#and that band’s album I was super into I can’t listen to without crying

[bilestat]

it’s insane what happens to your brain when you listen to music from your teens that got you through the worst part of your life for the first time in ages

[writersrealmbts]

Diamond Tears and Little Wings: Part 5

Description: You’re a fairy, taken in by BTS. You need lots of love and care, otherwise your light will fade and you turn to stone. Between the seven of them, you should never feel unloved. Right?

Warnings: N/A

Posted: 02/11/2021

Tags: bts x reader, ot7

Angst/Fluff/Angst: 3,846 words

A/N: Okay, I told you guys that I would be alternating between DTLW and Clearwater Springs, so here’s the proof. Anyway, two more parts after this!

Your fourth home in five years is what they told you this was. But you couldn’t remember any but this one.

So your heart was aching, and you always wanted to cry, but you never dared to do so. Something, someone’s, words, telling you that crying in front of strangers was dangerous kept echoing in your head. So you blinked away any tears that came, hugged your stuffed animal, and studied the area you would lived in.

It was a little cold, so you hugged your coat tighter to you. You’d been told by the other fairies that your coat was special, because it appeared to be designed exactly for your wings, which was rare. But none of them seemed to have any idea why you would have such a special coat, excepting the fact that maybe in the country you came from it was more normalized to have custom wing-slits.

It was completely normal to come away from a home with a stuffed animal, and clothing and jewelry that could shrink down. People liked dressing up fairies.

You played with your bracelet as you examined the cement floor, and the plain white walls, and the windows that weren’t quiet fully insulated but were full east and full west, respectively, and provided quite a bit of natural lighting. You had your own bathroom and kitchen area, and the laundry room was in the basement. The bed was a bit creaky, but the mattress seemed decent. You had a cute lamp on the side table, and they had a few books for you on a bookshelf that had the bottom shelf broken beside the side table.

There was shoebox bedroom on one of the shelves as well, very simple, with just a bed in it, but it was decorated carefully—though perhaps by their daughter. There was felt covering the floor and back wall, which would provide a little insulation for you. The outside was colored on, but you didn’t have a problem with that.

There was an old rug rolled off to one side that they said you could use, and a bar with some hangers already hanging on it and plastic drawers they said you could used for your clothing.

You looked at your suitcase, which was resting on the bed, then set your dog on top of it while you got the rug, unrolling it and placing it near your bed.

Your job there was to do their laundry and take care of the cat that their daughter wouldn’t let them get rid of, and to entertain their daughter now and then, and when you weren’t delivering the clean laundry or entertaining their daughter you were to stay in the basement bedroom. Simple enough.

The cat was a sweetheart and the laundry was quite simple with only three people to wash for. Laundry was tossed down the shoot daily and every Monday and Thursday you were to deliver their clean laundry before they awoke.

They weren’t cruel, or strict, just very structured and busy.

She was very kind and brought you groceries, even getting you exactly what you requested. You just had to leave a list with her laundry on Mondays, because Mondays were grocery days. She even spontaneously bought you a cake, and when you told her that the basement was a little cold for you, she found a nice heater for you that greatly improved things, and found some more blankets around the house for you. They were generally gone over the weekends, visiting a different set of grandparents each weekend, which left you and Cupcake, the cat, alone in the house to do as you pleased.

Those were the days you ventured down to the fairy market, which was a safe space for fairies and since you did get an allowance for doing the laundry, you could sometimes buy some special treats or things that you needed.

You weren’t a fan of the husband, which was fine, because he only seemed to come downstairs if he needed to check the water-heater (they were having issues with it and he was too stubborn to call whoever it was that professionally dealt with those things), or to ask you to do an emergency clean on a shirt or tie or slacks. It wasn’t that he was mean, or sleazy, or that he gave you bad vibes, he was just very grumpy and brisk. Cold.

And he hated the cat.

Plus you had the distinct feeling that if he found out about your diamond tears it would be a very bad thing. He was a greedy man, raising a greedy daughter.

But you had a CD player now, and you could find CD’s now and then at the fairy market, and the wife said you could use any CD’s you found in the basement.

Which was how you found your current favorite CD. You weren’t certain who the artists were because the disc hadn’t been in it’s proper case, but their songs were so nice. And you loved the one song.

So some days, when you had nothing to do but give the cat all the love it wanted, you just listened to that CD on repeat, singing words as though you’d known them before.

You did different crafts, and solved some of the abandoned puzzles from the storage room.

You improved your shoe-box, replacing the bed (it was a sponge, hard and weird to lay on) with a carefully arranged nest of fabrics and stuffing. Sometimes you stuck your stuffed dog into the shoebox and snuggled into that. The smells on it so familiar and foreign that it made you cry.

Which meant you had to find a place to hide your tears. Normally you just saved them and exchanged them at the fairy market—where the currency exchange fairy, Heidrun, just discretely nodded and added their value to your shopping card balance.

But one day she stopped you before you could leave, holding your hands. “You don’t look well, dear.”

“Fourth home,” You told her simply, shrugging. “It’s more of a job than a home. But I’m not…I’m not suffering. She always makes sure I have what I need and allows me a lot of freedom. I have the whole basement to myself, and I’m allowed in the side-yard at all times. She even encourages me to come here. And I have music to listen to. Actually, I found a CD I really like, but I don’t know what band they are because it doesn’t say on the disc.”

“Try Magnus, he knows everything going on in the music scene,” She told you, squeezing your hands. “And trying to hold onto whatever love you’ve got and are getting. It’s not healthy for our kind to go unloved.”

You nodded. “I’ll do that.”

Magnus did help you, granted, you had to sing a couple of the songs for him to find the right group, but once he did, he sent to you over to Frida with a request for BTS albums.

Frida nodded, pulling out several book-like things. “They’re super popular, but they’re also in a ton a magazines right now. They lost their fairy because of some scandal, and now they’re in a slump, but they’re also going on a world tour, so it can’t be that much of a slump. They’re actually coming to our stadium for a concert, which is cool. They’ve started putting up the posters already.”

You looked at the books, confused. “I thought you said they were albums?”

“They are. The CD’s are accompanied by a booklet of photos and the lyrics, photocards, and usually a poster.”

You blinked then picked up the biggest one, concerned and confused. “It’s…huge…and a box?”

She just snorted. “You want that one? It’s one of their more recent ones. Don’t have their newest yet, but I can see if I can get one for you.”

You nodded. “That’d be nice, but sure, I’ll…take this one for now.”

She nodded and swiped your card. “All yours, sweet-cheeks. Now, tell me how you get your hair that shiny.”

You grabbed your hair and shrugged. “I don’t know. I just wash it.”

“Not even fair,” She muttered, then turned to a new customer.

You went home after hitting a few more stalls, getting more craft things and some stuff for the kitty, hugging the album and wondering what awaited you inside.

Cupcake was waiting for you on your bed, sitting up and meowing loudly, stretching out a paw for you to take (which you did because why else teach him that trick) and then purring and arching into your hand.

“I know, I was gone for forever,” You scooped him up after successfully setting everything else down. “I bought some new music for us. You need a better name. A masculine name. You don’t respond to Cupcake anyway—not that I blame you. It’s a rather poor choice of a name for a cat, much less a tom.”

He just purred, climbing up onto your shoulders and riding there while you put away the few food items you had purchased and hopping onto the fridge while you started cooking your dinner.

You hummed as you tried to think of a different name for him, but after a moment you paused, wondering what song it was you were humming and why it was so familiar and yet so distant. So easy, but you couldn’t remember. You couldn’t remember the moment you stopped singing what the words were or how the song went, despite having reached the chorus. You could only remember the last words you sang.

You shook your head and went over, quickly opening the box to where the disc was in the album without seeing any sign of the pictures (Maybe a poster?) and then popping it into the player.

But it was worse than the first one, because you swore you knew each song. You had vague images in your head of people performing the songs. It hurt. It hurt to hear these songs because they were too familiar. Too familiar and yet so completely foreign that it was unfair.

The first one wasn’t too bad, but the second started really getting to you.

By the third song you were in tears.

By the chorus of the fourth song you were full-on sobbing on the bed.

The fifth song clashed so much with the sentiments of the previous two that it just broke you down further, and you had to turn it off before you started screaming at the empty space where the music should have come from.

You grabbed the photos from the album box after you had calmed down enough. Not bothering to try and remove the sticker, you slide the photos out and started flipping through the pages, horrified at the fact that they looked so achingly familiar and yet you had no idea who they were.

You tossed them back in the box and slammed it shut, eyes filled with tears.

But you must not have woken when someone came into the basement, because three days later the man was demanding to know where you got so many diamonds.

And fairies can’t lie.

Five days later you were staring out the window, a place you couldn’t go until you filled the box on your small counter space with diamonds. It wasn’t too large, but it was large enough that you were worried about whether you would ever fill it.

So you turned on the disc again, and cried. Cried until you were sick, and then collapsed into your bed. Exhaustedly petting the cat until you fell asleep, only to repeat it the next day. And the next.

When you finally filled it, you went straight to the market just to get some time away from the basement.

The shopkeepers from your regular stops came rushing up when they saw you, even Heidrun, all asking where you’d been and if you were okay and before you knew it you were sitting at one of the picnic tables with some soup and some tea and a bunch of worried fairies fussing over you.

Frida sat silently across from you, looking concerned but ultimately staring at the table.

Or so you thought, because she suddenly reached across the table and grabbed your bracelet. “Where did you get this?”

You blinked and tried to recoil, but couldn’t. “I don’t remember. I just figured it was from one of my previous homes.

Magnus frowned, looking at it. “It looks a lot like the one that…”

She nodded. “There’s something etched onto them. Fairy craftsmanship. Come over to my shop. Come on.”

You followed her, curious, and not wanting to let something you had a very strong attachment to out of your sight.

First she tried a jeweler’s eye loupe, then she wrinkled her nose and grabbed a flashlight, shining it through the gems and onto the table.

You stared down at it, confused.

“Something tells me your family didn’t give you up willingly,” Magnus said, voice a little tense.

Frida looked at you, as though she couldn’t believe it. “You’re the fairy that was taken away from BTS?”

You just looked back at her. “Um…is that what all of that means?”

“How did you like that album you bought?” She asked, eyes narrowed to slits.

You shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to think about how much you had used it to make yourself cry, because if you did then you knew she was right. And if she was right, then it would be even sadder.

“Weren’t the one that said that they couldn’t have been too sad about losing their fairy to be going on a world tour? Why would I want to be her?”

“No, they talked about it…it’s because they’re trying to find her. Find you. They didn’t say it explicitly because they could get in trouble for that, but they’ve hinted at it and there are tons of reports and pictures of them visiting every fairy sanctuary they could without compromising their performances. It just took a while for it to hit the news for us. Y/n, they’re looking for you. And if this is any proof, I think they love you and you need love. You look like a skeleton with skin.”

Heidrun gently pulled you into her arms. “What changed? You were doing alright and then you were gone and you come back looking like a ghost.”

“They found my tears,” You whispered.

She inhaled sharply, not quite a gasp, and held you tighter. “You can’t stay there.”

“I can’t leave there either. Where would I go? I would just get arrested and brought back to them.”

Frida folded her arms. “Leave it to me. You go back, lay low. Maybe try to appeal to the lady of the house. I’ll have you out of there as soon as I can. In the meantime….”

“I’ve still got a backlog of your diamonds, come get them just in case he asks again.” Your arm was gently pulled toward the currency exchange station.

You took the bag, and the treats most of them packed up for you. If the love of other fairies was enough to sustain you, you never would have been in this mess. But fairies, while kind and caring, didn’t have enough love for other fairies to keep them alive, especially once exposed to the love of a family. Fairies were good, and kind, and helpful, but also emotionally unstable which made it hard to focus enough love into one another without a consistent source of outside love.

It was a miracle your species had survived as long as it had.

Cupcake greeted you, meowing pathetically and hopping into your arms.

You sat down on your bed with him. “Let’s think of a new name for you.”

Eventually you settled on Keyowo, which was close to his current name but meant friend and was just…it was better.

You then set to deep cleaning over the next week, shrinking your things and tucking them into your suitcase to keep them out of sight.

On Tuesday he beat you to tears because you weren’t producing tears fast enough.

The album caught your eye again on the next Friday.

You picked up, tracing the seven on the cover, and then opening it. You pulled out the poster and unfolded it.

They were in white, with feathers floating down and a hole in the floor. They all looked so good.

You touched the one on the far left, wearing the sweater. Slightly cat-like facial features. You felt like you knew what his hands looked like, even though you couldn’t see much of them in the picture. Slightly calloused, bony, but gentle and careful. Caring for everyone.

“Yoongi,” You whispered, choking up. Tearing up.

Your fingers traced over each of them, names a whisper in your mind. A whisper that turned into shouts, memories flooding your mind of each and every one of them. Your mind screaming for them because your throat was too tight to even whisper.

They were your boys.

They had to let you go.

You weren’t supposed to remember them.

They weren’t supposed to try and find you.

The next day you shoved everything into your bag, tucked the cat into your coat, left a note for the missus and headed straight back to the fairy market.

Frida looked surprised when she saw you. “Whoa, what happened? Is this the kitty your were telling me about?”

“They’re gone for the weekend, that means even if I stay nearby they’ll think I’ve had two days to run out on them. I need you to help me get me back to my family.” You teared up. “I need to find them.”

Frida nodded, glancing around and closing her shop. “Come on. You can stay with me.”

Frida’s family consisted of a pair of siblings.

The sister, Alena, was a fairy rights activist in her spare time, which is why Frida had so much freedom, and a huge music fan. She had a whole wall of CD’s and albums and posters. Stacks of magazines featuring musicians.

The brother, Agnar, was quiet, “just an accountant”, and very kind. And very affectionate toward Frida.

Frida was equally affectionate toward him, bringing a fake gag from Alena.

They helped you find an outfit that hid your fairy-ness, and he got you tickets to the concert, all of you hoping that it would get you close enough for them to see you and recognize that you were there. Also, it would help you health-wise to see them in person and the rush from the concert would be overwhelming, but also might revitalize you.

Then Alena forced you to sit in the bathroom with her while she applied a cloth to your face with epsom salts to try and reduce the bruising and swelling on your face. She told you about the fairy abuse responders, and how she would call them in the morning and tell them about your family.

Agnar totally stole your cat.

Frida let you sleep in her fairy-home (because it definitely wasn’t a dollhouse and it was awesome, of course).

Four days later, you were at the concert venue with Alena, taking a seat and soaking in the atmosphere. People were talking all around and some people were chanting the boys’ names. Another group was starting to sing the songs.

You listened nervously, wondering whether it was true or not that they were looking for you. What if they were just making a fuss to get back at the company a bit? What if the media was making things up? It wouldn’t be the first time a story was fabricated for magazines.

Then the concert started and you and Alena were cheering for your boys, but you wondered why you ever thought they’d be able to see you in this mess.

It wasn’t until the second half of the concert that you had hope.

The boys were in more casual outfits, having more fun.

And they were all wearing the jewelry that Namjoon had made from your diamonds.

Jimin was the one who saw you first, though he looked right over you and then seemed to try and pinpoint you again, but was unable to in the crowd. He stood there with a smile plastered on his face, acting as though he was studying each Army’s face when you knew he was searching for you.

So you stood still in the writhing mass that of the crowd, and studied him.

He had lost weight, and if it hadn’t been for the makeup, you bet he’d look fairly wrung-out.

All of them looked like they’d been sick enough to lose weight.

Taehyung came over and practically dragged him away (making it look playful).

But Jimin said something to Jin and Jungkook.

Jungkook was over there as casually as he could, totally looking at the camera and doing ‘fanservice’. But he obviously didn’t spot you.

Jin didn’t either.

But Yoongi did during the very last song and he stopped, staring, then he was crouched, hand over his mouth, just staring in your direction.

You waved, wondering if he actually was staring at you.

He smiled, but it also looked like he wanted to cry. He waved as well, then cautiously moved off, still keeping an eye on you.

You bit your lip, smiling.

Alena squealed and grabbed onto you, and the two of you did your best to fit in with the rest of the crowd.

Both of you lingered as long as you could afterward, her extremely hyped from the whole concert and talking a mile a minute, while you were feeling…exhausted? All of the emotions around you and finally seeing your boys again….

But you had no idea how you were going to get to them, or how they were going to get to you.

Until you saw Sejin, scanning the crowd.

The likelihood of him being on the side of the boys was pretty good.

You tugged on Alena’s arm, pulling her to a stop.

Sejin locked onto you and started moving, coming your way, waiting until the straggling fans that had been around you were gone before telling security to let you through.

You dipped your head to the security guards, then bowed slightly to Sejin. “Hello.”

Sejin smiled. “Hello, y/n.”

You bit your lip. “I remembered.”

He nodded. “I figured. We all figured. They’re waiting. They’re all waiting.”

You were practically vibrating.

“Come on, let’s get you back to them. Your friend can come but she needs to wait in the hallway for…security purposes.”

You nodded and relayed the information to Alena, then both of you were following back to the waiting room.

Sejin stopped by the waiting room. “Go on in.”

You nodded, putting your hand on the doorknob and then turning it and going in.

–

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Masterlist  -  ot7 Masterpost

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[bbdaydreams]

Courage My Love// Semi Eita

Pairing: Semi Eita x Reader

Summary: You like Semi and come up with a plan to confess to him, unfortunately it takes a turn. You meet again a couple years later by chance.

Chapter Six: Shape Up

Series Masterlist•<previous•next>

“Alrighty, your food will be ready shorty,” the waitress spoke before leaving with the booklets and you all thanked her.

Semi and you still haven’t had a real conversation since sitting down at the table together, just mumbling some words to get through the night which Taka took notice of. “Are you two nervous or something? It’s alright, I’m not scary and you guys don’t look scary. Enjoy yourselves please, besides this is all our treat to you guys.” Feeling guilty for your behavior you immediately apologized to Taka and his band mates and thanked them again for the invitation. Semi did the same as well. You’re both just gonna have to fake it. “It’s okay! We’re going to be spending a lot of time together so I think it’d be cool if we could get to know each other, where are you from? I’m from Tokyo.”

“Miyagi,” you and Semi answered at the same time.

“Oh! Have you guys met before or anything?”

“We went to the same high school,” Semi answered causing you to internally face palm.

“That’s crazy! Were you two friends?”

“We were. Then we lost touch when we graduated. You know, busy busy,” you spoke up before Semi could. The last thing you want was someone you look up to questioning your past drama. Just seeing Semi was enough to remind you of how things went down all those years ago.

“Yeah, this is actually our first time seeing each other since then.”

“Wow, now I’m the odd man out,” Taka laughed to which you did too. While laughing you felt something poke your side.

Semi was sneakily trying to hand you his phone. Semi started branching off to a different conversation with Taka to distract him which you know he did so you could look at his phone without suspicion since everyone else was having their own conversations. You took a quick glance at the text message he typed to someone but didn’t send.

“Can we talk after this?”

You glided your eyes back onto the two singers, focusing more on the ash blonde. You two haven’t spoken in six years, what could he have to say, you asked yourself. Starting to think out every logical scenario you could, you thought that he just wanted to get the confrontation out of the way so you could both do this tour without any issues. Whatever happens, you know that even if you say no, you’d have to talk to him eventually. Might as well get it over with sooner than later so you typed your response.

“Yeah seriously thank you so much for listening to my band too. I’m so glad you like us. I’m actually a big fan of your music,” you spoke, jumping into the conversation so you could pass Semi his phone back with ease under the table.

“Thank you. I really liked your voices and wanted you guys to join me for the last song on our set list. It’s one of the new songs off the latest album,” Taka explained.

“Which song is it?” You asked excitedly.

“Take What You Want. We made the song with 5 Seconds of Summer but I think you guys would sound really good doing their parts.”

“I’m so down!”

“Sounds good to me,” Semi added, amused by your enthusiasm.

“Here’s your food,” the waitress spoke as she set down your plates with the help of another waiter. You all thanked them for the food before enjoying your meals.

The rest of the dinner was actually quite enjoyable. From what you could tell, Haruka and Jiro were mostly catching up with each other, which you understood since they were close their final year of high school. Tomo and Toru of One Ok Rock seemed to enjoy the stories Izumi was telling them while Ryota and Yui were having fun helping Ranmaru and Subaru practice their English. You loved talking with Taka. He was really easy to get along with and made it much easier to break the ice with Semi. You all finished your meals and left the restaurant together.

“That was the best meal I’ve had in forever!” Izumi announced when everybody was outside.

“Right? I cant way to try more food!” Jiro added on.

“What do you say guys?” You and Semi said simultaneously, crossing your arms and turning from each other.

“Thank you,” Your band members said all together.

“It’s nothing really,” Toru started.

“Yeah, we’re glad we got to meet like this,” Tomo added.

“We had a lot of fun tonight. Can’t wait to see what the rest of the tour will be like,” Ryota continued.

“You’re still very welcome. We’ll see you all tomorrow at the venue. Eita, Y/n, don’t forget, two in the afternoon for rehearsal. We’re heading back to our bus so good night,” Taka finished. The guys in One Ok Rock all waved you guys goodbye before heading off.

“They were really nice,” Subaru spoke.

“Yeah, this’ll be so exciting. It’s your guys first time in the US right?” Yui asked Won’t Regret.

“Yeah, thanks again for helping us practice,” Ranmaru said.

“No worries. You can ask us for help if needed.”

“Do you guys want us to walk you to your bus? It’s dark out,” Jiro offered, looking at Haruka for a response.

She smiled at him before responding, “Jiro you’re funny, our buses are in the same lot. We might as well just walk in a group.”

“Girls, you can head off. I’m gonna talk with Semi so I’ll catch up later.”

Yui was the first one to give you a worried look, wondering if you were fine being alone with him. Izumi and Haruka looked confused and curious. From what they knew, you haven’t been in contact with Semi since high school. Tendou was the one that mostly helped you through grieving the loss of your best friend but they could recognize the look of nostalgia in your eyes when you reminisced on old memories with him. They know you were strong, but it was a pain that never completely went away.

“How long?” Izumi asked.

“It might be a while,” Semi answered. “I’ll walk her back straight to your bus, don’t worry.”

The girls reluctantly let left you with Semi while the rest of boys accompanied them. As the groups walked away they would occasionally turn their heads back to the two of you out of curiosity to see what was going to happen. You were known for having a laid back attitude but stepping up and becoming assertive if need be in less than a second. Semi was typically pretty patient with you but it’s best to be careful since he has a shorter fuse.

“Hi,” Semi started awkwardly once his everyone was out of sight.

“Hey,” you responded in the same tone.

“Wanna go sit on that bench? Also, how’ve you been?”

“Yeah, and I’ve been good. You?”

He started walking across the street after looking both ways. “I’m doing great. How’s Tendou? Congrats on your marriage, by the way.”

“Marriage?” You asked confused.

“Didn’t you and Tendou get married and have a honeymoon in France?”

You let out a laugh before responding. “Tendou and I have been broken up for like three years now dude. I’ve never gone to France with Tendou, he went for his career and now lives there. I’ve only gone if it was for touring. Where’d you get that idea from?” You asked, gradually laughing harder resulting in Semi feeling relief. Half of it being that you might be single and the other part being that the laughing is a good sign that you’re willing to humor him.

“I saw he posted pictures of himself with the Eiffel Tower and stuff so I just assumed,” he chuckled along.

“Yeah but wouldn’t it make sense if I was in those pictures with him? I probably would’ve posted a picture of my ring too.”

“You know I follow you still?”

“Yeah, I pay attention to my notifications sometimes. I’ll be honest though, I did unfollow you.”

“Understandable,” Semi sighed.

You both went quiet after that, getting comfortable on the metal bench. Taking note of his expression, you took the lead for conversation. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

“Oh uh, I wanted to apologize,” he responded, grateful for the dim lighting so his blush wouldn’t be super noticeable.

“Well, I’m listening,” you said before crossing your arms in a playful manor.

“I’m sorry for calling you a bitch. I’m sorry for raising my voice at you. I’m sorry for saying all that petty shit and hurting you. I’m sorry for all the pain I gave you. You know that saying that’s like ‘you don’t know what you have until you lose it?’ Well I lost you, and that was my biggest regret. All these years-“

“Semi, you can stop-“ you interrupted not expecting him to go on a full on rant for an apology. You were fine with a simple ‘I’m sorry’. Never would you have expected the ash blonde to list out every thing he did wrong. It was high school, that’s when mistakes are meant to be made because you learn from them. After walking the earth for twenty four years, you couldn’t give less of a shit about the things that happened. You grew up, you were over it, you have other things to focus on than hold onto a grudge because someone hurt you.

“Let me finish. Please. All these years I never tried to reach out to you because I think you made it clear that you didn’t want to speak to me and I respect that but oh my god I’m so proud of you. You’ve accomplished so much. You’ve traveled around the world, living your dream. I know we may have ended on bad terms but I have never, not once, ever wished for your life to take a turn for the worst. I’m genuinely so happy for you. I’m just so, so, sor- What? Why are you crying? I’m the one apologizing!” he asked, raising his hands to wipe your tears.

While listening to him all you could think about was how guilty you felt. “Because I’m sorry,” You answered, grabbing his wrists to pull them away from your face so you could wipe your own tears. “I’m sorry for pushing you away. I’m sorry for not reaching out either. I’m sorry for almost starting a physical fight with you.” You were letting all your frustrations out at this point from all the emotions you had built up inside you. While you had to admit you were upset with him, you were the one that started it. “I shouldn’t have said what I said the night of the talent show. I should’ve told you the truth. I started this. I’m the one at fault.”

“Y/n...” Semi wrapped his arms around your back, using one hand to guide your face into his chest to help you calm down. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” His voice was soft, different compared to the way he was speaking before. His task at hand was just to focus on you. “I missed you,” he spoke.

“I hmff ugh oo,” you responded, head still buried in his chest.

“What?”

You pulled away from him and straightened your back. “I said I missed you too.” You took a couple seconds to look at him. He looked almost exactly the same as he did back then. The only differences you could tell were that his hair was longer and he looked more mature, maybe a little buffer. It was somewhat comforting. “I don’t get it. I told myself I should hate you after all that happened but I could never bring myself to accept it. It’s weird that we’re talking with little difficulty right now to each other.”

“Little difficulty? I’m not gonna lie, my heart is beating so fast right now. I was so nervous to even hand you my phone at the table,” Semi laughed, eyes not looking away from your form laughing into your hand. “I don’t get it either though. I honestly thought you were gonna hate me and yell at me like, do you really forgive me?”

“How do I say this?” You asked yourself before taking a deep breath to answer his question. “After graduating and experiencing the real world, I realized I don’t need to focus on high school bullshit. We were so young-“

“Now you’re making me feel old.”

“Shut up! We were just teens. Now we’re adults, ya know? With bills to pay and actual responsibility. I’d rather focus on me, myself now than what happened in high school. Am I gonna forget it? No, it helped build the person I am now. Can I forgive? I may be a petty bitch and say I don’t wanna but what’s that gonna do for me? Nothing so I might as well.” After giving your long explanation you looked at him again and took in his features, old happy memories flooding back to you.

“Do you think we start over?” Semi asked hopefully.

“Yeah.”

“Hey, I’m Semi Eita. I play in a band and I’m a bit of an asshole sometimes. What’s your name?”

“I’m L/n Y/n and I also play in a band and can sometimes be a bitch,” you responded with a laugh.

“It’s nice to meet you. Can I walk you to where you need to be?” he asked, getting up and putting his hand out to help you up.

“Sure, that’d be really nice.”

After he helped you up, you started walking towards your bus with Semi walking right next to you. “Hey I’m actually playing a show tomorrow night, you should check us out!”

“No way, what time?” You asked deciding to play along.

“Like seven but you know how it goes, it’ll probably be more like seven-fifteen.”

“Ugh that’s annoying. Can you come to mine? I think I play at like eight.”

“Sure, dude. Anything for my bestie.”

“Aight I’m done. Bestie is too far, dude.”

“What! I can’t call you my bestie even though we just reunited six years after not seeing each other?”

“Correct. We can be ‘friends’,” you said, using your fingers to put air quotes, “but honestly I’m still on edge. Like after we went our separate ways it was hard for me to reconnect with people because it hurt when we ended things. I don’t wanna go through that again.”

Semi sighed, “I get that. Sorry again. I promise I won’t do that again.”

“It’s okay. And you better. Or else we’re really throwing hands,” you teased.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“Don’t make me go all WWE on you!”

“Oh my god Semi, is that a threat?”

“Y/n!” Izumi yelled which made you focus on your tour bus. The girls had each opened a window to stick their head out of and wait for your arrival.

“Are you okay?” Haruka asked.

“Do you want back up?” Yui followed up.

“I’m joking, Yui,” Semi said, putting his hands up in defense.

“You better, or else I’m gonna be the one fighting for y/n,” Haruka warned with a glare.

“I guess this is goodnight, Semi. You don’t want to throw hands with Haruka, she’s pretty buff. Thanks again. See you around,” you said as you waved him goodbye and hopped on the bus.

“See ya,” Semi responded. He turned around and threw his head upwards to the night sky and let out a sigh before walking to his bus.

Yui with her head still out of the window took notice of how Semi relaxed after you left him. “Hey, girly,” she started, getting up from her spot after closing the window. “You okay? How’d it go?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. It actually went surprisingly well.”

“That’s good news!” Izumi cheered.

“So are you friends again?” Haruka asked.

“Hmm, I guess so? We’re basically just starting over.”

“This tour is gonna be interesting,” Yui finished.

Getting back onto his bus, Semi immediately felt three pairs of eyes glued on him. Jiro set his Nintendo switch down while Subaru put his phone on his lap and Ranmaru stood up.

“We’ve been expecting you,” Ranmaru started with a straight face.

“Yeah!” Jiro added only to be shushed by Subaru.

“Well... good news?” Semi responded, not knowing what to make of the way his band mates were acting.

“Go on...” Subaru said, this time being shushed by Jiro.

“First, I’m gonna be a guest vocal for One Ok Rock with Y/n during their last song. Second, I told Y/n everything I needed to say. We’re friends again. We’re all good,” Semi said with a smile.

Ranmaru took a few steps closer to Semi before lovingly slapping his back. “Proud of you, bro.”

“Woooo! Go Eita!” Jiro jumped up to hype up his bandmate.

“Awesome!” Subaru finished. “Happy for you man. Now, I hate to be the mom here, but we should get to bed. Tomorrow’s gonna be a long day.”

“Good job guys!” Taka said, patting both of your backs.

“Thank you! Is there anything you want us to change?” You asked.

“Hmm, nah. I know most people say practice makes perfect but I think as the tour goes on we’ll improve the performance each night.”

“Sounds good,” Semi said.

“Can I give some feedback?” You asked. Taka and Semi both gave you a nod to go on. “You,” you pointed to Semi, “are being so stiff. It’s your first tour in the US. Loosen up! I’ll be blunt, if how to act now is how you’re gonna act during your set, which is the first one, you’re not gonna grab anyone’s attention. The majority of the crowd probably haven’t even heard of your band. You gotta draw them in.”

“I have to agree with her,” Taka joined in.

Semi grew wide eyed and turned a little red. You were about to speak up again but he beat you to it. “Sorry, I think I’m just nervous. This is all new to me,” he said, bringing a hand up to the back of his head.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to sound harsh! I just want you guys to grow. Being on tour right now is a big honor so I want you to get the most you can out of it. And-“

And you were rambling. Same old Y/n, Semi thought to himself, letting you ramble while he had a small smirk on his face, amused by the words you were speaking.

“Just perform how you would back then! I think if you brought that energy you’d really get a lot of people hooked!”

“Ya think so?”

“I know so. Can we try again but exaggerate our movements? This dude has to shape up.”

“I’ve heard so many stories about you mentoring the smaller bands, it’s nice to see that you live up to them,” Taka smiled.

“Thank you,” you responded with a blush. “Now Semi, follow our lead. And don’t let us down tonight.”

Taglist: @pluviophilefangirl @yourstarvic @sunaswife @mynscorner @syaziahvg @discountkiyoko

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Whats your favorite song at the moment

Hey Nonny!

Ooof Too many, hahhaha! Because I don’t leave home anymore, I’m not looking constantly for new music to add to my Playlist, so mostly it’s stuff that I come across on Tumblr and is living rent-free in my head on repeat, or me digging on my harddrives for a nostalgia kick.... currently, these are the top 5 cycling in my head, no particular order:

(EDIT IT’S NOW TEN. I COULDN’T CHOOSE. LISTEN TO THEM ALL. THEY’RE ALL AMAZING)

(EDIT 2 SORRY IT’S NOW 15!! NONNY I’M SO SORRY. I know no one cares, but I LOVE sharing my Music with people)

(EDIT 3 *SIGH* Now 20. :| HELP. Stopping before I get carried away. No one ever likes my music so I love when people ask me for my songs with genuine interest)

Nathan Evans - The Wellerman (220 Kid X Billen Ted Remix) (flashing images CW in video!) – Got into the original of this one during the sea shanty trend, and then this dance remix came out... those of you who know me well, know that I am HOOKED on remixes, especially dance remixes. So I was so happy about this official one.

The Kiffness - Ievan Polkka ft. Bilal Göregen (Club Remix) – This one I got into because I think, again, the original with the blind man was trending, and then I found this remix artist on YouTube from his remix of The Wellerman, and his is SOOOO good!! I loved this song back in the early noughts when it was popular as “Leek Spin”. But then these young folks had to go and make it amazing again!!

ZHU, partywithray - Came For The Low – (LOTS OF FLASHING LIGHTS IN VIDEO CW!) Thank Falcon And the Winter Soldier for this one! It took me a WEEK to find out what song they’re playing in the club in Episode 3 when Zemo’s dancing, and YAY I found this finally (not the one hour one, sadly, still trying to find the song D+ Marvel used for that one). I LOVE IT. LISTEN TO IT. SO good if you like heavy club beats

Sim Gretina - A Friend Like Me (Electro Swing Remix) – This is SATISFYING. I LOVE IT. Found it years ago after that homemade Aladdin carpet video was going viral, and every time it comes up on my playlist, I replay it like 6 times.

Linkin Park - Numb (80′s Remix) – That tumblr meme song that went around years ago? HERE YOU ARE!!! :D This is TOO SHORT and it’s also on repeat when I listen to it. Y’all, this is what depression feels like when you’re trying to pretend to be happy all the time LOL. It’s a whole MOOD. This one is great to blast in the car and have people confused at you singing at the top of your lungs. Like, “I AM NUMB AND AN EDGELORD BUT READY TO PARTY!!!”.

One Ton - Supersexworld – Okay, this is an OLLLLLLDDD one by a one-hit wonder Canadian band that I stumbled upon recently when I was going through my hard drives to find new stuff to put onto my iPhone. I was OBSESSED with this song when it first came out, forgot about it, and NOW... SHIT I can’t STOP. This one is BLARING when I hear it, and am so happy I found it again. It’s simple, amazing, and AWESOME. LISTEN TO IT. You will love it. Please. It’s got one verse and one chorus over and over, and it’s catchy as hell. It’s on my personal Johnlock playlist :D

Deorro - Rise and Shine – GUYS. This song. Also on my personal Johnlock Playlist, this one is SOMETHING. First heard it in my BodyPump class, I NEEDED it. It’s SO GOOD. Jazzy Club Music??? YES PLEASE! Video is all kinds of amazing? YES PLEASE. PLEASE listen to this. I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

Bloodhound Gang - The Bad Touch (Eiffel 65 Remix) – Is this song a decade old? YES. Has it been on my iPod since it first came out? FUCK YES. Y’all, Eiffel 65 is SO underrated for their remixes. This is one of their best remixes, and it’s the PERFECT walking song. YES I look like an idiot walking to it, but I love it SO MUCH. It’s better than the original, imho.

Gotye feat. Kimbra - Somebody That I Used To Know (Bastian Van Shield Remix) – LOL I KNOW: sacrilege to remix Gotye, but Y’ALL. This is the DEFINITIVE remix of one of his best songs. Six minutes of pure club beats, and just... ANOTHER perfect walking song that you need to SCREAM at the top of your lungs. Also on my personal Playlist, John POV, that I will share eventually.... it makes sense in the song order on the list, I promise LOL)

Tee Lopes - Marble Zone '12 – Tee Lopes is the official composer for Sonic Mania, hired because of all his AMAZING Classic Sonic remixes he did as a hobby on his YouTube channel. This one has a Tango flavour, and it’s SO good and not long enough. There’s an extended version here. Also love his Flying Battery and Ice Cap remixes. If you love video game music remixes like I do, check out his YT channel. There’s a TONNE there and it’s GREAT music to write to.

Aaron Smith - Dancin’ (KRONO Remix) – I dunno where I first heard this one, but I LOVE it. It’s like trancey club music. It’s beautiful, and WORTH a listen.

Pet Shop Boys - I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of Thing [Extended Nude Mix] – Ooooof this one has been on my faves for a LONG time. Originally heard this on the PSB’s album Disco 2, back when their remixes were this good and long and clubby. I miss these so much. If you want a good club beat to thump your car, this is it my friends.

Informätik - A Matter of Time – FUCK ME I love this song. This is the song that made me want to start a Johnlock playlist. I talk more in length about it on this post here, but yeah, I still just.. MM. It’s just so beautiful and is what got me into EBM music in the first place. I listened to this and a lot of their music quite often in college when I was pining over people. Always the pining and never the requited, LOL. I just really love it. 

Pride and Fall - Paragon – GUYS. This one is SO good. Trancey EBM and just, UGHGGHHGHGHHHG It gives me so many feels. I’ve loved this song for SO many years, and just, still has to be on every iPod I own. It’s beautiful, and the lyrics are beautiful and I wish I was as beautiful as this song, LOL. Please listen and enjoy. Best bit is a 3:11 :D <3

Rammstein - Mein Teil (Pet Shop Boys Remix) – GUYS. This is one of the greatest collabs of all time. I love both Rammstein AND Pet Shop Boys, and was SO EXCITED when they remixed this song for the single. This is the better of the two remixes PSB did for them, and YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO IT. PURE CLUB BLISS. This is the PSB in their remixing best!!!! <3 Plus, it’s SUPER WEIRD to hear these angry Germans backing a club beat, I LOVE IT. Also, it’s literally a song about a true story of literally eating a dick, so.... *shrugs*

Pet Shop Boys - Love Etc. (PSB Mix) – Y’ALL. This is 6 minutes of LITERAL dance music BLISS. A fantastic remix of one of my fave songs from the PSB, which is essentially shitting on the materialism of relationships. And I love this one, it’s a great work out and car song. Honestly PLEASE listen to it.

Apoptygma Berzerk - Kathy’s Song (Beborn Beton Remix) – GUYYYYYYYYYsSSSS I love this song so much. The original is much slower, and I discovered Beborn Beton FROM this song (another great artist, check them out). This song is just, a great dance song, and just makes me scream out when I hear it. Full volume, beautiful song, beautiful lyrics. It’s my Android!lock headcanon song, but it is also on my JL Personal Playlist, LOL.

Darude vs. Robert Miles - Children of the Sandstorm – One of the BEST MASHUPS in the world, and I am CERTAIN it is an official one; I was obsessed with mashups when I was in college so I have a TONNE of them, but this one has always been a fave, and I still jam to it over a decade later. Seriously, these songs SEAMLESSLY blend together, it’s fantastic. Classic club and trance? HELLS YES. 

Eminem - Nobody Listen to Techno (Deep Dish Mix) – Another nostalgia hit for me. Is it pointless? Not if I enjoy it!! I LOVE this song. Deep Dish mixes were THE JAM in my college years, and like, this is just 9 minutes of PURE techno with some of his song “Without Me” sampled throughout. I LOVE IT. SO MUCH. This is a banger, and just, if you need music to listen to while driving or writing, this is one for you!!

Rammstein feat. Sharleen Spiteri - Stirb Nicht Vor Mir (Don't Die Before I Do) – And to bring the mood WAYYY down, did you know Rammstein did a love song? A beautiful, moves-me-to-tears love song? Because I did and it’s one of my FAVE songs by them. It’s SO beautiful, and the Till’s harsh voice WORKS for it. It’s gentle and soothing. It’s a German/English duet, and it makes me nearly cry EVERY TIME. Because I imagine John and Sherlock and then I die inside LOL. It’s so beautiful and I listen to this one years after it was released. Look up the translation, it is so beautiful.

AND if you guys happen to like any of these songs, copy the youtube video link and use this :)

Most of these that aren’t silly are on my Johnlock playlist, so do give the latter songs a listen! <3 I’m sorry for adding more than five... I just really love sharing things with you guys I like because I’m so lonely, LOL.

If any of y’all are playing these and trying to pick me up, *finger guns* Let’s go get cake and jam :D

AHH I like when I get asks like this! Sorry I took so long Nonny, but I just kept ADDING to it, as you can see. Had to stop because I could keep going.

[lesbian-kyoru]

What do you think is each character's favorite subject in school?

tohru: not a surprise but baby girl loves home ec!! kind of has to work her butt off studying for her other classes, so she gets to enjoy herself and do something she’s naturally super good at in home ec. loves making little snacks in class for her friends and then sharing them at lunch. the sewing unit takes her fashion game to the next level. when they do a project where they take care of fake babies, she definitely ends up caring for half of the class’s infants like they’re her own. kyo is her partner and everyone teases them about it but she still has a really nice time and thinks kyo would be a great dad :’)) highest home ec grade of all time in their school

kyo: says his favorite is PE but it’s actually math. gets a 5 on the AP calc exam. tells no one but tohru, who then tells everyone and kazuma throws a party and kyo is Not Pleased. isn’t a great math tutor though because he can’t really explain how he gets his answers—he just Knows. checks tohru’s homework for her before she turns it in (read: fixes all her wrong answers when she’s not looking so he can see her huge smile when she gets a good grade back. only feels a little bit guilty). watches math tedtalks. nerd disguised as a jock

yuki: favorite subject is lit!! bullshits his way through class discussions and papers without ever actually reading the books because he’s smart and charismatic. has a premium account on sparknotes. favorite class specifically was one on ancient greek literature and epic poetry—spent the entirety of the class critiquing heteronormative readings of the iliad and taking the piss out of other students because “achilles and patroclus are clearly gay if you have eyes”

kakeru: …...i’ll be real he doesn’t like school lmao. senioritis personified. on his phone during classes constantly. laptop open playing world of warcraft or candy crush or neopets. could not tell you anything the teacher said in the last hour. doesn’t take notes because “i’ve got it all up here yun-yun…..” but doesn’t actually do half-bad on tests. only reason he does homework is because he can pretend to study with yuki while actually just flirting with him. if there’s one subject he doesn’t hate it’s history because he “thinks the fight scenes are fun” (yuki: “you mean world war 1??” “yeah it was exciting”)

uo: autoshop. hates the stereotype that just because she’s a lesbian she must like tools and machinery and automotive tech.....having said that she is a lesbian and she does like tools and machinery and automotive tech. gets a 100 on her project where she fixes a busted up motorcycle, and now she has two motorcycles. all the boys in the class call her senpai and worship the ground she walks on. smells faintly like motor oil all the time but she Absolutely makes it work

hana: creative writing. school is not her thing but she thrives in creative writing because her creativity is 100/10 and her stories are absolutely off the walls. excels in writing spooky yet also homoerotic ghost stories in particular. reads them aloud in class with the lights turned off and a flashlight illuminating her face. has made students cry out of fear. shigure beta-reads her writing. likes to subtly imply that her stories actually happened to fuck with kyo. it works

momiji: band/orchestra!! all the older students lose their minds over how well he can play. first chair violinist from day one. has a solo in every concert; tohru sits front row and films them, always cries. he’s the life of the party at Band Camp(™). even the grumpy bass clarinetists like him. doesn’t get in trouble when he talks waaaaay too much during rehearsal because the teacher loves him

haru: mr space cadet himself isn’t much of a science guy but LOVES astronomy. gets Ds on pretty much every test but he doesn’t care because his mind is expanding. buys a super nice telescope so he can look at constellations at 3 in the morning. develops very specific opinions about each planet. stans the moon. gets really into sleeping at last’s astronomy-themed album. becomes that guy whose personality is “i like space” until the class is over and then he never talks about it again

rin: art! she takes several art classes throughout high school. really loves drawing and painting, but also really likes doing ceramics projects because she likes working with her hands :’)) does a watercolor portrait for tohru as a graduation gift but gets really flustered when tohru sobs into her arms over how beautiful it is. also secretly likes doing little doodles of her and haru—he sees them once in her sketchbook and will never let her live it down

kagura: says her favorite is PE and it actually is PE. goes ham for capture the flag, tends to play too rough when capturing and gets taken out of the game. only person who is actually good at volleyball so she is constantly spiking, setting, and diving for the ball all in the same game, while the rest of her team just kind of fumbles around and tries to stay out of her way. gets first place every time they run the mile even though it’s definitely not a competition. definitely knows her mile time even though it is not a timed activity

hiro: this kid screams history nerd, but like Male History Nerd with a niche interest in military history and very specific opinions about how *insert historical figure* wasn’t actually all that bad. gets his ass handed to him in class discussions on the daily but won’t admit it. is genuinely really smart and has Better Opinions by the time he graduates, so he starts using his history nerd powers For Good as an adult—as in, arguing about inaccurate historical memes on facebook in his free time

kisa: choir. singing stresses her out, but she’s figured out that she can just mouth the words and no one can tell that she’s not actually singing! loves being in the group and hearing the beautiful music around her :’)) everyone is in awe of how cute she is in her lil choir robe. tohru comes to all of kisa’s concerts as well and films them from the front row, also while crying

machi: woodshop. gets sawdust on her clothes and loves the smell. obsessed with digging through piles of splintering and warped scrap wood. loses her damn mind when she gets to use the jigsaw. really enjoys making like…misshapen birdhouses and crooked tables, but woodshop is mostly participation grades anyway so her teacher gives her A’s on all of her grotesque wood creations. she is at peace and is One with the Wood. doesn’t wear safety goggles while chopping wood because she likes Risk

kimi: loves speech & drama. emphasis on the drama. it’s a chance to talk for a long time and everyone has to look at her and listen to her or else they’ll fail!! which is how she likes it. goes three minutes over for every speech but the teacher can’t get her to pause long enough to stop her. comes to auditions in a full professionally-made costume. knows her lines and everyone else’s

nao: AP statistics on the pre-accounting track. has known he wants to be an accountant since he was in diapers. does slightly below average in the class. still studies accounting in college because it’s too big a part of his personality to quit at this point. becomes an accountant. never quite feels fulfilled

[taerrorize]

Can you tell me the songs that express Shinee's style through the years ? PS: I'm sure your week will end up well !! All the love xxxxx

Anon u rly have me googling “SHINee discrography in order” on my work computer rn lmao

I’m gonna try to do 1 title track + 1 bside per year and see where that takes me lmao but I’m only going to do Korean releases bc if I added Japanese songs into the mix I’d simply explode it’s too much

2008:

Replay (obviously) is just pure SHINee essence at its finest in my opinion. Sweet and cute and catchy all at once. Timeless.

Love Should Go On it’s kinda funky, lots of minkey rapping which is just *chef’s kiss* but also the added plus of baby Taemin rapping as well, plus jongyu’s beautiful vocals. Idk there’s just something about this song that I’ve always adored. Maybe because it features all five members’ voices in ways that worked for them, which wasn’t super typical in the earlier albums since Taemin’s voice was still developing. Adorable.

2009:

Ring Ding Dong (yes I’m picking it over Juliette it was a rough decision but I did it) it’s just such typical SHINee in the sense that it’s a timeless bop, everyone knows it, everyone remembers it. Everyone knows NEVER to listen to it before an exam (which I learned the hard way in college bc I thought it was fake as fuck but then haha middle of a history final mumbling ringadingdingding elastic fantastic in my gotdamn head it’s a miracle I passed that exam lmao)

Romeo+Juliette it’s not like a super popular song I don’t think? But again, there’s just something about it that’s so purely SHINee. The beat, the way they sing so well together, the way their voices just match & compliment each other’s so well? It’s a little slower paced, but you could definitely still dance along to it. Kinda sensual I guess? A good teeny bopper song by a teeny bopper band of teeny bopper boys. Was my absolute favorite song all through high school lmao the way jonnghyun’s voice is so soft yet powerful at the same time? Spectacular.

2010:

Lucifer I mean it’s just obvious again like Replay, it’s what dragged me into the pits of Kpop hell. Everyone knows Lucifer. It’s quintessential Kpop at this point. Taemin’s dang stripey shirt hypnotized me in that dance practice Istg.

A-Yo is sweet and funny and silly and still so so good all at the same time. Taemin essentially calls you a dumbass in the first like 45 seconds but manages to do it sounding sweet as could be. Really uplifting. Catchy. Easy to sing along to. Listen to it whenever you’re sad and I’m telling you it’s instant happiness. Minho actually gets to sing in it and his voice is just lovely I adore this song with my whole heart. It’s lighthearted and fun. SHINee to me had always just been a group that’s uplifting and comforting, and this song is, in my opinion, the greatest example of that.

2011 (they didn’t have any Korean releases in 2011 so bonus songs from earlier years!)

The SHINee World (Doo-Bop) [2008] I mean I feel like this is self explanatory. Dibidibidiss my name is Minho.

Jo Jo [2009] again, SHINee’s just good at happy fun sweet songs. Jo Jo is always fun to sing along to.

Electric Heart [2010] is a bit darker in the way it feels. Very sensual. Breathy voices and all that. I was super obsessed with this song in high school as well idk. A nice look at SHINee transitioning into a bit more of a mature group, breaking away from the typical teeny bopper boyband vibe. Still funky fresh tho.

2012:

Sherlock aside from being the only title track from 2012 lmao SHINee have often mentioned this was when they felt like they really started acting like a Team and relying on each other more heavily. This was also when the Cold War took place but I personally don’t remember seeing any of it, so to me, Sherlock was just a cool song with a cool dance and Taemin having a terrible weave (and I got in trouble during an after school religion class bc I showed my friend Taemin’s shirtless promo pic and the Youth Leader thought it was porn lmao)

Honesty was a song that really felt personal, idk why. Like the members singing directly to us. Soft and sweet and still so meaningful. Like I’m gonna cry just thinking abt it lmao

2013:

Everybody so 2013 is so hard bc so many good songs came out that year. Like I genuinely am having a hard time deciding, but I think Everybody is a good pick because it shows how SHINee has never been afraid to experiment with their sound. It sounds totally different than anything else they had ever put out, but it still was so SHINee. It’s powerful and it makes you pay attention and like lmao god I’m not quiet abt loving a man in uniform so the wardrobe rly did it for me. But also wow all of their vocals are so good in this song THE LONG HIGH NOTES love it love to see it.

Beautiful just seems like a good pick. Again, 2013 is jam packed with amazing songs, it’s difficult to narrow it down. But beautiful was a song that was always super comforting as well. Their high notes and the way they sing together. Idk. I adore this song.

No Korean releases in 2014 and I’m getting tired lmao so no bonuses

2015:

View of course. Still the best summer bop in existence. We really see the members start to get more involved in this song specifically, from Taemin choosing the choreographer, Jonghyun writing lyrics as always, and Key picking the wardrobe. It’s a fun lighthearted song. I still listen to it when I drive by the beach because that’s just the vibe. Definitely a turning point for them, in my opinion, because this is when I think they really become more mature? Idk how to explain it. They don’t seem like a “boyband” anymore at this point to me, they’re just a band.

An Encore genuinely brings me to tears anytime I listen to it. It’s a SHINee ballad, and a really soul crushing one at that lmao. Idk why it’s soul crushing, necessarily, it just is.

2016:

1 of 1 is funky and fun and goofy and just so so SHINee. It’s not that other groups wouldn’t be able to perform a song like 1 of 1, it’s that SHINee performed it in a way that no other group could do it. They take every song they’re given and make it theirs, really. They own it.

Beautiful Life is another song that just makes you happy. It’s a ballad and it’s sweet and Jinki wrote the lyrics why am I only just finding this out now??! It’s a beautiful life. SHINee will always remind you of why life is worth living, tbh. Minho’s voice is beautiful in this song just a fun fact.

No korean releases in 2017

2018:

Good Evening 2018 is really hard for me to pick tbh. But Good Evening is a song that’s so heartfelt and emotional and soul crushing while still being fun? Maybe I’m projecting my own feelings from the time it was released to the song itself, but whatever. Good Evening is a bop. Love it. Makes me cry literally every gotdamn time I listen to it love that love crying on the freeway blasting this song it’s great.

Undercover was a personal favorite. Tbh a lot of the songs released in 2018 were very hard for me to listen to, and I still haven’t listened to all of them. I just can’t do it yet. But Undercover was fun and funky and idk, that’s just what SHINee is all about.

No releases in 2019 or 2020

2021:

Atlantis listen, this is also a hard decision. Don’t Call Me is quintessential SHINee in the way that it strays from the norm, it’s them trying something entirely new to them, but Atlantis feels like coming home after being away for a long time. It’s not that it’s the same kind of song they usually do, but there’s just something about that’s so familiar and comfortable.

Area is a song I cannot listen to without crying my eyes out. Doesn’t matter how many times I listen to it, doesn’t matter what time of day it is, doesn’t matter what I’m doing. It’s a beautiful song written by Minho and we all know it’s for Jonghyun. And that’s what SHINee is all about, too. It’s about the five of them being together, working together, being a team. The song makes me cry, sure, but it’s a good kind of cry. Also their voices are so beautiful as always.

HONORABLE MENTION

I fucking love Body Rhythm [2021] we all know I love Body Rhythm I feel personally victimized by Minho for promising a Body Rhythm performance and NOT FOLLOWING THROUGH I still nag him abt it on bubble idgaf. Anyways it’s sexy and horny and makes me wanna dance with someone while drinking a vodka cranberry and wearing skimpy clothes and red lipstick WHERES MY BODY RHYTHM PERFORMANCE CHOI MINHO YOU ABSOLUTE T E A S E

[shefanispeculator]

Gwen Stefani had begun working on new music before the lockdown hit, but says it was only when she brought up the idea of reintroducing herself to her collaborators that inspiration struck. “I'm not trying to force myself on anyone, and I'm not trying to have a comeback,” she says with a laugh. “I’m simply going to do some music without feeling defensive about it. Whoever likes me can listen. If you don't like it, you can actually say you don't like it! I don't care. I just want to put music out.”

After cutting a song in February with rising songwriter and producer Luke Niccoli (who’s worked with buzzy acts like Yves Tumor, Miya Folick, and Joji), Stefani was virtually introduced to pop hitmaker Ross Golan (Selena Gomez, The Chicks, P!nk), who suggested the trio write about exactly what the singer was feeling: a desire to remind people that she’s not just records collecting dust on your shelf.

“Let Me Reintroduce Myself,” released Monday, is a feel-good return to the ska/pop/reggae hybrid — record-scratching, horns, a walking bass line — that Stefani perfected during her time fronting No Doubt. Using her downtime in Oklahoma during the pandemic to dig back into ska’s roots, she immersed herself in the history of the genre, leading her to feel like now was the right moment to return to the sounds that first put her on the map 30 years ago. “All of the riots had happened, and I just started thinking so much about when I started loving music and why,” she says. “It was eighth grade when I learned about ska and Madness and the Selecter and all those bands that started to define the kind of music that I felt like I fit into; here I was, this Catholic girl from Anaheim doing reggae music! But that music was all about unity and anti-racism, and that was in the '70s. Then we were doing it in the '90s. And now here we are, again, in the same old mess.”

After the “Let Me Reintroduce Myself” writing session in late August (for which she later cut her vocals safely at the Los Angeles studio, the Village), Stefani began referring to Golan and Niccoli as her “song soulmates,” joining forces on a handful of other Zoom-born songs since then that will, if all goes according to plan, see the light of day some time in 2021. But for now, the No Doubt singer’s new track is a welcome return to form after five seasons judging The Voice, twice topping the country charts with fiance Blake Shelton, and building upon the success of her first-ever Christmas album, 2017’s You Make It Feel Like Christmas. “I just said, "I want to do some reggae,’” she remembers. “And it was just this weird full circle moment, because as soon as I started telling whoever I was going into the studio about that, they were so inspired too.”

In a call late last week, Stefani walked EW through returning to solo music, revisiting her back catalogue on the heels of Tragic Kingdom’s 25th anniversary, and how some of her biggest hits have gained new resonance in recent years.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How are you feeling knowing this song is about to come out? GWEN STEFANI: Under the circumstances, to be able to put out new music is just beyond a gift. Even if it wasn't a pandemic it would be exciting, but it's crazy with the pandemic, you know what I'm saying? I just didn't think it was going to come this year or that I'd be this lucky.

What was your headspace like as you went into writing and recording new solo material this year? Well, this is the deal: I haven't really put a record out in five years. That's a long time. I don't know how it went by so quickly. I would have loved to, but I was doing the Vegas show [Just a Girl] and that took up a lot of time. Before that, I toured the record before, [2016’s This Is What the Truth Feels Like], and the next thing you know, five years passed. I also was feeling like... "Does anyone really want to hear new music from me?" It's so much work to make new music, and I think about all the bands that I loved — I don't go looking for their new records. I just listen to the stuff that I liked in high school .

Somebody sent me a song called “When Loving Gets Old,” and I really loved it. Nobody sends me songs. Why doesn't anyone just send me, like, “Umbrella”? I got this song, I actually liked it. I went in to record it. The girl that sent it to me said, "They actually wrote this for you." And I was like, "Really? No wonder the lyrics feel so good. Why don't I write with them?” We wrote this song called “Cry Happy,” made up of all of these lyrics I’d written on my phone. We had this really great day, but I had to rush home to the kids. It's so different these days; you get there and you have to get home to cook dinner, so I didn't get to cut a demo. That was last February. And then we hit lockdown.

I spent a hundred days in Oklahoma, doing laundry and cooking. We had 15 people there. It was an incredible pause on life to be there at the ranch with the boys and just have this surreal lifestyle for a while, but nothing to do with the life included creating music or anything like that. But Blake happens to have a studio there and had to do some work and brought an engineer in. So I recorded the vocals on “Cry Happy,” and that was like lighting a match to a wildfire because I was like, “My god, I’ve got to do music."

You felt inspiration again? I felt all kinds of inspirations and ideas. It's like God saying, "You’ve got to do this now." When I get that urgency, you can't stop me. I'm like, “I’ve got to go write songs. That's what I need right now. And I don't even care if anyone hears them, or if they think they suck, I'm doing it, now.”

When I got back to L.A., I went into the studio. Everything was plastic-guarded. You get your temperature taken. Everybody's wearing masks. By then, all of the riots had happened. I started to go back and investigate ska and reggae, and I found all these documentaries about how ska was born in the 1960s, how that was linked to the Jubilee when Jamaica was being freed from England. Starting No Doubt, we were the third-wave imitating the 1960s.Then I found this documentary on a school in Jamaica called the Alpha Boys School, which was run by Catholic nuns. There's this little white Catholic nun called Sister Mary Ignatius Davies who helped nurture reggae music. You can see all these pictures of her with these little boys and they're learning these brass instruments. The first ska band that was ever born was these kids out of Alpha Boys School, the Skatalites. No Doubt used to listen to them. Doing my research, it all just felt so full-circle.

So this music was born out of that. I wanted to go back and make something that was joyful and back to my roots, where it all started. [Pre-pandemic] I’d been in the studio with Luke Niccoli and he's the one that said you really should work with my friend Ross, who turned out to be someone who really gets my sarcasm, and the fun side of my lyrics. We really hit it off.

With Luke, we taught each other a lot, especially when it came to ska and reggae, because I kept saying, "Dude, no, listen to Sublime. It has to have scratching in it. It has to be '90s." So he was discovering all this stuff that he didn't know, but bringing his technology and youth to the sound. It was a perfect kind of combination between the three of us. And we wrote a bunch of songs together and I know we're going to write more.

Lyrically, “Let Me Reintroduce Myself” addresses the idea of people thinking of you as a relic. Is that how you feel? At the beginning of this process, I feel like I had to make excuses for why I wanted to make new music. I felt like people were going to judge me and be like, "Well, you're like super old. Why would you even want to?" This is just how my brain works. Anyone would, you know what I mean? Everybody has their own fears or insecurities.

Ross’s reaction was [for us to incorporate] a way of saying, “Well, I haven't really gone anywhere if you really think about it.” I just had a No. 1 hit on [country] radio ["Nobody But You"] — two of them actually, because the next one's ["Happy Anywhere"] going to go No. 1 soon [Editor’s note: it did, 24 hours after our call]. We were just trying to say I haven't really gone anywhere. I'm still doing the same thing. I still wear the same kind of stuff that I've always worn. It's just an evolution.

“Let Me Reintroduce Myself” references your past, lyrically and visually. Some artists are really loath to look backwards, but you seem extremely willing to. Why is that? Five years ago, when my life blew up in my face, there was a lot of looking back. Music has always been a really amazing place to pour my heart and emotions into. It's like therapy.

When I was offered to do the Vegas show — a huge milestone for me — it was very reflective. I think it's an incredible thing to put out new music and have your sound evolve, whether it be through the No Doubt years or the three solo records I did. The first solo record [2004’s Love. Angel. Music. Baby.] was very much a dance record — that was the pop music when I was in high school that I wasn't into, but was the backdrop of my life. Back then, I said, "You know what? I want to try to make that kind of music. I want a dance song." It was so incredible to be able to work with all the talented people that I did and have such a different kind of sound like that, which made me want to do the second record, [2007’s The Sweet Escape].

The third solo record was not born in the same way. It didn't have a reference for the production. It was just, “How do I get through this time in my life? I've got to write these songs. I don't care how they're dressed up sonically. It's just getting them out.” During the process of doing that, I fall in love and I'm writing a song about my life basically being over and then starting to fall in love at the same time, all with one album.

After that, it was like, how do I evolve? When you do a new record, usually everything comes with that: the tour, the merch, the vibe. But when you're doing a Vegas show, you don't have a new song. You don't have anything new. How do you create a show around everything you've done? So there was a lot of looking back and thinking about, “How do I make this feel super nostalgic? How do I make this feel like, when everyone's coming from around the whole world to see me in this room, we have this common story, and that these songs were the backdrop to our lives?”

This year marked the 25th anniversary of No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom. How has that record changed meaning for you over the years? I don't really like anniversaries. I don't really celebrate like, “Oh, I wore that in 1995. Now it's 10 years later, woo!” But then when it actually happened and I started seeing everyone posting and seeing all the stuff that we had done — things I don't remember, until I see the image — I was just overwhelmed, like, "Oh my god, we did that?" It was a really emotional couple of days. I really enjoyed hearing just how much that record impacted people. It really is truly mind-blowing to me that I get to do music, let alone to be part of people's lives in that way. It's hard to wrap my head around it.

I'm really proud of Tragic Kingdom. It was a very weird album. I was so naive. I didn't even know how to write a song. I don't know how I wrote those songs because I didn’t know anything back then. But doing the Vegas show was a really reflective time, because doing a song like “Just a Girl” every night felt more relevant than ever, especially in the last couple of years with the rise of the #MeToo movement. It feels like history repeating itself. We've come far, but we haven't. I always thought that I would outgrow that song and be a woman and not be able to sing the words “I'm just a girl” anymore, but it felt more relevant than it ever felt in my whole life. It was bizarre.

[yellowjavkets]

Can you recommend non white and non American music?

Absolutely! I am so fucking excited to answer this ask, like u have no idea. I’m fucking thrilled. Some of these are american but all of these are bands of color or are fronted by people of color(I’m gonna italicize musicians that I know are lgbt also. just like. given my recent complaints)

Mashrou’ leila is a Lebanese rock band that has just like. god. the lyrics. I can’t believe I went so long in my life without knowing of them. Their songs are in Arabic, but the translations for most are very easy to find. My personal recs for songs by them to get you started are wajih, radio romance, and  3 minutes. I absolutely cannot recommend them highly enough. 

Babymetal is a band that I recently started getting into, like a million years behind everyone else. They’re a Japanese metal band and their music is super fucking high energy, really just launches you into the damn stratosphere. Some of my favorite songs by them are gimme chocolate, catch me if you can and starlight (most of their music is in Japanese but once again there are loads of translations)

Kevin Abstract is an American hip hop singer who writes music both soft and heavy sounding songs that relate to a lot of not often given the spotlight experiences, namely the experiences of being a gay black man in America. I relate to him more than a LOT of white gay musicians and his album “American Boyfriend” is an absolute fucking masterpiece, I even have it downloaded to listen to on long car rides. My favorite songs by him are Echo, Papercut and Miserable America!

Conan Gray is a pop musician who writes a lot of really fun music and like, so many fucking earworms. I literally cannot think of a single one of his songs that I don’t like at least a little, which is very rare for even musicians I do like. And his music videos are super fun. Some of my favorite songs by him are Fight or Flight, Crush Culture, and Wish You Were Sober, which I have listened to over 200 times

More music recs under the cut!

Fea is a latina punk rock band based in San Antonio that I absolutely cannot get enough of. Their name means ugly, but in the feminine form in spanish. Speaking of spanish, a lot of their songs are in spanish, but some are not, which gives it a nice eclectic mix. and helpful for spanish practice lol. Plus they were produced by Laura Jane Grace of Against Me! god, imagine being that fucking cool. My favorite songs by them are La Llorona, Sister K, and Pelo Suelto

Oceanator writes an eclectic mix of synthy business and guitar ballads. I love her music so goddamn much, and it's been a big inspiration in me finding my own sound! my favorite songs by her are Nowhere Nothing, I would Find you, and January 21st

The Hu is a band that took me quite some time to get into but they're a Mongolian rock band that wrote that one song that was super popular here in the states a while back. Their sound is heavier, but it's also so incredibly fucking cool. Some of my favorite songs by them are Sad but True, The Legend of Mother Swan, and Wolf Totem

Meet Me @ The Altar is a band that is very, very derivitave of paramore but in like a super fun way. Their sound is just so fun. Their sound has making me forgive pop punk bc turns out when pop punk is sung by a trio of WOC and not a white dude crying on his guitar about his shitty girlfriend, it can actually fucking rule. Some of my favorite songs by them are Garden, Tyranny, and May the Odds Be In Your Favor

Japanese Breakfast writes a lot of really cool slower songs that make my brain feel like it is melting in the absolute best way possible. it's really hard to describe, which is actually one of my favorite things about it. Some of my favorite songs by her are Road Head, 12 Steps, and The Body is a Blade.

Neon Jungle is a British band who writes a lot of high energy shit that just launches me directly into the fucking stratosphere. Like I'm so serious, they will end your life and revive you fifty fucking times over. My favorite songs by them are Trouble, Louder, and So Alive.

Pom Pom Squad is another band I really like, a rock band who does softer shit sometimes. Their range is insane, and Mia Berrin is one of the most talented fucking vocalists I've ever heard in my whole life. Some of my favorites are Sunday Song, Heavy Heavy, and Honeysuckle

Nova Twins are another duo from the UK who write a lot of heavier guitar stuff. Mostly white punk fans have gotten pissy about them being classified as punk, so I won't, but lbr it's clear what their influences are. In a good way. Their music WILL rip your dick clean off. Some of my favorite songs by them are Bassline Bitch, Devil Face, and Ivory Tower.

Black Belt Eagle Scout is an indigenous musician that writes a lot of really cool softer guitar shit. Super chill music I like to put on to relax and write to. Also loads of her lyrics are downright masterful. Some of my favorite songs by them are Half Colored Hair, Just Lie Down, and Indians Never Die

Rina Sawayama, who you probably know of at least periferally, writes pop music and stuff of that nature. Her music could pull me out of a fucking coma. She's based in the UK. I absolutely adore her and her weird fucking fashion. Some of my favorites by her are Bad Friend, Comme des Garcons (Like The Boys), and Lucid

Milck does a lot of like, idk how to describe it. I have no idea what genre it is. I don't care to know. It rules, whatever it is. It's sort of soft, but powerful with a really cool beat. Some of my favorite songs by her are Devil Devil, This is Not the End, and Call of the Wild.

I HAVE TONS MORE, LIKE LOADS MORE, LIKE GIVE ME THE GO AHEAD AND I WILL MAKE A PART TWO, but I think that's a good amount of my favorites for now.

[just-another-nerds-little-world]

Questions for the 🎶 The Ultimate Music Ask Game! 🎶: 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 25, 29, 30, 32, 37, 40, 47, 48, 49, 51, 53, 57 ->💚, 58 -> Pentagon - Do or Not + OOO - Libido (I know you love this song :D), 61 -> ViXX vs. Ateez + OOO vs. Oh my Girl, 63, 65 pretty please🥰

Thank you very much! 🥰

4. Is there a song you love but don't like its music video?

Pentagon - Do or Not

5. Is there a song you don't like but like its music video?

Chungha - Stay Tonight, Bicycle

Dreamcatcher - Piri

6. Who's an artist you really like but it's embarrassed to admit it?

I don’t think there is one. I am just embarrassed to admit that I used to like BTS (until Fake Love). xDD

8. Is there an artist or song that you like, despite being of a genre you don't usually like?

Yes, I usually don't like Hip-Hop, Rap and everything around it, but I actually like some songs by pH-1 and Sik-K.

9. Do you have a favorite band?

Not anymore. I still love The GazettE, but I don't consider them to be my favorite band. Aside I also like Bursters, Purple Rain, N.Flying, Red Hot Chili Peppers and older disbanded bands like ScReW, アンド AND -Eccentric Agent- and MEJIBRAY.

10. Favorite solo artist?

Jeong Eunji is technically not a solo artist, but I still love her solo work.

Robin Gibb is also an artist of who I love the solo work, even though he was technically also not a solo artist.

12. Who’s the most obscure artist you listen to?

Dir En Grey

13. Who’s the most popular/mainstream artist you listen to?

ATEEZ or TXT, don't know who is more popular

25. Is there a song you used to like but can’t listen to anymore because you associate it with someone you don’t like?

No, not anymore. I couldn't listen to DuelJewel for a while because the friendship with the person who introduced them to me ended bad. But not anymore. I usually don't try to associate songs with people, especially not songs I love because sooner or late someone will try to ruin it for you.

29. Songs you love to dance to:

U-KISS - Neverland

BTOB - 신바람

Oh My Girl - Dun Dun Dance

Twice - Alcohol-Free

30. Songs you love to sing along to:

Bee Gees - Closer Than Close, Alone, For Whom The Bell Tolls, You Win Again, Rings Around The Moon

Robin Gibb - Another Lonely Night In New York, Juliet (I don't hit one single note), Boys Do Fall In Love

Sandra - Little Girl, Hiroshima, Heaven Can Wait, In The Heat Of The Night, Secret Land, Midnight Man

Heart - These Dreams, Alone

a-ha - The Sun Always Shines On T.V., Take On Me

Alphaville - Sounds Like A Melody, Big In Japan, Dance With Me

ATEEZ - Say My Name, Answer, Inception, Fireworks

B.I - illa illa

BTOB - 신바람

DKB - Still

MAMAMOO - gogobebe

NATURE - Girls

OnlyOneOf - Libido

Pentagon - Do or Not

TWICE - Alcohol-Free, Cry For Me, Hell in Heaven

TXT - 0X1 = Lovesong (I Know I Love You)

I think that's enough. xDD

32. When was the last time you cried when listening to a song, if ever?

I shed some tears while listening to B.I - illa illa, but the last time I really cried was when I listened to Jeong Eunji's 'AWay'.

37. If you could travel in time and go to a concert of an artist who’s no longer alive or a band that’s no longer together, who would you choose?

My biggest priority would be to go back to see the Bee Gees live once. Best would be their concert in Las Vegas 1997, the played so many great songs there. ♥

I also would like to see disbanded groups like アンド AND -Eccentric Agent-, ScReW and MEJIBRAY.

40. Which was the best concert you’ve ever been to?

I have to take out the organization of nearly every concert because it was so awful that it damaged my mood before the concert even started. But I am still not sure if I enjoyed Pentagon, GOT7 or SF9 more, but yeah one of them.

47. Is there an artist you used to dislike but learned to like because of a friend’s influence?

Not particulary dislike, but I wasn't and still ain't much of a fan when it comes to hip-hop, but thanks to you I at least like some songs of artists like pH-1 or Sik-K.

48. Who’s an artist you think it’s criminally underrated and deserves more recognition?

To name a few: LABOUM, OnlyOneOf, Purple Rain, Shaun, Cross Gene, DKB, NATURE, NOIR

49. Is there a cover you like more than the original version?

Heart - Alone (Orginial song by i-Ten)

51. Is there an artist you used to love as a child/teenager and still likes, even if you don’t listen to them as much?

Owl City

53. Is there a song you hated the first time you listened to but then loved after listening to it more times?

There a plenty of songs I used to hate but I don’t love any of them. I either tolerate them, consider them alright or just like them.

57. [Send me a color and I'll tell you the first song it reminded me of.]

->💚 YooA - Bon Voyage (I don’t know why, maybe because there is so much nature in the MV); Pentagon - Naughty Boy

58. [Send me a song and I'll tell you the colors it made me think of, without looking at cover arts or music videos.] *Bonus: if you like making palettes, make one based on the song! -> Pentagon - Do or Not + OOO - Libido (I know you love this song :D)

Pentagon - Do or Not -> makes me think of rose, pink and red colors

OnlyOneOf - Libido -> makes me think of black, white and blue (you are lucky I know who you mean with OOO xDD)

61. [Make me choose between two artists/songs/albums.] -> VIXX vs. Ateez + OOO vs. Oh my Girl

VIXX vs. ATEEZ -> If you would have asked me 2 years ago I definitely would have said VIXX and even though I love VIXX and they’ll always have a special place in my heart, there is no VIXX without Hongbin for me, so I say ATEEZ.

OnlyOneOf vs. Oh My Girl -> That’s mean. Basically super cool vs. super cute, but I take OnlyOneOf.

63. Do you prefer live recordings or studio recordings?

Live recordings sure have their own charm. To see how the artists performs live and if they sound like on the CDs, but I prefer studio recordings due to clean sound of the music.

65. Are there any songs you know the entire lyrics by heart?

Bee Gees - Closer Than Close, You Win Again, Alone, For Whom The Bell Tolls

Sandra - In The Heat Of The Night, Little Girl

a-ha - The Sun Always Shines On T.V.

Alphaville - Big In Japan

Robin Gibb - Another Lonely Night In New York, Boys Do Fall In Love

Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars

Nature - Girls

Heart - Alone

[cullxtheherd]

Long(-ish) time listener, first-time caller here - just wanted to say that I really love your take on Jacob, and that your taste in music is A+! Also, I come offering a few songs that I think have big Jacob vibes - "Unsainted" by Slipknot, "The Heresy" by Mushroomhead, and "Feed the Machine" by Nickelback (just trust me).

hglkghjl oh my god hi!!! how are you?? first of all thank you what the heck skjhdndkf you are absolutely too nice sjdhsdjskdf but i am glad you enjoy my stupid shit™

and i am gonna dive into these songs rn.

yes but i would like to counter with this slipknot tune [x] and also this one cause i kinda forgot about them and now im scREam? [x] GLLHKGLLHBKGLHKGLKL

holy shit yeah i love mushroomhead but it's been yEARS since i properly listened to them- like?? since you had to buy the dvd to see the music videos cauce mf TV would not play them skjdskjsk i did not even know they had new content out?? tbh ksjfkdfjdkj?? but alsoo [x] and [x] anddd its taking me aGES to answer this cause im on a trip through songs of my younger years and like THANK you!!!! i am having so much fun skjfdkdjf

oh. my god okay. it's. it is. it. has taken everything in me to type nickelback into my youtube search bar. i'm really over here like:

hgkhlgkhlghll okay but i AM listening here i go pray for me...

okay. here's the thing. if chad fucking kroeger wasn't singing this i would really like this- the guitar solo is a little extra, but i've also listened to dragonforce and completed that shit on guitar hero0 jAYSUS CHRiST- anyways! i?????????????????? am going to have a lil quick jacob inspired music romp, join me if you like!

5 bands/artists, 5 songs below the cut!! but, FIRST!!

a warning: these first three groups will be triggering and offensive in many/multiple ways! please be prepared!!

𝙺𝙾Я𝙽:

Never Never: [x] - this is particularly nice™ if you follow my he was married timeline;

Shoots And Ladders: [x] - this pertains to childhood sexual abuse i haven't even had the stomach to write about yet for the Seed boys and it's not part of my timeline currently, but. it is definitely part of my headcanons and there is not enough brain bleach for me to ever live the same ever again 🙃

All In The Family [x] - i do not think this needs any explanation but i ammmm hahahahhahahahhksjud imagining john and jake hghg;glghlhglhgljhgl

It's On! [x] - i really forgot how much i miss early 00s/late 90s rock aaand wow so much of it it very The Seeds™

Coming Undone [x] - wow how hot was jon davis kdjskjdks i mean he still is but hewlp senmdddd shheelpppshdaslkf

𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐇 𝐍𝐀𝐈𝐋𝐒:

The Becoming [x] - yeah 😢 it really do be like that. if you've never heard this before it can be a little... jarring, unsettling and/or painful to listen to, especially if you aren't in a good or positive headspace. there are a lot of sudden and loud mechanical/industrial type of noises as well a running background track of people screaming out in pain so... enjoy. that.... i actually?? really love this song and the entire album. it describes the fight with mental illness well in my opinion.

Mr Self Destruct [x] - it's perfect. would also very much work for Joseph but i do think this is just verrrryyy, sickeningly Jacob

I Do Not Want This [x] - this is another that is just not good if you aren't in the headspace for it

Big Man With A Gun [x] - this is just. explicit. and rude. and accurate. you're welcome.

Eraser [x] - don't listen to this if you're feeling low or not well mentally. definitely a deputy ship song.

bonus cause i can't follow rules even of my OWN making and i could go on for an embarassingly LONG time about NIN in relation to any one of my muses and sjkdnksdfns here you go:

The Perfect Drug [x] - this is a great song for any seed/deputy ship tbh but kdjkfdjfsnkfndhbf this a whole ass mf ass jacob seed ass mood and i am yelling out loud and my dogs are barking and all my cats ran awAY AaaaAaa

𝑺𝒚𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒎 𝑶𝒇 𝑨 𝑫𝒐𝒘𝒏:

Violent Pornography [x] - this song makes me laugh out loud to be honest?? i am not? a sane individual

Cigaro [x] - LMAOOAHAHHAHAHSJABSDKAS UBISOFT SHOULD HAVE HIRED ME FOR THE WHITETAILS RADIO SOUNDTRACK BYEE HHHAJKDnsaf

Suite-Pee [x] - sorry but this is apparently just funny meme time now im hahjdgsfkjddgf

War? [x] - accurate meme hour continues

I-E-A-I-A-I-O [x] - glhfmlkfgmlkdfg i'mm ghlghklgkhl the absolute mutterings of a ginger madman trapped between two mountains

𝓛𝓸𝓻𝓭 𝓗𝓾𝓻𝓸𝓷:

The Ghost On The Shore [x] - fricken love this song and this group

Drops In The Lake [x] - pooor ol widower. i've been toying with a universe where his wife is still clinging to life, mostly burnt and nearly dead in that old veteran's center and hahahaha this doesn't hurt at all 🥴

Long Lost [x] - this is fine. not imagining my otp. nope.

The World Ender [x] - 🤠🗡

Yawning Grave [x] - this is also a lucifer jam as fuck

𝕰𝖑𝖑𝖎𝖔𝖙 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘:

Silver + Gold [x] - super good ship song for character arcs; dep ship or not

Closedloop [x] - 𝒊𝒕'𝒅 𝒃𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒔𝒍𝒐𝒘 𝒅𝒐𝒘𝒏 . . .

I Heard [x] - what a fuckin jam. also wow how cute is elliot?? ? wow

99 [x] - i dont have anything to say its just so accurate and so good

Without The Lights [x] - this is a very accurate interpretation of a physically and sexually abusive relationship through dance, please use caution! but this is going to be accurate for any canon type relationship with jacob or maybe even all of the seeds. personally i refuse to write any strictly non-consensual material, but i am fully aware this is more than likely something that happens. having been in similar relationships in the past this video goes on repeat a lot and i can't even begin to say how beautiful it is- i cry every single time.

"𝓬𝓪𝓵𝓵 𝓸𝓯𝓯 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓭𝓸𝓰𝓼 𝔀𝓮 𝓯𝓸𝓾𝓷𝓭 𝓱𝓮𝓻 𝓲𝓷 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝔀𝓸𝓸𝓭𝓼 . . ."

hoLY COW if you made it this far you deserve something dont u... hmnnn. i'm sure i have something somewhere on a hard drive

that should do sjdkjfkd ok i love youu thank you for sending me this ask akjnsfdskf i hope u are having a great day!! bye!!

[kerwritesthings]

Dance Your Way Into My Heart

Summary: It’s more than just that feeling of love, it’s the actions, and the talk of forever

Word Count: just a little over 2.6k

Warnings: more soft, squishy, lovely words with a side of wedding fluff

Author Notes: So, this is my 10th ‘full-length’ one shot in this verse which boggles my mind since it’s ONLY been about a month (a day or two off actually – I first posted late the night of Jan 18!) since I started writing around this fool heart. I think he, and this place, the people and the creativity, really came to me when I’ve needed it the most. Sooo, now that the emotional nonsense has been blithered out. Here’s a little something for that…

Funny enough that this all hit me the Wednesday/Thursday before any of Josiah’s wedding stuff hit. Another pretty photo reblog from @rainbowshawn​ that set me on a spiral of ohhh shit I can see him singing at a super casual wedding like this and then the next thing you know I’ve busted out 500ish words on my Notes app on my phone while at a bar waiting for my friend before seeing Moulin Rouge on Broadway that night, total aside THE SHOW IS AMAZING – listen to the OBC album cause it’s bomb, however I digress. 

As always, these can be read as stand-alone one shots, but they all fall under the umbrella of this verse of mine. Reading the previous would provide some context. Masterlist can be found here!

As soon as she asks, Shawn immediately said yes. He's such a sucker for love and weddings and basically anything to make you happy. So, when your best friend asks you if you’d think he would be willing to sing at her wedding, you mention she would need to talk to him and ask. So, she flies up for a weekend under the onus of coming to hang out with you. However, she takes him to lunch one afternoon just the two of them, his favorite place downtown, nervous and anxious. However, you understood it was a shoe in. It was sweet though she wants to go the extra mile with him.

“You knew?” he asks, flopping down on the couch next to you, head immediately falling in your lap as soon as he gets back home. 

“Mmhmm,” you mutter, hands automatically winding through his hair. “Told her she needed to talk to you though. Maid of honor duties only go so far you know. What did you say?”

“Yes, duh. Of course, yes,” he replies, eyes fluttering shut as he relaxes into your touch. “Didi is your best friend, she’s the closest thing you have to a sister. Of course, I’m going to sing for her for her wedding. Plus, it’s going to be so super chill and laid back. I told her to give me a few things she and Tomas like and I’ll work around with that. I also told her I want first dance duty. No wedding band or DJ should have your bestie’s special moment.”

“You’re something else and I love you. Thank you, sweetheart. It means a lot to her. And even more to me,” you whisper, leaning down to dust a kiss to his forehead, another to his nose before reaching his lips.

Didi can’t stop raving, gushing and thanking you and him. The key smash texts are adorable and you both appreciate the lovely case of rosé champagne she sends over. Tomas, separately, takes him for a boys night at Maple Leafs game next time he’s in town as a personal show of thanks for helping his future wife. Shawn takes his role seriously, copious notes and hours locked away in his studio practicing or grumbling some days. It’s heartwarming to see how much care he took in this. “At some point, she’s practically going to be my sister-in-law, so yeah,” he blushes, after explaining the latest iteration of songs he’s going through. “Plus, it’s her wedding day. Needs to be epic and as perfect as possible. I’m going to make sure it’s that.”

He says it so nonchalant, so matter of fact, and without hesitation: At some point, she’s practically going to be my sister-in-law. It hits you square in the gut. You both know how deep your feelings run for each other, and you’ve had a few abstract talks, a few serious ones too, along with a more pointed talk specifically about the future. But you’ve never heard him speak of it with such assured conviction. Like it’s happening soon. You just look at him, jaw slightly dropped and eyes wide. 

“You’re gonna catch flies like that my dear,” he smirks, tapping his pointer finger up under your chin to close your mouth. Before you can reply, he leans in to kiss you sweetly, slowly and thoroughly. 

“You know you’re my forever,” he sighs against your lips, just a hair away from yours. He presses a soft, quick peck to both corners of your mouth before one squarely against you. “I’ve thought about it a lot more lately. Since Santa Barbara and our breakfast by the pool, really. Of us doing this ourselves and what our wedding would be. I know the new album and the tour, and all that shit is a thing happening, but I also know you mean everything so…”

You don’t know what to say, tears forming at the corners of your eyes. You just look at him, hand coming up to cup his cheek. 

“This is not going there now, because this would be a lame as fuck as a story to tell on how I proposed to you, but just know. I’m thinking about it. Really and truly,” he reveals through a bright smile. “I love you, so, so much baby.”

You can’t help but shift your arms around him, face nuzzling into the side of his neck. This boy of yours. He’s something extraordinary. 

At the rehearsal dinner, you spy him and Didi in deep conversation before you’re all due to sit down for dessert. 

“He won’t tell me what they decided on, Didi either,” you explain to Didi’s sister Renee, as you head towards your table. “They’re being sneaky little shits, but you know Dee.”

Renee laughs, “Are you really surprised? After you’ve been friends for this long? It’s sweet of your man to be willing to do all this for them. I’ve already warned all cousins and the brothers’ idiot dates they are not to fawn over him, that he’s beyond happily taken by the maid of honor, and that if I see cell phones obnoxiously in the way at any point this weekend, I’m breaking them in some way.”

You hear his laugh before you feel his arm wrap about your waist. “This is why Renee is the best. She won’t take anyone’s shit. Even from her own family. Thanks girl. Appreciate you having my back,” he smiles, fist bumping Renee. “I owe you one.”

“Holding you to that, Mendes,” she grins widely. “Just make sure this one doesn’t lose her shit this weekend taking care of my sister. But I will gladly use that marker, especially next time your hot friends are around. Speaking of, I should go check on my parents, make sure my brothers haven’t done anything stupid.”

“Is Didi driving you batty?” he asks, guiding you into your chair. “She seems okay tonight.”

“Crowd around, her parents, Tomas’ family, she’s holding her own but there was some stupid family shit earlier,” you exhale, grabbing a hold of his hand to lace through yours, before tipping your head against his shoulder. “It’s nothing that I didn’t expect to deal with this weekend. She’s nervous, worried, second and fifth guessing things. I get it, this is a lot. She just wants to be married already.”

Shawn dusts a kiss to your temple, “You’re such a good friend. You’re lucky to have each other. Tomorrow’s going to be great. Worse case, steal my flask and get her a little saucy before she walks down the aisle.”

You elbow him with a giggle, “You would suggest that, but you may be onto something. Thank you though.”

The next morning is a whirlwind of champagne, bobby pins and lip gloss with a soundtrack full of laughter and a lot of fighting back tears. You also may have sung along to your boyfriend’s last album, dancing around like you would do in her room when you were kids to your favorite songs. Didi’s suite is a buzz with her sister holding down the fort, cousins popping in and out, along with her mother and her future mother-in-law. At one point, after the glam team is gone, you finally have a moment alone with your best friend while her mom and sister go to grab her dress.

“I am so happy you’re deliriously happy,” you whisper, hugging Didi tightly before more folks come in. “You two are good together and I’m glad you found him.”

Didi sniffs, “Thank you, I know I’ve been insane, and you’ve been a saint. Your boyfriend too. Shawn has put up with me changing my mind on stuff like 17 times and he’s just rolled with it. You’re a lucky one too. He’s so fucking over the moon for you girly. Soon roles will be reversed, and you’ll be able to pay me back with your own crazy.”

You both scurry about to get into your dresses. With the wedding taking place at the botanical gardens, Didi decided she didn’t want fussy for anything around the ceremony. Her dress is a stunning V-neck sheath of flowy creamy, buttery chiffon, tiny flowers woven through her hair in place of a veil. Tomas’ grandmother’s necklace, a vintage diamond and pearl strand, lays just at her collarbones. You try not to cry but think back of the two little five-year-old girls who would play wedding in your grandparents’ back yard. “Oh Dee,” you sniff. “Tomas isn’t going to know what hit him.”

She smiles, her eyes just as wet, and reaches for your hands. “I couldn’t be up there without you, bestie.” You hear the flicker of a camera, knowing the photographer is back catching your moment and you’re grateful. “Your boy either. I know you hemmed and hawed about black for a wedding, but this dress is great.”

You’re the only one standing up with her, she didn’t want anyone up there with her other than you. Renee understood and was happy she didn’t have to wrangle a groomsman. She picked a black maxi, swirled with larger flowers in shades of pink and white. Your hair was up, a flower like the ones in your dress tucked in the mass of curls her stylist pinned about. Your bouquet is in a similar palate, while Didi’s has some purple, her favorite color, woven through. 

“Let’s go get you married,” you say handing off her bouquet and tucking her arm under yours. 

“Hey pretty girl, funny seeing you here,” he quips, his lips dusting against your bare shoulder, before tracing a finger across your back. You’re all outside the courtyard waiting to enter for the start of the ceremony. You turn to face him. He’s a vision, because of course he is when isn’t he, in black floral-patterned button down, similar to your dress, along with dark pants. What’s more interesting is that his beloved acoustic strung across his chest.

“I may have told Didi I would play all her walk-in music too,” he nods bashfully. “I wasn’t going to let them use Apple Music or Spotify or even worse some awful wedding singer.”

“You are something else, Shawn,” you reply, squeezing his hand tightly. “Really want to kiss you but I can’t mess up the gloss.”

He places a whisper of a kiss on your forehead, “Love you. I need to go get into place. Atmosphere music. Think I may sneak in one of my own in there before the processional stuff.”

You laugh, pushing him towards the archway of greenery, “Go be wonderful.”

He’s set up at the back of the courtyard, seats all set in front of him. He’s weaving melodies, no singing, just soft rhythms from his guitar. The space is perfect, green and lush and smelling lovely, a swath of flowers at the end of the path where Tomas waits. You make your way down and turn to watch for your best friend. However, before she arrives you take a moment to appreciate Shawn. He catches your eye, smiles and winks, mouthing love you before he sees the wedding coordinator waiving over at him. 

He starts in on “Marry Me” when Didi arrives at the back of the aisle with her Dad. Your breath catches in your throat, the combination of seeing your best friend and hearing your boyfriend hits you hard. She starts making her way down when he begins on the chorus. You see Tomas out of the corner of your eye, and he’s got a hand over his mouth, eyes brimming over with tears. The ceremony is the perfect balance of exactly what Didi and Tomas are. Their vows are intrinsically them. They look every way that a couple getting married should. Glowing, in love and only eyes for each other. It’s hard not to let a tear or two out. 

The reception is in the atrium of the gardens, under a massive domed stained-glass skylight, still lush with flowers and greens. Everything has been exactly as Didi has hoped. Meanwhile, your boyfriend is mysteriously missing. You’re sipping champagne with Renee and her boyfriend of the moment, while looking about for him. 

“Last I saw him he was setting his guitar up before the rest of the musicians came in, don’t worry,” Renee starts, clinking glasses with you. “He’ll be back.”

He makes his way back into the atrium, and surprisingly he’s changed, a little dressier now in deliciously fitting black suit pants and a white button down, the glint of his silver chain obvious even from where you are. You excuse yourself from the group and steal Shawn away before he needs to soundcheck for their dance. You just want to have a moment with him before everything gets crazy, heading out to the patio just off the atrium, which is blissfully quiet. You wrap your arms around his waist and just hold him. 

“You okay baby?” he asks, as he starts to sway with you, shifting your arms around his neck so he can pull you closer. 

You nod, smiling, “I just needed you for a minute without all that is all.”

“You can have all the minutes you ever want or need,” he says, kissing you lightly. 

“Sorry to break this up, please believe me I am, but my sister has decided she wants to get a move on,” Renee calls from the doorway. 

“Duty calls for both of us,” you murmur, leaning up to kiss him once more. “Save me a dance or two?”

“All the slow ones at least,” he agrees, rubbing his nose against yours. “I’ll see you out there.”

Didi didn’t want a whole production with entrances, she wanted a few bars of song then for her and Tomas to start dancing straightaway. So, poised at the edge of what they have set up as the dance floor, with a good angle to see them once they walk in, as well as your boyfriend, you wait. Shawn starts playing, something floaty that that doesn’t sound familiar to you. The pair make their way in and as soon as they hit the center of the floor, he begins. 

“Not talkin' 'bout a year, no not three or four. I don't want that kind of forever in my life anymore,” he sings gently. “Forever always seems to be around when it begins, but forever never seems to be around when it ends. So, give me your forever, please your forever. Not a day less will do, from you.”

The song is beautiful, he sounds amazing, Didi and Tomas as just love personified as they dance. He fades out slowly at the end, a light strum to close out. 

“Thank you for letting me be such a special part of your day. That was Ben Harper’s Forever. Didi, Tomas, congratulations and love to you both,” he expresses, blowing a kiss to the two of them with his hands, you can see his emotions clear across his face. He heads back, as the band starts up, packing away his guitar before making his way over to you, now at your table.

“Wow,” you sigh, hand coming to the nape of his neck to sink into his curls. “That was something else, my dear. Didi fucking owes you.”

He blushes, ducking his head bashfully. “I’m just happy I could give them that moment. First dances are something really special. They deserved to have the best moment possible. Plus, that’s an awesome first dance song, not the usual. Makes it even better.”

“My hopeless romantic,” you muse, tracing haphazard patterns over the top of his hand that rests on your knee. 

“Just you wait,” he smiles, kissing you. “Now, I’m on good authority the next song is a slow one, so may I have this dance?”

He stands, holding his hand out for you. 

“You can have every single one, all of them from now on.”

TAG LIST: @whenidance​, @parkerdavis​, @sinplisticshawn​, @hollandraul​, @fallinallincurls​, @itrocksmysocks​, @rainbowshawn​, @lasingphomustra​, @illumecherry​

*Always feel free to ask to be added to the tag list! 

[eabhaalynn]

My 11 Songs of the Decade (because 10 would be boring and is overdone.)

Cigarette Daydreams – Cage the Elephant

The song… This is the closing song of Cage the Elephant’s 2013 album, Melophobia, and the third single released from this album. It describes the pain of someone’s search for their own identity through the musings of a parted lover.

For me… To this day, this is the song I cry to. This always has been me and my friend Iona’s song. It will forever be inseparable from the Ulster Museum and Botanic Gardens in Belfast, from rainy summer’s days and rants about our seemingly massive problems with GCSEs and girls from school. When she went abroad for her gap year, I couldn’t bear to listen to it. It’s another one of these songs that manages to articulate what it feels like to be young and thinking too much.

Key lyric…If we can find a reason, a reason to change Looking for the answer If you can find a reason, a reason to stay Standing in the pouring rain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvVJ0v6Vta8

Ribs – Lorde

The song… This is a deep house influenced electronica song that discusses Lorde’s stress over ageing. It was released on her debut album, Pure Heroine, in 2013. It begins ambiently and builds to become increasingly more frantic as the song progresses.

For me… Despite being released when I was a young teenager, this song was written when Lorde was sixteen or seventeen. It articulates exactly what it feels like to be that age, at that stage of life. I’m quite sure teenagers across the globe can relate to that. This song has been the soundtrack of my teenage years, the imagery is both relatable and accessible. Listening now, it gives me a sense of nostalgia, a yearning to be back where I was a year, or two or three years ago. Even now, it is the sound of being alone in a crowd. It is musically perfect, and a piece of exceptional songwriting.

Key lyric…This dream isn't feeling sweet We're reeling through the midnight streets And I've never felt more alone It feels so scary, getting old

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qaeoz_7cyE

Sign of the Times – Harry Styles

The song…  This is Harry Style’s debut single as a solo artist. It was released in early 2017 and appears on his self-titled debut album. It is a power ballad with eclectic influences from genres such as soft rock, indie rock, glam rock and psychedelic soul. It features Styles’ vocals alongside choral harmonies throughout. It is essentially about avoiding emotion during times of grief and hardship.

For me…This is the song of me leaving school (for the first time). Listening to it now coughs up all the feelings of relief, and yet uncertainty. Excitement, but also nerves. Summer 2017 was a turning point for me. I had had a terrible couple of years over my GCSEs, and overall, my second school was a far better place for me to be than my first one ever was. At the time though, I didn’t know this. Sure, how could I? This song helped me figure out my feelings, and make sense of feeling happy when I really didn’t know what I should have felt at all.

Key lyric…We don't talk enough, we should open up Before it's all too much Will we ever learn? We've been here before It's just what we know

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN4ooNx77u0

Ride – Lana Del Rey

The song… This song comes from Lana Del Rey’s third EP, Paradise, released in 2012. It served as the first single of this re-release. It is a ballad that includes, among other themes, parental problems, loneliness and alcohol misuse. Del Rey sings over a string drenched, piano driven melody.

For me… This is the song of every summer. It has never been an exceptionally happy song for me, but it is the embodiment of what it is to feel young and alive, if a little bit tired. The glamour of it, alongside the acknowledgement that everything isn’t perfect, but that they will be okay if you just go with the flow, was exactly what I needed at the time it was released. The blissful uncertainty of the summers of being 14 and 15, partnered with the irrelevance of the future, is exactly what this song will always be about for me.

Key lyric… Been trying hard not to get into trouble But I, I've got a war in my mind I just ride, just ride

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py_-3di1yx0

Don’t Delete the Kisses – Wolf Alice

The song… This is the second single from Wolf Alice’s second album, Visions of a Life. It is characterised as dream pop, synth pop, shoegaze and indie rock. Frontwoman Rowsell referred to it as “one of those, you know, ‘head out the window on a long drive’ kind of tunes.’

For me… If ‘ribs’ is the sound of being seventeen, then surely this is the sound of falling in love. This song is the ultimate love song. I am absolutely convinced of it. It is greater than any one person as it is simply the sound of the feeling. I am very lucky that I actually was falling in love for the first time at the time this was released. I will always be indebted to Ellie Rowsell for being there to tell me in plain English how I was feeling. This song has defined every ‘lovey dovey’ mood I have been in for the last two and a half years. I’m sure most people of my age feel the same. It was written for the era we are living in and it is perfectly suited to it.

Key lyric…I see the signs of a lifetime, you 'til I die

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqxE-zppu30

Motion Sickness – Phoebe Bridgers

The song… This is the third single from Phoebe Bridger’s 2017 Debut album ‘Stranger in the Alps.’ It describes “being in love with someone who is super mean to you… like conflicted feelings.” Bridger’s stated to radio station KCRW that the song was written about fellow musician Ryan Adams.

For me… Admittedly, I discovered this song late in the decade. But it’s a song about feelings. Like, really hard feelings. This decade, and especially the latter half of it, threw up a lot of feelings, about a lot of things. I suppose this is fairly standard for most people approaching the end of their teenage years. It’s angsty, without being too bothered about anything. It’s raw and honest; articulating everything I’ve felt about everyone at one stage or another, and I’m equally, I’m sure it articulates enough people’s feelings about me.

Key lyric… You said when you met me you were bored And you, you were in a band when I was born

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sfYpolGCu8

A & E – Brand New Friend

The song… This illustrates the rise and fall of a relationship, and in doing so highlights the more melancholic acoustic side of Northern Irish indie pop group Brand New Friend. It was initially released in 2016 as the closing song of their debut EP, American Wives, but was remastered and re-released on their 2017 album Seatbelts for Airplanes.

For me… This is the song of the medicine application. Bearing in mind I know this band, and know that there is a well-developed meaning to the song that has nothing to do with me, this is the song that I have listened to, and seen live, countless times from the day I decided I wanted to be a doctor to the day I got into medical school and beyond. It is a rare and beautiful connection to have to a song like this, and one for which I am forever going to be grateful. Now, I can’t hear the song live without bawling my wee eyes out. I have come so far, and the band have too, and the song has been with us every step of the way. That truly means the world to me.

Key lyric… She wants to be a paramedic / Wants to save a strangers life / Now she wants to hold my hand / Does she know she’s saving mine?

https://open.spotify.com/track/5RmOfF1s5zW2B942H9OGXT?si=hsauA8iXQN6mXQnL8s0fBw

Brazil – Declan McKenna

The song… McKenna initially self-released this song in December 2014. It is critical of FIFA, of their awarding of the 2014 World Cup to Brazil without addressing the deep rooted and extensive poverty affecting the Nations people. It gained widespread media attention throughout the FIFA corruption scandal, before featuring on his debut album, ‘What do you think about the Car?’ in July 2017. It is an indie rock song that is driven by guitars and synths.

For me… This song was the sound of 2016 and 2017. It was released a while before this but I was fairly late jumping on the bandwagon. It’s a political song, speaking of the injustices behind FIFA and their 2014 World Cup in Brazil. As an angry little leftist, I have always appreciated this. I can only appreciate it more knowing that Declan McKenna himself was only fourteen when he wrote it. For me the song has many happy memories attached to it, from the long summer walks from my house to the nearest village to see my friends who were working as sailing instructors, to attending a tiny gig of Declan McKenna’s in the Oh Yeah Centre in Belfast and being about 6 feet from his face while he was 6 feet from the cusp of fame.

Key lyric…Because you've had your chances, yeah you've had enough I'm gonna burn your house down to spread peace and love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duHjQ3BE6D8

Robbers – The 1975

The song… This is the sixth single from the 1975’s self-titled debut album. It was released as a single in May 2014. The song’s concept follows an ill-fated robbery, and was inspired in part by the 1993 film ‘True Romance.’ It is essentially about a relationship in which the partners are too focused on each other to notice the destruction they are each causing.

For me… This song is fairly definitive of my teenage years as a whole. The narrative of a toxic relationship that the writer could not, or would not leave, was one that I always managed to connect to, across all aspects of my life as a young teenager, encountering uncomfortable situations within school and with different people and groups of friends. Matty Healy was (and honestly still is) one of the biggest crushes I’ve ever had. I’ve now heard this song live three different times, at three completely different phases of my life. It is a song with so much meaning, and yet one that has grown and evolved with me throughout the decade.

Key lyric… Now everybody's dead And they're driving past my old school And he's got his gun, he's got his suit on She says, 'Babe, you look so cool'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyy3YOpxL2k

Get Well Soon – Ariana Grande

The song… This is the final song on Grande’s 2017 album ‘Sweetener,’ it is a soul ballad with layered vocals, and is inspired by Grande’s personal anxiety and trauma following the May 2017 terrorist attack following her concert in Manchester. In memory of the 22 victims of this attack, there is a 40 second moment of silence at the end of the song.

For me… I am, and have been, a very anxious person for a very long time. This is something I have never really hid away from, but also never felt up to talking openly about. This song manages to describe the feelings associated with anxiety in a way I have never heard any mainstream musician attempt before. Ariana’s concert which was attacked in May 2017, that which inspired this song, immediately followed her concert that my father and sister had attended, and so the whole song and sequence of events is and always has been very close to home for me.

Key lyric…I'm too much in my head, did you notice? (Girl, what’s wrong with you? Come back down)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXU4P6j3TNY

She’s Thunderstorms – Arctic Monkeys

The song… This is the first song from the fourth studio album by arctic monkeys; Suck it and See, released in 2011. It originated when Alex Turner was looking for a new way of complimenting someone. It begins with an Eastern inspired riff and is fairly heavily guitar led, characteristic of this period in the Arctic Monkey’s discography

For me… I’d be lying if I said this isn’t one of my favourite songs of all time. I chose it for this list because it is my favourite song by the arctic monkeys, who are my favourite band. Its subject, Alexa Chung, basically leads the life I wish I had. Even more so at the time this song was written than now. I remember being twelve or thirteen and just wanting someone to write something like this for me. The sheer detail of the lyrics is beautiful and so captivating, they played a huge part in helping me find my love for music in an accessible way. I loved, and still do love, the relationship they had. I feel like it translated so well into his music, and into the popular culture that shaped my teenage years exceptionally well.  

Key lyric…Here is your host, sounds as if she's pretty close When the heat starts growing horns She's thunderstorms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQSQnHh4rPE

[juuheizou]

for the song asks: 1, 4, 8, 11, 12, 14, 27, 28, 34, 39 :D

thank u so much for sending these!! they were fun to answer!!

1. your favorite song

changes a lot but rn is ‘doutte kotonai sympathy’ from akuma no riddle, which i haven’t watched in years but have been samesonging the ost so hard lately

4. a song you haven’t heard in years

u sent me this one at a scary good time bc i haven’t actually heard ‘utsukushikiki zankoku no sekai’ by yoko hikasa (the first snk ending) since i was like 14 or 15 years old but in the last day or two i’ve been thinking, seeing as one of my beloved mutuals has been on a nostalgia trip w snk and i’m working on a set list of anime covers to learn and record, maybe it would be fun to have a nostalgia trip of my own and cover some snk songs, so it’s been on my mind despite how long it’s been.

8. the best song from your favorite album

my favorite album also changes a lot, but rn i've been really feeling ‘scream’ by ozzy osbourne and the best song is ‘soul sucker’ though i also really like ‘let me hear you scream’

11. a song that means a lot to you

i haven’t listened to it in so long. like i was 14 last time i listened to it, and only just now listened to it again to see if it still elicited any feelings and make sure i’m not a liar, but ‘titanium’ as covered by madilyn bailey.

i discovered the cover from an annie leonhardt amv that i can’t find anymore and HAD to perform it for a show my music class at the time was putting on. i got so sick i could barely talk a few days before the show but i had worked so hard on it and wanted to perform it so bad i fought fricking tooth and nail to get better enough to drag myself through the day of the show and spent the entire day downing throat coat and doing everything i could to make my voice as ok as possible. when i actually performed, i thought i sounded so awful but i just kinda kept going bc professionalism and got to the end of the song wanting to cry bc i thought i butchered it in front of my entire school. but then on my way to find somewhere hidden to probably end up doing exactly that, ppl kept stopping me in the hall to tell me i was so good and gave them chills and all kinds of good stuff... i’d performed and even won prizes several times before but it was the first song i rehearsed w a full band somewhere other than my room and the praise from my teacher/super talented classmates made me feel like i didn’t just love to sing but like i had actual promise at it, and that show made me feel like it was worth it to be stubborn and i had the relentlessness to make things happen. and yes re-listening to it did make me feel a hint of that again

12. the last song you listened to

at the time i’m typing this, ‘headlong into carnage’ by cannibal corpse.

i haven’t listened to them since middle school and have yet to dive deep enough to pinpoint when they started making good songs, but i kinda just clicked a song and they did it! they really did it!

14. the last cd/album you bought

oof it was almost a year ago that i bought (as in paid money for the entire album) it but i think it was ‘resurrection through carnage’ by bloodbath

27. one song that starts with each letter of your name

joie de ne pas vivre by napalm death. ugly by nicole dollanganger. dragged out by chelsea wolfe. ephemeral lifespan by gloria morti

from this one, i have learned that not a lot of songs start w ‘j’ and ‘u’

28. two songs with the same/similar titles that you like

this one was really hard (fricking metal and it’s multitude of long complicated song titles that no one would ever imitate) but ‘let them in’ by pvris and ‘let me in’ by blackbriar

34. your favorite acoustic song

‘in between days’ by the cure

39. a song you always sing along to

don’t laugh but anything avril lavigne.

until i could finally have an ipod, i had a discman and her first two albums and that was all i could listen to without a computer. so i have almost all of ‘let go’ and ‘under my skin’ committed to memory. so i both can always sing along to most of those songs and i love belting out avril so much i can’t stop myself. also she’s a v talented singer and her songs are good!!

holy smokes were some of those hard! but that kinda made it satisfying to finally conjure up an answer! thanks again ash! i had fun w these

send me some song asks pls these are so fun

[confringo-]

A Blog About My Feelings on Jesy Leaving Little Mix So That My Mind Will Hopefully Shut Up About It!!

It’s been, like, 21? 22 days? Since Jesy left Little Mix and it’s still got me fucked up. I can’t listen to any of their songs without being covered in grief and it’s honestly gotten out of hand. I’m writing this because I feel like I’ve talked about it to my friends, vented about it EVERYWHERE ELSE except here and it’s all in bite sized pieces and I still cant get over it already. 

And I know that I shouldn’t be over it yet but it’s just...it feels so petty. I understand why it had to happen logically. I’d much rather hear that Jesy left Little Mix to focus on her mental health than hear that Jesy fucking killed herself because it got too much. I watched the documentary. I know that Jesy could’ve done so. I should be happy for her. I should be happy that Little Mix hasn’t disbanded completely. But I’m not. I’m sad. I’m like super sad about it, to the point that I would have outbursts in my lonesome about how I wish Jesy hadn’t left. It’s so pathetic but also healthy, in a way, that I’m not bottling it up and live in constant denial about it. What’s bothering me about it is that I’m focusing so much on the negative aspect of it than I am the positives. Like, the FACT the mere FACT that Little Mix stayed together for NINE FUCKING YEARS and released SIX full studio albums and showed us nothing but unity and friendship and served us vocals for days should be something I should CELEBRATE not MOURN as though it didn’t mean anything. 

I believe this is all only stemming from Little Mix being the first band that I loved this much to have a member leave. 

I’ve listened to plenty of groups over my years and many of them have since disbanded or something to that extent but none of them have affected me the way Little Mix affected me. 

Spice Girls, Destiny’s Child, the Pussycat Dolls, Fifth Harmony, Jonas Brothers, S Club 7, One Direction - listened to them a lot, but when they announced that they were parting ways or when I found out that they parted ways, I didn’t SCREAM and CRY the way I did when I read Little Mix’s tweet. 

Let’s dissect this further: 

Spice Girls/Destiny’s Child/S Club 7 - I was a kid. I didn’t stan people. Out of these three, I was most saddened to hear that S Club 7 was disbanding because they were the first group I bought a CASSETTE TAPE for and would listen to them on every car ride. When I heard it happening, I had other kid things to distract me and other things that caught my attention so I guess that I wasn’t too pressed. Now, I look back fondly at the songs these groups released. Despite the drama, despite whatever happened next, I just thought, hey this was a good song by them, let’s listen to it again and bop. 

I wish I could be like this. It’s been more than a decade but I can’t really relate them to how I feel about Little Mix because while these people were part of my childhood, I didn’t attach myself to them the way I attached to Little Mix in my twenties. These groups have nostalgia pillowing the break. I consumed their content, their art, when I was still a child and had no thoughts other than “nice sounds i love.”

The Pussycat Dolls - If you know, you know. PCD...what a group. I lived for them. I think, out of all of these groups, I stanned PCD the most. They gave a teenage gay like me everything I ever asked for. The bops, the choreography, the lewks. I figured out, right away: Oh, Nicole’s...singing...all of this...? And I didn’t expect much out of them, really? Like, I didn’t live under any illusion that this was anything more than Nicole and the Girls. I was excited for Doll Domination, the second album, because each girl had a solo song on the album and Melody definitely had a few more lines in it, but when they disbanded, I was like It’s Better This Way because, you know, it sounded like being in the band sucked. When I listen to PCD now, I do feel the tiniest pang for the girls. Like, the songs still rock but I’m still thinking like “Nicole let the girls sing!” or like “Oop, let’s listen to Nicole and the Girls again!” instead of referring to them as the Pussycat Dolls. 

That’s why I’m not too pressed with their disbandment. It’s because they weren’t so much a group as they were an act, if that makes a little bit of sense. I loved them but it wasn’t like I expected much out of them, you know? I’m a little pressed about their reformation and hope, HOPE, that Nicole lets the others shine like a proper band instead of letting them all fade into the background. 

Jonas Brothers - Okay. So. I was a Disney Channel bitch as a teenager. I’m not embarrassed. I loved the Jonas Brothers. My favorite was Kevin because I didn’t have to fight anyone for him (you know, except his WIFE). I loved the dynamic, I loved their music, I loved their faces. When they disbanded, I was kinda turning into the angsty teen I was meant to be and I was going through the throes of being a teenager so I was rather too preoccupied with myself to care if the Jonas Brothers were making new music or not. I was also at this point in my life where I’m like “Oh I listen to all kinds of music. My taste spans all kinds of genre and I listen to so many artists, you would not believe” that the Jonas Brothers disbandment didn’t send me to tears. 

Fifth Harmony/One Direction - We all know where this is going. The one member who leaves because they want to go solo. This has happened to plenty of bands/groups before them, and I’m sure they aren’t the last. Here’s the thing with these two. I wasn’t IN it. Like, I listened to like full One Direction albums, and I listen to a lot of Fifth Harmony. But they were more of a background thing for me. I liked them but I didn’t LOVE them, you know? And that’s probably why, when I heard that they were parting ways, I was like, okay. That makes sense for you, I wish you well, and then keep listening to their old songs like it’s nothing. Because I didn’t stan them the full 100%. 

This is all to say that I’ve had bands/groups that I like disband and all for valid reasons. 

Then why, when Jesy leaves Little Mix -  in what could be the most graceful and honest way possible - why am I so sad about it? Why am I so angry? Why am I grieving as though I can never listen to their music ever again? Like it’s right there? Why can’t I just listen to the fucking albums?! 

As I was writing, I realized something: Little Mix is connected to my happiest moments. That’s why it’s so hard for me to reconcile this sadness. It’s because I’ve never been sad when I listen to Little Mix. I listen to them when I want to be in a good mood, and now that’s been soured by Jesy’s departure. 

And why would it be soured by Jesy’s departure? When Jesy’s reasoning for it is mental health. It wasn’t a feud. It wasn’t creative differences. It wasn’t because she wanted to fly solo. She left because she couldn’t handle it anymore and she was doing what was best for her. She is focusing on making herself happy instead of making other people happy. I love that for her. 

I guess I’m angry at the people who made her this way. I’m angry at the people who tore her apart, tore her down, to the point that she wasn’t happy anymore doing what was supposed to love the most doing. I want to kill them. I wish them all the ill in the world and I hope they all suffer miserable lives for what they’ve done to Jesy. That’s how angry I am. Truly. I want to go to each of their homes and kill them for catharsis. 

That’s extreme. And, to the government person reading this, we’re in a pandemic and I don’t have enough money or clout to pull this off. Don’t worry. No massacres are being planned in the making of this dumb blog about feelings. 

Anyway.

It was so unnecessary. So needless. 

What I hate about this is that the girls will continue without Jesy and maybe people are going to start saying that they sound better without her. I almost don’t want Little Mix to succeed because I want everyone to know that they’re much better as a four than a three, which is INCREDIBLY unfair to the other girls and trust that I will be supporting every succeeding performance and album and song that they’ll come out with. It’s just...

I don’t want the haters to be proven right in a way? It’s stupid. It’s so stupid. But that’s how my brain processed this. I also don’t want to prove Jesy’s demons right. I don’t want her to look at Little Mix and be like “Oh they’re better without me” because she made Little Mix special as much as the other girls. I don’t know how to CONVEY that to her in the following months or years. I want her to know, that no matter what, she’s special. She brought something to Little Mix. That her voice was everything. Her look was everything. They all tied it together and that’s what made Little Mix so wonderful. The unity! The cohesiveness! 

I would hate to think that Jesy would watch their next songs and performances and think that she has no place in it anymore and therefore, maybe never ever return, you know? I would hate that. 

I avoided listening or watching any performance when there were only three of them because then I’d be curious about the comments and then the comments will affect me in a weird way and I just don’t want to feel those feelings in YouTube comments. 

I don’t know where I’m going with this anymore. 

Confetti was my favorite album. Out of all of them, Confetti was their peak for me. It’s honestly the first album that I had without any skips. Glory Days had its skips, for sure, and so did LM5, but Confetti. Damn. 

I guess I’m also bitter that I won’t get to hear them sing some of the songs live. Like, we got Break Up Song and Holiday. We got Sweet Melody, kinda, but I’m still bummed that we didn’t get all 4 of them at least once on a live Sweet Melody. 

But I would’ve loved to hear more. Like. Rendezvous. A Mess. Happiness. Not a Pop Song. I would’ve loved to hear those live. Confetti. God. I would’ve loved to see Confetti performed. 

Again. These are all MY feelings. My selfish little feelings about Jesy’s departure. Jesy Nelson doesn’t owe me shit. I don’t own her. I respect her departure. 

It’s just...

It’s just so hard to wrestle these feelings into submission. Now, I see Perrie, Jade, and Leigh posting shit. I see them as a three piece. I listened to a few performances JUST TO GET USED TO IT and I’m so proud of them for continuing but I’m going to miss Jesy so much. So fucking much. 

God. The amount of times I’ve cried writing this. 

These intrusive thoughts are coming in, telling me that the girls are no longer friends, and they’re happier without Jesy, that Jesy will disappear and never be heard from ever again. God I’m going to miss the sound of her voice. Fuck. I’m going to miss their dynamic as a four. 

It’s not going to be the same. No one’s expecting it to be the same. I’m sad. I’m sad that it’s not going to be the same and I’m sad that I won’t hear Jesy’s part of the harmony in new songs again. 

I’m fucking sad and I don’t want to be anymore because Little Mix is so entrenched in my happiness that it’s really fucking up the emotional equilibrium that I struggle to maintain. 

I want to be able to listen to their songs again and celebrate that it even happened at all and not grapple with how I feel about this huge change in something I held so dear for so long. I wish that I had other experiences like this to lean back on and remember that “Hey, you got through this disbandment, you’ll get through this one too!” But I don’t. This is the first departure of a member from a band I loved and it’s really hitting me hard. All I want is for it to stop because I want Jesy to be happy. If that means not being in Little Mix, I should be able to understand and accept that. Why can’t I just accept it? 

Which stage of grief am I on? 

Somewhere between anger and depression. I don’t know how far acceptance is but I want to be there already. Out of everything that I could grieve about, this should be the least of my problems. There are other problems in the world, in my life, that require my energy. I can’t keep spending it on a girl group. The break wasn’t even that fucking bad. 

But I have to remember that I’m allowed to feel sadness. I’m allowed to feel grief. I’m allowed to feel anger. At the very least, this will pass and it will be an easier transition than most. 

I want to hug Jesy. so much. I want her to know that she’s loved and that she brought so much to the group and she’s given me so much joy and that she’s helped people and that she’s still part of Little Mix even though she’s left it. An integral part of Little Mix. And that I will fucking kill everyone who’s wronged her or said anything bad about her with my bear hands if I could. 

That’s all I have to say right now. Fuckin. To the Mixer reaching this to the end, thank you. I hope you feel better too. Here’s a virtual hug: (virtual hug). We’ll get through this. For the girls, we’ll get through this. 

[meibemeibelline]

highlights from that 32k word doc i wrote when i marathoned gazette’s songs (2002-2007)

PART 2 | PART 3

Some quick notes:

This is a combo of thoughts on music, lyrics and sometimes just funny things I found while I was hurriedly typing at 11pm listening to these songs. Not every song will be featured in these, sorry

At times I directly quote translations and when I do I’ll specify who I’m quoting, but just so you know first they are all either Defective Tragedy, Heresiarchy or Trauma Radio

Also, I’m planning on writing some longer essay-type things with these notes so there might be some things I skip over (such as a recurring theme in their songs) bc I want to use them elsewhere

CONTENT WARNING FOR LYRIC DISCUSSIONS: suicide (Ganges ni Akai Bara). i will bold the title so you can skip it if you want. it’s one paragraph long

HHHH this is already 2k words but anyway hope u enjoy my ramblings

 “I’d have to take a break from feminism to appreciate [Akai One Piece]”

“His delivery is still highly emotional and [Okuribi] overall is really emotional. Like the fact you can still hear and FEEL the sheer bittersweet feelings (mostly sadness) of someone you love passing away is like...really telling of 2002 gazette’s potential”

(Doro Darake no Seishun) “Bitch Aoi and Uruha are serving LOOKS like the red tartan blazer with the black shorts???? And Uruha with the red tank top and the pleather skirt with the garters THE OTHER GIRLS WISH THEY WERE HIM”

(Haru ni Chirikeri, Mi wa Kareru de Gozaimasu) “it’s about a flower that’s in love with a one-winged butterfly, and i imagine the point is that even though they sing songs for each other, they’re just so different that they don’t understand each other and they can’t be together. and they’re just...fated to end, and maybe try again next spring. and you can see that in human relationships too.”

“Akuyuukai i think is such a significant turning point musically like i just FELT a significant shift where they were really painting with their music and having it be more closely connected with the lyrics”

“[Linda Candydive Pinky Heaven] is a happy and fun song!! it’s doro darake no seishun’s cuter and cooler older sister. this also gave me a lot of serotonin and i’m glad this is a classic. it’s also this band’s first fan song (or closest to a fan song) and i think it’s quite meaningful because they were picking up as a band and were starting to really connect with people which is always so so great. and i think it’s cool that many songs before this were fun songs to jam out to but linda is specially DEDICATED to that. it’s so carefree and i think like...this is the exact thing many musicians love about performing and what fans love about concerts. it’s the escapism and just the SPACE to be yourself and have fun. it’s so freeing.”

(Black Spangle Gang) “I can’t believe GazettE were doing 2005 Miyavi before Miyavi did 2005 Miyavi”

(The Murder’s TV) “I think it’s cool how playful they make it sound -> like a creepy show that kids might see and the last chorus is pretty good. it’s a bop AND THE BASS AND GUITAR SOLOS SLAP. The lyrics are really interesting too and I LOVE the way Ruki embodies them with his voice”

“BITCHHH MAD MARBLE HELL VISION SLAPS. THIS IS WHAT I CALL NOISE MUSIC!!!!!!!”

“The composition on Kawareta Haru, Kawaneru Haru is actually SO good (and the costumes are fucking ICONIC). And Ruki is STILL getting better at singing. The chorus is melodic and the effects on the guitar just go so well like I think the others (probably since Akuyuukai actually) have been really getting to play with all sorts of effects on their instruments to make this new variety of sounds which is super rad. AOI SOLO SUPERIORITY BTW.”

“Indie gazette really love their key changes in the bittersweet songs in the last choruses.”

“Comparing the lyrics of [Sumire] to many of the last ‘goodbye’ songs, there’s a lot more imagery and scene-painting as opposed to like, just direct thoughts and feelings. And that’s really Ruki developing as a writer, I think, as his lyrics are becoming more subtle and open to different interpretations which is super cool! Like this is really him finding his voice and I know he’s going to be doing more of this over the years.”

“ANATA NO TAME NO KONO INOCHI SLAPS BUT THE LYRICS ARE FUCKED. LIKE, I KNEW THIS FROM THE BEGINNING BUT I REALLY WISH I WAS JARED, 19.”

“I LOVE MISEINEN SO FUCKING MUCHHHHH. I can only begin to imagine just HOW significant this song is for Ruki. This is him acknowledging his weaknesses and his flaws, looking around him and seeing the people he has, he writes about what he’s afraid of, he writes about how he’s going to change and move forward, what is MOST VALUABLE to him. This is A LOT. This is A LOT for anyone. It is a song about GROWTH – how he wants to grow yet is terrified of change, but even so is going to do it with the help of his support system. This is EVERYTHING. It’s raw and brave and so very beautiful. It has Wakaremichi and BEST FRIENDS energy. These three songs are best friends. And also like, for the last couple of releases Ruki’s been doing lots of wordplay and metaphors and using euphemisms, but this set of lyrics is just completely honest and STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART. Like, there ARE metaphors and symbols but he’s talking COMPLETELY about himself and his FEELINGS. I get emo whenever I listen to this song.”

(Carry?) “Apparently it’s about Frankenstein’s monster, so I guess this is another Concept Song. So this explains the flat vocals – the monster is undead but also…very sad and confused about what it is and its place in the world. ISN’T THAT ALL OF US ON SOME LEVEL…HAHA…”

“Zakurogata no Yuutsu is that 2010 fb meme where someone sees their partner right before going into a heart surgery only to wake up to find they’re gone and the doctor is like ‘omg who do you think gave you the heart😔’”

“WHAT THE FUCK WHY DID I SLEEP ON HANAKOTOBA. THIS IS AOI SONG SUPERIORITY. THE GUITAR SOLO IS ALSO GORGEOUS. Also love what he did with the melody getting higher in the end when the narrator questions the existence of the love they lost. AND THEY DIDN’T RESOLVE THE FUCKING CHORD PROGRESSION OHHH MY GODDDD BECAUSE “I’LL WITHER AWAY, NEVER KNOWING THE ANSWER” //THROWS. THESE GENIUSES. THIS IS THE BEST SONG ON THE ALBUM SO FAR AND THAT’S👏ON👏AOI👏SUPERIORITY👏Also I know that, literally, Hanakotoba is a flower on the side of the road but LISTEN. This is a soul that just wants love...This is the anthem for us lonely invisible bitches <3 This song has the MOST yearning. Thank u Aoi for my life. Like he is TRULY the composer with the most emotionality.”

(Tokyo Shinjuu) “I LOVEEEE THE BASS. This has a very old, classic Japanese style and it’s just…so good. You can really hear it in the melody. Also there’s just something SO feminine about it and I KNOW it’s that classic Japanese sound and like…god I love this gender bending with music. I adore the guitars too I think there’s such a good balance between them.”

(Shichigatsu no Youka) “I love how the lyrics are between sections too – the most emotional parts are in the big, emotional chorus, and the verses are more mellow when the narrator is sort of…more detached and Not Crying… The guitar melodies are really pretty and the solo is just GORGEOUS. It’s such a bittersweet song as well (god GazettE just do bittersweet EXTREMELY WELL) like bruh…already being sad over a breakup and OH DOUBLE WHAMMY THEY’VE MOVED ON like. Ruki sweetie I’m so sorry.”

[a rant about how I know Saraba is well-meaning and is about the peace and unity of a nation and is EXPLICITLY anti-war which I can definitely appreciate but my Chinese ass was just NOT having the whole painting the Japanese army as heroes deal]

(Reila) “Ruki’s vocals are SO GOOD here. ALSO YELLING AT THE BASS AND KICK DRUM BEFORE THE SECOND VERSE WITH THE PIANO. THE WAY THE KICK DRUM PANS THRU THE EARS. MOTHERFUCKER. AND THEN TO COME IN WITH THE GUITAR SOLO HOW DARE!!!!! YOU PLAY WITH MY EMOTIONS LIKE THIS!!!!!”

“COCKROACH SLAPS. Love that he reframes being compared to a cockroach as like, resilient (I’ll never break through -> I want to believe I’ll break through), and he’s embracing his crudeness and taking a huge dose of PHUCEMOL.” (Cr: Defective Tragedy)

(Sugar Pain) “God Aoi’s intro though………..I HATE THE BREATHING SO MUCH. No I’m actually really angry right now why is it actually good. YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO BE GOOD.” (I then had to stop after the first chorus for obvious reasons)

“Idk why the first thing I thought of when Bite to All started was ‘yeehaw’…[Also] I hate how I know exactly who is screaming at the end and when.”

“BTS 🤝 GazettE Gunshots in songs”

[My personal interpretation of Nausea & Shudder is not that it’s about the pressure of being true to oneself in the face of success, but rather that success itself is not what Ruki expected it to be and he’s figuring out how to navigate that and move forward. It is also just a really good set of lyrics.]

“There’s just a hopelessness that’s so profound in [Bath Room]. Like if depression was a song IT WOULD SOUND A LOT LIKE THIS… Up until this point this is the Darkest song AND WE’RE ONLY GONNA GET DARKER FROM HERE *sweats in DIM*”

“I love these unsaid words Ruki leaves in the booklets. Adds layers and messages for the listener (usually of hope)”

(Silly God Disco) “After reading the lyrics I love this song soo much more. Like it’s actually really nice to think about dancing and living life because you have rock music and it makes you happy. Also the FUNK. The flavour. Not only that, but the way Ruki SWEARS he will live happily, without fear, and always moving past pain and towards freedom and glory. And he INVITES the listener with him. This is just SO nice.”

“I think it’s interesting that like…for an album that is sort of Known to be depressing as hell, there are quite a lot of songs about resilience and just…living and moving forward. Depending on what the rest of the albums are about, NIL might actually be, weirdly, the one with the most hope in it.”

(Worthless War) ““Do you shoot first so you won’t get hurt? / Do you call that sort of thing ‘justice’” damn Worthless War spilled. This sounds like a whole lot of anxiety surrounding war, and a very strong criticism against the government for caring more about power than people. Even though violence is despair, he also says that this age of political tension and FEAR is also despair. And he is correct. Ruki: ALSO THE EARTH IS DYING???” (Cr: Defective Tragedy)

(Rich Excrement) ““Lyric killer is erectile dysfunction” + “Biters should check it out too” -> you’re a limp dick who rips off other people’s work I AM SCREAMINGGGGGG.”” (Cr: Defective Tragedy)

(Crucify Sorrow) “The main metaphor here is someone who is an insect with a broken shell – an empty person. With depression, probably…And I cannot help but think about Utsusemi, in which he uses this EXACT metaphor to describe himself and his own depression, his loneliness and his desire to disappear. Was this a coincidence??🤔”

(GANGES NI AKAI BARA) “I really like this song – music and lyrics both. Like even though it’s sad that the girl was in a lot of pain, kills herself and is condemned by her church, the narrator bringing her to Ganges and doing a sacred ritual for her so that she can find salvation is actually really really kind and meaningful??? Not only because it’s an act of kindness but also because the pain she was experiencing was emotional/mental (with the constant tsu-tsu-tsura-tsura-tsurai), salvation could relieve her soul from exactly that.” (Apparently Ruki said the narrator is Buddhist but in the context of the song Hindu makes more sense, so I’m just going with that)

(Calm Envy) ““If you could love even these words I’ve thrown your way / I could keep trusting only you as you stand in front of me / It hurts every time you bring up the past you’ve suddenly shown me / I want to love even that empty space where I don’t exist / I’ll wipe away my tears so you wouldn’t notice them / So don’t smile in front of me anymore than this” – SHUT UP THIS SHIT IS REALLY UNCONDITIONAL BUT THEY’RE TIRED OF BEING HURT. GOODBYE. GOODBYEEEEE.” (Cr: Heresiarchy)

(Circle of Swindler) “Ruki writing "how much do you buy us for? let's negotiate [the] value of pain" in circle of swindler to demand respect and acknowledgement of his worth from the higher ups of the music industry because it's the music born from his pain that's making their money is Quite sexy” (Cr: Defective Tragedy)

“[Stacked Rubbish] is about the baggage we have, the baggage we give each other, the Errors we make precisely because we are People who have souls. I think the point (of this album being like an anthology) is that everyone could find something in this album that speaks to them.”

[doomedandstoned]

Chattanooga’s Dope Skum Drop Gritty First Spin

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

Stompin' southern stoner riffs and great big beats collide with punkish vocals in 'Tanasi' (2021). It's the debut EP from Chattanooga's DOPE SKUM. These guys know it's about to get hot as we transition from winter to spring and on into summer, too. Oh those muggy days in Tennessee! What I miss most about spending time in the Deep South are the cicada at sunset, the smell of honeysuckle during evening strolls, and those damned thunderstorms -- the kind that loom large and loud and'll put the fear of Zeus right in ya.

So new that they're not yet in the oft-referenced Encyclopaedia Metallum, Dope Skum attracted my attention earlier this month when we met on Instagram -- a platform I avoided for years, but have finally come to embrace, if for no better reason than these kinds of spontaneous encounters. They're another child born of the Great Lockdown, a two-piecer with Cody Landress-Gibson on guitar and voice and James Silber on drums. Like many of the duos we've visited recently in this humble rag, Dope Skum bring impressive heft that could easily fool the common bystander into believing they're dang near twice the size.

Cody Landress-Gibson of Dope Skum

Drawn together by their affinity for punk rock and the heaviest of metal, Dope Skum have a distinctive, if eccentric sound that kinda reminds me of Portland's LáGoon, at least in the crooning department. If you look at the history of sludge metal, bands of this kind typically start out as lo-fi punk or thrash and just get slower, meaner, deeper, and heavier over time (I'm thinking of an outfit just one state over, NC's Buzzov*en).

Dope Skum describe their sound as "nastier than an old timer's moonshine mash," which made me wince. Standing on a "rock-solid foundation of sludgy stoner metal with a notable punky inflection" the band is influenced by the likes of Weedeater, Iron Monkey, Eyehategod, and Toke. This is rude, crude, raucous terrain we're entering, people. And I'm sure the guys are just itching like an ankle full of chiggers to take the act to the stage, if they haven't gotten busted for an illegal house show by now.

James Silber of Dope Skum

'Tanasi' (2021) is their 5-track debut, and while trying to look up the meaning of the word -- temporarily mistaking it for the Japanese "Tansai" (which I thought might be a reference to some to some "lightly colored" strain of weed) -- it finally hit me that Tanasi might be referring how folks generations deep in Chattanooga pronounce Tennessee, with characteristic Southern drawl. As if the state-shaped logo on the album cover wasn't clue enough. Truth be told, Tanasi is actually the Native American/Cherokee word that Tennessee is derived from.

Dope Skum are only happy to let the unique character of their surroundings and its fascinating, tangled history leak into the songcraft too, which the guys quip, "recalls simplistic fiddle tunes of yore." They go on describe their first opus to us:

Exuding a gritty DIY ethos and an anti-establishment attitude, 'Tanasi' is deliberately rough around the edges, and doesn’t play by any particular set of rules. There is no ulterior motive, no grand artistic vision. Dope Skum simply play engaging music that appeals to their interests and their roots.

I can definitely get behind that. If you like riffs that can really rumble, honest lyrics delivered with vocals that sting like an onary hornet's nest, and rhythms that swing wide and heavy with stomping Southern swagger, you'll be saying Tanasi in no time! "We wanted to try and create something that was southern, punky, and sludgy," the band concludes. "I think we accomplished that."

Look for the EP to drop this weekend in digital format. I'm sure if you guys dig it, 'twill find its way to a suitable label for a physical release in the near future. I'm currently stuck on a loop between "Anxiety" and "Chickamauga" as my tracks of choice. Doomed & Stoned is pleased to give you a first listen to Dope Skum's Tanasi and let you find a few favs of your own.

Give ear...

Tanasi EP by Dope Skum

Dope Skum Take Us On Tour Of 'Tanasi'

How did Dope Skum become a thing and what tools did you use to create 'Tanasi' (2021)?

Dope Skum started in late-2020 with myself, Cody Landress-Gibson, on guitar and James Silber on drums. Our gear really isn't anything to write home about. On the EP, I played a Harley Benton DC Junior with a single P90 pickup running through a Rat ProCo, Orange Fur Coat Fuzz, and EarthQuaker Devices Ghost Echo at times into a Marshall MG50CFX. James plays a Yamaha drum set with PA Meinl Classics cymbals. It's pretty "working class" gear, nothing too fancy.

What's the story behind the new record?

James and I started jamming and both had a pretty solid idea of the sound we were going for. We wanted something in the same vein as Weedeater, but maintain the ability to throw in elements of different influences we have. I had already written some riffs, and we threw them together to what became the EP. We recorded, mixed, and mastered everything ourselves at my house/garage in Chattanooga.

We'd love a guided tour through the new EP. Can you give us insight into the themes explored in these five monster tracks?

Feast of Snakes: The title was inspired by a Harry Crews novel, but the song doesn't pull from the novel at all. It's essentially an anti-authoritarian song. Politicians, kings, people in power tend to be snakes in the grass. There are also some religious metaphors used, as well, throughout the song.

Anxiety: The idea behind this one lyrically and musically was to try and put that emotion/feeling into a musical context. It's why the lyrics don't start until the second time into the verse riff. You're waiting, and you know you need to act, but something is just holding you back -- you just feel kind of stuck.

Chickamauga: This one is all instrumental. I had written the main riff that is throughout the song one night and brought it to James at a practice. We really didn't know where to go with it, so for the EP we recorded it live and just let whatever came up get included on the EP. I named it "Chickamauga" after the second bloodiest battle in the Civil War that took place just south of Chattanooga. With the build-up in the song, it's kind of like a soldier waiting for the battle to take place, then the chaos, then silence either from surviving the melee or dying. It's probably one of the tracks that will stick out the most because it doesn't really fit the "genre."

The Levee: I wrote this song with the thought of losing someone you love, the death of a close partner or family member. That one person you feel like you can't live without. I also love the riffs in this song. They groove well and the ending riff is super fun to play.

Mountain Cur: The final track on the EP is essentially about a lone wolf or stray dog that roams the mountains and hills. The intention was to use it as a metaphor for loneliness. This dog is all alone and has no one. He's committing these acts of violence as cry out for help and companionship. Don't know if it comes across this way, but that was the intention! Also, at the beginning is audio from a scene in Lawless (2012), which is a film about the Bondurant brothers who were outlaws moonshiners in rural Virginia in the '20s during Prohibition.

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