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shirlleycoyle · 3 years ago

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How 9/11 Became Fan Fiction Canon

Every fictional character you can think of has experienced 9/11 in fanfiction.

A Clone Wars veteran with two lightsabers is on United Airlines Flight 93 and prevents it from crashing. Ron and Hermione get caught up in the chaos as the towers fall. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her friends watch the attacks unfold on TV from Sunnydale. We have spent 20 years trying to process what happened on 9/11 and its fallout, and that messy process can be tracked through the countless, sad, disturbing, and sometimes very funny fanfiction left across the internet.

Many of the fanfics written in the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks seemed to directly respond to the news as it happened, processing the tragedy in real-time through the eyes of characters they loved. In the absence of a canon episode where Daria Morgendorffer paid respects to those lost, writing fanfic about these characters also experiencing trauma helped fans cope.

One YuGiOh fanfic published on fanfiction.net in May 2002 could have been ripped exactly from what this writer experienced that Tuesday morning. “It started as a normal day,” user Gijinka Renamon wrote. Yugi and his friends were in school, where their teacher informed them of the attacks and sent everyone home from school.

“After reading people’s 9/11 fics, I decided to write my own, and put a certain character in it. And Yugi and his pals were my first choice,” the author's note reads, explaining the connection they felt to United flight 93 and the World Trade Center attacks. Given that they lived in Pennsylvania, and “it’s close to New York, I felt really sad about it.”

Stitch, a fandom journalist for Teen Vogue, told Motherboard that this reaction to 9/11 is not at all uncommon in fandom.

"Fandom has always been a place that positions nothing as 'off limits,'" she said. "Historical tragedies like the Titanic sinking and atrocities like… all of World War 2 show up regularly across the past 30 years of people creating stories and art about the characters they love. So, on some level, it makes sense that 9/11 and the following 20-year military installation in the Middle East has joined the ranks of things people in different fandoms turn into settings for their fan fiction."

Reactions depicted in a handful of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfics published in the weeks after the attacks ring a little truer to the characters. “Tuesday, 11th September 2001,” written by Anna K, almost echoes the lyrics from “I’ve Got a Theory,” one of the songs in the musical episode that aired in November 2001. “We have seen the apocalypse. We have prevented it. Actually, we’ve prevented quite a few. So we know what they look like,” they write, before taking a darker turn. “They look a lot like…New York today.”

Killing demons and vampires doesn’t phase the Scooby Gang, but when preventable human death is brought into the picture, it’s gut wrenching.

“What am I supposed to do…When I can’t do anything to save the world?” Buffy cries into Spike’s chest, watching the attacks unfold on TV in a fanfic the author described as being “about feeling numb and helpless.”

In “Blood Drive,” Kirayoshi writes about Buffy and her friends saving a van full of donated blood meant for victims of the attacks from a group of thirsty vampires. One Buffy the Vampire Slayer fic even takes a blindly patriotic turn, where noted lesbian witch Tara McClay helps Xander hang an American flag from the window of the magic shop to make Anya feel better.

Experiencing 9/11 as a young teenager was overwhelming not just because of the loss of life. Almost immediately after the event itself, it was as if the entirety of American culture re-oriented itself towards an overtly jingoistic stance. As we get distance from the attacks, seeing the tone of television and movies from the early 2000s is jarring, and some have gone viral on Twitter. In the world of pop music, mainstream musicians like the Chicks, formerly known as the Dixie Chicks, were blacklisted from the radio while Toby Keith sang about putting a boot up the ass of terrorists. On the Disney Channel, a young Shia Labeouf reading a poem he supposedly wrote about the events. The poem concludes with the line, "it's awesome to be an American citizen."

In a world so completely saturated with this messaging, it is not surprising that fanfic authors started including 9/11 in their work so soon after the event. Even The West Wing had a strange, out of continuity, fanfic-esque episode where the characters reacted to 9/11. In some cases, it made sense that the characters in the stories would be close to or a part of the events themselves.

"For characters like John Watson or Captain America, the idea works to an extent," Stitch told Motherboard. "In the original Sherlock Holmes works and the 2011 BBC series, Watson had just returned from Afghanistan. For Captain America and other Marvel heroes, 9/11 was something that was addressed in-universe in The Amazing Spider-Man volume 2 #36. Technically, 9/11 is 'canon' to the Marvel universe."

In “Early Warning: Terrorism,” a fanfiction for the TV show Early Edition in which a man who mysteriously receives tomorrow's newspaper, predicting the future, avoids jingoism, but tries to precent 9/11 from happening. This fanfic remains unfinished; it’s unclear if the characters successfully prevent 9/11 in this retelling.

Largely in fanfic from the era just after 9/11, when many young authors were trying to emotionally grapple with it, the characters don't re-write or undo the events themselves. It's this emphasis on the reaction to tragedy that colors the fanfiction that features 9/11 going forward.

Although fanfiction authors have been writing about 9/11 consistently since soon after the event, whenever that fanfiction reaches outside of its intended audience, it looks bizarre.

A screenshot of a Naruto 9/11 fanfic on the Tumblr subreddit comes without any context, or even more than two lines and an author's note. It’s impossible to suss out if this falls into the category of sincere fanfic without the rest of the piece or a publication date, but modern-day commenters on the Reddit thread see it as classic Tumblr trash.

Screenshot from r/Tumblr

“Bin Laden/Dick Cheney, enemies to lovers, 10k words, slow burn,” one user joked in the replies, underscoring the weirdness of Naruto being in the Twin Towers by comparing it to a What If story about Cheney and Bin Laden slowly falling deeply in love.

It’s hard to tell how much of the 9/11 fanfic and fanart starting a few years after the attacks is sincere, and how much of it is ironic, and trying to make fun of the very concept of writing fanfiction about 9/11.

A 2007 anime music video (in which various clips, usually from anime, are cut together to music) that combines scenes from The Lion King with Linkin Park’s “Crawling” and clips from George Bush’s speeches immediately after the attacks feels like the perfect example of this. Even the commenters can’t seem to suss out if this person is a troll or not.

There’s no way that My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic 9/11 fanart could be serious, right? Especially if the description pays tribute to “some of the nation's most memorable buildings,” and features five of the main characters as child versions of themselves. The comments again are split between users thanking the artist for a thoughtful remembrance post, and people making their own headcanon for why Twilight Sparkle is surreptitiously absent from the scene.

Screengrab via DeviantArt

There’s Phineas and Ferb fanfic that combines a 9/11 tribute concert with flashbacks to Ferb being rescued from the towers as a baby, written on the 10th anniversary of the attacks. It jumps from introspection to lines like, “‘Quiet Perry the Platypus. I’m trying to listen to these kids singing a 9/11 tribute.’”

The author's notes make it more likely that they meant for this to be a tribute piece, but it doesn’t quite make sense until watching a YouTube dramatic reading of it from 2020, fully embracing the absurdity of it all.

“For me, 9/11 is synonymous with war. It completely changed the course of my life," Dreadnought, the author of a Captain America fanfic Baghdad Waltz that sees Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes fall in love over the course of the war on terror, told Motherboard. "It’s the reason I joined the military, and I developed deep connections with people who would go on to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq. These very much felt like my generation’s wars, perhaps because people I graduated high school with were the youngest folks eligible to serve at the time.”

Dreadnought told Motherboard that although they didn't deploy, their career has kept 9/11 and the trauma from it in their mind. After seeing that people who fantasize about Steve and Bucky getting together seemed particularly interested in reading fanfiction that related to 9/11, they decided to try their hand at it.

"I had to do something with all of that emotionally, and I’m admittedly a bit emotionally avoidant. So I learned through fic that it’s easier for me to process those feelings and the knowledge of all the awful stuff that can happen in war if I can turn it into something creative," Dreadnought said. "Give the feelings to fake people and then have those fake people give the feelings to readers!"

To Dreadnought, who is a queer man, the experience of researching and writing this was more cathartic than they first expected, especially as a way to navigate feelings about masculinity, military culture, and queer identity. But they said the research they did, which included watching footage of first responders at ground zero, was what helped them finally process the event itself.

"It was like a delayed horror, and it was more powerful than I expected it would be." Dreadnought said. "When I was eighteen, I was pretty emotionally divorced from 9/11; I just knew I wanted to do something about it. So coming back to it in my 30s while writing this fic, it was a very different experience. Even the research for this story ended up being an extraordinarily valuable exercise in cognitively and emotionally processing 9/11 and all of its second and third order effects."

Fanfiction that features 9/11 provides an outlet for people who still grapple with the trauma from that day. But Stitch warns that the dynamics of fandom and how it relates to politics can also create fiction that's less respectful and more grotesque.

"With years of distance between the stories written and the original events of 9/11, there seems to be some sort of cushion for fans who choose to use those events as a catalyst for relationships—and Iraq and Afghanistan for settings," Stitch said. "The cushion allows them room to fictionalize real world events that changed the shape of the world as we know it, but it also insulates them from having to think about what they may be putting into the world."

The tendency of turning these events into settings or backgrounds for mostly white, male characters to fall in love has the unintended effect of displacing the effects that the war on terror has had on the world over. Steve and Bucky might fall in love during the war on terror, but they would also be acting as a part of the American military in a war that has been criticized since it started. Fanfic writers in other fandoms have come under fire for using real world tragedy as settings for fic before. In the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake Supernatural fanfiction about the actors Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki going to the island to do aid became controversial within the fandom. There have also been fics where characters grapple with the death of George Floyd that is written in a way that displaces the event from the broader cultural context of race in America.

"A Captain America story where Steve Rogers is a 'regular' man who joins the US Army and 'fights for our freedom' post-9/11 is unlikely to deal with the war’s effect on locals who are subject to US military intervention," Stitch said. "It’s unlikely to sit with what Captain America has always meant and what a writer is doing by dropping Steve Rogers into a then-ongoing conflict in any capacity."

After enough time, “never forget” can even morph into “but what if it never happened?” A 19k+ word Star Wars alternate universe fanfic asks this question, wondering what would have unfolded if someone with two lightsabers was on United Flight 93. This fic, part of a larger fanfic series with its own Wikia, considers what would have happened if Earth was a military front in the Clone Wars.

In this version of events, a decorated general who served in the Clone Wars is able to take back control of Flight 93 before it crashes, landing safely and preventing even more tragedy from happening that day. In the end, all of the passengers who made harrowing last calls to their loved ones before perishing in a Pennsylvania field survive thanks to the power of the Force, and are awarded medals of honor by President Bush.

Twenty years after the attacks, it’s painful to think about what would have happened if people got to work 15 minutes later, or missed their trains that morning. There weren’t Jedi masters deployed to save people in real life, but for some of the fanfic writers working today, the world of Star Wars might feel just as removed as the world before September 11, 2001.

Fiction serves as a powerful playground for processing cultural events, especially generational trauma. The act isn't neutral though; a decade's worth of fanfiction that takes place on or around 9/11 shows how our own understanding of a traumatic event can shift with time.

How 9/11 Became Fan Fiction Canon syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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vfdarkness · 3 years ago

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AVFD Script - S2EP03 The Forgotten Man

[[Intro]]

You’re at a bus stop and your bus is late.

Finally, it pulls up, you step aboard, and for a brief moment…

the driver’s facial features - their eyes, nose, mouth are in all the wrong places.

As you stare, their face quickly rearranges itself to appear more normal. More human.

The door closes. There’s no one else in the vehicle.

You need my help.

[[AVFD intro music kicks in]]

This is A Voice From Darkness.

[[AVFD intro music fades out]]

Hello, this is Dr. Malcolm Ryder, parapsychologist, here to help you with all problems paranormal, supernatural, and otherworldly. And we have a wonderful show planned for tonight. There’s two national alerts for the state of Florida - one for the panhandle, and another for the everglades. After we go over these we’ll explore one of the strangest roadside attractions in American history. And of course we’ll finish our show with the phone lines open so you, our listeners, can call-in. But first, let's get to our national alerts

[[National Alerts music starts]]

A sinkhole has appeared in the middle of Kelson Ave in Marianna, Florida. The hole’s depth is currently unknown however twenty feet down, stone carvings of faces appear. The carvings continue for as far down as anyone can tell. Each is unique yet is made to grotesquely express either the emotion of fear or that of delight. A spelunker descended into the hole to gather information about its depth. Two hours into his descent contact was lost and he was pulled out. When he resurfaced he was said to be in a daze. He removed his harness and immediately jumped back into the hole. Please be careful while driving on Kelson, Ave in Marianna, Florida.

Our second national alert is for the Florida Everglades. The Singing has returned to the wetlands. All those in the area are advised to wear hearing protection for at least the next 72 hours or until otherwise instructed. The source of The Singing is unknown but is said to compel all who hear it to walk into the wetlands and be devoured by the creatures there-in. Again, please wear hearing protection if you’re within earshot of the Florida Everglades.

And that’s all we have for national alerts this evening.

[[NA music fades out]]

Next up we have Today In Odd America, where we’ll discuss a manifestation that once haunted every corner of this land. And afterwards we’ll open the phone-lines.

[[Today In Odd America]]

Today in Odd America we find ourselves across the highways of our country. Forty four years ago today marks the last known visit to a roadside attraction commonly called The House of Narcissus. No physical evidence of this place exists. It was never found in the same location twice - yet hundreds of oral testimonies swear to its existence. Tonight I will cobble together disparate accounts from those who claim to have toured the fabled roadside museum. My hope is this will paint you a picture of what the experience was like for those who wound up touring a space dedicated completely to themselves.

“I was driving down Route 8,” Maise Bridges stated to the Columbus Dispatch in 1955. “It was late and dark. No other cars were on the road. Then I saw it - a billboard illuminated by a single dim light that read: Know Thyself, Next Exit. No other words. But next to them, taking up the entirety of the right side was a painted picture - of me. Unmistakably me. Done in a sort of… Norman Rockwell style I suppose. I just… What was I supposed to do? Of course I took the next exit.”

All descriptions of The House of Narcissus begin this way. A strange billboard on a lonely road, mere seconds to decide to take the exit or not. Oddly, there are few confirmed cases of those who saw the billboard and kept driving. It’s impossible to say if that says something overall about human nature or merely the people The House chose to manifest for.

“I was overwhelmed when I first drove up to the house,” Curtis Johnson said to the Louisville Times in 1948. “I’m not ashamed to admit it, but I might have cried a bit. I mean the place was just, just magnificent. Out there, in the middle of this grassy field, in the middle of nowhere there’s this small piece of heaven, you know? I didn’t feel like I was about to tour some cheap-o roadside scam where they show you a mannequin in a five dollar gorilla suit and tell you it’s Bigfoot. I felt like I was home. Of course I rushed right outta my car up to the door. Why wouldn’t I? I was home.”

Descriptions of the museum are typically left vague. Abstract. At least when describing the exterior. Visitors will speak of the joy they felt upon seeing the house. Often they’ll say a sense of nostalgia or homecoming overwhelmed them. However no one was ever able to give a single concrete detail of what The House looked like. How many stories were there? What color was the siding? What the house looks like remains a mystery to this day. But there’s much agreement about its interior. At least in some respects.

“There’re no employees, no turnstyle to go through, nothing like a museum or roadside attraction typically has. You just go in the front door, and you’re suddenly there - in the first room. It’s filled with photographs along the walls. They were all of my family, friends, neighbors, teachers, former classmates, folks from my church, employers, co-workers. People I might have talked to only once in passing. None of these were photos I took or remember anyone else ever taking. None are in any photo album I own,” said Judge Michael Harvester in 1972, when he called into the KIRT radio station of Olympia, Washington.

The Photo Gallery is always the first room visitors find themselves in. Under each photo is a brass plaque, on which a single sentence is etched: the last words said by whomever is touring the house to the person featured in the photograph.

Even this first room can be disarming to a visitor. As Judge Harvester said: “You don’t realize how many people you speak to, thinking you’ll do so again, but then never do. It adds up over a life. It really does. I didn’t look at all the pictures, or read all the plaques. I had to stop after awhile. I saw one in particular… the last words I said to an old neighbor of mine, lived a few houses away from the place I bought right after law school. Me, him, and some of the guys down the block would get together to play poker twice a month. Last thing I said to him, ‘I’ll see you in a few weeks.’ I don’t remember what happened after that. I guess the poker game fell apart. I don’t think either of us moved, I don’t remember us getting into any fights. But I never spoke to him again. And that’s just one example. People like to call that first room the photo gallery, and that makes sense, I guess. But that’s not what it is. It’s a monument. A monument to lost relationships.”

Most visitors to The House expressed regret coming there at all after visiting this first room. Unfortunately, the way they entered disappears after entry - replaced by a wall filled with photographs. Once you enter, The House forces you to continue through the rooms. That is, if you wish to leave.

“The second room was a full scale replica of my childhood home,” said Sara Lopez to the San Diego Tribune in 1966. “All five rooms of our house back on Balboa Avenue. “I went through the cabinets in the kitchen. The dishes… they were identical to ones we had. There were these little hand drawn designs on them. They’re abstract, hard to describe, but the plates in that museum. They matched perfectly how I remembered them. It was impossible.” Most statements regarding the second room share similar amazement at the level of detail on even the most insignificant items - stains on the carpet, entryways scuffed and dirty from children’s shoes. “What really got me about the second room, “Sara Lopez said, “were the smells. The kitchen had this overwhelming odor of garlic and cumin, spices my mother put in everything. The carpet near the entryway smelled like wet dog. Our lab, Daisy, would run through our neighbors sprinkler then come inside, right to that patch of carpet, and roll around. Little things like that, I’d forgotten about completely. Hadn’t thought of in years, but suddenly a million memories came rushing back to me.”

The average visitor reported spending somewhere between four to five hours in The House of Narcissus. There were outliers of course, in both directions. Some, after seeing the photo gallery, ran through the other rooms without lingering. Others claimed to have spent days and only left when they were near dehydration.

There are dozens of other rooms in The House. Too many to go over tonight. But I’ll end by stating what’s in the only obligatory room, the last room. The room with the only way out.

At the very end of a long hallway is a plain wooden door with a small sign above that reads: What if…

Inside is a small movie theatre. There’s a single red cushioned seat in the room with the perfect view of a small screen. To the right of the screen is a door with an exit sign above. The door will not open unless the visitor sits down in the chair and watches, truly watches and listens, to the film that plays in that small theatre.

“On the day of what was supposed to be my wedding I called my best friend - my bridesmaid. I cried and I gave her the awful job of telling my husband-to-be I’d changed my mind,” said Tonya Blanton to the Sante Fe Dispatch in 1958. “I was living in Minneapolis at the time. Born there, was to be married there, figured I’d die there eventually too. I don’t know what overcame me. But I got in my car and drove. Found myself in New Mexico and started a new life. My parents were furious. And I never spoke to the man who was to be my husband ever again. He sent me a letter when I’d settled in Santa Fe. I wasn’t brave enough to open it. But in that last room. In that last room of that awful house - a film played. It showed what my life would have been had I stayed in Minneapolis. I won’t… I won’t say what all I saw. What all I missed out on. All I’ll say is I know I made the wrong choice. I’ve thought about that every single day since visiting that terrible place.”

Tonya Blanton is not a unique case. Chicago journalist Studs Terkel in his book The American Road: An Oral History devoted a chapter to The House of Narcissus. He conducted over twenty interviews with those who'd toured the roadside wonder. When asked if they could change places and live the life they saw in that last room - would they? Every person he interviewed said they would.

The House of Narcissus only existed for some sixty odd years. The last known visit occurred in 1977, outside of Spring Green, Wisconsin. “People say I must’ve burned the place down or something,” Buddy Palmer, the last recognized visitor, said to the Madison Gazette in 1980. “I didn’t, I swear,” he went on, “but if I had some matches and kerosene on me, would I of? Sure thing. No one should ever be forced to watch the movie that plays in that last room. I’ll think of that picture the rest of my life. I’ll know I messed up early on and I’m not living my best, happiest life. You know how hard it is to get out of the bed in the morning with that hanging over you? Sometimes that movie plays in my dreams. I usually gotta call in sick to work the next day when it does. I just can’t stop thinking about it. The rest of the place too… it’s just... Just too much.”

For those of you listening to this while driving alone, rest assured, you’re unlikely to see a billboard with your own face staring back at you and the words: Know Thyself, Next Exit. But in the rare chance such an event occurs, please consider my advice: don’t take that exit. Just keep driving. There are some truths about ourselves perhaps better left unexplored.

And now back to our main show.

[[TIOA music fades out]]

ACT II

RYDER

And we're back and we already have a caller on the line. Why don't you tell us your name and the nature of your supernatural problem.

RENE

Hello, Malcolm. I was wondering if we'd ever get the chance to speak again.

RYDER

(uncertain)

I don't recognize your voice. Have you called into the show before?

RENE

A few times, yes. And we met once or twice in person.

A beat.

RYDER

Who is this?

RENE

My name is Rene Dupont. And though I've explained this to you before, I will kindly do so again. I exist with a peculiar condition. People can rarely retain memories of me. Not in any form. As this conversation gets to a certain point, I'll begin to vanish from your mind as well as most of your listeners. If you try to write down anything about me during this call, you'll likely only produce gibberish or the vaguest of details.

RYDER

I've read case studies of similar situations. There was a man in Utah-

RENE

(interrupts)

Yes, yes.

Nathaniel Cotwell who lived in a small town that couldn't create new memories of him past the age of eight. And so as an adult they'd still treat him as if he were a young boy. You studied him and Sarah Pullman of Butte, Montana who went missing one night in the woods. When she found her way home again, her family had completely forgotten her.

A beat.

RENE

The few times we've spoken, you've wished to demonstrate knowledge of people who've existed with Memory-related ailments and those are your two most common examples.

RYDER

It seems we have spoken before. Mr. Dupont-

RENE

Please, call me Rene. No need for formalities. We're old acquaintances after all.

RYDER

Yes. Of course. And why have you called into the show tonight, Rene?

RENE

There's been a man following me. Repeatedly.

A beat.

RYDER

(realizing what he means)

And of course that's a difficult task to accomplish, as it's so hard to remember you.

RENE

You're correct. I am Anonymity Incarnate. But there's a man in a grey suit who seems to have found my scent. A further detail about him: he's missing one of his fingers. I'll let you guess which.

RYDER

Why is The Traveling Salesman after you?

RENE

I called you in search of an answer to that very question.

RYDER

In all likelihood he wishes to strike a deal with you. That's why he seeks anyone out. That, or to kill them.

RENE

Let's assume the former for the moment: what sort of deal would he want to make with me?

RYDER

I have no idea. Perhaps he needs information from someone. But he doesn't want this person to know they've given their secrets up. I imagine with your talent that's something you'd be good at.

RENE

Before the wall was destroyed in '89 I was employed on both sides doing something akin to what you just suggested.

A beat.

RYDER

Then that might be what he wants. Or perhaps something more... metaphysical.

RENE

Such as?

RYDER

Your ability to be forgotten. Julian already has some power over memory, but not that.

RENE

Could he really take that from me?

RYDER

Not take. Trade. The Salesman doesn't steal, Rene, but his deals are often one-sided, exploitive, as he'll neglect to tell you pertent information before you agree.

RENE

So he wouldn't really be taking something from me so much as he'd be giving me the gift of being able to be remembered.

A beat.

RYDER

That's a dangerous way of viewing such a deal.

RENE

Dangerous for you, perhaps, but of great advantage to me.

RYDER

It would be dangerous for the whole country for The Traveling Salesman to be easily forgotten. One of the few weapons we have against him are the memories of devastation he's brought about by the deals he's made. The only reason anyone ever turns him down is because his reputation precedes him. Take that away-

RENE

(interrupts)

I have the means and resources to go to many other countries. Julian Holloway can have this one.

RYDER

You'd potentially sacrifice hundreds of millions of people to-

RENE

(interrupts)

To be remembered. And yes, I would. This "talent" of mine came to me when I was young. For most my life I've been unable to have a meaningful relationship with another human being.

To even have an extended conversation. What's my name?

RYDER

Rene...

Malcolm searches his mind for the surname.

RYDER

Rene Dupont.

RENE

You're close to forgetting already, Malcolm Ryder.

A beat.

RENE

If I made a deal with your friend for him to take this power away, you'd never even know.

RYDER

The Traveling Salesman is not my friend.

RENE

If your former friend might help me where no one else could before, including yourself, then I would take him up on his offer.

RYDER

That is if he even wants to help you. He could be searching for you, as I already said, to kill you.

RENE

And why would that be his objective?

RYDER

There are limitations to his power. I don't fully know what they are, but I know they exist.

RENE

Again I ask, why would this necessitate him wanting me dead?

RYDER

Because you possess power in one of his realms - Memory and Dream. And if you have more power than he does, and if he can't use you, or your power, towards his own ends, he'll want you dead. You're a liability otherwise.

A beat.

RENE

You're bluffing. Trying to stoke fear in me so I stay away from him. So I can't make a deal. If what you said was true, your friend Charlotte Price would be dead.

RYDER

Charlotte has found ways to take care of herself. She's forged alliances with things even Julian fears. Have you done the same?

A beat.

RENE

What you're telling me is that I need leverage before I allow Julian Holloway to try and offer a deal to me.

RYDER

That's not what I'm saying at all. Under no circumstances should you attempt to make any deal with him.

RENE

That's not what I took away from this conversation. Thank you so much, Malcolm. As always, you've been helpful.

RYDER

No, wait-

Dial tone.

A long pause.

RYDER

There was someone on the line just now. I swear there was.

I have notes I made, most are illegible which isn't like me. Of what I can read: Shadow, Mirror, Flesh, Spirit, and Dream. I tried to write Memory but it seems my hand was unable to. Odd...

A beat.

RYDER

I think we'll end the show there tonight. I'd like to play back the recording of the past several minutes. See if I can see what I'm missing.

A beat.

RYDER

But if you're experiencing anything supernatural, paranormal, or otherworldly, please feel free to call in next time on A Voice From Darkness.

[[AVFD outro music fades in and out.]]

#a voice from darkness #avfd #malcolm ryder #rene dupont

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jamestrmtx · 4 years ago

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Fairytale Complex - [Undertale | Sans x Reader]

[Gender Neutral, Frisk's Parent Reader | Slow Burn]

Chapter Nine | Dating Tense! (Part 1 of 3)

[First] | [Previous] | [Next]

Alternate Title: 'Hey, (mami/papi)' or 'Sans acts like a Latin American f*ckboy'.

• • •

Week two into clearing out the air between you and Frisk's monster friends arrives much faster than you would like.

With all the pent-up frustration you'd let out during the first half of your tour and how you ended up postponing the other half prematurely precisely due to that, you don't really want to visit Toriel's home anymore. Even if she did invite you over for a chat at her place back when you were still at the hospital, and even if you did tell her you would set up a date with her soon, you assume she's already long forgotten about that promise, and the mere thought of asking her where she lives now that she's moved on from an apartment to a house is far too much for you.

Are you available today?

I would like to fulfill what I promised you at the hospital, if so.

If not, do let me know when you are free.

Here is the new address.

>> Attachment - 1 image

If you are not certain over how to make it here, I can gladly pick you up during your lunch break, or after you have clocked out of work.

Or I can ask another person to help you get there.

Just make sure you do not eat anything before visiting, so I can prepare either lunch or dinner for you and everyone else here, depending on when you arrive.

Take care. ]:)

But, of course -- and as fate would have it -- she'd sent you a string of messages first thing in the morning today.

She'd even sent you a picture with her new address, detailed to such a point where you really wish -- now that you see who the person is -- you hadn't agreed with her on having someone help you find her new home.

"Jump in," Sans says, opening the front passenger door of what you can only assume is Papyrus's car based on the stories Frisk told you about him. "We'll make it there in less than an hour -- just in time for you to make it back to work later."

Between Toriel's sudden message, what happened back at Waterfall, the cloudy weather rushing you to make a decision, and just who's the person the goat lady's entrusted to help you out, it's almost impossible for you not to stress any more than you have already.

You're still too worked up over what was revealed to you at Waterfall, and you still can't shake off the extreme caution you've now built around the same person meant to keep you safe in the first place, as far as having to remind yourself not to be as on-edge as you'd been the time he tried to console you when you started tearing up back at the Ruins.

That reminder makes you look at the monster again, though without a friendly tone or look present, mind once again fueled by your urgent need to put up a front around him.

"What makes you think I'll hitch a ride from you now of all times?" you ask, remaining in place. "And with questionable music, to top it all off."

While you're usually not one to make shallow judgements based on personal taste, you can't ignore how obvious he's being with you right now. There's a bell of warning ringing at the back of your head with the low rumble and suggestive beat of the song playing on the radio, and his beyond relaxed driving pose. Only one hand's on the wheel, and the other's hung over the open window. He's either pretending, or he's for real about his attitude, something hard to tell after ending your tour with him at the Underground.

"C'mon, pal. We know our names, met a whole month ago, and you know some of my past to more detail now, don't ya? I'd say we're still acquaintances, at the very least."

"I'm afraid I'll still have to refuse." You cross your arms and point with your gaze at the minivan parked not far behind him. "I've got my own car to drive in. I can follow behind you."

The skeleton's gaze follows yours, and his grin almost stretches when he gets a good look at where you're pointing at. "A minivan?" His irises light up and he snickers, a rumble similar to the song's leaving him. "You really are a parent at heart, huh?" His irises move on back to you, and you further shield yourself with the cross of your arms when you see he's now eyeing you up and down, a different light flaring in his gaze. "Don't think I've said this before, but you've got the looks of one, too." He winks. "And this's probably a bit off-topic and a whole lot personal, but... Has Frisk told you why they ran away yet, or are they still keepin' quiet about it? Jerry aside, you sound n' act like a good parent, as far as I've gotten to know you."

Sans hits another weak spot, one you try to mask by showing anger on your face, using the excuse of him having checked you out. "I doubt I should answer that to a guy who's just looked me up and down." You form a scowl, persisting. "You really have no shame left in you anymore, do you? If you hadn't been so honest with me at the hospital, I would've assumed you've got experience trying to woo people over -- even if you're not that good at it, in reality."

He grins and later shrugs; the arm hung over the window slips back inside the car and lowers the volume some. "Well, what can I say, pal? Ya don't wanna be acquaintances, ya don't wanna be friends, and you're set on me being your enemy ever since the tour. The only thing I've got left's to try flirtin' with you."

"You really don't." You huff and let your arms fall back to their rightful place, self-consciousness showing when you see his irises follow your movements. "Are you that intent on pissing me off from now on? Stop staring at me like that."

"If I stop, will ya try to listen? I just wanna help you and your kid out."

Humour vanishes from his skull; the serious note to his words is then augmented when he makes eye contact with you, music now low enough not to distract you anymore. "Fine." You look back to your car. "But I won't ride with you. I... I don't trust you enough to be all alone with you anymore." You pause and avoid any further eye contact, crossing your arms again when you feel too exposed from his earlier staring.

Being a full-time office worker and single parent, topped off with having to do almost all the chores around the house, meant little to no time for yourself, which in turn meant self-care was scarce -- a factor that tripled when Frisk ran away, made worse with how you coped with their absence. Barely eating anything throughout the day to later drown out your sorrows with the least healthy food there was late in the night -- mostly microwavable to avoid having to cook only for yourself -- had left an imprint on your body and health alike, and it shows to this day. Even if you were starting to get your social life back together and even if you were little-by-little going back to a better and healthier lifestyle, you were still far from being as active as you once were before Frisk went missing. The once natural huskiness and pudginess of your physique was something, but ignoring how that amount doubled over the past few months, how you lost what once used to be good stamina, and how you have stress acne all over your face is a whole different thing in its entirety.

This man was seeing the downright worse self you could possibly show to the world right now, both in terms of emotional and physical health. How he apparently gained a crush on you over the past month is an anomaly you rather wouldn't want to find an answer for currently.

"(Y/N)?"

You look towards the skeleton when he calls out for you, a bit off-put by him using your name. Truth be told, you'd already grown used to him calling you 'pal' or (L/N). Any other name besides those main two felt strange coming from his teeth. "You good?" he asks, a subtle furrow present on his skull. "You've been spacin' off for a while now."

"I'm good," you reply, careful not to let your voice break. It's not until you see him wipe the car door with his jacket's sleeve that you notice rain's began to fall, tainting the inside -- a cause of him having left the window open. "...You should close the window, Serif. I'll follow behind in my car."

"Ride with me." There's not a trace of humour left in him, though you still find it hard getting to take him seriously. "I promise I won't bother you 'til we get to Tori's."

"I still can't." You step back, eyes looking off towards the passenger door to see it left ajar, kept somewhat protected by the rain, yet still in wait for you. "Sorry, but I.... I really can't." Already feeling your work uniform starting to stick, you reach out for your bag and take a mini-umbrella out, shielding yourself from the rain with it. "Thanks for the offer, and for the tour last weekend, but I simply can't ignore how you looked at me just a second ago, and how you've been acting with me recently."

• • •

With how heavy the rain gets, you can barely see when the monster takes a turn to the left, forcing you to take a detour to the emergency lane and suck up a cry of frustration.

Of course, accepting a ride in his car would've been much easier than all this, but then what about your integrity as a person?

Some monsters were reported to have caused Frisk harm, one of them in particular said to have been a literal, killer robot, programmed by none other than Alphys, the same monster responsible for hurting her own kind through means of inhumane experiments.

So if that was the case, who knew what that skeleton could be up to?

Whether jokingly or not, you were far from trusting over his demeanor and were in no means wanting to leave Frisk under the care of him, Papyrus, Toriel, or anyone else anymore. After all, your ex-husband left the second he deemed himself too irresponsible to look after a child. So who's to say an utter stranger belonging to another species wouldn't do the same, or worse?

"I'm sorry to say this, but we're gonna have to stop here."

Once again caught daydreaming, you look to your left, the monster's muffled voice made more audible when you lower the window only slightly, keeping the rain outside. "It'll be hard gettin' anywhere with how strong it's pourin'."

Sans is pretty much drenching himself, though your urge to let him in your car is held back when you question yourself over it. You chew on your lip as you think it through, clicking the switch the second after you scold yourself over your straight-up awful manners recently. "Get inside," you exclaim, huffing. "Don't just soak yourself for me!"

Without waiting, you turn your back to him and reach out for the seat next to yours, opening up the front passenger door for him to pass by and closing it the second he's in.

"Wouldn't've happened if you'd just hitched a ride off of me. Or unblocked my number, at least."

"As if."

His breathing's scarce, and your questions over why he hadn't chosen to use magic similar to last time are answered to you when you remember what he said about Karma.

"Use this." You offer out a towel to him, one you retrieve from within Frisk's leftover school supplies at the back of the car. "Why would you drive all the way back, park your car behind mine, and then get down from it even though it's pouring, all just to talk to me? Haven't I given off enough signs about us? Don't do this for me, Serif. I... I appreciate all your help, but I can handle this from here on out."

You find it hard not to stare when he slips off his jacket and throws it on his lap, revealing a bulky build despite him being a skeleton. He's soaked from head to toe, yet he pays little to no mind to it and takes the towel from your hands, patting it over himself a few times. "You done starin', pal?"

"How are you so... big-boned? I thought that was just your jacket adding extra bulkiness to you!" You look away when you realize just how plain and awfully rude you've been. It doesn't help when you remind yourself he's drenched because of you. "That was rude of me," you say, sighing. "I'm sorry." A strain takes over your chest and a frown accompanies it. "What I meant to say is, well..." You breathe out a sigh. "Why are you so... husky? Is that normal for skeleton monsters?"

"Just as normal as it is for you to have love handles. Didn't really notice the first few times we met, but you've gotta real (mom/dad) bod, if I do say so myself. Your work uniform kinda brings that out more."

You face him with wide eyes and keep your distance from him by scooting away, once more stricken by how much he's changed in so short of a time. What was once a level-headed and decent guy was turning out to be a much more brazen one -- a jerk, not so much yet, but boy, was he starting to cross a few boundaries every now and then. "So it's... not?"

"It's normal." He chuckles, honesty present in the subtle, hearty rumble of his laughter. "...You sayin' it ain't normal for you to have those? 'Cause Human Anatomy's taught me it is. Even more so if you're a single parent, since time's scarce and stress's more than bountiful. Don't really expect you to have your ex's six-pack abs if you're takin' up pretty much all the responsibilities of raising a family by yourself."

"Wh-" You ignore everything he's said and instead reply with, "...Why do you call them that, anyway? You know the scientific term for them if that's the case, don't you?"

"I do, but I kinda like calling 'em that more," he says. "It's a cute name for 'em."

If this was another way of him getting to try to flirt with you more, it was the weakest and most awful attempt yet. Whether he was joking or not didn't matter anymore, your desire to have him out of your life increasing with each second he spends inside your car. "You sure have plenty of guts for a skeleton, you know that? Never in my life would've I imagined someone would bring that up in a conversation." You sigh, breathe back in, and turn the air conditioner down a notch, annoyance helping further contrast the cold of the rain. "Are you alright with the cold, Serif? I know you lived at Snowdin, so I'm not sure if you're uncomfortable or not, but... I lowered it since you got rained on."

"Warmin' up to me already, pal?"

You throw another towel at the skeleton, and a scowl returns to your face. "Ask that again, and I'll kick you out for sure this time."

He laughs, taking the towel and draping it over his shoulders. "Duly noted."

• • •

With the rain forcing you to start up any means of conversation with the monster, you suck up your pride and unblock his number half an hour into your wait for the sky to calm down.

"I might have just enough energy to drive us there without havin' to wait so much for it to clear up," he comments, breaking the ice when you let him know he can call and text you again. "But I'm gonna have to take the wheel from here on."

Letting him drive is by far crossing the thick and neon line you've drawn between him and yourself, yet you can't exactly rule out his reasoning behind it. Before you can spell a 'why' in protest, he continues, preventing you from interrogating him again, "My normal magic's strong enough for small tasks, so I can try casting a veil over the windshield, kinda like how I did the last time you almost fell into the river."

It makes sense, though you hesitate, pride further shrunken when you realize you didn't exactly thank Sans for last time. "Won't it tire you out?"

"A lil', yeah. But it's better than waitin' some more, and I can just sleep that off as soon as we get to Tori's."

You face the wheel, reluctant to let go. "...Are you sure? But then what about your car?"

He nods. "It's already parked n' locked. We can think about that later."

Facing the rain, you bite on your lip and consider the options: either stay here for what you assume will be another hour alone with the skeleton, or agree with him and get to Toriel's on time. The meeting you have at work returns to your mental to-do list, influencing your thoughts on what decisions to make.

Sans was offering to help you out, but at what cost?

Would he bring it all up later and make mention of how much you owed him?

And then again, hadn't he been obnoxious enough with his flirting for you to have a counter-argument about it?

Whatever his reasons were for having offered to show you around the Underground with as much patience as he displayed and help you meet with Frisk's monster friends -- going as far as to drive you to Toriel's new place by himself -- you truly don't have time to delay anymore; the pending meeting is sufficient to remind you of that. As a result, you backtrack on your stubbornness, sighing out your frustration and letting go of the wheel after. "Thank you." Glancing at the back of the car and later back at him, you give him another look of warning before speaking up again, "Back away first," you say, lips a firm line. "If you're gonna move over to the wheel, you're way too close for what I'm about to do."

"Sure." He grins, scooting away. "Whatever ya want, pal."

You eye him over again, making sure he's distant enough for you to move to the back; no way you were getting an inch closer to him physically. The proximity from his seat to your own is more than abundant already.

When you're certain he's not looking at -- or anywhere near -- you, you slip one careful step after the other into the backseat as best as you can. Caution over not letting him take a look at your derrière or anywhere else deems your movements clumsy. Your foot almost slips, though you catch yourself, resulting in a not-so graceful land, face hitting the seats.

"You can move over now," you say once sitting up straight. You fix your clothing and look back to the front of the car when you're done. "I'm not doing that again with you around, so I'll just stay here for the rest of the ride." While you notice his irises have been gazing out at the rain thus far, you don't exactly rule out the possibility of him having slipped in a look on you while you were moving to the back. Simply confiding the monster with your car was ample trust for one single day. Having given your back to him in the most literal sense possible was exceeding it.

"Noted," he replies, laughing. "But don't sweat it. If you're worried about me ogling you, I only saw you climb over to the backseat, and nothin' else. I don't like lookin' at people that way."

"Didn't you do that barely a few hours ago, though?"

"I was mostly just distracted by how... different you look in your work uniform. Real different from your casual self, I'd say."

You face him with stern eyes, unamused. "Oh, that's all, I'm sure." You scoff. "Dunno what's your type, but I've got to be the only human you've talked with so far if you've seriously got a crush on me."

"Why's that?"

"Haven't you seen me at my ugliest? I doubt I looked anywhere near attractive the day after I fainted."

"Last time I checked, a hospital's not a catwalk, ain't it?" He grins. "And who says I'm not into you? You're still a PILF, as far as my tastes go."

"What's that mean?" you ask, quirking a brow.

"An abbreviation for 'Person/Parent I'd Like to be Friends with'."

You're sitting straight on the backseat now, hands folded over your lap as you look to the windshield, distracting yourself away from his gaze. Worry over the rain not picking up makes you wonder if Frisk's doing okay in Toriel's new home, and just what they could be up to with her and the rest of their monster friends. "Were you always this shameless and keeping that hidden? Or am I a special case for you?"

He winks and grabs the wheel without breaking his irises away from you, now staring at you from the rearview mirror. "Whatever you think it to be." It doesn't take more than another hostile look from your part for his smile to tense up again, irises almost appearing to do the same. "Damn." He whistles, looking away and grabbing the wheel tighter. "You're a tough cookie, pal."

"Yes, and I have my reasons for it."

[First] | [Previous] | [Next]

• • •

Notice

To older readers or those curious about the old version of this fanfic:

As you may have noticed, we're beginning to fall into the chapters of the old version, meaning that -- for those who're waiting for the continuation of the old plot (but improved upon in terms of writing style, flow, and depth, among other things) -- it will appear around the 3rd Arc/Chapter Twenty-Six of this new version.

With that being said, any suggestions to improve are welcomed (as that's what made me write up a new version and improve upon the old one), whether old reader or not!

• • •

Tag List (Comment or message me if you want to be added to [or removed from] it!)

@the-simp-express

@nektotersh

@disastrous-l0vebug

@therealchickenjoe

@mintyflakes025

@pandaquick

#sans x reader #undertale x reader #lgbt #lgbt themes #gender neutral reader #male reader #female reader #mother reader #father reader #parent reader #chubby reader #long fic #romcom #adventure #mystery #platonic relationships #slow burn

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shiedagabe · 4 years ago

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The Journey

Credit: The MAN (Pinterest.com)

You have invited Artie out for a walk, because today was the autumn equinox. You wanted to admire, atleast for one last time, the beauties of your hometown, before the unforgiving winter makes it practically impossible to go outside. He gladly accepted it, of course, and because he had forgotten to turn his cellphone off you could hear him jumping around in his room, excited to once again be with you. You decided that the place you should meet up is the park. It is beautiful in all the seasons of the year, but you wanted to admire its gorgeousness once again. When he arrived, with such composture you'd think he would go to some important meeting or prom, you proceeded to give him a big hug. It was cold outside, so this simple gesture gave you the warmth you needed to stroll around the incredible park. Not only did it fill you with that much needed warmth on the outside, it also filled your heart with overwhelming joy, you were finally united, for what seemed like an eternity. It seems as if the passage of time is affected by the distance you are from each other, the farther you are, the slower it gets. You begin by slowly taking a walk around the park, through its predetermined paths, who were carefully built as to ensure that the viewers would be able to apreciate as much of it as possible. You were able to see each individual leaf fall, each of them having a unique shade of red, orange or yellow. Each leaf brought a memory of your times together, and you thought to yourself how far you had come in your relationship. Arthur was, and probably still is a very shy individual, always afraid to take the first step, not having any experience with any romantic relationships in the past, due to his anti-social nature. This condition of his also led him to being bullied quite often, something you very much wished to ignore. 《How could such a pure and innocent soul be subjected to these horrors?》 - you thought - 《He has never hurt anyone or ever intended to, he is beautiful, either it be his eyes which encapsulated the ocean's greatness or his mouth, soft and tendered, who brough a smile to whoever looked at him.》 And, amidst your thoughts, he proceeded to gently, but awkwardly wrap his arm around your neck. This bursted your little bubble momentarily, as you realized that it didn't matter what had happened before, that's all in the past. What matters is what a person is right now, what they believe in. It's only a person's evolution that counts, and of all the people you knew he was the one that had evolved the most. He became more confident, resilient, started to have a higher self-esteem, which led him into developing many other now admired qualities. You loved him since the day you had known him, but now you could say he is more irresistible than ever. You looked at him, into his eyes, that extended for miles without showing any signs of stopping. They seemed real, but at the same time they had an ethereal look to them, as if you could observe the universe in its entirety through the lense of a man so small compared to it. His eyes softened up and he also cracked a smile, silently ensuring you that he was having a time as great as yours. You were honestly getting tired of walking around, despite never being able to grow bored of the immense forest, so you scheemed up an amazing plan. While closing his eyes, you drove Artie to the nearest beach, stopping your car atop a cliffside. 《Am I really that cliché?》- you thought to yourself, but what mattered was not the act itself, it was the intention. You wanted to spend some alone time with Arthur while watching the sun set, its colours reminding you of the unforgettable autumn leaves, with the addition of a tiny shade of pink. Perhaps the sun was happy the moon was rising soon. You laid your head on his shoulder, admiring the preciousness of the moment, one that seemed so unique, despite having seen it more than a thousand times. Perhaps it was the fact you now had such a faithful and loving companion by your side, someone who eradiated such a calm and soothing aura that caused you to lose the notion of time. When you finally got a hold of yourself, you noticed that Artie was calling you, with his smooth and raggedy voice of his. - Sweetie. Sweetie. Wake up. - he told you while gently caressing your hair. You slowly opened your eyes, realizing that you were already in the dead of night. - Why didn't you wake me up any sooner? - you asked him mid-yawn. - W-well, you were sleeping so profoundly that I didn't muster the courage to wake you up. While he was saying this, and during the rest of the trip home, you noticed that Arthur was slowly rubbing his arms, as if he had been there for hours on end, hearing only your soft breathing, seeing nothing but the slowly changing pallete that is the vast sky and, of course, the love of his life, wether he wanted to admit it or not. The ride home was very simple, you turned on the radio to listen to some jams and you both were dancing and singing as if no one else was hearing you. I mean, in fact, no one was. But you could tell that he wasn't really feeling up to it, his moves were relatively sluggish and every once in a while he would try to hide a yawn. You realized that he was only trying to keep the mood up, so you turned the radio off entirely and let him enjoy the soothing air of lady Luna. You arrived at his home and you saw that it was in a decrepit state, more than it was before. Maybe it was because you hadn't visited him in a long time, or maybe it was because you were wide awake, what mattered is that you definitely couldn't leave him like this. As he was getting out of the car, you immediatly shouted his name: - Artie, sweetie, please get back in the car, let me take you some place better. He already knew what you meant, luckily. He immediatly got back in the car feeling a new hype, as if he had been rejuvenated. You drove back to your place, which seemed a lot nicer than his in comparison, but it was what money could buy. You slowly creaked the door open, and admired the immense silence coming from within its vacinity. You usually hear your rude neighbours fight all of the time, but maybe it was already too late for them to continue their petty squabblings, and so you decided to sit down on the couch and watch some TV. Honestly, at this point, anything would do, since you had the perfect setup. You had your head on his lap and he was slowly caressing your hair once again. It was not too long until you fell asleep once more and, following the steps of his beloved, he too fell into a slumber. A perfect union after a perfect day.

#arthur fleck #joker arthur fleck #arthur fleck imagine #arthur fleck x reader #arthur fleck x you #joker 2019 #joker x reader #joker x you

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dweemeister · 4 years ago

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2020 Movie Odyssey Award for Best Original Song (preliminary round)

Yup, it’s back (bullet indentations are not working, so this post will look very ugly on your dashboards)!

Tagging a few folks who have participated before in this annual tradition/folks who I would like to extend an open invitation to (please contact me if you’re interested so I can sort you in a group ASAP... you will also be tagged for the final unless you tell me you are not interested): @birdsongvelvet, @bitch-genius, @dog-of-ulthar, @idontknowmuchaboutmovies, @loveless422, @lvl9gay, @neverwasastoryofmorewhoa, @phendranaedge, @poncho-honcho, @sayaf, @shadesofhappy, @thethirdman8, @uncoolforelimb, and @wehadfacesthen.

Hello everybody. For my fellow Americans, I hope your Thanksgiving was a good one. For the non-Americans reading things, I hope you are doing well, as always! Many things have fallen to the wayside in this unforgettable year. So in hopes of providing some sense of continuity and normalcy, here - as you have agreed to - is the Preliminary Round for 2020's Movie Odyssey Award for Best Original Song (MOABOS). This is the eighth time it has been contested and the seventh consecutive year it has been open to involvement from family, friends, and tumblr followers.

For those new to this, my classic movie blog traditionally ends the year by honoring some of the best achievements from movies that I saw for the first time this calendar year (the "Movie Odyssey") with an Oscar-like ceremony. I choose all the nominees and winners from each category, save one: Best Original Song. It is the only category I can think of that does not require you to watch several movies in their entirety. I consider MOABOS as a sort of cinematic-musical thank-you for your moral support in various ways.

An unspecified number of songs have already advanced to the final round. 24 songs will contest this prelim in two groups - Group A and Group B. In a year when COVID-19 has closed theaters (and which I refused to go to an indoor theater even when they reopened), a year that I did not feel compelled to watch the newest releases on streaming services, there is not a single 2020 entry for 2020's MOABOS. That is, obviously, a MOABOS first - no other MOABOS edition has lacked a shortlisted song from a film released that same calendar year. And as of writing this sentence, I have not seen a single film released in 2020. Despite the lack of 1930s songs, this year's shortlisted songs might be the oldest on average. In other news, this year's field is a modest improvement from the record monolingual field of last year's (which contained only English and two Vietnamese-language entries). 2019's preliminary was the most chaotic we had ever seen, with shocking last-day stumbles and surges from certain songs ("I Dug a Ditch" from Thousands Cheer) that riled up a lot of participants. It's 2020 - will there be a repeat or even more drama at this stage?

INSTRUCTIONS Please rank (#1-12) at least six of your group's songs. Please consider to the best of your ability: how musically interesting the song is (incl. and not limited to musical phrasing and orchestration); its lyrics; context within the film (contextual blurbs provided for every entry for those who haven't seen the films); choreography/dance direction (if applicable); and the song's cultural impact/life outside the film (if applicable, and, in my opinion, least important factor). Imperfections in audio and video quality may not be used against any song. I encourage you to send in comments and reactions with your rankings - it makes the process more enjoyable for you and myself! The top five songs in each group automatically advance to the final round. I reserve the right to pick 0-2 songs from one or both groups that finished outside the top five in their respective groups to contest the final round.

The deadline for submission is Saturday, December 12 at 11 PM Pacific Time. That is 9 PM Hawaii/Aleutian Time. That deadline is also Sunday, December 13 at 1 AM Central Time / 2 AM Eastern Time / 7 AM GMT / 8 AM CET / 9 AM EET. This deadline - as we have seen in the last few years - may be pushed back if there are a large number of people who have not submitted in time. However, I very much do not wish to extend the deadline because the final round is more intensive and usually involves more participants. Tabulation details are in the “read more” below.

Please participate in the group you have been sorted into, if you have not yet been sorted into a group and would like to participate, please contact me. You can access most, not all, of your group’s songs in these YouTube playlists: (Group A) / (Group B). Again, please note that not all of your group's songs are in the playlist for various reasons.

Happy listening. Feel free to listen as many times as you need, and I hope you discover music and movies that strike your interest. The following is formatted... ("Song title", composer and lyricist, film title):

GROUP A

“Blue Shadows on the Trail”, music and lyrics by Eliot Daniel and Johnny Lange, Melody Time (1948)

Performed by Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers

This is the introductory song to the final segment of Melody Time. That segment is dedicated to the legend of Pecos Bill, and this atmospheric song leads into the telling of that story.

“Born Free”, music by John Barry, lyrics by Don Black, Born Free (1966)

Performed by Matt Munro

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Original Song

This version with lyrics appears in the end credits. The main theme in the song is introduced in the opening credits and is incorporated extensively in John Barry's score across the film. Born Free, based on the non-fiction book of the same name is about two white Kenyan conservationists who raise an orphaned lion cub and eventually release her into the wild.

“But the World Goes 'Round”, music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, New York, New York (1977)

Performed by Liza Minnelli

In this musical, USO singer Francine Evans (Minnelli) has been performing in New York City nightclubs, hoping to someday become a major recording star. This song appears as she is recording that very hit that will propel her to stardom.

“Exsultate Justi”, music and lyrics by John Williams, Empire of the Sun (1987)

Performed by orchestra and chorus under the direction of Williams

Lyrics in Latin

In this historical epic, affluent British school boy Jamie Graham (a young Christian Bale) is living with his parents in Shanghai when the Japanese invade. Jamie is separated from his parents and placed in an internment camp. Soon before the end of WWII, the prisoners are moved elsewhere, but Jamie hides and stays put. This song plays as Jamie bikes around the empty camp and continues to play as he encounters liberating U.S. troops. Jamie is dirty and malnourished when found; one can argue that this song is used ironically. It plays once more over the end credits. "Exsultate Justi" is a variation on a theme John Williams develops over the course of the film and harkens back to Jamie's past, attending Anglican services with parents.

"Farewell to Storyville", music by Louis Alter, lyrics by Edgar De Lange, New Orleans (1947)

Performed by Louis Armstrong and his band, Billie Holiday, and company

In New Orleans, the Storyville district was a den of drinking, gambling, jazz, and prostitution. The district was the home to a heavily black populace. The U.S. military, about to establish a Naval base nearby, forces the city to close the district for good. This song is a jazzy dirge to a center of jazz - a musical genre looked down upon by many of the city's upper-class whites due to its ties (real and imagined) to crime.

"Hawaiian Sunset", music and lyrics by Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett, Blue Hawaii (1961)

Performed by Elvis Presley

In a musical packed end-to-end with songs, Chadwick "Chad" Gates (Elvis) has taken a job with a tour guide agency - and this includes performing during a luau for tourists. "Hawaiian Sunset" appears as one of the dinner show's numbers.

"Is There Still Anything That Love Can Do?", music and lyrics by Yôjirô Noda, Weathering with You (2019, Japan)

Performed by RADWIMPS

Lyrics in Japanese (translation)

Weathering with You is a romantic fantasy anime about a high school boy who runs away from his rural home to Tokyo, where he meets a girl who can manipulate the weather. It has been inexplicably raining for weeks without interruption in Tokyo, so they form a business to help clear the inclement weather for special events. The melody of this song is heard throughout the film's score. It does not appear with lyrics until late in the film. The song is played under the boy's seemingly impossible attempt to save her from an unwilling human sacrifice.

There is so much plot in this damn film (it's all Makoto Shinkai's fault) - I can't explain the context of the song or this movie in a reasonable amount of space.

“Mad Monster Party”, music by Maury Laws, lyrics by Jules Bass, Mad Monster Party? (1967)

Performed by Ethel Ennis

(opening credits version) / (soundtrack version with no sound effects)

In this Rankin/Bass stop-motion animated film, Baron Boris von Frankenstein (Boris Karloff in his final Frankenstein-related role) has discovered a formula that can destroy matter. Dispatching his bats to send the news, he summons the various members of the Worldwide Organization of Monsters to inform them of his discovery. This song is performed over the film's opening credits and the various introductions for the monsters as they receive their summons.

“My Dream Is Yours”, music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Ralph Blane, My Dream Is Yours (1949)

Initially performed by Doris Day; later reprised by Hal Derwin

Singer Martha Gibson (Day) has abruptly left New York City for Los Angeles to become a star on the radio. In a film where personal sacrifice is central, she stresses over how to bring her son out west with her, the direction of her career, and her tumultuous love life. "My Dream Is Yours" is the song that makes Martha a star, laying out the film's themes in its lyrics. I was unable to find Derwin's reprise, but no matter as the reprise is rather inconsequential.

“Ride the Wild Surf”, music and lyrics by Jan Berry, Brian Wilson, and Roger Christian, Ride the Wild Surf (1964)

Performed by Jan and Dean

Ride the Wild Surf is a surfing film that, unlike most surfing films of this time, is a drama. It follows three surfers (Fabian, Tab Hunter, Peter Brown) who have come to Oahu at the end of December to ride the large waves of Waimea Bay (made famous internationally by this song, this movie, and the Beach Boys' "Surfin' USA"). This song appears in the film's closing credits. The video provided is a montage of surfing footage that appears in the film.

“That’ll Do”, music and lyrics by Randy Newman, Babe: Pig in the City (1998)

Performed by Peter Gabriel

Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song

This song begins at the end (and through the end credits) of Babe: Pig in the City, the second and last film in this series about a sheep-herding pig who perseveres amidst other animals and humans with ulterior agendas. The title is derived from the famous quote said by Arthur Hoggett (James Cromwell) to reassure Babe: "That'll do, pig. That'll do."

“Waqt Ne Kiya Kya Hassen Sitam”, music and lyrics by S.D. Burman, Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959, India)

Performed by Geeta Dutt (dubbing Waheeda Rehman)

Lyrics in Hindi - roughly, "Time Has Inflicted Such Sweet Cruelty On Us"

Song begins at 1:03:31 and ends at 1:07:51

Make sure to turn on the video’s English captions

In this romantic tragedy told in flashback, Suresh Sinha (Guru Dutt) is a director looking back on his life. Suresh is unhappily married to a woman whose in-laws look down on him because, to them, working in films is contemptible to their social class. Suresh meets a woman, Shanti (Waheeda Rehman), on accident and she is soon cast as the lead for his next film. They fall in love, but it is never consummated for various reasons. This song is the most explicit statement of that love in this film. How much of the scene's set-up is observable by the characters is up to the viewer's interpretation.

Group A participants include: @addaellis, @introspectivemeltdown, @memetoilet, @myluckyerror, @plus-low-overthrow, @shootingstarvenator, @themusicmoviesportsguy, @theybecomestories, @umgeschrieben, @underblackwings, @yellanimal. Seven others - including myself and my sister - are currently slated to be voting in Group A.

GROUP B

“Angela”, music and lyrics by José Feliciano and Janna Merlyn Feliciano, Aaron Loves Angela (1975)

Performed by José Feliciano

(English-language version) / (Spanish single version)

Played over the opening credits to this teenage drama that is partly a blaxploitation film, partly an interracial coming-of-age romance. The movie wasn't a hit, but the Spanish-language version of this song was received well in Latin America.

“Aren’t You Kind of Glad We Did?”, music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (1947)

Originally performed by Betty Grable and Dick Haymes

(soundtrack version with Judy Garland and Haymes) / (modern arrangement far more faithful to how song sounds in the film)

Cynthia Pilgrim (Grable) is the top typewriting student from a business college in this period piece where the typewriter is the newest invention to sweep the business world. This song appears as Pilgrim and her boss, John Pritchard (Haymes), are about to go out on a date for dinner after talking about how society looks down on women in public without a chaperone.

“The Blues are Brewin’”, music by Louis Alter, lyrics by Edgar De Lange, New Orleans (1947)

Performed by Louis Armstrong and his band and Billie Holiday

(in-film version) / (Billie Holiday single)

After being evicted by the U.S. military from the historic Storyville district of New Orleans (the Navy had just opened a base in the area, and would not tolerate places of gambling, jazz, and prostitution nearby), the characters played by Armstrong and Holiday tour the country with a jazz band in tow. This song appears within a montage showing the passage of time.

“Dekhi Zamaane Ki Yaari / Bichhde Sabhi Baari Baari”, music by S.D. Burman, lyrics by Kaifi Azmi, Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959, India)

Performed by Mohammad Rafi (dubbing Guru Dutt)

Lyrics in Hindi - roughly, "I Have Seen How Deeply Friendship Lies / I Have Seen People Abandon Me One by One"

Part 1 (3:44-8:27) / Part 2 (2:16:29-2:20:42)

Make sure to turn on the video’s English captions

In this romantic tragedy, Suresh Sinha (Dutt) is a washed-up director looking back on his life. In the first part, the song leads into the rest of the film - which is almost entirely a flashback. In brief, Suresh is unhappily married to a woman whose in-laws look down on him because, to them, working in films is contemptible to their social class. Suresh meets a woman, Shanti (Waheeda Rehman), on accident and she is soon cast as the lead for his next film. They fall in love, but it is never consummated for various reasons. Eventually, his career crashes after a box office bomb and her career is ascendant. Leading into the second part of the song, Suresh is penniless and working as an extra at the movie studio. Shanti recognizes him, wants to help, but he refuses to revive his career on the back of her success. Kaagaz Ke Phool has elements of autobiography, and Suresh's fate has parallels with what happened to Dutt after this film was released.

“End Theme from Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades”, music by Eiken Sakurai, lyrics by Kazuko Koike, Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades (1972, Japan)

Performed by Tomisaburo Wakayama

Lyrics in Japanese (translation)

Video provided is not safe for work (NSFW) due to stylized violence

Ogami Ittô (Wakayama) is a former, disgraced executioner for the Tokugawa shogunate who wanders the land with his young son. He is intent on exacting revenge on the clan that murdered his wife. This song is played non-diegetically after Ittô has slain dozens of a corrupt governor's bodyguards and walks onward, pushing his son in a babycart, away from the dead left in his wake. This is the third of six films in the Lone Wolf and Cub series.

"Happy Endings", music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, New York, New York (1977)

Performed by Liza Minnelli and company (that's Jack Haley - who played the Tin Man and was, at the time, Minnelli's father-in-law - roughly seven minutes in)

(use in film) / (soundtrack version)

It is highly recommended one sees how this song is used in the film. Bear with me: this song is part of a movie within a movie. Within that movie within a movie, there is another movie. "Happy Endings" is the title end song to a film called Happy Endings within New York, New York. Singer Francine Evans (Liza Minnelli) has made it big as a recording artist and caps off her hit film, Happy Endings, with this song. We see Francine's ex, played by Robert De Niro, in the audience as the film ends. "Happy Endings" is a homage/deconstruction to midcentury Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) musicals. It serves the film as "The Broadway Melody" does to Singin' in the Rain (1952) or the 17-minute ballet does to conclude An American in Paris (1951).

"Here They Come (From All Over the World)", music and lyrics by P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, The T.A.M.I. Show (1964)

Performed by Jan and Dean

The link above provides the entire film. You only need to watch from 0:00-4:11. If you like music from this era or want to hear more, this film is highly, highly recommended.

This is the opening credits song to a concert film recorded over two days in Santa Monica, California on October 28 and 29, 1964. The Teenage Awards Music International (T.A.M.I. - yes, I know it's an awkward name) Show included many of the most popular musical stars of that time - almost all of them name-dropped in this song. Jan and Dean, a surf music duo, served as hosts (and performed during) the show. You folks are lucky that this is the only original song from this film!

“Moonlight Swim”, music by Ben Weisman, lyrics by Sylvia Dee, Blue Hawaii (1961)

Performed by Elvis Presley

In a musical packed end-to-end with songs, Chadwick "Chad" Gates (Elvis) has taken a job with a tour guide agency. On his first day, he drives his first clients - a school teacher (who not so secretly is attracted to Chad) and four teenagers (one of whom becomes smitten) - to their destination.

“On the Boardwalk (in Atlantic City)”, music by Josef Myrow, lyrics by Mack Gordon, Three Little Girls in Blue (1946)

Performed by Carol Stewart (dubbing for Vera-Ellen), June Haver, and Vivian Blaine

(original soundtrack) / (Dick Haymes single)

In this rarely-seen musical (20th Century Fox wasn't very good at promoting its back catalogue compared to some other studios, and the situation is worse now that they are owned by Disney), three chicken farmer sisters (Vera-Ellen, Haver, and Blaine) decide to travel to Atlantic City in hopes of marrying a rich husband after learning their aunt's inheritance is not nearly as much as they want. They sing this song as they arrive and check into their hotel suite - which they apparently have not looked up the rate for.

Those who listened to the soundtrack version... FYI, $9.25 in 1902 is $280 in 2020.

“Personality”, music by Jimmy Van Heusen, lyrics by Johnny Burke, Road to Utopia (1946)

Performed by Dorothy Lamour

(in-film performance) / (live radio performance)

In the fourth film of the Road to... comedy series, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby's characters have just overpowered two Alaskan thugs with a history of murderous violence. As they enter a saloon dressed up as those two thugs, all of the patrons - in a town that only knows the thugs by reputation - shut up in terror. They are treated to a performance by Sal (Lamour), who is trying to find a map of a gold mine that the real outlaws supposedly have. A visual narrator (Robert Benchley) interrupts the scene before the song briefly.

“Please Don’t Stop Loving Me”, music and lyrics by Joy Byers, Frankie and Johnny (1966)

Performed by Elvis Presley

(in-film performance) / (single version)

Johnny (Elvis) and girlfriend Frankie (Donna Douglas) work on a Mississippi River riverboat as performers. Johnny is addicted to gambling and believes that another woman is spurring on his recent run of good luck. During a fit of jealousy-as-acting, Frankie accidentally shoots Johnny during a bit of musical theater (someone switched out the blanks for real bullets). This song occurs after Johnny has recovered from the accident.

"Wichita", music by Hans Salter, lyrics by Ned Washington, Wichita (1955)

Performed by Tex Ritter

This is the opening title song to this Western. It is one of many Wyatt Earp movies set before the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Earp (Joel McCrea) arrives in an otherwise lawless town of Wichita, Kansas where gunplay is rampant. In a radical move, Earp orders to seize the firearms of anyone living in or entering town - which doesn't sit well with some outlaws. This song is incorporated throughout the film's score.

Group B participants include: @cokwong, @emilylime5, @halfwaythruthedark, @maximiliani, @thewolfofelectricavenue, and @voicetalentbrendan. Twelve others - including me and my sister - are slated to be voting in Group B.

Contact me however you wish if you have questions or comments regarding MOABOS' processes or something specific about a song or a few. Please let me know as soon as possible if you are having difficulty accessing one of the songs (especially if it is region-locked) or if there is an error in the playlist.

I thank you all for your support for the Movie Odyssey, the blog, and for me personally - no matter how long I’ve known you or in what capacity. You will be contacted for the final round regardless of your participation here. If turnout in one group is lagging behind compared to another, I will ask some of the more senior participants to participate in the other group, too. No pressure if you cannot get to this, although I will be checking in as the deadlines get close. Stay safe and socially distanced, everyone.

TABULATION This preliminary round uses a points-based, ranked choice method which has been used since the first time I asked friends, tumblr followers, and family to help out. A respondent’s first choice receives 10 points, the second choice receives 9, the third choice receives 8, etc. The winner is the song that ends up with the most total points. The tabulation method used in this preliminary is used only as a tiebreaker in the final round (more on how the final is tabulated when we get there).

This tiebreaker will look slightly different this year.

Tiebreakers for above: 1) total points earned; 2) total #1 votes; 3) average placement on my and my sister's ballots; 4) tie declared

#2020 Movie Odyssey Awards

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excuseme-youpretty · 5 years ago

Text

Ecstasy

Pairing: Kim Taehyung / Reader

Side Pairings: None

Rating: Teen

Genre: Fluff

Word Count: 2935

Notes: Yet again, this was requested as a prompt by my sister. The theme for this prompt was “Curiosity Shop” but I thought the title “Ecstasy” fit the overall story better. I hope you guys all enjoy!

I also haven’t proofread anything so I apologise for any mistakes!

Days as effortlessly romantic as today will always be your favourite way to express your relationship.

Certainly, there is plenty of merit to be found within those lazy afternoons, your body sprawling across a canvas of clean cotton and your lover’s thighs embroidering your own. Where his hands perfectly frame your pelvis and his soft sleepy breaths puff across your cheekbones like dandelion seeds as dawn dissolves around you.

But the moments where you can showcase how breathtakingly beautiful your fiance is, and how perpetually charming, by showing him off to the unwitting universe will always be your ultimate favourite.

Because you are absolutely certain that Kim Taehyung is the epitome of ecstasy; the word defined in the bladed architecture of his cheekbones and a smile which is a little too goofy for his godlike exterior. He can read your soul as though it were poetry - where to touch you, how to kiss you, what words to pull from his gilded tongue to make your toes curl upwards.

Yet, his particular brand of affectionate indulgence does not necessarily reside in over the top means of appreciation. There is no triumphant fanfare or elephant-lead parade (although, you are certain that Taehyung would arrange such a feat at a moment's notice if that was what you craved).

No, Taehyung's adoration can be found in the smallest of expressions; petite gestures which remind you that you are eternally loved.

On this particular morning, Taehyung had pried you from your sleep with a smattering of baby-breath kisses across your face and shoulders, his wide-set smile expanding considerably as soon as your lashes had fluttered open.

He had harmonized his love into your tilted collarbones and presented you with a warm, fresh from the oven croissant and foam-tipped latte from your favourite bakery down the street. His impossibly long fingertips had chorded through your hair as you both ate in comfortable silence, perfectly attuned to an orchestra of birdsong resonating just outside your window.

Only once every single crumb had been polished off did Taehyung, regretfully, tug himself from your side. He had somersaulted toward your bathroom, his strides wide and perfectly chaotic, as he fumbled around with the convoluted dials on your shower to ensure the downpour would reach the perfect temperature for your bodies to intertwine underneath.

After an onslaught of strawberry-scented suds, and the 'accidental' wade of Taehyung's fingertips taking an exploratory turn across your chest, he had carefully pulled you from your shower to drape you in a large towel, wicking all moisture from your skin in a few eager strokes.

You had perched on the precipice of your mattress as Taehyung threw your closet doors open, scanning the entirety of your wardrobe with his lips pursed in concentration. It didn't happen often, but whenever your man would take it upon himself to correspond his wardrobe with yours it would always leave a fuzzy feeling in your lower abdomen; like television static, only sweeter.

On this occasion he had settled on a white blouse to match his own pristine dress shirt, similar light-washed jeans, and an adorable indigo purse which coordinated perfectly with the heavily-patterned scarf knotted against his throat.

You had just barely finished dabbing perfume against your clavicle when Taehyung had enthusiastically tugged you out toward his car, his lips curling wetly against your own to silence any reservations you may have had about this seemingly impromptu rendezvous.

He simply asked you to trust him, his ringed fingers clicking pretty against the radio dial as he thumbed Sam Smith's satin-spun vocals to an all-time high.

Just like that you were driving through Korea's technicolor streets without a care in the world. Pure ecstasy.

And that is how you found yourself in your current position hours later.

Taehyung's fingertips are unfathomably long where they loop throughout your own, pouring like honey across your knuckles, and somehow gathering enough momentum to swing pendulously between your bodies.

Across his other wrist Taehyung balances an abundance of overstuffed shopping bags from the various outlets dotted throughout the mall. You lean virtually all of your weight against him, your stomach full of the most exquisite lunch and a plastic straw caught between your teeth to savour your second mango-passionfruit smoothie of the afternoon.

Sometimes being in love with Taehyung is utterly exhausting; a permanent fixture of motion and charisma and effortless conversations which always leave you a little tongue-tied and high on his natural dopamine.

And yet, you wouldn't have him any other way.

"Hey, Tae? Can we maybe take a rest for a minute?" You sigh sweetly, nestling your cheek comfortably against Taehyung's domed bicep. "My feet are killing me."

"Of course, Jagi!"

Taehyung guides you toward the large terracotta fountain poised proudly within the mall's centre. You perch against the cool stone, with Taehyung placing your shopping bag collection aside to join you, and sigh softly as he lifts your aching feet from your pointed heels to caress his long fingers around your tender instep.

He massages your skin softly, dissolving all discomfort through persistent compression and a voice as smooth as buttercream. His lips seek out the plush of your temple, tucking away the loose strands of hair he finds with the tip of his nose.

Taehyung's heartbeat carries a natural percussion with tones akin to tinkling wind chimes and every bit as delicate. You find yourself overwhelmed by the collaborative sensations of sound, rhythm and his earthy cologne.

You lean into your fiance's torso. Another blissful sigh flutters past your lips and across the sticky straw compressed between your teeth. With your head tipped back, you allow your lidded gaze to slowly scan your nearby surroundings.

Amidst a monotonous canvas of granite stone and whitewashed brick sits a peculiar storefront. A flash of jade woodwork, with wide stain-glass windows and what appeared to be a hand-carved door decorated by spray painted poison ivy decals.

The facade, although surreal and whimsically furnished, is definitely new. You can't help but find yourself drawn toward it like an energetic moth flouncing toward an open flame; the clash of pigment as stark as a gilded leaf amidst a blanket of snow.

"Tae?" You muse, listening for his small hum of acknowledgment before you continue. "This is new, right? I don't think I've seen it here before."

Taehyung lifts his head to follow your gaze, a sunkissed curtain falling in front of his vision as he does so. He puckers his lips in thought.

"You're right. 'Quirks and Curiosities'. I wonder what they sell there?"

"Hm. My money is on obscure trinkets. Like the type of stuff Jungkook collects in that shoebox underneath his bed."

"Well, in that case!" Taehyung grins, the corners of his mouth stretched skyward. "We absolutely have to go in."

He springs forward onto the balls of his feet with a small, barely noticeable squeal of pure delight, carefully grasping at the marginally empty cup in your hands to toss the dregs into a nearby garbage can.

He helps you back onto your feet, guiding your soothed soles into your leatherette heels once again. The visual makes you giggle fondly.

In spite of his buoyant bleach-blonde curls and tanzanite contacts, he really does resemble an animated prince falling into a whirlwind romance orchestrated by fate itself.

"Come on, Jagiya! Lets see what we can find."

Taehyung tugs impishly upon your linked fingers as he gathers your shopping bags within his spare wrist. You roll your eyes and chastise him for his infantile excitement, but you cannot deny that his palpable enthusiasm is utterly contagious.

The pretty tinkle of polished wind-chimes twirling against one and other is the first stimulant you are met with as soon as you toe across the threshold of Quirks and Curiosities. The second is an overwhelming scent of sandalwood and crisp clean cotton.

It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust to the sudden light change, all springtime luminescence transforming into something dim and tinted violet from the many mismatched lamps strung overhead.

A plethora of beaded curtains brush by your cheekbones as Taehyung draws you further into the annex of the shop. There are several shelves, each one littered by an array of unique antiques and special oddities which pique your interest.

Your fiance appears similarly hypnotized. His eyes are wide, sparkling as vibrantly as blossoming constellations, as he runs his impossibly long fingertips over the top of a large bronze cattle statuette.

Briefly, your mind is seized by the notion of how much Namjoon would enjoy such a place. All of the unique figurines he could acquire to bolster his ever-expanding collection. But your thoughts are quick to sober; Kim Namjoon in close proximity with anything fracturable is never a good idea.

As Taehyung becomes enraptured by what appears to be a pair of large peacock-feather earrings, you break away from his side to go exploring on your own, making sure to press a small but affectionate kiss against his neck in passing.

You nod courteously at the petite woman poised patiently behind the counter, her kind eyes creased in genuine warmth at the small interaction witnessed between yourself and your fiance. Your stomach flip-flops as a blush seeps across your cheekbones. It always stokes a fire deep within your stomach when your relationship with Taehyung is not only acknowledged, but also treated with respect.

There was once a time when you had deemed yourself unworthy of his advances, of the sweet words which would drip like caramel from his tongue and explorative hands which would hold your body oh so tight. But he had smothered those insecurities underneath a pair of the prettiest puppy-dog eyes you had ever seen and now, with this friendly stranger recognizing your partnership as beautiful causes your insides to glow.

Absentmindedly running your thumb and forefinger over the cool band of your engagement ring, you divert your attention toward one of the more colourful displays.

A kaleidoscope of pretty scarves dangle from mismatched hangers, their metallic threads shimmering underneath the dim lamplight and silken tassels catching every little breeze which passes by like party streamers caught in the air.

Underneath them, a small collection of beautiful coin purses are dotted in a row. Some of them have been hand-stitched into complex creases whilst others carry reflective sequins and enhanced beading.

But what really captures your attention is a trio of beautifully displayed fans, each perched upon a small wooden plinthe and spread open to showcase their intimate details and exquisite craftsmanship.

One of them in particular, the largest in the collection, leaves you momentarily transfixed. It is broad and colourful; a distinct lavender hue ombreing out toward filigree lace corrugations. Embroidered butterflies spread their wings across the textured surface of the fan, some soaring sky high whilst others dip their proboscis into a bouquet of flowers so elaborately detailed that you can practically smell their tantalizing sweetness.

Sparing a brief glance over your shoulder toward the adorable shopkeep who had regarded you so kindly, receiving a nod of encouragement in response, you reach out and carefully pluck the large fan from its plinthe as soon as she grants you permission to do so.

It feels light within your palm, decorative lace tickling your cheek as you bring it close. You focus on the sunkissed crown of Taehyung's hair, on his deliciously deep voice waxing poetic about the pair of earrings now dangling from between his knuckles.

"Tae?" You hum, wafting the fan against your cheeks.

"Yes, Jagiya?"

He turns on the spot, his oval eyes softening as soon as he witnesses the weave of your hips wandering toward him and the clash of purple against your honeyed complexion.

"Ah, what do we have here?" He hums, holding a hand out toward you.

You teeter into his presence, slowly directing your fan around your body in a deliberate semi-circle, and pitch your voice a fraction higher.

"I'm so fine wherever I go~" You mewl, imitating your beloved friend with a lot less skill and precision than Jimin himself would offer.

Still, it causes Taehyung's smile to expand; pulls an abundance of impish giggles from his throat like popcorn kernels puffing up.

"Much better than Jimin-ssi!" Taehyung cackles, clapping his hand against his inner wrist to prevent damaging the pretty earrings he holds. "But if you tell him I said that, I'll only deny it."

"I understand. Soulmate priorities."

"Exactly!"

Taehyung pulls your body close to his own, his palm pressing snug against your tailbone. His lips make quick work of your flushed cheeks, kissing across elevated bone and pausing to rest on the tippity tip of your crinkled nose.

"Ah, I love you." He sighs.

Foregoing any chance for the sentiment to be echoed, Taehyung opts instead to guide you toward the cash register to pay for your newly coveted trinkets.

"Good afternoon!" Taehyung sing-songs, bowing politely. "I would like to purchase these earrings." He slides the jewellery in question across the counter, fingertips twitching as though he dreaded letting the unusual accessory go. "And my beautiful fiancee seems to have fallen in love with this stunning fan."

Before you have a chance to offer up your purchase for her eyes to evaluate the attendant's fingers are dancing expertly across the raised keys of her cash register, its numbers as faded and timeless as the adorable knicknacks which surround you. There is a small ping! as the drawer pops open, but Taehyung is quick to press a handful of crisp bills into the woman's hand before she can signify any total.

Part of you knows that you should object to Taehyung's unique brand of generosity. That he has already done far too much for you over the course of your relationship; especially today with his impromptu shopping spree and fancy luncheon.

But you also know that Taehyung would object. That he would unravel his bottom lip in an emboldened pout that will leave you breathless whilst he insists that he needs to more. And it always culminates in him going above and beyond to spoil you far more than is necessary.

So instead you tuck your smile into the mapwork of Taehyung's shoulder and attempt to hex away the heat which swirls like lava beneath your skin.

After all, it is quite exhilarating to be worshiped by the man who maintains ownership of your entire heart and soul. Why not indulge, at least a little, if it makes you both happy?

"Please, keep the change." Taehyung insists, and when the shopkeep inhales a sharp breath of surprise you feel your heart swell with pride.

After tucking his wallet back within the confined of his far-too-tight jeans, your fiance gathers the small bag containing his newly purchased earrings and loops it in place over his wrist where it joins countless others. He braids an arm around your midsection and you both thank the friendly employee one final time before returning to the sterile ceramics of the bustling shopping mall.

The sound of water slapping loudly against cool tile and an abundance of discarded wish-laced pennies almost feels too chaotic in comparison to the impenetrable silence that Quirks and Curiosities had seemingly perfected.

Your eyes take a minute to adjust to the sudden influx of concentrated light as your pupils shrink from necessary dilation back to their regular size. Still, your vision burns, and you find yourself raising your fan toward your eyes out of instinct alone, hoping to disperse some of the rays which trickle like honey between your eyelashes.

Taehyung watches the display with an overt fondness.

"You know, I'm thinking we might have made a huge mistake in buying that fan for you, Jagi."

You squint at him in confusion. "Why?"

"Just think of all the terrible jokes Jin-hyung will make as soon as we get home."

You give pause. Attempt to mentally condition yourself for a persistent circus of 'perfect fan' and 'fan-tastic' puns before they arrive. And if you concentrate hard enough you can just barely make out Seokjin's telltale laugh like perfectly-manicured nails on a chalkboard.

You ignore the urge to cringe. Because, as irritating as his poorly conceived jokes can be at times, you simply wouldn't want your Jin any other way.

"Worth it." You muse, whipping your fan enthusiastically in front of your face.

Taehyung grins, pulling your body against his own so that he may press a kiss to your mouth. He lingers, his neatly-sculpted cupid's bow clinging to your lower lip as he autographs his name on your flesh with a brief - albeit deliberate - catch of his teeth on tongue-warmed skin.

You sigh as soon as you part from each other, your fingernails finding purchase on his silken neck scarf to keep him from straying too far.

"I love you, Tae." You purr, tilting your head back just far enough so that he can glide the tip of his nose against your own.

"I love you more, Jagi."

Taehyung presses a fingertip to your mouth before you can attempt to protest his ludicrous, and frankly defamatory, statement.

"Now, come on. It's time to buy my future wife some pretty new shoes! Ones that don't hurt her poor feet quite as much."

Once again you are completely susceptible to his bewildering enthusiasm.

And as Taehyung draws you past the large fountain you had once taken solace in, pausing to capture the very moment that his lips had burned an entire midsummer sunset across the underside of your jawline, residual thoughts from your morning return to you with picturesque clarity.

Kim Taehyung really is the epitome of ecstasy.

#bts #bangtan sonyeondan #bangtan boys #bts ff #ff #kim taehyung #v #kim taehyung x reader #kim taehyung/reader #bts reaction #bts reactions #bts prompt #bts prompts #bts fluff #bts drabble #bts imagine #fiance kim taehyung #bts v #peanootzramano

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nightcityhqs · 4 years ago

Photo

case file ; Maddox Kingsley

nicknames ; None.

associations ; The Entertainers

occupation ; Host of the Sunset Frequency, Owner of Persephone's Den.

birthdate ; November 22th, 1980

hometown ; London, England

current location ; Downtown

pronouns ; She/Her

mirror image ; Charlize Theron

IN CHARACTER INTERVIEW

the record stops, the player tape states, and the radio static is replaced with voices;

— And our dear listeners are eager to know, how long have you been in Sunset Port? — Most importantly, why do you stay?

"You know, I'm normally the one doing the questions," Maddox says, accent heavy on her tongue, blowing the smoke from her cigarette away as she watches her assistant tug on the collar of his shirt, visibly uncomfortable. She sighs, "I've been in Sunset Port for twelve years. Stuck in this studio for what? Eight years?" her accent is thick, and Maddox shifts on her seat, clearing her throat. "Why don't I leave? I think about doing it, often. But I made a home for myself here, despite how dull the city can be. And if I leave, who will be the joyful company for our dear listeners every night?"

Of course! We can all identify with the sentiment. Well, at least some of us. [LAUGHTER] What do you do in Sunset Port?

A brow is raised, and Maddox groans, half annoyed and half offended. "Is that how I sound when reading those questions? This script is badly made, you know! Who is responsible for this? They should — What? I wrote it?" There's silence, before a tongue is clicking against the roof of her mouth. "Ah. Well, I should rewrite it, then. Well — Isn't it quite obvious?" She leans forward, mouth close to the microphone and voice low and dark, full of mysteries as she repeats the well known quote, "Good evening, Sunset Port. You've tuned in the Sunset Frequency, 66.6. And I will be your company for the night. Here all night, every night."

Admirable! Now, I’d have left this question last to finish with a bang, but our listener is impatient, oh my! Have you heard of our little organization?

Nothing but silence can be heard through the radio, long and uncomfortable. The cigarette burns as the fingers holding it tremble slightly, and Maddox sighs after some time, clearing her throat once more and taking a long drag of her cigarette. "Who hasn't?" The question escapes her lips with no emotion, no surprise. It's cold, and sharp as knives. "Why is that an important question?"

Oh my! — And if Isabella Castello came knocking at your door, what would you do?

Maddox chuckles, the absurdity of the questions finally catching up to her. "Well, darling, I would tell her to go fuck herself." Her assistant goes pale as a ghost, his next words barely leaving his lips.

Interesting. Well, I think I’ve kept you here long enough! Thank you for speaking with our public! Which song would you like me to play for you, now?

"Let’s put something inspiring for our dear listeners, huh? How about The Other Side, by Woodkid."

BIOGRAPHY

Trigger Warnings; Violence, Murder, Guns, Drugs, Serial Killers Mention

Maddox Kingsley understands enough of human nature to perceive her morals; nor black nor white, but shades of grey. Most are darker than others, more prominent. Some are hardly noticeable, but the danger is still unmistakable. In hindsight, it should be said her morals are questionable, simply put. There is no wrong or right, for Maddox. Sides are of little importance, as the only side she cares for is her own. A selfish little thing, with only her well-being in mind; she doesn't partake in any activities if she is not gaining something out of it. Maddox is easily buyable, and that's where the trouble resides; her loyalty is not worth a penny, at the end of the day — Not if someone pays better for it. Betrayal is part of Maddox's nature; it's in her blood, her instinct. Not born with her, but shoved in her bones, carved into the space where her heart should've been. Survival had been the first thing Maddox Kingsley learned, forced into her veins by unpredictable events and painfully drastic circumstances —

You see, Maddox Kingsley had not been planned by loving parents intending to start a family. She had not been imagined, had no one who had longed for her — who had dreamed of her. No. Maddox is the outcome of a series of unpredictable events and terribly, comical if not painfully drastic, exaggerated misunderstandings. A tale so entangled in lies and achingly raw sorrow it is hardly possible to determine the truth. Few things were undoubtedly accurate, facts people embraced without question or suspicion. But the truth, not in its entirety for many pieces of the puzzle were in possession of wrathful and indignant people who would not abide Maddox's questioning, laid dormant and guarded within the confines of her mother's broken heart, hidden from those who found fondness in rumors. Her mother bore the harshness of words in a selfishly selfless act to shield her daughter, and herself. A deed meant to reassure Maddox of her devotion, and thus devotion would be given in return.

So Maddox knew she was not unloved, her mother’s love had been her only certainty amidst the turmoil, but she wasn't awaited.

At eighteen, Lucrecia Kingsley found herself aggravating her family's situation — once prominent but now sunk in a sea of disrepute and misery. Pregnant. Surprisingly, unseemly and in her father's perspective, undesired. To further his despair, orchestrating a marriage with the father would be improbable, as the man was to be engaged. Not to his daughter, thus saving the family from bankruptcy, but to a society lady. Maddox's mother was adamant about keeping her child, despite that her father threatened to disown her. Thankfully, the man she had slept with during a moment of intoxication and hurt provided accommodations, given she allowed him to share the child with her, and she willingly accepted in a moment of desperation.

The first few years weren't cruel to Maddox. They were not particularly kind, by any means, but the child was shielded from harshness and ruthlessness during most of her first years. Her mother was young, inexperienced, fighting to overcome an essentially empty bank account — but the woman was loving, in a way her own mother had never been before. Maddox was attached to her, clinging to her mother's dresses whenever the woman had to leave for work or when Maddox's father arrived to pick her up for weekends each Friday night. Maddox's mother gave her as much care and comfort as she could, but the woman couldn't preserve her from the distant home her father dared take Maddox to every weekend.

A psychiatry student, Bertrand was a man none dared challenge in fear of his influence and authority. Rumors of Bertrand fabled cruelty were shared in hushed whispers by those brave enough to speak words considered blasphemy, but no eyes had ever witnessed such evil coming from the man's hand. Cold, yes, but not brutal. The man adored Maddox, pampering, and doting on her whenever they spent weekends together, but his family did not share the sentiment. Maddox never met her paternal grandparents, before.

She was young, barely 5, but her first memory is of that night.

Sat in the back of an ambulance, the police lights bright and vibrant amidst the darkness, Maddox hardly paid mind to the yells of an elder woman she had never met before, who was daring to disturb the ghostly silence plaguing the night. Her attention was solely on her father, his calm eyes staring at her through the car window. To this day, Maddox remembers the strangest feeling creating roots in her lungs at the sight of her father in the back of a police car, officers and agents crowding their house and invading their space.

Your father killed a bunch of people, the agent with kind eyes had informed her, and Maddox remembers how she struggled to speak the words - had to force each syllable and consonant out, her brain surely wondering how to best tell a young girl her beloved father was a killer — and that her mother would not be returning. Her blood continued to stain the blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and her father’s eyes never showed any sign of emotions — Maddox knows, now, if she was in the agent's shoes, she would’ve been struggling too.

When Maddox had been discharged from the hospital — an extraordinary child having survived the impossible — it was to the stern hands of nuns with kindness in their eyes, faintly. Taken to a countryside orphanage, Maddox Kingsley turned out to be a difficult case for the nuns and caretakers to restrain. It was to be expected, of course, with her father in jail and her mother murdered. But Maddox's refusal of cooperating, accepting the affections of candidate parents, and simply not speaking whatsoever — proved to be rather complicated. She went and came, a family never settling with her or accepting her into their folds, wishing for an easier child to love and support instead, and returning Maddox to the hands of desperate nuns had been Maddox growing years. Coupled with fights she would often get into with the other children, well — They couldn't do much for her.

It wasn't until Maddox turned twelve that a man with a prominent glare on his face and few words on his lip finally sealed the deal, taking Maddox in and signing the adoption papers when they were ready. Unusually quickly, but the orphanage was thankful for the money the man provided and to see Maddox finally with a 'family'. Little did they know the man was nothing of a father, but a mentor of sorts; an assassin, one with quick hands and light feet. Maddox kicked and screamed, but soon she fell into her new routine. The man did not care about the fights she picked in school, as long as she kept her head down and the attention on her to a minimum — and every day they trained. Trained until Maddox bones were sore and heavy, until her lungs ached in her ribcage, her ears ringing from the gunshot noises, and her arms burned from the weight of guns.

Maddox and the men held no affection for each other, traded few words, but he shaped her to be a merciless killer, one who could survive the dangers of this world and would not be bound to the grieves and disturbances a heart might cause. By then, she did not remember her mother by face, and tried not to think of the woman — choosing to guard the good memories in a dark place of her heart, a place where the sun doesn't shine and her blood-stained hands couldn't cause such joyful things to root. Maddox and the man held no affection for each other, traded few words, but he shaped her to be a merciless killer, one who could survive the dangers of this world and would not be bound to the grieves and disturbances a heart might cause. By then, she did not remember her mother by face, and tried not to think of the woman — choosing to guard the good memories in a dark place of her heart, a place where the sun doesn't shine and her blood-stained hands couldn't cause such joyful things to root. By eighteen, Maddox started taking her own jobs, and proved to be quite adept at it. She was never caught, and never left witness behind. Fighting came as easy to her as breathing, and Maddox paid no heed to pain. She was a machine, good as they come. By twenty-five, she was running in with a partner, a man she met during a job who was paid to kill another target in the same party she had a target. It wasn't a life she was proud of; running credit card scams, killing for money, and never settling down in one place — but it was the life she knew. The only thing she had been good at. Perhaps it is genetics. Perhaps she is as rotten as her father. Thoughts that kept her awake at night, knowing them to be true. Everything she touched died, just like him.

With her story and her past, it didn't take long for the Organization to contact her. They promised her the world for her skills, but it came with a price. She had to leave her partner behind, and kill a target that had been escaping the Organization grasps for some time. Maddox faked her own death, leaving London, and following the trail, she was given up to Bulgaria, where she found herself face to face with the man that had raised her, taught her. It wasn't an easy fight. But she came out victorious, and at first thing in the morning, was leaving on a plane to Sunset Port.

After that, guilt began to settle in her bones. She continued to do her job, but the taste of blood now left a bitter aftertaste in her mouth, and when she turned 32, Maddox decided to leave this life behind. She couldn't, not fully, of course — one does not simply leave the Organization. But they offered her a retirement plan; take charge of the radio station, and be free to do as she wishes in her free time. She accepted it with no questions asked, and has been the radio host for the Sunset Frequency since then.

#nightcityhqs.characters #nightcityhqs.entertainers

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king-brian-may · 6 years ago

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Queen Fans Share Their Stories

Queen in Landover, MD, USA on 29.11.1977 (written by Tracy Chevalier)

In a new book, writers recall the best gigs they have seen. Here the novelist Tracy Chevalier describes her memorable night with Queen.

It started with a champagne toast and ended with a limo pulling away into the night. In between these two gestures symbolising glamour and sophistication, I lost my virginity. Not in the technical sense (that would take another few years), but in other ways. At my first ever rock concert — going with four friends to see Queen at the Capital Centre in November 1977 — I got an eye-opening peek at elements of the adult world, with its power and its limitations, its glittering artifice and dirty reality, and it demonstrated how little I knew and how much I had yet to learn about life.

I was ripe for it; overdue, really. I had turned 15 the month before the concert, and though people thought I looked older than I was, I was remarkably naive and unworldly at that age. Despite a few character-building events in my childhood — the death of my mother when I was almost 8, the experience of being a minority in DC public schools — I was so unsophisticated, so unaware of the world, that I didn't even realise Queen was an English band until the lead singer Freddie Mercury appeared in a tight white catsuit on stage at the Capital Centre, raised a glass of champagne at 18,000 screaming fans, and toasted us with "Good evening, Washington" in a fruity English accent. I was stunned. Then I started screaming.

I had been a Queen fan for a couple of years by then. A Night at the Opera was the first LP I bought, and I could sing every word of every song. I don't remember how I was introduced to Queen — though I do remember hearing their biggest hit, Bohemian Rhapsody, on the radio and being impressed by its audacity. It sure beat the hell out of the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, which had been my older sister's staple music diet. By 14, I was writing Queen lyrics on the desk where I sat for algebra class, swapping them back and forth with a boy I had a crush on, and daydreaming of guitarist Brian May kissing me.

The concert was part of Queen's News of the World tour. While not a great album, especially after the double whammy of A Night at the Opera and its follow-up, A Day at the Races, it did produce two of their best-known songs, We Will Rock You and We are the Champions, which drop-kicked them firmly into stadium anthem territory. Appropriately, the concert began with the lights going down and the primitive, effective, impossible-not-to-join-in-with BOOM-BOOM-CHI, BOOM-BOOM-CHI, BOOM-BOOM-CHI intro to We Will Rock You rolling over the audience. Everyone immediately jumped up out of their seats and began to stomp and clap along. I, too, stood and stomped and clapped, watching in awe as people began flicking their Bic lighters, a gesture I had never seen before. What, were they going to set light to something? I had tried not to act surprised earlier when people nearby started smoking grass in public, but now was there going to be a riot? What other illegal things would go on that night? Then a spotlight picked out Freddie Mercury, who began to sing, "Buddy you're a boy, make a big noise, playin' in the street, gonna be a big man someday..." and I thought, "Jesus H. Christ, that is the loudest noise I've ever heard! Is that legal?" The wall of sound terrified me, and I wanted to cover my ears, but I didn't dare, as it would have been a very uncool thing to do. I think I looked around for the exit, wondering how many people I would have to climb over to escape the sound. It was just so goddamned loud — exhilarating, yes, but painful, too, dangerous and overwhelming. I wavered between loving it and hating it, but knew it would be uncool to hate it, so I'd better try to love it.

Towards the end of the song the single note of an electric guitar began to hum louder and louder under the chorus we were all singing and shouting, and Brian May stepped into the light to add his distinctive sound, ending We Will Rock You with low, long-sustain, three-part harmony chords, overlaid with a high melody he made fuzzy and metallic by using a coin as a guitar pick. I adored Brian May. He was the reserved, straight guy (literally) to Freddie Mercury's camp high jinks — tall, dark, good-looking, with long curly hair and a melancholy pensiveness that made every teenage girl want to comfort him. At this concert he was wearing a silvery white jacket with long, pleated wing sleeves; that combined with his mop of curls should have made him look effeminate, but instead he was deeply sexy.

I loved Freddie, too, for his outrageous antics, his riskiness, his joy at performing and glorious indifference to how ridiculous he looked wearing glittery leotard jumpsuits, eyeliner and a mullet, prancing and strutting and posing, twitching his hips, smacking his lips and otherwise hamming it up. But even without being conscious of Freddie's sexual preference — I hadn't yet met anyone who was openly gay — I instinctively sensed he was not to be lusted after. For all his extrovert, welcoming stage presence, he was clearly playing a part, which served to hold us at arm's length; whereas Brian May's taciturn moodiness was clearly himself served up raw.

Thank God for Freddie, though. Without him, no one would have moved on stage: Brian May was not a dancer, John Deacon, in time-honoured bassist tradition, stood solidly in one place throughout, and Roger Taylor was trapped by his drum kit.

To set us at our ease, after We Will Rock You Freddie toasted us with a glass of champagne — "Moet et Chandon, of course," after the reference in the hit Killer Queen. My friends and I heard this and screamed and clutched one another. He mentioned Moet et Chandon! That was our champagne! He was acknowledging us! I swear he made eye contact with me, 200 yards away and over the heads of thousands.

For we had done what we thought was the most original and extravagant gesture (for 15-year-olds) a fan could make: we had sent a bottle of champagne backstage. We'd pooled our money and gotten an older sister to buy it for us — the same sister who had been obliged to drive us all the way to the Capital Centre, smirking at our overexcited fandom. We'd even made our way to the stage door down a loading dock at the back of the arena and reluctantly handed over the precious bottle to a bored roadie, who said he would take it to the band. We'd had our doubts about his reliability, and his jadedness had dampened our enthusiasm a bit: had we really blown all that money — $20, which in those days meant 20 hours of babysitting — to have some unshaven jerk with a beer belly swill the precious liquid? But clearly the roadie had pulled through for us, for there was our champagne in Freddie Mercury's hand, and he was referring to Moet et Chandon in his pretty cabinet, the lyrics we had so cleverly quoted in the note we sent along with the bottle. We were sure we — among the many thousands — had managed to get through to the band.

If we had bothered to look around rather than feast our eyes on Brian and Freddie (I'm afraid John Deacon and Roger Taylor never got a look-in from me), we probably would have seen other clusters of fans also screaming and clutching one another during Freddie's toast. But we didn't look around or harbour doubts, or we ignored them. It was only much later that I allowed myself to consider the veritable champagne lake that must have existed backstage at every Queen concert. Tip to rock stars: want a free truckload of champagne wherever you go? Sing a song that mentions some — preferably name-checking a more expensive brand to ensure better quality — and watch it pour in backstage every night from adoring fans. There must have been a hundred bottles from fans back there, not counting the stash the band may well have brought with them in case Portland or Houston or Detroit weren't so generous. No wonder that roadie looked so bored — he'd probably been put on champagne duty that night.

Freddie's toast worked its magic, though, giving me the connection I needed to negotiate a place within the strangeness of the concertgoing experience itself: the weird, scary power of a crowd; the mixture of exhilaration and embarrassment at collective participation; the physical discomfort of standing for two hours when there's a perfectly comfortable seat behind you. It is one of those tricky, unresolved tensions at concerts: are we there to listen to the music or actively respond to it, participate as a group or answer our needs as individuals? It's an issue I've never entirely resolved — from Queen onwards I have spent concerts going in and out of myself, losing myself to the music and spectacle one minute, the next minute overly conscious of myself clapping or singing or screaming, and wondering why concerts have to be such an uncomfortable physical ordeal.

I was taken aback by the sound of Queen's music live: not just the volume, but the familiarity and also the strange rawness of the songs. Studio albums have all the mistakes airbrushed out, the layers added in, the balance between players carefully calibrated, like clever dialogue in a play without the awkward pauses and unfinished conversations you get in real life. Queen albums were highly produced, multi-layered affairs. Live, the music was necessarily stripped of a lot of the choral mixing, more raucous, simpler and much messier.

The band wisely didn't dare attempt to reproduce in its entirety the long, baroque confection that is Bohemian Rhapsody. For the infamous operatic middle section, the band members left the stage as the studio recording played. Freddie and Brian then changed costume, and, at the word "Beelzebub", all four men popped out of a door in the stage floor and joined live again for the heavy metal section, fireworks going off, dry ice pouring out, everyone going berserk, me in tears of excitement. It was one of the best live moments I've ever witnessed. Indeed, I was spoiled by seeing Queen play live before anyone else; for sheer exuberant theatricality, no one else has come close.

The concert ended with an instrumental version of God Save the Queen and once more the flicking of the Bics, which, no longer the virgin concertgoer, I understood now as a gesture of tribute. My friends and I weren't finished, though. Emboldened by Freddie's toast, we decided to go to the stage entrance again and say hello. I still choke with embarrassment when I think of it. When we got there, a black limousine was pulling away, our heroes and their entourage inside, and we were left with the detritus: older, dolled-up, hard-bitten groupies who had followed the band around and not made this night's cut. I stared at one, at her long, bleach-blond hair, her miniskirt, her bright red lipstick. She glared at me briefly; then her face went slack as she dismissed the idea of me being any sort of competition. In fact, I had not really taken in that there was a competition, that the girls (and I?) were here to spread our wares and catch the attention of one of the men, and then . . . And then? I hadn't thought it through at all. I wouldn't have known what to do with such a man as Brian May if he even so much as looked at me. All I knew was that I was way, way out of my depth, that even if I had eluded the roadie minding the door, there was no way I was ever going to get past a woman like this.

#Queen #bohemian rhapsody #Brian May #guitar #rockstar #roger taylor #freddie mercury #John Deacon #brian may is my king #marvelous

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delkios · 6 years ago

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The Whole Earth Opening Wide (DC TV)

Title from A View to a Kill by Duran Duran. Descriptions inspired by my own drives through Kansas and to the summit of Mt. Evans. Title: The Whole Earth Opening Wide Fandom: DC TV Rating: G Word Count: 2314 In Responds to: ColdWave Weekend 2018: Fun in the Sun Characters: Len, Mick Summary: After the death of Len's grandfather, Mick takes them on an impromptu roadtrip. Len's grandfather died a couple months before he turned seventeen. It was from some complication or other brought on by the inability to afford proper medication. Mick didn't really know, too busy trying to keep Len from slipping into panic attacks as the last buffer between Lewis and his children finally slipped away. Not that Mick was in a much better mental space given it had been less than a year since he killed his own family. But Len scrimped and saved and ran risk after risk, trying to get enough money to send Lisa to two different camps that would keep her away from Lewis through almost the entirety of the summer and Mick helped out to the best of his ability. He went with Len to drop Lisa off for her first camp, three weeks of figure skating training with the second starting two weeks after that. Lisa hugged Len tight, obviously afraid of leaving him with their father for so long by himself. Mick wasn't insulted by it; he couldn't intervene the way their grandfather had and Len wanted Mick to stay away from Lewis as much as possible. Probably because he knew Mick had no qualms killing the man if he ever had the chance. But Lisa was bundled away onto a bus with all the other hopeful skaters and Len watched it disappear forlornly down the street. Then Mick swung a duffel bag into Len's midsection, jolting him out of his sulk. "C'mon," he said. "Let's go."

Len took the bag by reflex. "Where?" "Hell if I know." Westward was basically the extent of Mick's planning. He drove them out of Central, through Keystone and just kept going. The sun was bright and sky speckled with clouds and it was still early enough that the wind was still cool so they drove with the windows down. They stopped at a fast food place off the side of the highway for lunch, stretching their legs out for a bit, then drove off again. Len stayed silent almost the entire time, barely responding to Mick's words and just staring aimlessly out the window. Mick tried filling the silence with the radio but all he could get with any consistency was country music and talk stations. Having had to grow up listening to both, he had no interest in doing so ever again. The highway was straight and flat and in the afternoon with no shade, the air heated up quickly around them. Mick turned on the air conditioning- his father had always been stingy with it given how much gas it used, but he wasn't driving anymore. Mick called those kinds of shots now. He'd never driven out this far before and it was kind of difficult not letting his attention wander. There was nothing to look at but farmland after farmland, the occasional speeding vehicle and billboards advertising either food or salvation. By the time they stopped for gas, Mick felt like screaming. It felt like this hellhole was doing its best to keep him from leaving, just making him drive one monotonous mile after another until he was half convinced they'd already driven that same stretch of land before. As Mick dug cash out of one of the wallets Len had pocketed during their lunch stop, Len asked, "Do you want me to drive for a while?" Len hated driving. He was also a shitty driver but he couldn't stand driving and Mick couldn't imagine what he looked like to have Len offering. "Nah. Just get me a bunch of candy for the road. I'll need the pick-me-up." Mick paid for gas, two bags of chips and a huge slushie. Len was already inside the car while Mick filled up. After they'd driven a few miles away from the gas station, Len started pulling out handfuls of candy packages. He opened up a bag of Skittles and passed it over to Mick. Then he opened up the glove compartment, pulling case after case of cassette tapes from his pockets and stuffing them inside. Wordlessly he picked one from the stash and pushed it into the tape deck. After a couple seconds, synthpop filled the car and Mick eventually recognized it as Duran Duran's Rio. "Are you fucking kidding me with this crap!" Len didn't say anything but Mick could see his smile in the reflection of the window. ~*~*~*~ It was a weird thing to say, but the Rocky Mountains had been a bit of a surprise. Mick had seen the sign that said they'd gone into Colorado but overall it wasn't that much different from Kansas. It was the same empty horizon with farms and billboards and a whole lot of nothing for hours. He hadn't even noticed the mountains at first, they were so far away they were just irregular smears in the distance, barely indistinguishable from the rest of the sky and could disappear any time the road curved. Then it was like the moment he started seeing signs for Denver, the mountains just appeared. Still distant and still faded blue but dark enough that the jagged line they made was obvious. Mick reached over, shaking Len's shoulder as he dozed in the passenger seat. Len woke up with a start, hands coming up, ready to fight someone off. "What?" He asked groggily. "What is it?" Mick just pointed out the windshield. "Mountains." Len peered forward, waiting for Mick to drive under an overpass that was obstructing the view. "Yes," he said at length. "Those are mountains. Your geographical knowledge is astounding." Mick snorted but magnanimously didn't point out the fact that Len wasn't settling back to sleep again. He knew Len was oddly excited about them. After all he, like Mick, had never seen mountains in person before. They stopped again to fill the gas and their bellies and Mick picked up a map and directions from the clerk while he was at it. When he rejoined Len- with more snacks and drinks because why not -Len asked snidely, "Are you planning on going into the mountains?" "Sure," Mick said easily, dumping everything in Len's lap so he could buckle himself in. "Why not?" Len scowled and tossed everything into the back. Except for the map. "It's a big rock, Mick. What's the point?" "Because we're going passed 'em anyway." Len raised an eyebrow. "We are, are we?" "What, you wanna head back already?" When Len didn't say anything, Mick turned the ignition. "Yeah, didn't think so." Len narrowed his eyes at Mick. With great flair, like an act of defiance, Len pushed a new tape into the player. Mick caught sight of the case, just long enough to recognize it as one of Lisa's favorites: Cyndi Lauper. "Mother fucker!" Len chuckled maliciously but graciously opened the map while he was at it. ~*~*~*~ The closer they got to the mountains the less Len was able to pretend he didn't care. His eyes grew wider the higher they loomed and with every crest they made, there was another line right after. It took Mick a while to realize that, for as big as those first line of ranges were, they were only foothills. Rolling greens with deep crags of rocks and thick with trees, they were nothing compared to the actual mountains. They passed through a tunnel and suddenly the land was high enough to block out the sun. Len had to crane his neck out the window in order to see the tops. Mick drove carefully, somewhat unnerved by how closely the narrow, winding road hugged the mountain walls, especially having only ever driven either packed city streets or the wide open countryside. It looked like Len could lean out and touch it with his fingertips in places. He drove so cautiously, in fact, that Mick even pulled off a couple times in order to let other cars pass him. The way they sped by made him swallow hard. And he thought Len could get reckless. Not to mention, as much as Mick claimed to have grown up in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, but a town with only a two lane highway passing through and impossibly high mountains all around seemed incredibly isolating. But still he drove if not just because now Len was no longing hiding his excitement. He kept marveling at the rocks, at the river they drove alongside, at the sheer number of trees around them. Then they started on the switchbacks, going higher and higher until the trees started to thin out and once the road broke out of the treeline and they could see the land falling away, Mick pulled over at the first available place. They got out and just... stood there, staring at everything below them. The mountains and hills rolled away, fading into the distance and Mick hadn't even noticed how many ranges they'd driven through. "Holy shit," he said quietly. "I can't believe we didn't snag a camera." Len grabbed Mick's arm, a bright grin spreading over his face. "C'mon. Let's see how it looks from the top." They drove on, high enough they started passing patches of snow that still lingered despite the pre-summer heat that had them sweating all through Kansas and the eastern part of Colorado. They stopped again when they reached a huge lake near the summit. The water was so clear and blue they could see the rocks along the bottom. Out of curiosity, Mick went up to the edge and stuck his hand in for a split second before jerking it back. That shit was freezing! He knew it would be, of course, given the snow and how chilly it was so high up and the fact they drove through a fucking cloud on the way up, but it still took him by surprise. Len was pretending he wasn't laughing at Mick but Mick glared at him anyway. They continued, the road almost entirely switchbacks from that point on, barely any vegetation at all, just rocks and sparse patches of grass. Len slapped Mick's arm so hard Mick nearly drove them off the road. Mick was too surprised to be angry, however, when he realized Len was point at a couple of mountain goats that were just chilling a few dozen feet from the road. There was a parking area near the top where the ruins of a building that had burnt down a few years prior and, further beyond that an observatory sat. The actual summit was a short hike up a fairly impressive pile of rocks. They still had to stop for a breather a couple times, though, as altitude sickness got to them. But Len was determined to reach the top and wherever Len went, Mick followed. When they finally reached the top- a few other tourists giving them words of support as they passed -Mick crawled up to the top of the rocks and flopped on his back, trying to stave off the dizziness. Len was also breathing hard, but he was sitting up and taking in the view. "Goddamn," Mick said faintly, "mountains suck. Why is breathing so hard?" Len just hummed, eyes never moving from the horizon. After a while, Mick sat up. The view was spectacular, the land undulating until it faded to blue, blending in with the sky yet again. After a long stretch of silence, Len said, "Do you think that's Kansas?" "What?" "Over there." He pointed out to the horizon. Mick assumed he was pointing east. "Do you think that's Kansas? Or still Colorado?" Mick leaned forward slightly, squinting his eyes as if he could see some delineation of a border when he couldn't even tell if he was looking at flat land or more mountains. "I dunno. Why?" "I just... never realized how big the world is, I guess." Mick could see that. Until the impromptu roadtrip, Len hadn't even been to Kansas. "Less than thirteen hours and already there's an entire state and a half between us." "We could keep going." Len visibly hesitated so Mick continued, trying to keep his voice both neutral and coaxing. "Still got nearly three weeks until Lisa's back from camp. We could head back to that little town and get a room for then night, then keep going west in the morning. Spend a week traveling the California coast. We'd still make it back before she does." Len looked down, twisting his fingers together. "My dad will be pissed when I get back." "He's gonna be pissed no matter what you do." Len took a deep breath, pulling his lower lip between his teeth and worrying at it. Mick just put a hand to Len's back, thumb rubbing circles at the base of his neck. "Just a thought," Mick said, "we don't gotta do it." They sat there, long enough for their shadows to spill out down the mountain side, the valley below them getting darker and darker. Just as Mick was about to suggest getting a move on before the sun got much lower, Len said, "Okay." "Huh?" He turned to Mick, smile a little wavery but determined like he was trying not to talk himself out of it. "Let's see what's on the other side of the mountains." Mick grinned, heart pounding in his chest for reasons he didn't understand. Daringly he pulled Len into a tight, one-armed hug. "Sure thing, Boss." They went to the car, Len still tucked up against Mick's side. Their adventure was slightly waylaid when the mountain goats decided to stand in the middle of the road as they were leaving the summit but eventually Len managed to startle it off by cranking up a Motorhead tape. When they were able to start driving again, Mick socked him in the arm for hiding that up until now. Len just laughed, bright and happy.

#coldwaveweekend2018 #dccoldwave #fic 2018 #leonard snart #mick rory #dc tv

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podcake · 7 years ago

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Podcasts & Genre: Noir

When one thinks of the noir genre, the most common association is film noir, a style of film making sparking in popularity many, meany years ago but still carries some relevance today. Though no one really makes genuine noir films anymore, unless you count a few with noir inspired elements, noir mostly lives on strictly as short parodies while mystery stories stay as mystery stories without the usual aesthetic qualities you’d identify a noir film with.

Noir brings up ideas of stylishly produced, sexual, and cynical stories sparking during the 1940′s that normally focus on a detective that one might describe as hardboiled, a femme fatale or two, and some type of mystery plot to tackle, often involving murder.

One of the core reasons noir is mostly treated with a certain level of parody in modern work is due to how dramatic these productions could be. The whole vibe of theatrics that came from these productions could be perceived as laughable nowadays. Though much like Broadway musicals could be given a massive reboot through the success of Wicked and later the phenomena of Hamilton, the same could be said for noir that will occasionally slip its way into more modern interpretations while still maintaining an authentic narrative.

While this is fairly evident in film, we all know that things with more than one picture attached to it isn’t really my specialty. You’re here to hear things and then read about the things you heard. How can sound effectively get an idea across when we only have our imaginations and common sense to tell things apart?

As a whole, this article will be delving into the complexity of translating genre through sound with noir being the main focal point due to its rarity and presence in a different medium of entertainment.

This might just be a theory though I believe that noir managed to flow pretty well into the audio drama realm mostly because one of the most vital parts of these films is a consistent narration. This aspect alone is oddly enough the real driving force behind noir getting a second life.

And yet I do realize that noir is a kind of genre that is very selectively put to use. It’s relatively rare for a new noir show to pop up, only ever making common occurrences around early to late 2016. Rex Rivetter: Private Eye and Neon Nights: The Arcane Files both debuted the same year with only a few months difference between their publications.

The same could be said for The Penumbra that came out in March. If this is merely a coincidence or not is on the table as all of the shows came from different producers and are essentially different products in their entirety.

These shows are not the only podcast noir shows in existence, though it’s hard to ignore just how few their are in comparison to the abundance of horror and sci-fi shows that come out every few months.

Among these, The Penumbra and it’s tales of private eye Juno Steel are the most openly successful. The Penumbra takes a creative approach to both the noir genre, with a helpful touch of sci fi, and the fantasy-adventure genre in their Second Citadel series. But if we are to focus on Juno Steel stories in particular, it’s not hard to see why it’s gotten such positive press.

Normally taking place over the course of two part episodes, Juno Steel delivers some strongly written individual mysteries that work their way up to being a whole story with recurring characters and an intriguing central plot. We get some colorful one shot villains, a likable though also dysfunctional lead, and a touch of romance that works to reveal the character’s personal insecurities.

The Penumbra’s specialty is to remix and retell classic story genres with a touch of modern edge and originality that lets them stand as great individual stories and joins The Bright Sessions and Wolf 359 as some of the most well known modern fiction podcasts.

A little while later came Neon Nights and Rex Rivetter that I combed through back to back to form a proper opinion on. Though they’ll most definitely be the topics of some future reviews, I do enjoy the air of the occult with Neon Nights which gives it a sort of Dresden Files vibe and Rex Rivetter that’s a touch more old fashioned through presentation which gives it a certain air of glamour that is sometimes delightfully camp.

The newest contender for the noir genre is What’s The Frequency? which has already made quite the splash in this mostly independent art community with a strong first episode that left a lot to the imagination. Though I’ve always liked the level of absurdity that the noir genre can dig up while still maintaining an air of mystery, What’s The Frequency? is one of the most downright bizarre products to come out in recent memory that’s equal parts eerie and engaging.

What’s The Frequency? truly commits to the style with its innovative use of static and the inclusion of voice work that invokes just the right vibe of psychedelic 1940′s it’s aiming for. It truly does feel old unlike the usual crisp and clean audio we get from the previously mentioned work.

Something that has fascinated me is that when you take the film out of film noir you still get a genuine experience. Even without the gray scale, even without the crafty use of silhouettes and dramatic framework, noir has managed to ooze itself into the crevices of fictional podcasts from a purely audio based perspective.

This I perceive as interesting as noir is noteworthy for its creative cinematography-Dutch angles, night-for-night shots, and silhouettes being the most common. Not to mention clothing like the iconic trench coat and hat approach, women with lipstick we could all assume was red, and people in formal dress for the sake of making every second look as classy as the last.

With podcasts, we only have so much time to get a visual across to listeners without loading them up with pointless filler, most of the run time consisting of dialogue meant to push the story forward to a conclusion. Though audio drama certainly isn’t limited to a purely linear story structure, it does have to pull through a bit more in certain aspects such as writing, sound editing, and acting to hold someone’s attention.

While film gives us more visual shorthand and generally does the settings and characters for us, audio drama leans heavily on getting its story out first and letting the listener fill in the blanks. In audio, visuals are an afterthought but imagery is still roughly where half of the writing effort goes into. It is much easier to look pretty than to sound pretty and this is why podcasts tend to be more ambitious since they can do more with less.

All of these individual shows have some sort of unique quality that gives it its rightful spot as separate stories, and yet you’d be hard pressed not to describe them as noir. Noir is so grounded in film that the idea of translating it to a purely audio based format almost seems to go against what noir is supposed to be, and yet we never run into these complications when we stumble upon them.

We can still identify a horror show without visual blood splatters and can still consider a sci-fi a sci-fi even if we never actually see the interior of a space ship we’re inside of. For example, Wolf 359 is very much science fiction with some strong comedy writing, though it’s also an entirely different beast than Hadron Gospel Hour that may be in the same boat but clearly going up a different stream.

Audio Diary of a Superhero and The Bright Sessions both tackle ideas of disability outweighed by extraordinary power, and yet it’d be near impossible to get the two mixed up. Presentation and packaging can really make or break a show and how one plans to get these ideas across is the real definitive element at hand.

While, let’s say for now, horror and science fiction don’t have any definitive visuals, only some recurring ones, noir is different in that it’s almost entirely built on a very specific list of cliches for it to be truly considered part of that group. You kind of need murder, you kind of need a detective, you kind of need a morally ambiguous seductress-so in that vain, noir can very much exist without the usual attributes as long as the audio can get these ideas across.

But let’s say, hypothetically, that these tropes aren’t being put to use. How exactly does one gain the right to consider their story a noir? Well from my understanding, these shows have leaned on a few common trends: a deep voiced protagonist with a definitive, world weary perspective, a jazz score, and taking place in a stylish but troubled city where all the conflict boils.

It’s truly here that the idea of style and substance, narrative and aesthetic, play into one another for the better.

Since this article is one part history lesson and another part describing things that are barley a year old, I do feel the need to dig up some facts. A detail many tend to forget is that audio drama was a vital form of entertainment years ago, it getting its start on nighttime radio broadcasts that were tuned into the same way we would watch prime time TV.

Though this type of entertainment hasn’t entirely died, the radio part of radio drama has leaned more towards desktop computer drama or smartphone drama if we’re going to be taking about technology specifically.

The thing is that podcasts got a hard reboot when Welcome to Night Vale reminded people how cool that was and everyone followed Joseph Fink and Jeffery Cranor’s breadcrumbs to make their own stories that were slightly less time consuming than writing a book and less expensive than making a movie.

The strive for authenticity is strong in any artistic medium and podcasts are no exception. We may have our trends and sometimes repetitive structures and dynamics surfacing every few years, though the final product is what really gives anything its identity. What we consider truly authentic for anything or anyone can be boiled down to aesthetic value, narrative value, or something else entirely depending on your perspective.

The same could be said for me as the whole purpose of Podcasts& is essentially to cover topics with a little more complexity than I’m normally able to. Reviews are restricted to whatever podcasts I managed to finish and pair up on slim similarities, Teatimes have the creators do most of the talking, and Palettes, one of the main support beams of the PodCake empire, are the equivalent of a “best of” reel-a first impressions, if you will. All the while I keep things interesting with flower emoticons and some cute girls over a pink backdrop. These are certainly accessories to my persona, though not the entirety of my work.

With Podcasts&, we’re given just a little more time to look back and breathe in just what audio drama is capable of. If there’s anything about this medium that has fascinated me it’s the way it can transcend the typical confides of storytelling to still give a satisfying and unique experience. Many audio dramas exist in the same subgroups but I’m hard pressed to find any that are near identical to one another.

Be it The Penumbra or Neon Nights-they may be fruit bared from the same garden, but their taste and textures are clearly being grown from different kinds of people. What makes each one interesting is that while noir is normally considered an exercise in creatively crafted footage, audio still manages to capture its identity and mood nonetheless. Noir audio dramas have to flex a little more muscle to really get their aesthetic qualities to matter since that is what defines their genre in the fist place.

Interesting how these articles tend to tie into one another.

As I get to the conclusion of this editorial, I realize I have opened up a whole new can of worms when dealing with genre construction that is such a broad topic that I’ll need more than one text document to talk about it. Maybe some other day in some other month when all the Palettes and reviews are done and I can work up something proper worthy of being the first article of the new year.

We can discuss comedy and horror and science fiction and surrealism. We can talk about all that has come of it and how there is no one way to tell a tale or represent a genre.

So consider this little piece a...prelude for what is to come. Let’s talk about history, let’s talk about audio entertainment in its entirety, let’s bookmark Wikipedia articles, because the topic of genre is barely even at its peak when it comes to noir, though the fact that it exists at all says something about what just a few sounds are capable of.

#podcast #audio drama #audio play #radio play #what's the frequency #the penumbra podcast #neon nights the arcane files of jack tracer #rex rivetter private eye #wolf 359 #audio diary of superhero #hadron gospel hour #welcome to night vale #podcasts and #genre parlor

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jasonfry · 7 years ago

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I loved Tom Petty.

It’s true that I never loved him with the same all-consuming passion I had for other musical heroes such as Bruce Springsteen or the Replacements. But it’s also true that as my tastes oscillated from Brooocerock and punk to hip-hop and power-pop, he remained a constant. Favorites would come and go, but I always listened to Tom Petty.

Which, I think, reflects that he was impossible to pigeonhole -- and Lord knows an endless stream of A&R guys and radio programmers tried. His musical inspirations and antecedents were a little of this and little of that, and made him elude categories -- beyond saying, perhaps, that he was quietly but deeply weird, in the best possible American way.

Petty grew up in Gainesville, which itself is a hard-to-pigeonhole part of Florida. From the beginning, he was a professional playing with hobbyists, a businessman with a guitar and a finely tuned ability to read a room. (For this and everything else, Warren Zanes’s biography is wonderful.) Whatever worked from the stage worked, and it amounted to a polyglot musical education: Petty’s bands could play Stax, country, R&B, British Invasion pop, California sunshine or Southern rock, and his own music drew on and recombined all those traditions.

When Petty finally broke through with the Heartbreakers, his label marketed him as a New Waver, but there wasn’t much more to that than a leather jacket and the I-can’t-believe-this-shit smirk he sports on the first album cover. (That said, plenty of late 70s post-punk bands would have killed to have one song as good as “I Need to Know,” from You’re Gonna Get It!) His record companies never quite figured out what they had, but that was OK, because Petty was his own stubborn true north.

Petty (with collaborators, chief among them Mike Campbell) cranked out indelible melody after indelible melody. From the first five albums alone, “Breakdown,” “American Girl,” “I Need to Know,” “Listen to Her Heart,” “Refugee,” “Don’t Do Me Like That,” “The Waiting,” “A One Story Town,” “Deliver Me” and “Change of Heart” are all classics, identifiable and welcome by just their first few notes.

Those riffs alone would make a pretty great legacy, but Petty was also a remarkable lyricist, capable of being sly, heartfelt or both. At his best he was both evocative and economical -- look how much is established by the opening of “Even the Losers”:

Well it was nearly summer, we sat on your roof We smoked cigarettes and we stared at the moon And I showed you stars you never could see Couldn’t have been that easy to forget about me

There is a lot going on there, in less than 50 words.

Petty generally kept a certain distance from his characters, but many of them had something in common -- a sense that life had taken a left turn on them at some point. Sometimes it was the narrator’s fault (”Straight Into Darkness”), sometimes it was a little more complicated than that (”Insider”), and sometimes it was a lot more complicated than that (”Rebels,” which belongs in the People Really Don’t Listen to the Words Hall of Fame). What linked them was a sense of bemusement, a cocked eyebrow at the wreckage, and a stubborn insistence that the only thing to do was keep going.

The later years weren’t quite up to what came before -- it bugged me that lots of listeners discovered Petty through Full Moon Fever, an album I thought sheared away too much of his lyrical and musical weirdness in favor of solid but generic songs. And I saw the Heartbreakers live twice and came away both times thinking that they were professional to a fault. (When the unprofessional-to-a-fault Replacements opened for them, the disaster was foreordained.)

Still, even the later albums had their moments, such as “Learning to Fly,” “The Last DJ” and “Walls.” And of course there was everything that came before -- weird B-sides (”Casa Dega,” “Heartbreakers Beach Party”), should-have-beens left in the vaults (”Ways to Be Wicked,” “God’s Gift to Man”), deep cuts revealed as classics (”Louisiana Rain,” “Century City,” “Southern Accents,” pretty much the entirety of Wildflowers) and classics that not even endless radio rotation could bludgeon into meaninglessness (seriously, next time stop and really listen to “American Girl.”)

Alll of this will endure, and come to be appreciated not just in bits and pieces, but in its surprising, weird and vital totality. I can’t know which artists I’ll have in heavy rotation in five or 10 years, but I can tell you this much: I’ll be listening to Tom Petty and loving him and missing him.

#tom petty #music

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themalfcyheir · 7 years ago

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tuesday, 6.30 PM.

Doing the dishes was impossible with only one hand to be able to use, even if it was his right and dominant hand that he could use. His left wrist hurt from time to time and he tried using it as little as possible. That didn’t mean he was permitted to skip the dishes, though. The last two days he had watched how Mark did the dishes at twice the speed that they usually did them while they talked about a number of random subjects. After breakfast that morning he tried to help out with the drying of the dishes and that worked a little. It was slow and he had to be creative, but at least he felt more useful than how he would have felt if he was just sitting or standing there and watching Mark. That evening after dinner, he had almost dropped a plate that he attempted to dry and Mark looked at him as though he was about to ask to sit this one out. “Don’t say it,“ Draco said as he put the plate away. “I will dry cutlery instead. It’s easier to hold.“ Mark raised his arms momentarily as though to say I wasn’t going to say it but Draco was convinced that he was going to. He cleaned the rest of the cutlery as Draco started on drying and putting it away. Afterwards he helped Draco with drying, but started with the plates.

“This song, though,” Mark said as another song started on the radio standing in the kitchen. Draco looked at him clearly not understanding. He had never paid much attention to the radio and didn’t intend to begin now. It was background noise and nothing more. Apparently his mentor didn’t share that point of view. With a grin, Mark moved away from the kitchen counter and to the radio to turn it up louder. Draco recognized it immediately. It was impossible not to. Everyone probably knew this song, even his parents. He narrowed his eyes at Mark and shook his head at him. “No. Oh no. Don’t you dare do what I think you’re about to do.” Mark’s grin betrayed that Draco was right. “I sit and wait,” the other man started to sing in a voice that wasn’t as bad as Draco had expected, “does an angel contemplate my fate? And do they know the places where we go when we’re grey and old?” As far as the feeling of vicarious shame went, this was it. Completely. He put another dried spoon away and buried his head in his hands, but couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Stop singing, you’re embarrassing yourself,” he tried, well aware that the message would not be coming across at all because everything about him spelled out that he was utterly amused by this turn of events during the dishes. Of course he wasn’t listened to either. “Because I have been told,” Mark continued with no shame whatsoever, “that salvation lets their wings unfold. So when I’m lying in my bed, thoughts running through my head,” he paused as the song continued and looked at Draco with a grin on his face. “Come on, sing! You know you want to. And you know you know this song.” Draco closed his eyes for a couple of seconds and shook his head. “I can’t believe this is happening right now,” he declared. “Don’t tell me you’re still ashamed after everything we went through the past two weeks,” Mark countered in favour of ignoring the beginning of the chorus and Draco knew he was right. He had no shame whatsoever left in front of this man and therefore he may as well. He couldn’t believe he was going to do this either. He took a deep breath and listened to hear where the song left off before joining in. “And down the waterfall, wherever it may take me.” Mark was visibly pleased by the time he joined in as well. “I know that life won’t break me. When I come to call she won’t forsake me. I’m loving angels instead.” After that all shame and vicarious shame was gone by the time they got to the second part of the song. Draco begun and they sung one line each, so he started with ‘When I’m feeling weak’ and Mark continued by singing ‘and my pain walks down a one-way street’ and so on. They joined on the last time before the chorus, ‘I’m loving angels instead’ and sung the entirety of the chorus together as well. By that time Louis had walked in and was staring at them. “I was going to bring some more dishes,” he declared during the instrumental break, “and I will leave them there because you’re very busy acting out a Robbie Williams musical.” “You want to join?” Mark asked seriously. “No,” Louis said with complete certainty. “I will do plenty of things, but singing is not among them. I don’t have a voice like either one of you. Enjoy your dishes.” He put a couple of cups down at the kitchen counter and made a quick exit, closing the door behind him. Mark shrugged his shoulders at Draco. “Just you and me, then. One more chorus?” One more chorus and plenty of more dishes to do. Mark was humming the song under his breath as he continued drying and looked at Draco then. “What?” he asked. “Not another song that everyone knows, right?” Mark chuckled at those words. “No, not another song,” he reassured Draco. “I had an idea and I think you’re not going to like me for it, but it may help you understand.” That didn’t sound good, but the not-understanding was frustrating. He was trying to wrap his hand around what had really happened when Tracey and him both took an overdose and he was also struggling to understand why Mark was so convinced that his parents loved him even if he was gay. “You did just manage to make me sing,” he pointed out in between sorting cutlery into the drawers. “So try me.” Half an hour later they were sitting at opposite sides of a desk in the staff’s office. A phone was laying on the desk standing in between them. Draco stared at the phone as it dialed and waited for the person they were calling to pick up. The deja vu feeling was prevalent. Last time he tried calling this person she hadn’t picked up and he was honestly torn between hoping she would pick up and hoping she wouldn’t pick up. Both options had their up- and downsides. Mark, who could probably sense how nervous he was about this, reached out for him and gestured for Draco to give him his right hand, which he did. “You can do this,” Mark said softly. “Focus on your breathing and on what you want to tell and ask her. Simple enough, I promise. If you can’t manage it I’m here to take over.” Draco nodded, but didn’t reply. He didn’t have to, because the other that they called picked up the phone seconds after Mark spoke. “Hey, this is Pansy,” she said cheerfully. “Hey,” Draco replied, squeezing Mark’s hand until it hurt all the while, “it’s me.” On the other side of the line, Pansy was quiet for a couple of seconds. Draco suspected that this was the last thing she expected when she picked up the phone. “Do you have a second?” she asked then. “I’m just going to move somewhere where we can talk without being eavesdropped on. I’d say we favour that.” “We do,” Draco agreed. “Let me know when you’re back.” He could hear her walk down, and when he listened closely he thought she walked down stairs, possibly on her way out of a building. There were a few seconds when he could hear traffic, but then Pansy’s voice was back. “I’m here,” she said. “Sorry about that. I was with Amelie. I know Marcus told her a bit, but not the whole story, and I like my calls with you to be as private as possible anyway. What’s up? How are you doing? Is something wrong?” “Yea, about that,” he said, shooting a look at Mark. “This conversation isn’t entirely private. In the clinic they assign some members of the staff to the patients as mentors for them and my mentor, Mark, is listening as well. I’m fine, I -” he caught Mark’s look at him and tried to rephrase, “I’m managing. Nothing is wrong. I just wanted to ask you a favour.” “Hey Mark,” Pansy greeted dryly, making Draco’s lips curl up just a little. “I won’t do any heartfelt confessions right now in that case. I like to pretend I have some dignity. Anyway. What do you need?” He sighed and looked towards Mark again, who nodded encouragingly. “I was wondering if you wanted to visit upcoming Saturday. I know it’s late to ask because it’s Tuesday evening already, but we only thought of it just now.” “Of course I want to visit,” Pansy said as soon as he finished his sentence. “I’ll make sure I have the time, you don’t have to worry about that.” Silence fell between them. With his free hand, Mark urged him to continue but Draco shrugged his shoulders at him, unsure what to say, how to explain. “Hey Pansy, it’s Mark,” he was quick to say when Draco didn’t speak. “Draco’s a little nervous about this conversation and what he’s supposed to ask, so I’ll do it. He wants to talk to you about Tracey and what happened during your last year of boarding school when you visit.” “So what you’re trying to say is that we won’t just talk about how Cambridge and the clinic are?” The undertone in Pansy’s voice was still dry, but Draco knew she was trying to grasp what Mark had just told her. “Look, Draco, if talking about Tracey is going to help you in any way I’ll do it. I love you. I’ll do anything for you.” “I love you too,” he said with a sigh, his muscles loosening just a little. “So you’ll come by?” “Of course,” she said. “Tell me time and place and I’ll be there. I would never let you down.”

#( crossing the divide | au ).#( self para ).#( journal from another life ).

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lichenthrope9 · 4 years ago

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a day in the life: interference, disturbance, and intersensoriality in a domestic cooking space

I have always been sensitive to sound. One of my earliest memories is from when I was two years old, learning my shapes from my mother. She would take my pointed finger and draw in the air with it: A circle – “OOooooo-WOOP!” (/u˥˩wup˩˥/: a falling pitch on the first syllable, and a rising pitch on the second as I closed the imaginary loop). A square: “EEEE-aaah, EEEE-aaah.” (/˥iː˧ãː˥iː˧ãː/: A high tone on “EEEE” and a mid tone on “aaah”). A triangle: “eeek! eeek! eeek!” (/˥ḭk ˦ḭk ˥ḭk/: All high in tone and creaky-voiced).

I still learn things from my mother’s sounds, and from the sounds of the house. I learned over the years what angry sounds like: stomping footsteps that resonate through our doorless house above and below, slamming cabinets and syllables lobbed like projectiles with velocity and sharpness. I have learned what sleep sounds like: heavy snores muffled behind thick blankets and a thin door, obscured by the screams of foxes and the howls of coyotes outside that pierce me like moonlight. Sometimes there’s a sharp crack in the house, disrupting none but me or my cat, and I walk into the kitchen to absorb the tense silence.

This project is a final for a semester-long course, yes, but it is also the naming of years of sounds I never had words for, and the affects that traversed me whenever I heard them. It’s a collection of specimens from a sonic ecosystem that I’ve only just begun to make sense of.

The comforts and anxieties of a small household are stories best told through sound, scent, and texture. My mother and I are large personalities with rigid and brittle needs. The intensities we generate are marked both by extreme sensory presence and by absence; at times it’s impossible to escape each other, and at times our home is incredibly lonely. I find comfort in my soft cat, the murmur and laughter of Dungeons & Dragons podcasts, and concentration on my artistic and academic pursuits that fill my head with thoughts that buzz like insects or transport me to a soundless moon of creativity and promise. The common thread that links all these states is the anxiety I feel when the soundscape becomes unpredictable – that is, when it becomes noisy. “Noise pollution results when man does not listen carefully. Noises are the sounds we have learned to ignore… Only a total appreciation of the acoustic environment can give us the resources for improving the orchestration of the world soundscape” (Schafer, 2012).

The sounds and noises I tried to parse out for this project fell into two broad categories: anthropogenic, which I defined loosely as created directly by a human person (e.g. footsteps, tapping a spoon on a skillet) and non-anthropogenic, which I defined as all other environmental sounds (e.g. the house settling, foxes crying outside, the radio). These categories helped me sort the noise of my kitchen into cycles of hi-fi and lo-fi sound environments that changed in predictable ways depending on the time of day. A hi-fi sound environment is a soundscape in which individual sounds are completely intelligible and can be traced to their source; there is a high signal-to-noise ratio and, in my kitchen’s case, no sound I would describe as painfully loud. A lo-fi sound environment is the converse of this: a low signal-to-noise ratio, individual sounds blend together into a background murmur and it’s difficult to hear a sound in its entirety or trace it to its source, and occasionally there are sounds which are painful to me.

As I mentioned, my needs are rather rigid, and this extends to my expectations for a sonic environment. I am irritated by noise, especially in the bustling mornings. Now that I have done this project, I notice that I am attuned to the purposes and origins of the noises that used to irritate me, and there is now less irritation. I am now irritated by lack of noise, or I am paranoid of the noises for which I cannot discern a purpose. I feel tension in silences, and connection and networking through the noises that bring me comfort. This hints at Kassabian’s networked subjectivity: “Like Star Trek’s Borg, we are uncomfortable being unhooked from the background sound of ubiquitous subjectivity, so we turn radios on in empty rooms and put speakers under our pillows… We prefer to be connected, need to listen to our connections, can’t breathe without them” (Kassabian, 2001). Sounds in my kitchen can be organized by time of day, creating non-linear subjectivities like those described by Kassabian’s ubiquitous listening and ubiquitous subjectivities. In this case, the subjectivities experienced in the kitchen are more cyclical than ubiquitous. I insert myself into the space for different purposes and different affects traverse me at different times of day, but these purposes and affects are predictable.

How is the kitchen placed in the soundscape – or, how does the soundscape of my house center around the kitchen? “Sounds emerge from and are perceptually centred in place, not to mention sung with, to, and about places” (Feld, 1994). The sounds of the radio are not bound to the kitchen but are associated with the kitchen; the radio is a “kitcheny” instrument that cannot be played without evoking some sense of “kitcheniness.” The sound of cooking is bound to the kitchen and produces an acoustic centering of comfort, creation, and bodily function in that space. The lack of these sounds, or the presence of exterior sounds from other rooms or from outside the house, makes the kitchen feel strange; they mark a sudden lack of kitcheniness even in the only space that can take on that exclusive role.

I used to find myself trying to listen to music through these kitchen noises as if it were a battle: I strained through the cooking sounds and the running water and the conversation to hear every sonic detail. Then I read Brian Eno’s account of being unable to hear a record of harp music over a rainstorm: “It was raining hard outside, and I could hardly hear the music above the rain-just the loudest notes, like little crystals, sonic icebergs rising out of the storm” (Eno, 1996). When I try listening to music through noise interference now, I think of this passage and try to incorporate the “interference” into the performance. In my recording, I wanted to capture the ways the radio and I constructively and destructively interfered in the soundscape of the kitchen.

Because it’s the kitchen, sound is certainly not the only non-visual sense bound up in these affects. In this ethnography, I tried to prioritize aromas as well. “The association of hearing with feeling rather than cognition probably comes from our modern sense that feelings happen to us rather than being willed or subject to conscious direction” (Connor, 2001). Intersensoriality is related to new modes of attending presence in the world; the association of hearing with feeling rather than cognition is related to the association of scenting with sensing rather than cognition. It is an older sense, a chemical one, and deeply intertwined and implanted into memory formation and recall. These relationships between senses create powerful place-images, place-affects, and place-memories, such as the confusing irritation-anxiety-comfort-cooking-noise-smell that takes place in the mornings in the kitchen vs. the quiet-tense-hifi-natural-noiseless-absence that takes place in the afternoons and nights in the kitchen.

Attending to any ecosystem is all about observing and managing relationships across many different scales. The affects I named as sources of “comfort,” “tension,” “business,” “irritation” – they are all interrelated and their sources are interrelated. They disturb and jostle each other, seeking attention and creating excess with their forces. I didn’t expect such strong correlations between anthropogenic sounds and comfort, or between near-silent hi-fi environments and tension. But to discover this, I had to attend to a phenomenon of assemblage that Anna Tsing – appropriately enough for this paper – compares to polyphonic music: “[T]o appreciate polyphony one must listen both to the separate melody lines and their coming together in unexpected moments of harmony or dissonance… to appreciate the assemblage, one must attend to its separate ways of being at the same time as watching how they come together in sporadic but consequential coordinations” (Tsing, 2015).

Homes are more fickle than many realize. In a home where I’ve been threatened with placelessness, non-belonging, and eviction countless times, I’ve internalized a sense that uncertainty is an enemy to be monitored. This project has helped me approach the soundscape of my home in a different way: it’s an ecology that exists neither in harmony nor in conflict with itself, much like the pine trees, pine sawyer beetles, pine wilt nematodes and matsutake mushrooms that Anna Tsing writes about in Mushroom at the End of the World. It cycles between different types of comfort and discomfort, and I belong to it in intimate and inscrutable ways. My eventual, more permanent absence will be a different sort of disturbance to this soundscape, and taking this perspective has eased some of my uncertainty for now.

Works Cited

Connor, S. (2001). Edison's Teeth: Touching Hearing. Hearing Culture. Morelia, Mexico.

Eno, B. (1996). Ambient Music. Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, 94-97.

Feld, S. (1994, June). From Ethnomusicology to Echo-muse-ecology: Reading R. Murray Schafer in the Papua New Guinea Rainforest. The Soundscape Newsletter.

Kassabian, A. (2001). Ubiquitous Listening and Networked Subjectivity. ECHO: a music-centered journal.

Schafer, R. M. (2012). The Sound Studies Reader. In J. Sterne, The Tuning of the World (pp. 95-103).

Tsing, A. (2015). The Mushroom at the End of the World.

#me #sonic ethnography #posthuman ecology #sound ecology #anthropology #intersensoriality #school assignment #assignment #school

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itsfinancethings · 4 years ago

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This essay is adapted from the transcript of a radio program produced for Swedish Radio and broadcast in June. This is the first time the text has been published in its entirety.

Chapter 1: UN speech and New York

The first thing I see when I enter the United Nations Headquarters building in New York City is Roxy. My dog. The two of us are projected onto a large screen which apparently is part of an international art exhibition. When I see her brown labrador eyes it almost feels as if she was right here with me. Suddenly I’m reminded of how much I miss her.

Today is Sept. 23, 2019, and it’s now been 7 weeks since I boarded the train in Stockholm and began my journey. I have no clue of how and when I’m going to get back home. 3 weeks have passed since the boat Malizia sailed into New York City’s harbour and left the peaceful, constrained life on the ocean. After 14 days at sea we sailed past the Statue of Liberty, stepped ashore in Manhattan and took the red subway line uptown towards Central Park. My sea legs were shaking and all the impressions from people, scents, and noises became almost impossible to take in.

Courtesy of Greta ThunbergThunberg arrives in New York City after a 15-day journey crossing the Atlantic on Aug. 28, 2019.

The time in New York has been surreal. If the media attention was big in Europe, it’s nothing compared to how it is here. A year ago the thought of seeing pictures of my dog inside the UN would have been unthinkable. Now it’s nothing strange at all. I see myself everywhere. Just the night before one of my speeches had been projected onto the facade of the UN building. But luckily I completely lack an interest in such things. If you would care about this kind of attention, then you’d probably develop a self-image that is far from sane.

It’s very hard to move inside the giant labyrinth of this building. Presidents, prime ministers, kings, and princesses, all come up to me to chat. People recognize me and suddenly see their opportunity to get a selfie which later they can post on their Instagram – with the caption #savetheplanet. Perhaps it makes them forget the shame of their generation letting all future generations down. I guess maybe it helps them to sleep at night.

In the greenroom, sitting with the other speakers, I try to read through my speech, but I constantly get interrupted by people who want to do small talk and take selfies. The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres steps in. We chat for a bit, just like I’ve learnt that you’re supposed to do. I fill up my red water bottle and sit down again. Then it’s Chancellor Angela Merkel’s turn to come up, congratulate, take a picture and ask whether it’s ok for her to post it on social media. A queue starts forming. Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, waits in line but doesn’t quite make it before it’s time for the event to start.

The annual UN General Assembly week in New York City is always a big global event, but this year it was a bit extra special since the secretary general had decided that the focus would be exclusively on the climate. The expectations are huge. It has been promoted as a ‘now-or-never’ moment.

Almost all of the world’s leaders are sitting in the audience, but it’s only those with specific so-called “solutions” who have received an invitation to address the General Assembly.

The event begins with a very ambitious digital sound- and lightshow. The volume is way too high. I’m standing by the backdrop covering my ears.

”We do not accept these odds.”

That is what the speech was about, if you read it in full. And it of course alludes to our remaining carbon budget. But the only message that seems to have resonated is ”how dare you?”.

I’ve never been angry in public. I’ve barely even been angry at home. But this time I’ve decided that I have to make the most out of the speech. To address the United Nations General Assembly is something you probably only get to do once in your lifetime. So this is it. I need to say things I will be able to stand by for the rest of my life, so that I won’t look back in 60-70 years from now and regret that I didn’t say enough, that I held back. So I choose to let my emotions take control.

On the subway home I see that many in the car around me are watching the speech on their phones. Some come forward to congratulate me. Someone suggests that we should celebrate. But I don’t understand what their congratulations are for, and I understand even less what we’re supposed to be celebrating.

Yet another meeting is over. And all that is left are empty words.

Chapter 2: Washington D.C.

Who is the adult in the room? That question has been asked over and over again during the last year. But this question reaches a whole new level when I end up standing in front of the food court in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. Fast food chains. Hamburgers, candy and ice cream stores. Dunkin Donuts. Baskin Robbins. Here you find the most powerful policymakers in the world sitting in their suits, while drinking pink milkshake, eating junk food and candy.

In the week leading up to the UN General Assembly meeting I spend a few days in the nation’s capital. I use the opportunity to do the kind of things you can do when in Washington D.C. Like visit museums, protest outside the White House, speak in the United States Congress, and stuff like that. But most of the time I meet with politicians.

It gets a bit repetitive after a while. But in a way it almost feels like coming home, since politicians are pretty much the same no matter where you are in the world.

I urge them to listen to the science and act now before it’s too late. They say that they think it’s so amazing that I’m so active and committed, and that when I grow up I too can become a politician and make a real difference in the world. I then explain that when I’ve grown up and finished my education it will be too late to act if we are to stay below the 1.5°C – or even 2°C – target. After that I talk through some of the figures and numbers from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 1.5°C report. Then they laugh nervously and start talking about something else.

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A group of maybe 20 young climate activists gather inside the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s office. Our group mostly consists of representatives from indigenous peoples in North- and South America. From First Nation tribes and the Amazon rainforest.

On the wall hangs a big portrait of Abraham Lincoln. The atmosphere during the meeting is awkward at best. It is as if two entirely different worlds collide. Worlds separated by hundreds of years of injustices, structural and systematic racism, oppression and genocide.

At last a young activist asks to speak. Her name is Tokata Iron Eyes and she lives in Pine Ridge, an Indian reservation in South Dakota, one of the poorest and most socially vulnerable communities in the entire United States.

“How do you think it feels for us to sit here in this room with that man looking down from that painting?” she says and points to Abraham Lincoln.

Speaker Pelosi apologies if anyone has been offended but explains that he was a great man who has meant so much for their country.

“He wanted my people dead”, Tokata says. She’s referring to the executions of Dakota Indians ordered by Lincoln in 1862. “To sit here in this room with that painting… It’s just so difficult” she says.

I try to picture things from her perspective. We fight for climate justice, but how can any justice be achieved when the social and racial injustices have never been officially acknowledged in the public eye in so many parts of the world?

That same day I’m called to testify in the U.S. Congress. But it just feels wrong. What am I supposed to do or say there? I want the people in power to listen to the science, not to me. But after a lot of hesitation and consideration I figured out a way. I asked whether I could borrow a computer. I print out a copy of the IPCC’s 1.5°C report. I was ready to submit my testimony.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae1mUb5EZn0]

Afterwards I take the metro to Tenleytown and walk the 45 minute stroll to the house we’ve borrowed. The walk stretches through some of the most beautiful neighbourhoods you can possibly imagine. Every house is like a miniature castle straight out of a fairytale. Outside one of the biggest houses there’s a woman standing with her daughter, who is around the age of five. “It’s you!” the mother says when she sees me. “Can I take a picture of you together with my daughter?”

“Of course!” I answer.

When I walk away she turns facing the girl. “Greta is a climate activist, she explains. Maybe you’ll also become an activist when you grow up.” The mother says it in a way that makes climate activist appear as the most noble, cool thing in the world.

Like a mix between a ballerina, a president, and an astronaut.

Chapter 3: The science

My message is – and has always been – listen to the science, listen to the scientists.

“Which scientists?” you could of course argue. Within all scientific fields there’s a constant and never-ending debate. That’s what science is about. And climate crisis deniers and delayers love this angle. To spread doubt about whether there’s actually consensus on the scientific grounds of the climate crisis.

That argument can be used in almost all other issues, but it’s no longer possible to use here. The time for that has passed. The consensus is overwhelming. The debate around the global adoption and acceptance of the Paris Agreement and the IPCC reports is over. So what do those two things actually mean?

In Paris, the world’s governments committed themselves to keeping the global temperature rise to “well below 2°C”. But in the latest update from the IPCC – the SR1.5 report – scientists underline that 2°C is not a safe level. We have today already passed about 1.2°C of global heating, and in their report they instead stress the importance of limiting the warming to below 1.5°C. And that is to give us the best possible chance to avoid passing so-called tipping points, and start irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.

So where do we start? Well I’d suggest that we do precisely what all the world’s governments have committed to do in the Paris Agreement. Which is to follow the current best available science.

And that, among other places, we find on page 108, chapter 2 in the IPCC’s SR1.5 report. Right there it says that on Jan. 1 2018 we had 420 Gt CO2 left to emit globally to have a 66% chance of staying below the 1.5° target. We emit about 42 Gt CO2 every year, including land use such as forestry and agriculture. So today we’re soon already down to lower than 300 Gt of CO2 left to emit.

That is the equivalent of less than 7.5 years of today’s ‘business as usual’ emissions until that budget completely runs out. This is the carbon budget which gives us the best odds to achieve the 1.5° target. Yes, you heard it right, less than 7.5 years.

Do you remember the London Olympics? ‘Gangnam Style’ or the first Hunger Games movie? Those things all happened about seven or eight years ago. That’s the amount of time we are talking about.

But even these figures are very watered down. They include almost no tipping points or feedback loops, nor the global aspect of equity in the Paris Agreement, nor already locked-in warming hidden by toxic air pollution. Most IPCC scenarios also assume that future generations will be able to suck hundreds of billions of tonnes of CO2 out of the atmosphere with technologies that don’t exist on the scale required, and that very likely never will in time.

I will try to explain more about what these aspects mean later on. But if you read between the lines you realise that we are facing the need to make changes which are unprecedented in human history.

One reason why the climate and ecological crisis is so hard to communicate is that there’s no magical date when everything is beyond saving. You cannot predict how many people’s lives will be lost, or exactly how our societies will be affected. There are of course countless estimations and calculations which predict what could happen—one more catastrophic than the other—but they almost exclusively focus on a very limited area and almost never take into account the whole picture. We therefore must learn to read between the lines. Just like in any other emergency.

But these are at least the basics. Even if these figures are way too generous they are still the most reliable roadmap available today. They are what we should be referring to.

And the fact that the responsibility to communicate them falls on me and other children should be seen for exactly what it is – a failure beyond all imagination.

Chapter 4: Roadtrip

Three days after my speech in the UN I leave New York City. The last few days everything got a bit too much with all the people and the attention. It feels like a huge relief to move out of the house on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and say goodbye to our host for the last month.

I’ve taken a sabbatical year from school to be able to travel to Santiago de Chile, where the UN’s yearly climate conference, the COP 25, is going to be held. I have no idea how to get there, all I know is that, in order to reach Santiago in time, I’ve got to get to Los Angeles by November 1st. So now awaits 5 weeks of constant traveling. My dad and I leave Manhattan behind us and drive north in an electric car that we’ve borrowed from Arnold Schwarzenegger.

We travel through spectacular landscapes, past mountains, ravines, glaciers, prairies, deserts, swamps. We see the autumn coloured leaves of New England, the forests of Quebec, the lakes in Minnesota, buffalo herds in Wyoming, the redwood trees in Oregon, red rock formations in Arizona and the cotton fields of Alabama.

We switch between the radio stations. The choices are almost only Christian pop and country music. Most of the time it’s just the two of us, but sometimes we are accompanied by journalists or people we know.

Courtesy of Greta ThunbergTravelling through Wyoming in Oct. 2019.

Every Friday I continue to strike wherever I find myself to be at that moment. Denver, Iowa City, Charlotte, Rapid City, Edmonton, Vancouver, Los Angeles. Everywhere lots of people show up, people of all ages. But nothing beats Montreal where half a million people came out on the streets.

In South Dakota we are stopped by a policeman. He looks just like a caricature from an American movie, with mirrored shades, cowboy hat and all. He asks us where we are going. I say Santiago. Then he asks if we’ve got any large amounts of “dollars, weapons or dead bodies in the car?” We answer no, and continue across the Missouri river, over the prairies, the Badlands and the Rocky Mountains.

While the car is charging we walk around the alleys of small towns, shopping malls, suburbs, petrol stations, farms, industrial and residential areas. Wherever I go, people come up to talk and take selfies.

We wake up at 7 a.m. and drive until we get tired in the evening. We buy food wherever there’s food to buy, but it’s not that easy when you’re on the road and you’re vegan. It ends up being mostly canned food, beans, french fries, bananas and bread.

During the nights we either sleep in motels or with people who open up their homes. Activists, scientists, authors, doctors, journalists, hippies, diplomats, movie stars, lawyers. We travel through 37 states in total. Every state has got a slogan on the cars’ license plates, but I make up my own. Like for instance:

North Carolina: Where not even the vegetarian salad bars have vegetarian options.

Alabama: Where the sunsets are pretty and the Christmas decorations are early.

Through the car window I can see the neverending coal trains in Nebraska and Montana, the oil wells in Colorado and California, abandoned factories in Indiana and Pennsylvania, 16-lane highways, endless parking lots and shopping malls, shopping malls, shopping malls. Through the tiny vents of big livestock trucks I look into the eyes of cows and pigs on their way to slaughterhouses.

I’m stunned by the economic differences and social injustices which in many ways are an affront to all forms of human decency. I’m outraged by the oppression targeting especially indigenous, Black and Hispanic communities.

Every twenty minutes or so we pass fields where seemingly endless amounts of brand new RVs, motorboats, quad bikes and tractors are lined up for sale. Along the highways you see giant billboards with anti-abortion, anti-evolution and anti-science campaigns.

At night time the sky is lit by countless oil refineries sparkling in the dark, from north to south, from coast to coast.

Apart from a few wind power plants and solar panels there are no signs whatsoever of any sustainable transition, despite this being the richest country in the world. The debate is far behind Europe. We’re discussing free public transport and circular economy – here they don’t even have public health care or pavements for pedestrians to walk on.

In a petrol station in Texas I count to over 40 different kinds of coffee. I try to add up the number of different sorts of soft drinks as well, but I lose count around 200.

An older man in a cowboy hat comes up to me.

“I’m a big fan,” he says, before he walks across the parking lot, steps inside his giant pickup truck and drives on down the highway.

Chapter 5: The beetle

The only place that anyone has ever discouraged me from visiting is Alberta, Canada. The state of Alberta is one of the western world’s largest oil producers and its main claim to fame is probably being home to the tar sands. The tar sands are an area bigger than the whole of England where oil companies have spent the last 60 years extracting oil straight from the soil. A process with a enormous ecological footprint.

Alberta has a very powerful and highly criticized oil lobby that is well known for its harsh methods to silence anyone they consider a threat to their industry. And I’m definitely considered a threat to them. On several occasions I need to call for police protection when the level of threats and the sheer harassments become too serious.

Courtesy of Greta ThunbergThunberg visits Jasper National Park, Oct. 2019.

On the morning of Oct.21 I’m traveling through the spectacular Canadian landscapes with a film crew from the BBC, heading for the Jasper National Park. Magnificent pine forests stretching out as far as the eye can see. It reminds me of home. Except for the fact that many trees here aren’t green, their needles are either brown or have been lost entirely. It looks very strange. I assume they must be American larch trees, since those trees lose their needles in the autumn.

“No, unfortunately those aren’t Larch trees,” says the biologist Brenda Shepherd as she walks me round the national park. She shakes her head as she approaches one of the brown, pine trees and points to a hole through the bark. Though the hole seeps something that looks like solidified resin.

“Here you can see how the tree has tried to defend itself,” she says. “But it’s useless, it will soon be dead.”

How many trees in this area would you say are affected? I ask.

“About 50%.”

I can’t seem to get my head around what she just said. “50%?”

“Somewhere around there,” she says.

The term ”tipping point” can be hard to understand but this the most clear and obvious example that I that I have come across myself. The mountain pine beetle exists across the North American continent. Every winter the temperature here drops to very low levels. Much colder than in Sweden, for instance. And since only a very small percentage of this species survives in that temperature for a certain number of days, this has never been a problem in the past. But in the last few decades this area has seen a significant level of heating. Canada – as well as other countries close to the poles – has seen a rate of warming about twice as fast as the rest of the world.

So, the temperature rises and all of a sudden we find ourselves on the other side of an invisible border. Suddenly almost the entire population of this beetle survives the winter. And we have passed a tipping point. A point of no return which releases several so-called feedback loops: self-reinforcing, often irreversible, chain reactions. And since the local ecosystem completely lacks the ability to adjust to the new reality, the consequences become extremely visible.

Tree after tree is attacked by the mountain pine beetle and dies shortly thereafter.

Needles to say, the effects on the local environment are disastrous.

But, unfortunately, what happens in the Canadian Rockies doesn’t stay in the Canadian Rockies. These mechanisms are global.

Chapter 6: Tipping points

The day after my encounter with the mountain pine beetle, we have an appointment with the glaciologist John Pomeroy. His team of researchers from the University of Saskatchewan has offered to bring me up onto the Athabasca glacier.

Along the walk leading up to the glacier there are signs placed out by the side of the pathway. Every sign marks a certain year. John stops and points at one that says 1982. “That means that this is where the glacier began in that year.”

It looks quite strange as there is no sight of any nearby glacier whatsoever.

“It was around that time I started working here,” he continues. “Since then I have watched with my own eyes how the glacier has disappeared, meter by meter.”

Due to global heating the Athabasca glacier has, in the last 125 years, retreated 1.5 km and lost half its volume. According to the latest estimates, it’s currently withdrawing 5 metres every year.

Courtesy of Greta ThunbergThunberg filming with the BBC in Glacier National Park, October 2019.

I was instructed to wear every piece of warm clothing that I have, since Katabatic winds – winds that form over glaciers – can be ruthless. And they weren’t exaggerating. Once we step onto the ice it gets almost impossible to move forward, let alone to stand up straight. There’s a heavy snowfall passing by, reminding us that the full force of the long Canadian winter is about to arrive any day now.

We struggle on in our borrowed boots, using ski poles to support our balance and weight. When we reach a place John considers good enough, he stops, takes off his backpack and starts unpacking his gear. He takes measurements while explaining the procedures step by step.

Then he starts chipping into the ice. He breaks off a piece and gives it to me.

“If you look carefully, you see it’s full of small black dots. That’s soot,” he says.

Where does the soot come from?, I ask.

“It’s from the wildfires that burn here every year. The woods lose a lot of their resilience to the fires as there are so many dead trees all over the forest that become like firewood.”

I realise he’s referring to the trees I saw yesterday.

“When there’s this much soot then the entire glacier turns grey,” he continues. “And since a dark surface absorbs more heat than a white one, it means the glacier will melt even faster. It’s a feedback loop. A part of a chain reaction.”

I ask whether this glacier can be saved or not. He shakes his head.

“No, this one has already passed its tipping point and there’s nothing we can do. We estimate that it – along with countless other glaciers – will be gone completely within this century. The world’s glaciers are called the third polar ice cap. Imagine all the people that depend on these glaciers as their source of drinking water. And as if that wasn’t enough, we have now gotten used to – and built our infrastructure around a very high water flow, since the melting process obviously has been way higher than it normally is. That will make it even harder for us to adjust when it starts to run dry.”

How many people are relying on the glaciers in this area for their drinking water, I ask.

“The entire western North America,” he replies. “But the same process is happening all over the world. The Andes, The Alps. And above all in Asia, where up to 2 billion people depend on the natural melting process of the glaciers in Himalaya for their very survival.”

So, in short: the temperature increases, the damaging mountain pine beetle survives the winter and dramatically increases in population. The trees die and turn into wildfire fuel which intensifies the wildfires even further. The soot from those fires makes the surface of the glaciers turn darker and the melting process speeds up even faster.

This is a textbook example of a reinforcing chain reaction, which in itself is just a small part of a much larger holistic pattern connected to our emissions of greenhouse gases.

There are countless other tipping points and chain reactions. Some have not yet happened. And some are very much a reality already today. Such as the release of methane due to thawing permafrost or other phenomena linked to deforestation, dying coral reefs, weakening or changing ocean currents, algae growing on the Antarctic ice, increasing ocean temperatures, changes in monsoon patterns and so on.

Another overlooked factor is the already built in additional warming hidden by life threatening air pollution, this means that once we stop burning fossil fuels we can expect to see an already locked in warming, perhaps as high as 0,5-1,1°C.

It’s all part of an infinite chain of events that constantly trigger and create new events. And new events. And new events. There just doesn’t seem to be an end.

Chapter 7: Paradise

The wall is completely covered by posters. Each one contains a photo of an animal. Dogs, cats, bunnies. On each and every one there is a big headline that spells out the word MISSING. A handful has FOUND handwritten across the picture, but the vast majority remain MISSING.

The wall belongs to the local primary school in the town of Paradise, California. On Nov. 8, 2018 Paradise was almost completely destroyed by a devastating wildfire. The pictures on the school wall represent all the pets that went missing in the fire. This wall became a place where the owners collectively displayed their last hope of finding their pets alive. But, needless to say, most of the animals remain MISSING.

The fire in Paradise destroyed almost 19,000 buildings. 85 people lost their lives, if you exclude other causes of death after the fire. Before the fire 27, 000 people lived in Paradise. Today that number is down to around 2000. The town became a symbol of how climate breakdown is affecting us in the global north already today.

California has always had a natural fire season, just like Australia, Brazil and many other places. But over recent years that season has grown considerably longer and the fires have become more frequent and devastating. Higher temperatures, less rainfall and stronger winds are some of the changing factors that together make up for a deadly combination when it comes to wildfires.

Walking around in Paradise is almost like being in a ghost town. I’m here with the BBC to talk to one of the survivors of the 2018 fire. He guides us around the area that used to be his neighborhood. He points at empty spaces and tells us what used to be there. Houses and gardens in the lush, green outskirts of town.

“That was a car,” he says and points to a lump of metal, lying on a burnt out driveway. The temperature in the fire sometimes got so high that cars started to melt. Suddenly he stops.

“This used to be my house.” He looks at an open field as if there still was a house standing there. It’s almost as if he’s hallucinating, since all that is left is a mailbox and the remains of power lines and sewage pipes, sticking out of the red soil.

The fact that the climate crisis is already affecting people today is hardly something new. Even though it would sometimes seem like it, judging by the ongoing discourse.

We often hear that we need to act for the sake of our children. That the future living conditions will get significantly worsened unless we act now. And that is of course true. But it seems like we keep forgetting that large numbers of people around the world are dying already today. And when I say that I’m not primarily talking about in places like California.

The ones who are and will be hit the hardest are the same as in most other crises. The poorest and the most vulnerable. Those who are already suffering from other injustices. Namely, people in developing countries, and above all women and children. Since they are the ones with the least resources, living in the most vulnerable parts of the global society.

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School strike week 63. Los Angeles. #climatestrike #schoolstrike4climate #fridaysforfuture

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The UN predicts that by the year 2050 there will be up to 1 billion climate refugees in the world. I wonder, what will it take for us to start facing these issues and begin to ask the uncomfortable questions?

In Sweden we live our lives as if we had 4.2 planet earths. Our annual carbon footprint is approximately 11 tonnes of CO2 per person, if we include consumption. That can be compared to India’s 1.7 tonnes per capita. Or Kenyas 0.3 tonnes.

On average the CO2 emissions from one single Swede annually is the equivalent of 110 people from Mali in West Africa. So if there is any truth to the claim – popular in Western societies – that quote ”there are too many people in the world” then wouldn’t that only refer to ourselves, living extremely high carbon lifestyles in the global north? And not the vast majority of the global population who are already living within the planetary boundaries.

But my experience from all such arguments is that they are only used to seek further excuses to go on living the unsustainable life that we consider to be our right.

The climate and sustainability crisis is not a fair crisis. The ones who’ll be hit hardest from its consequences are often the ones who have done the least to cause the problem in the first place.

The global aspect of equity and climate justice make up the very heart of the Paris Agreement. Developed countries have signed up to lead the way.

And this is so that people in developing countries can have a chance to raise their living standards and to build some of the infrastructure that we in the industrialized world already have. Such as roads, hospitals, schools, electricity, sewage systems and clean drinking water.

After our visit to Paradise we get back in the car and head towards the coast. We have been offered a stay for the night in a small house in a vineyard. But suddenly the phone rings and we find out that the entire vineyard has burnt to the ground in the wildfires currently raging through the California wine districts.

We drive on towards San Francisco. As the evening falls the night sky turns red and you can feel the smoke from the fires in your nose.

Chapter 8: Media

“Wait, let me just record the interview.”

The journalist grabs his iPhone out of the pocket of his way-too-thin coat. It is a cloudy, freezing day on Mynttorget in the old town of central Stockholm. But just like any other Friday a few dozen others and I have gathered here to stand outside and protest in front of the Swedish parliament. It does get a bit chilly standing there for 7 hours straight in a few windy degrees below zero.

He presses record and holds up the phone towards me.

“So, why are you striking?” he asks.

I’m striking for us to take the climate crisis seriously and treat it like a crisis.

“Yes, but what do you want the politicians to do?”

I want them to listen to and act on the science, do what they have promised to do in the Paris Agreement and treat the crisis like a crisis.

I can tell that I haven’t given him the answers he wanted.

“Yes, but what specifically?”

When I then start talking about carbon budgets he gives up and interrupts. He knows very well he won’t be able to use anything of what I’m now saying in his article. People want something simple and concrete, and they want me to be naive, angry, childish and emotional. That is the story that sells and creates the most clicks.

“But uh,” he continues, “how are we going to solve this climate issue?”

Just the fact that this question is asked to me – a teenager – over and over is absurd. But not as absurd as the fact that the climate- and ecological emergency is being reduced to a “problem” that needs to be “fixed”. That it is seen as an “important topic” among other “important topics”.

Evgenia Arbugaeva for TIMEThunberg speaks to press during a climate strike before the COP25 summit, in Madrid, December 2019.

Of course I don’t know how we are going to solve the climate crisis. The fact is that no one knows. There is no magic invention or political plan that will solve everything. Because how do you solve a crisis? How do you solve a war? How do you solve a pandemic without a vaccine?

The only way is to treat the climate crisis like you would treat any other crisis. To come together, gather all the experts, put other things aside and adapt to the new reality. To act as quickly and strongly as the situation allows.

If for instance there’s no vaccine available for a disease you invest all possible resources into developing one as soon as possible, while at the same time taking all other possible measures as well. In a crisis you act even if you don’t know exactly how you are going to solve the problem. In a crisis there’s no time to wait for specific answers and details. Because the answers have to be found along the way. In a crisis you need to put all cards on the table and think long term and holistically. The climate crisis doesn’t have a vaccine. We have to admit that we don’t know how we are going to solve it. Because if we would have known then it wouldn’t have been a crisis in the first place.

There are many who claim that people understand but repress the full meaning of the climate crisis, because the message is too depressing and difficult to handle. That would mean that we continue to do what we do, despite being fully aware of the devastating consequences of our actions. But that I refuse to believe, since this would mean that we humans are evil.

My experience however is that people understand much less about the climate crisis than you’d think. If there’s anything I’ve learnt from traveling around the world it is that the level of knowledge and awareness is close to nonexistent.

I’ve met many of the most powerful people in the world. And even among them pretty much everyone lacks even some of the most basic knowledge. So if people are not aware, who is guilty for the message not getting through?

The reporter on Mynttorget is running out of time, he knows his phone’s battery won’t last much longer in the cold.

“But who really is Greta?” he asks. “I think people want to know Greta.”

I’m not important, I answer. This has got nothing to do with me. I’m completely uninteresting. I’m not doing this because I want to become famous or popular or get followers on social media.

“I’m doing this simply because no one else is doing anything.”

Chapter 9: Crossing the Atlantic

It’s six o’clock in the morning on Nov. 13, 2019. The TV monitors in the hotel lobby in Hampton, Virginia are showing weather warnings on repeat. Giant storm patterns are raging along the entire North American east coast, from Florida to Nova Scotia.

We step inside the car with the tiny luggage we’ve got left. It’s pitch black outside and the car is still freezing. Rob Liddell, a documentarian with the BBC, and sailor Nikki Henderson are sitting in the back. Nikki scrolls through the latest weather updates on her phone. Rob has got the camera on his shoulder and is looking at us through the lens.

It’s dead silent inside the car. The only thing you hear is Nikki sighing and moaning over and over again. After what feels like an eternity she shakes her head, puts the phone down and goes “wow guys, we’re in for a rough ride”.

“But we’re still going, right?” my dad asks, a bit worried.

“Of course,” she says.

Rob tries to ask me questions to get some kind of interview going, but I’m not really in the right mood.

One hour later we cast off from the dock. We clear the harbor entrance heading for Chesapeake Bay and wave goodbye to all the people and TV crews who have gathered on the surrounding docks. There’s a strong wind coming from Northwest. On deck the freezing temperatures of last night have turned all puddles into thick layers of ice. It’s snowing. We set sail and head for the open sea. Towards the lighthouse. Towards the ocean. Towards Europe. Towards Portugal. Towards Stockholm Central Station.

Eva O’Leary for TIMEThunberg departs the U.S. on the catamaran La Vagabonde as she sets sail towards Portugal in Hampton, Virginia, on November 13, 2019.

You do not sail across the North Atlantic ocean in November. At the end of September the storms come, and then the season closes until spring. Of course I had not planned for it to be like this. But the UN COP25 summit, where I was headed, was suddenly moved from Santiago to Madrid, meaning I had traveled halfway across the globe in the wrong direction. I had to find a solution.

I consider every possible option. Zeppelin airships, solar powered airplane and even sailing across the Pacific Ocean and then taking the Trans Siberian railway home. The most likely outcome however is to stay somewhere in North America for the winter.

Hundreds of people get in touch and want to help, but very few actually have something concrete to offer. The French and Spanish governments reach out and assure that they are going to help me find a way. However it is very unclear how they will do that.

Two Nordic airlines email and offer to arrange a flight using “50% sustainable fuel and then use the remaining 50% on another flight so that in total it becomes 100% fossil free”. As if biofuels were sustainable.

If I wouldn’t have been who I am I would probably have hitched a ride on a cargo ship, since they – unlike airplanes and cruise ships – don’t depend on paying passengers.

But everything I do and say gets altered and turned upside down which leads to mockery, conspiracy theories and organised hate campaigns. Which in turn leads to death threats toward me and my family. And that build up of hate and threat is much riskier than all the storms in the world.

Then suddenly one night in a hotel room in Savannah, Georgia, the phone beeps. It is Riley and Eleyna, a couple of young Australian YouTubers who are reaching out. They’re living on their catamaran with their one year-old son Lenny and are sailing around in the world, with no planned route. They offer to take us to Europe.

On the boat, we steer south so that in a certain amount of time we will have put ourselves in a strategically safe position away from a storm, so that we later can safely get to another position to avoid the next big storm. And then the next one, and the next one, and the next one. The low pressure systems sweeping over the North Atlantic right now are enormous. During the days we have gusts reaching up to 60 knots, and some nights the electric storms are so immense that you can see sparks in the water. We store all electronic devices in the oven to avoid them getting destroyed by lightning.

We are completely in the hands of the meteorologists helping us, sending weather updates and recommendations a few times a day. We’re very lucky to also have Nikki, a professional sailor, onboard. One hundred nautical miles in the wrong position can be the difference between life and death this time of year with this boat. You simply have to blindly trust data and the experts.

Me, my dad, Nikki, Elayna, Riley and Lenny are alone in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. We are at the mercy of nature and have to act accordingly. We need to be able to take care of ourselves if something goes wrong.

If you are one week away from the nearest harbour you do not take any unnecessary risks. You don’t for instance start a fire on deck if you feel cold, you don’t throw away limited provisions of food or necessary equipment out in the ocean. You keep a constant watchful eye on the horizon and you don’t allow yourself to get struck by hubris. Onboard we are guided by common sense, the same common sense that should exist everywhere.

We are a civilisation isolated in the middle of the universe. Space is our ocean and the planet is our boat. Our one and only boat.

Chapter 10: Greenwashing

So what should we do to avoid a climate disaster beyond human control?

That is the question of our time. It is being asked by people all across the political spectrum from all over the world.

But what if the question to a great extent has been phrased the wrong way? What if it should rather be “what should we stop doing to avoid a climate disaster”?

This year – 2020 – the emission curve must be bent steeply downwards if we are to still have even a small chance of achieving the goals world leaders have agreed to. And then it’s of course not going to be enough with a temporary and coincidental reduction of greenhouse gas emissions where the purpose has been to stop a pandemic.

A common misconception about the climate crisis is that people think we need to reduce our emissions. But the fact is that if we are to keep the promise of the Paris Agreement, a reduction won’t be enough. We then need to reach a full stop of emissions within a couple of decades, and then quickly move on to negative figures.

There are generally three ways of reducing emissions – apart from the most obvious, to replace current fossil energy with renewables, such as solar and wind.

Number one is technical solutions. Techniques where you capture and store CO2 at the emitting source or directly out of the air. The problem here however is that the emissions need to drastically reduce now, and these techniques won’t exist at even close to scale in the foreseeable future. These plants are still prototypes. Believe me, I’ve myself visited two of the leading facilities in the world.

The second alternative is to use nature’s own ability to absorb and store carbon, which today often gets mistaken for only planting trees. Despite the fact that the most efficient way most often is to just leave the forests and natural habitats be in the first place.

A forest area the size of a football field is being cut down every second, according to Global Forest Watch. That is every second of every hour of every day. No tree planting in the world could compensate for that. And even if we miraculously decided to shut down the entire forestry industry and use all the available space in the world to plant trees, that still would only compensate for a few years’ emissions at current rates.

The third option is the only method that is available at scale already today. And that is to simply stop doing certain things. But it is also the alternative which people seem to find the most unrealistic. Just the thought of us being in a crisis that we cannot buy, build or invest our way out of seems to create some kind of collective mental short circuit.

Then there’s of course a fourth way of doing it. And this is the procedure that undoubtedly has been the most successful one so far, when it comes to reducing emissions. And it is so-called “creative accounting”. To simply refrain from reporting the emissions, or move them somewhere else. To systematically sweep things under the carpet, lie, and blame someone else.

My own country Sweden is a textbook example. In our case this strategy means that over half our emissions simply don’t exist on paper.

Evgenia Arbugaeva for TIMEGreta Thunberg addresses supporters and journalists upon her arrival in Santo Amaro Recreation dock on December 03, 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal.

Year after year people in power are allowed to appear in the media unchallenged and claim that Sweden’s emissions of greenhouse gases have decreased 20-30% since 1990. But the truth is that they haven’t decreased at all, if you include consumption and international aviation and shipping. And obviously the statistics will look much better if you simply choose not to count everything.

But this is not unique to Sweden. The same approach is being used by pretty much everyone in the richer part of the world. Whether it being the EU, individual countries, states, cities or companies.

We have simply moved our factories to different parts of the world where the labour is cheaper – and by doing so we also moved a significant part of our emissions overseas. And of course this is a very convenient solution for the global north, but since the biosphere doesn’t care about neither borders nor empty words, it doesn’t work as well in reality.

But the real problem is that when it comes to the climate- and ecological emergency the people in power can today say basically whatever they want. They are practically guaranteed to not receive any follow up questions.

The issue of nuclear power is still for example allowed to dominate the entire climate debate, even though science has concluded that it can – at best – only be a very risky, expensive and small part of a much larger holistic solution.

You can claim that we can achieve impossible results through so-called green investments, without having to explain how it will be done, or what the term “green” even means. Words like green, sustainable, ’net zero’, ‘environmentally friendly’, organic, ‘climate neutral’ and ‘fossil free’ are today so misused and watered down that they have pretty much lost all their meaning. They can imply everything from deforestation to aviation, meat- and car industries.

And basically because the general level of public awareness is so low you can still get away with anything. No one is held accountable. It’s like a game. Whoever is best at packaging and selling their message wins. And since the truth is uncomfortable, unpopular and unprofitable, the truth doesn’t stand much of a chance.

Moral, truth, long term- and holistic thinking seem to mean nothing to us. The emperors are naked. Every single one. It turns out our whole society is just one big nudist party.

Chapter 11: Corona pandemic

Last year when I visited Davos I slept in a tent in 18° below zero. This year the organisers said that for security reasons I had to stay in a hotel.

The night before the conference starts I catch the flu. So it was quite a relief that I wasn’t sleeping in a tent. I have to cancel most scheduled events, which is something I actually don’t mind at all, since I find social gatherings and meetings that don’t lead anywhere mostly just being a waste of time.

So my stay is quite relaxing, but today I’m supposed to drag myself out the door for a meeting with the president of Switzerland. After that I’m going to go public with my plans about traveling to China. I’ve just received the official invitation to address the World Economic Forum conference which will most likely be held in Shenzhen, China sometime in the beginning of June. Visiting China is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and now it’s finally about to happen, that is, if the Chinese government will let me inside the country.

But just as I’m about to walk out the door the Swiss president cancels, as she had to immediately go back to Zürich to attend an emergency meeting. Apparently developments around the new virus discovered in China are causing grave concern.

That was my first introduction to the coronavirus crisis. I immediately put my plans of visiting China on hold. It seemed to become less and less possible to travel there sometime this spring. Instead I start planning to follow up on some other invitations, to take the Trans Siberian railway via Vladivostok to South Korea and Japan. But as the situation escalates I of course have to abandon these plans as well.

Evgenia Arbugaeva for TIMEThunberg arrives in Madrid for the last U.N. climate summit before a crucial deadline in 2020

So I use the upcoming weeks to travel around in Europe, continuing to work on the documentary together with the BBC. We visit Jokkmokk, London, Yorkshire, Zürich and the European parliament. I strike in Hamburg, Bristol and Brussels. It’s the beginning of March 2020 and the world is just about to be turned completely upside down. This weekend there are supposed to be big climate strikes in France. But right here a tipping point is passed. What was unquestionable the week before has now suddenly become unthinkable.

In the Fridays For Future movement we decide to cancel everything, without hesitation. People are dying. Many are losing their family members, loved ones as well as their economic stability. The consequences of this pandemic are catastrophic. A crisis is a crisis, and in a crisis we all have to take a few steps back and act for the greater good of each other and our society. In a crisis you adapt and change your behaviour. And indeed, this is what the world does, at record speed.

So what was it that made these global structural changes possible in just a matter of hours?

Was it hope and inspiration that made us act so quickly during the corona pandemic? Something that most communication experts and news editors have claimed to be the only way forward to create change. Or was it perhaps something else?

There’s nothing positive about the corona crisis from a climate perspective. The changes made in our daily lives due to COVID-19 have extremely little similarity with the action needed for the climate.

The corona tragedy of course has no long term positive effects on the climate, apart from one thing only: namely the insight into how you should perceive and treat an emergency. Because during the corona crisis we suddenly act with necessary force.

International emergency meetings take place on a daily basis. Astronomical financial bailouts magically appear out of nowhere. Canceled events and tough restrictions make people change their behaviour and approach overnight.

The media completely transitions, puts other things on hold and almost exclusively reports about COVID-19, with daily press conferences and live coverage 24/7. All parts of society come together and politicians put their different views aside and cooperate for the greater good of everyone. Well – maybe not everyone and everywhere.

But broadly speaking, people in power from politics, business and finance are suddenly saying that they will do whatever it takes since “you can not put a price on a human life”.

Those words and this treatment of the crisis opens up a whole new dimension. Because you see, every year at least 7 million people die from illnesses related to air pollution, according to the WHO. Those are apparently people whose lives we can put a price on. Since they die from the wrong causes, and in the wrong parts of the world.

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School strike week 77. Jokkmokk! #climatejustice #fridaysforfuture #climatestrike #schoolstrike4climate #indigenousrights

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During the corona pandemic policy makers repeat that we have to “listen to the science and the experts”. Well, according to the world’s leading scientists and experts on biodiversity, the pandemic is likely to be followed by deadlier and more destructive diseases unless we halt the ceaseless destruction of natural habitats.

But these are not the scientists and experts they are referring to. Because long term sustainability doesn’t fit inside today’s economic and political systems.

Chapter 12: Hope

In the aftermath of the corona crisis there are many who claim that we need to use this as an opportunity. That when we restart the economy we must adopt a so-called “green recovery plan”. And of course it’s incredibly important that we invest our assets in sustainable projects, renewable energy, technical solutions and research. But we must not for one second believe that it will be even close to what is actually required. Or for that matter that the so called targets set out today would be ambitious enough.

If all countries were to actually go through with the emission reductions they have set as goals, we would still be heading for a catastrophic global temperature rise of at least 3-4 degrees. The people in power today have thus practically already given up on the possibility of handing over a decent future for coming generations. Given up without even trying.

It sounds terrible, I know. But in reality it is actually even worse. Because even if they want to act in line with what is needed – which actually sometimes is the case – they can’t. And that is because we are stuck in already written contracts and business agreements.

It’s just simple math.

The United Nations Production Gap Report shows that the world’s planned fossil fuel production alone by the year 2030 accounts for 120% more than what would be consistent with the 1.5°C target. It just doesn’t add up.

So if we are to avoid a climate catastrophe we have to make it possible to tear up contracts and abandon existing deals and agreements, on a scale we can’t even begin to imagine today.

And that alone requires a whole new way of thinking. Since those type of actions are not politically, economically or legally possible today. The climate- and ecological crisis can not be solved within today’s political and economic systems. That is no longer an opinion. That’s a fact.

I understand that all of this sounds uncomfortable and depressing. And I fully get why you as a politician or news editor choose to look away. But you must also realise that for us who actually have to live with the consequences for the rest of our lives, that’s a luxury that we can’t afford.

Recently a new scientific report was published by scientists from Uppsala University and the Tyndall Centre in the UK. It shows that if rich countries like Sweden and the UK are to fulfill their commitments to the Paris Agreement’s well-below 2°C target they need to reduce their total national emissions of CO2 by 12-15% every year, starting now.

Of course there’s no “green recovery plan” or “deal” in the world that alone would be able to achieve such emission cuts. And that’s why the whole “green deal” debate ironically risks doing more harm than good, as it sends a signal that the changes needed are possible within today’s societies. As if we could somehow solve a crisis without treating it like a crisis. A lot may have happened in the last two years, but the changes and level of awareness required are still nowhere in sight.

Things may look dark and hopeless, but I’m telling you there is hope. And that hope comes from the people, from democracy, from you. From the people who more and more themselves are starting to realize the absurdity of the situation. The hope does not come from politics, business or finance. And that’s not because politicians or businesspeople are evil. But because what is needed right now simply seems to be too uncomfortable, unpopular and unprofitable.

Public opinion is what runs the free world, and the public opinion necessary is today nonexisting, the level of knowledge is too low.

But there are signs of change, of awakening. Just take the metoo movement, blacklivesmatter or the schoolstrike movement for instance. It’s all interconnected. We have passed a social tipping point, we can no longer look away from what our society has been ignoring for so long. Whether it is sustainability, equality, or justice.

From a sustainability point of view all political and economic systems have failed. But humanity has not yet failed. The climate and ecological emergency is not primarily a political crisis. It is an existential crisis, completely based on scientific facts.

The evidence is there. The numbers are there. We cannot get away from that fact. Nature doesn’t bargain and you cannot compromise with the laws of physics. And either we accept and understand the reality as it is, or we don’t. Either we go on as a civilisation or we don’t.

Doing our best is no longer good enough. We must now do the seemingly impossible. And that is up to you and me. Because no one else will do it for us.

Evgenia Arbugaeva for TIMEYoung supporters of Greta Thunberg await her arrival in Santo Amaro Recreation dock on December 03, 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal.

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