”

“We haven’t had a whole lot of luck questioning her,” warned Peggy.

“We just have to figure out what she wants,” Kay said. “I’ve picked out a couple of her patterns… she’s collecting money, but also blackmail material on powerful people. I don’t know what she’s planning because in my future she obviously didn’t succeed. But I have a theory, and if I’m right, we’ll have leverage.”

“We’ll have to catch her first,” Peggy said, but for the first time in weeks, she felt as if there were some hope of that.

“What’s my future?” Howard wanted to know.

Kay cocked her head and bit her lip. “You and your wife die in a car accident just before Christmas in 1991.”

He was startled. “I’m going to get married?”

Kay rolled her eyes. “Peggy – you outlive two husbands and die in your bed at nearly a hundred years old, after saving the world over and over but never realizing the enemy you were fighting was within your own organization. Captain Rogers, they didn’t thaw you out until 2012, and then you had to realize that all this time…”

Steve winced and lowered his head. “All this time those people had Bucky.”

“Exactly,” Kay nodded, “but like I said, none of that’s going to happen now. The future is going to be better. I don’t know how I got here but I know I can do that, or at least try… some things I cannot change, but ‘til I try I’ll never know,” she added in a singsong.

There was another silence around the table. Steve cleared his throat.

“If what you said about Bucky is true, then I can’t just do nothing,” he said.

Peggy took his hand again. “We obviously have to try,” she agreed.

“You found Steve,” Howard said. “I owe you one for that.”

Jason hesitated, then appeared to make up his mind. “I’m in.”

Kay smiled. “I won’t thank you yet,” she told them, “but I’ll know when.”

Howard grinned and raised his glass. “To the future!” he said.

“The future!” They clinked their glasses together and downed the last of Mr. Stanley’s bootleg, and Peggy felt a little thrill of excitement in the pit of her stomach. Her work had long ago lost any of that, becoming just what she did with all its secrecy and all its dangers. But for some reason… this must be what Mr. Jarvis felt, when he described it as adventure.

#fanfic #captain america #agent carter #peggy carter #steve rogers #steggy #fix it fic

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jungxk · 4 years ago

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Hello I consider you my south asian big sister on tumblr and I think you’re also British? I am just a typical Indian girl in uk living with my very conservative immigrant parents who moved here nearly 2 decades ago. They are very strict in terms of where I go and what I do outside but they don’t really care about anything else I can do whatever I want at home and I never felt much pressure from them in terms of comparing me to other kids but I did have some indirect academic pressure. Anyways, my parents are strict but also not strict and now I’m moving away to uni, it seems they have a million worries in their head. I am only less than an hour’s train ride away and they’re still scared. I am quite naïve I won’t lie and I am inexperienced with being independent because my parents always coddled me and were very overprotective of me. I guess I don’t have much trust in myself because of that. I do feel anxious about moving away but my main anxiety comes from this dichotomy I am faced with. I have 2 options: 1. Be a good child and not drink or go to nightclubs and stuff 2. Try it out and see how it goes. My mum just recited a monologue on how our family is different from the ones here and that we don’t fit into the culture here. Most of my family is in India and they’re even more conservative and strict especially towards women. My parents themselves practically never go out and don’t have many close friends because they feel like outcasts due to their lack of habits in drinking or just this toxic gossiping culture in the south asian community. It’s hard to come across good people that don’t feel competitive or jealous of the fact that even though my parents were immigrant they managed to settle down here. I can tell my parents are scared that their eldest daughter will come under bad influence and start drinking and having sex. They always treat me like I’m a 5 year old child who doesn’t know anything and needs to be protected. I have never even gone to the gym by myself. We never go to restaurants and i have no idea how to order stuff when you go to one. I know it seems simple but I have never done it before and I don’t know any of the etiquette. It makes me nervous thinking about how I’ll have to socialize like this at uni. But what scared me the most about it that my parents won’t let me go even when I go uni. My dad is a driver and he often goes to London and I know he will drop by every now and then unexpectedly to make sure I am at my dorms not outside. My mum warns me that there are people out there I can’t trust and I will fall into bad company but I have no idea who to trust anymore and now I can’t make friends. When I go to uni I don’t know if I want to give drinking a go because I have never done it before and want to give it a go but I’m scared my parents will find out and I have no idea how I’ll deal with that. All this pressure makes me want to run away but I have no idea how to survive on my own. My parents don’t trust me at all I can tell. And it’s suffocating to see the way they think. When they talk about my 6 year old cousins who are boys, they find it easy to make jokes about how they’ll have girlfriends in no time but when it comes to me their full grown daughter, they won’t even let me go out by myself. I feel so much pressure to do well but I also feel so suffocated. I don’t get why my parents expect to follow the rules from a country I don’t even live in. I’m so tired of it. I don’t know what to do.

hi honey. as your desi big sister this rlly broke my heart to read bc i remember being exactly where you are. i need you to know that almost every daughter of south asian immigrant parents go thru this so you are not alone, you have never been alone, you will never be alone.

now. south asian parents never rlly see their children as people. they never raise their children to be capable and confident adults, just dolls that they keep as trophies and robots. it’s fucked up and wrong i know. but leaving home and making your own opinions about the world is paramount to both you and ur parents understanding that you are a human being with your own preferences, goals and ideals. yes it will be scary, yes you will struggle. the secrets, the arguments, the anxiety. but this is the start of you living your own life for the first time and if you don’t put your foot down now it will only get more difficult in the future. drinking and sex and drugs don’t make you a bad person. it’s a manipulation tactic they use to control you bc they’re scared of you becoming independent and forming your own thoughts. the more desperate they get the worse they will act. but tbh, it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do bc nothing will ever be enough for them so chasing their approval will get you nowhere.

i don’t know how abusive ur family are so pls familiarise urself with ur rights here in the uk as well as various charities and local safe places you can go to if things go south. when you go to uni have a network of people not connected to ur family who know ur situation and whereabouts at all times. ur safety is the most important thing here. i know it’s terrifying but it’s time to start thinking for yourself and deciding what’s important to you. some asian kids can give it all up, some can’t. but there are ppl out there who will love and support your authentic you, whoever you may be, and the only way to find yourself is to go out and experience the world outside of ur parents/other ppl’s judgments and fears. don’t let their close minds hold you back. wish you all the best baby x

#answered

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