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greenninjagal-blog · 4 years ago

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Deja vu pt4

Hey guys! Sorry for the long wait! Who’s ready for 19 pages of Remus angst? If you’re new around [Here] is the first part, and [Here] is the previous chapter for those who want a refresher!

(To that one person who asked if Remus’s vision would get any clearer: I am so sorry.)

Summary: Remus has been able to see the future since he was eight years old. He thinks that maybe his mother would have loved him a bit more if he hadn’t. (aka, Remus calls home.)

Words: 7879

TW: attempted suicide, blood, death, bad parenting

Read on Ao3 || My General Writing Masterlist

By the time he’s twenty one and four months, Remus is no stranger to cross country traveling. He’s been all over the country, all over the back roads, the main roads, the highways and the interstates. He’s had paper maps from greasy gas stations stuffed in his go-bag since he was eighteen, and keeps souvenirs of his travels in the form of pins and buttons he’s clipped on the shoulder strap.

He had made it a habit to never travel with a plan. He had chosen directions on a whim, following signs when he felt the need to sleep somewhere, and picked up cars from dealerships when he had been too lazy to use his casino-breaking powers to get the cash to pay for it legally.

Travelling is something Remus has always been familiar with. The freeing feeling of pressing his foot to the floor and blowing through endless cornfields, of burning more gas than strictly necessary, of getting himself lost on backroads without cell service-- He loves driving with the windows down and the long distances. During the billions of times that he had slept in whatever car he was using, he had enjoyed climbing on the hood and staring up at the stars until sleep dragged him away again.

Travelling with Dee, however, is something else entirely.

At first it had been different just because there were two of them: the presence of another person made him feel the need to talk to fill the silence, made him actually have to answer the “where are we going” question, made him unsure of if what he was doing was the right thing to do.

(Not the morally right thing-- no that he knew the answer of. He meant the right thing as in the thing that Dee wanted him to do. He imagined in those first few weeks he acted a lot like a pet dog, always checking back to Dee to see that he was doing good, and wagging his metaphorical tail whenever the Shapeshifter gave him that delicious validation.)

Travelling with Dee almost means the death of sleeping in the car they were using. The Shapeshifter believes him when he says that they aren’t gonna be attacked in the night or the police aren’t going to come knocking on their windows, but Dee, as much as he tries to pretend he’s new to riches and money, is a fucking elitist.

“Why sleep in the backseat when there is a hotel with a bed and breakfast right there?” He used to ask, sometimes still asks, never needs to ask anymore. “Why act like a ruffian without a home when I can live like a king?”

And, well, Remus had looked into his eyes for too long and gotten lost in the depths of them. Dee was pretty, you see? And Remus’s stubbornness was a learned trick that Dee knew how to circumnavigate.

Travelling with Dee means hotels with beds and fake names in a log book. It means showers with mini bottles of shampoo and crisp covers freshly cleaned and watching the stars from the balconies while Dee smelled his money (again). It means complimentary breakfasts that aren’t super great, but they’re something that Remus hadn’t had in a while and sharing a room with another person who didn’t trust him not to run off with all their money, counting the near silent inhales and exhales, and trying not to think about stupid things like “family vacations” or “Just share the bed, Roman, its one night!”

It means no more stealing cars, because Dee rations out and puts aside money in the most atrocious order-- something that he won’t describe to Remus beyond “you’re cute, but not that cute” no matter how many times Remus asks, or when he asks. Somehow he always has the money for a new car and food and a hotel room and anything else they saw and wanted for whatever reason.

(“Not that one,” Remus had said, grabbing Dee’s arm before he could even look in the direction of the car in the lot. And Dee blinked but didn’t ask any questions. He didn’t pick out any other silver sedans and Remus managed to make it all the way to the bathroom before vomiting his guts up. Funny, isn’t it? That he can still see blood on a bumper and hear the screams of ambulance sirens thirteen fucking years later?)

Some things are the same, though.

Remus takes note of them as he drives calmly through the evening, like he used to in the four years where he had between running away from everything he’d known and running into Dee’s arms. The air still feels nice with the windows down, his eyes still burn when the opposite traffic forgets to turn off their high beams, the radio is still soft and soothing and plays along to his heartbeat. Dee’s still curled up in the passenger side seat, wearing a fresh pastel peach button up tucked into black dress pants and dress shoes bought straight from the rack.

He’s still cute like this, vulnerable, with scales on display and his seatbelt imprinting a line on his opposite cheek. There’s a duffel bag of stolen money at his feet, all counted and tagged in his pocket notebook that he never lets Remus flip through. In the backseat are two more duffel bags with just Remus’s atrocious half of the money and another couple of suitcases that contain their material possessions.

Something stirs in Remus’s gut at the sound of Dee’s soft snores. He really is asleep, really does trust Remus not to drive them into a guard rail or off a cliff or into another car. He really trusts that Remus hasn’t been hiding a switchblade in his sleeve, just waiting for the right moment to plunge it into Dee’s throat before making an abstract art masterpiece out of his blood. He really trusts Remus not to park somewhere on the shoulder and take all the money they have between them and disappear in the night without a trace.

He trusts Remus.

And he doesn’t have a clue how much that means.

Well, maybe he’s guessed a little. After all, Remus still gets that surprised look on his face when Dee actually listens to him, still finds himself rolling that purple coin from the Basilisk Casino that he’s kept, still gets a little shaky when he tells certain futures because this is it, this is gonna be the time where Dee says he’s stupid and crazy and dumb and he’s not gonna listen--

Trust was a hard thing to come by after Remus turned eight. How can you trust the crybaby that starts sobbing every time someone gets a little scratch? How can you trust the psycho kid who needs medication to go to school? How can you trust Roman’s Weirdo Brother when he says he can see the future like some sideshow circus attraction?

But Dee trusts him enough to keep travelling with him, enough to keep robbing banks with him, enough to let down his glamour and show his real self while he’s sleeping.

It's all well and good and fine.

Remus wishes he trusted himself the way Dee trusts him.

The music playing is still something that Dee had picked out hours before, classical and Remus doesn’t hate it necessarily, but he did turn it down so slow that the engine is louder than those stupid violins. Remus has an appreciation for people who find the screeching strings pleasant rather than just annoying, he swears. But the rumbling of the engine, the bump of every uneven bit of road, the slow winding turns is a familiar comforting melody.

Home, Remus knows, is more of the road than any building he’s ever been in. It’s more of the feeling of Dee’s hand in his over the console, more of the smell of pine tree air fresheners mixed with new car, than any concrete solid place he’s ever been.

Which is silly, maybe. Remus thinks if he squeezes his eyes closed really hard he can still picture the layout of the house he and Roman lived in. (Not “home”, not “the place he grew up in” and he definitely didn’t grow up in there-- because it wasn’t until he was seventeen and sleeping in gas station bathrooms in two hour spurts that he learned how the world really was.)

His mother really tried, Remus thinks. She really tried to be a good person, a good mother, a good role model. She made sure they cleaned their rooms and taught them how to do the laundry. She made sure he brushed his teeth and was fed and healthy and smil--

Listen when he--

Helped him take his med--

She tried, okay. Remus thinks that if he had been a normal child he might have grown up happy. He thinks that if she had had any other son to twin with Roman she would have been a fantastic Mom. He thinks that if he hadn’t gotten his power at eight fucking years old he would have been able to articulate what the fuck was going on and they might have had a chance.

Then he wonders what the hell they would have had “a chance” at.

And then he gets angry about himself even thinking about it and---

---drives his car directly into the guardrail. Killing himself instantly with the force of the side collision and the air bad while Dee gasps for life he desperately was clinging too and the car that had been behind them for three exits screeches to a stop a dozen yards ahead of them and with passengers scrambling from their pickup truck screaming for help---

---drives his car directly----

And Remus keeps driving on the quiet road, switching lanes so he’s in the middle lane rather than the side one.

Its not a good night.

Well in all honestly it hasn’t been a good day either. They had spent most of it driving and Remus hadn’t meant to be quiet, but his thoughts had been so loud he forgot that not everyone could hear them. They felt like screams, like a blow horn directly into his ear drums, like his brain was being torn apart with each and every fire of a neuron.

Thinking hurt. He hated to do it.

Dee must have picked up on it, must have taken note of his change in attitude since that morning when he had grabbed the car keys off the dresser and hoisted their bags into the car. He had asked once, Remus thought, maybe. It would have been out of character for him not to ask what Remus was doing with the keys, but if he had asked he had only done it one time.

And Remus hadn’t answered it and Dee hadn’t asked again.

He also hadn’t asked where they were going. Remus thinks that was blessing, a mercy, a silent kindness that he was too selfish to even say thank you for. He didn’t know where he was driving to, just that he had blown through a full tank and a half and somewhere over ten hours of driving and that they had crossed timezones again.

And the concept of timezones had made him angry enough to slam his foot to the floor and nearly run a blue minivan off the road entirely.

He switches hands he’s steering with, flexing and stretching his digits to the rhythm of his heartbeat.

There’s four hours now.

And Remus knows this because even if he hadn’t graduated highschool he knew how to read a clock. Which was what he had been doing all day: watching the speedometer and watching the clock and watching his blood pressure rise with every mile he drove.

There’s four hours between them now. Which means nine o’clock for him, which means the dim sky, which means the peaks of the faint stars through the grey cloudy sky, the closed mom-and-pop shops and the dwindling number of other cars-- which means that everything around him currently is not the same thing for someone who is four hours behind them.

Dee is asleep, shifting tiredly, when Remus, grinds his teeth together so hard and violently and angrily.

His skin feels wrong, too tight, too small. It feels like someone else and he’s only borrowing it. It twists around his lungs, constricting around him like a python and stealing every breath from his chest and getting smaller with every inhale.

His legs burn with a restless energy and his eyes hurt from driving for so long and he’s hungry.

The radio fuzzes as he drives, as they reach the end of the station's signal range, as the violins finally die and leaves them with just static. The noise is grating in a way that Remus can’t quite place, something more annoying than the screeching of his own thoughts that won’t shut up. He reaches blindly for the power button, trying not to take his eyes off the road because he doesn’t want to plow them into the back end of the SUV they’ve been trailing behind for the better part of fifty miles.

The radio goes off.

Remus’s thoughts do not.

The cloudy sky makes it darker than it actually is, making him turn on his headlights and make him growl at the lane reflectors he comes across every so often. The words on the signs might as well be written in Greek because Remus doesn’t bother reading them at all.

Mostly.

He tries not to.

But there’s one that spells out “RESTSTOP” and it gouges its phantom fingers in Remus’s brain, refusing to leave him alone after he sees it. He drives and he tells himself it's because they haven’t eaten all day, because Dee probably needs to use the restroom, because he needs a stretch. Dee hasn’t complained at all, you know? Remus owes him a little bit of a stop. Maybe they can look for a fancy hotel with a penthouse edition and get himself drunk on the minibar delights.

That’s all.

It hasn’t nothing to do with the four hour time gap.

Dee doesn’t wake even when he pulls into a well lit parking spot. There’s a handful of other vehicles in the lot: a deep green hatchback with two bikes strapped to the top, a jeep with no doors and a lot of mud, a group of sixish motorcycles and the owners of them standing nearby talking quietly. He counts at least seven eighteen wheelers resting for the hour all with a collection of name brands and graffiti on the backs.

Remus puts their own car in park and sits back, taking it all in.

He’s no stranger to travelling, hasn’t been for a long time. At twenty one years and four months old he’s no longer scared of the dark and certainly not scared of going to a public restroom. The signs clearly mark eating areas, restrooms, the dark, creepy, not-at-all well lit path into the woods for those who need to stretch and want to be murdered by psycho crazy forest clowns. There’s vending machines that take credit cards for sodas and packaged foods and Remus even spots one selling cheap portable phone chargers.

There’s a payphone booth.

Three actually.

None of them are in use, currently.

Remus looks back at the clock in their car-- its a quarter past nine-- and wishes that he couldn’t do math so well in his head. Maybe if he hadn’t been able to count he would have been able to take the stupid urge by is scrawny neck and throw it out the window while he drove right on by. Maybe if he hadn’t been able to keep track of days so well he would have been able to ignore the date. Maybe if he hadn’t been so great at counting he could have been better at something else, anything else, something normal.

She had tried, hadn’t she?

So Remus should have been thankful, grateful, happy at least about that, right? It was his fault that he hadn’t been able to figure out that his visions were telling the future until a year later, until the doctors told him it was all in his head, until his own mother had decided he was making it up. She had listened to him those first few times, listened and reassured him, and held him close when he couldn’t breathe from the crippling fear that Roman was going to die. She had weathered each of eight-year-old Remus’s breakdowns with the patience of a saint.

And he still hadn’t been able to be that perfect son for her.

“Take your meds, Remus,” She had still told him when he was sixteen and had stopped crying when he watched her cross the parking lot without looking. “Take your meds and you’ll get better.” She had said even though that wasn’t what the meds did for people who actually took them. The meds hadn’t been the glue to piece him-- or anyone-- back together. They just reminded people of how their pieces fit without scratching and breaking and shattering even more.

And Remus hadn’t even needed them back then, because his problem hadn’t been like anyone else's.

It hadn’t been delusions and hallucinations in his head. It hadn’t been him going crazy, it hadn’t been him losing himself.

She had tried though. To be a good mother. To love him and all his….quirks.

“I don’t need you!” Roman had said. Very loudly, very openly, very angrily. And Remus thinks about that day a lot, often, all the goddamn time. Because they had been arguing all the way up the stairs, had been fighting verbally and their mother, their mom, Mom, had been just below them in the kitchen making dinner-- or maybe it had been a dessert, baking? Or just messing around in the kitchen. She had been there.

And they had gotten in trouble for arguing much quieter before.

Remus thinks about that day. He thinks about the vision of Roman dying by his own hand, of the blood and the gore and then fluttering pulse and the concept of a soul leaving the body. He thinks about how his parents would have come running the moment they heard Roman scream in pain.

He thinks.

Maybe he thinks too much.

And maybe one day he’d get the courage to ask himself the big looming question: Had she loved him? Or had she loved the concept of him?

Today wasn’t, hasn’t been, isn’t that day.

It’s nine thirty, here, at this rest stop somewhere in Oregon, where Remus is clawing his fingers on his thighs and letting his unevenly chewed nails catch on the holes in his fishnets. Its nine thirty here on the day where Remus is twenty one and four months old and staring at a payphone like it was about to ring all by itself. Its nine thirty one and Remus is thinking too much, too loudly, not enough.

It must be around five thirty for her. Right in the middle of dinner. Or after. Maybe she’s doing the dishes under scalding water that boils her hands right off. Maybe the dinner was poisoned and she’s clawing at her throat right now. Maybe she went out for the evening and got hit by a car when crossing the street.

Remus knows he could check. He doesn’t.

Because his skin is already itching and his breath is too hot and he wants to cry but he’s too old to be crying over things like this, just like his mom has said a thousand times over.

He wonders if she would believe him if he told her how many times she had cried over Roman, how many times she had frozen at the sight of her precious baby boy going still and silent, how many times she fell to the ground and clutched at his body screaming her sobs like there was a chance any god out there would hear her anguish and give her son back.

Like she had only one to love and cherish.

She had tried.

Remus wants to laugh so badly it hurts. The urge itself rips through his body, shredding his organs with a razorblade and filling his lungs with fluids followed and squirming its way up his throat inch by inch with a determination Remus hasn’t seen in himself since that gas station four years ago where he saw himself jump in front of an eighteen wheeler and felt his insides go splat! for the first time.

Remus wants to laugh, because she had tried, and it hadn’t been enough and Remus still---

He still---

Remus pulls the keys out of the ignition and throws them in the cupholder next to the sleeping Dee. He exchanges it for his wallet, which had seen far better days and been handled far nicer, but that’s beside the point. His driver’s license is overdue but nothing short of a nuclear bomb will get him back to the state he had once lived in-- he skips over it and the various rechargeable cards he had picked up over the years (Starbucks, Seven-Eleven, a Techron Advantage Card he got for fun and never actually used because Dee always paid for gas) and goes straight for the cash.

They’re all large bills. He takes a fifty.

Dee murmurs softly as he unbuckles his seat belt and flies into a wide blown panic when Remus opens the door. Quicker than Remus thought was possible for a guy to move, he springs over the dividing console and grabs Remus’s arm with-- OW FUCK DEE -- claws.

Remus yanks back on instinct, throwing himself against the already open door and tumbles into the empty parking spot next to them. His arm howls with pain, with an agony, with a cacophony that drowns out all his other thoughts for the moment.

The blood is red.

Remus is twenty one and four months old and his body wracks with such a vehement hatred for the color it makes the rest of his blood, the blood in his veins, the blood in his body, his blood boil. Its red, and he hates red, has hated red, will forever hate red.

Because red was the color of Roman’s favorite jacket when they were eight, the color of Roman’s shoes that he left out on the stairs too many times, the color of Roman’s blood too.

Red had been the color staining the bumper of a silver sedan, the color of a broken snow globe hitting the carpet, the color of Remus’s insides on the freeway, and the underside of an eighteen wheeler, and the bottom of the motel bathroom tub.

“Remus!” Dee yells from inside the car, morphing, changing, panicking in a way that is not like him at all. He clambers into the driver's seat looking too pale for a guy whose skin tone could be any color he wanted it to be. “I’m sor-- I didn’t know we ha--- Oh my god I’m sorry!”

He grabs all the napkins they have squirreled away in the crevices of the car, then the half empty tissue pack from the last time Remus had decided to check to see if the line in McDonalds was going to be long, then a scarf Dee had bought before he remembered that it was warm enough to cook eggs on the sidewalk in most of the places they went to. He spills out of the car even less gracefully than Remus had, bubbling up apologies like his mouth was a fountain. There’s an emotion wafting off him, something that taints the air and makes the hair on Remus’s neck stand on edge.

“It’s okay,” Remus whispers.

“You’re not okay!” Dee frantically responds, turning a stripe of his hair blonde and completely missing the part where Remus did not say he himself was okay.

Dee’s fingers feel like bugbites up and down his arm, like cigarette ends being jammed into his flesh, like he was the cake and Dee was placing enough candles in him to make up for every birthday his mother had missed celebrating.

“Its okay,” Remus says, tugging his arm away before Dee can turn him into a house fire that burns down the whole block.

“Remus--”

Remus stands up. “I need to make a phone call.”

Remus doesn’t need to make a phone call. He probably shouldn’t make a phone call.

“Remus!” Dee says standing up too. He’s taller this week, today, now, than he’s been before. He’s got an inch on Remus, and he uses that inch to look down at him and breathe like every inhale might be his last. There’s blood on his hands from trying to mop up where Dee had clawed him. Remus can feel the warmth of his blood trailing down his fingers even now.

“What the hell is up with you right now!” He demands in a way that makes Remus’s stomach churn, that makes his knees weak and his throat feel all lumpy in all the wrong places.

He should be mad. Dee should be furious at him for ignoring him all day, for driving them through a handful of states, for not pausing for bathroom breaks or any type of food, for not waking him when he stopped at the rest stop. He should be so angry he can’t see straight, so enraged that he stood up and grabbed the keys and drive the fuck away from here. He should be mad.

So why does he sound so scared?

“Is this about the Mall?” Dee asks, “I can do better, Remus, please! I’m sorry!”

He’s babbling like a brook, about things in the mall that Remus barely remembered because it was a day and a half ago and three, four, five states gone. He’s talking about the Mall the same way that eight-year-old Roman had been apologizing for name calling, while Remus was three sheets in the wind during a tornado on his own thoughts.

“No,” Remus says, which is about as effective as shoving his finger in a hole in a dam.

The parking lot lights make Dee look like he’s standing in a spotlight on stage. Remus hates the sight, hates the feeling that they’re putting on a production for someone else's entertainment, hates that he should know his lines by now and because he doesn’t he's ruining everything around him.

Dee moves like a clockwork mannequin with rusted gears. Remus thinks he can hear each individual gear screech as his back straightens and his weight shifts back and Dee looks more like Roman than he’d ever know.

“N--n--” Dee repeats, “No?”

As if he didn’t know what the word meant.

“Like….no I can’t do better?”

-- “Like, No Get Back in the Fucking Car, Dee!” Remus explodes.---

--“Like No, Leave me alone for five seconds!” Remus erupts.---

--”Like No, Its not your fault I’m a fucking mess!” Remus chokes.---

--- “Like No, Its not your fault. I’m sorry. Please don’t leave me.”--

-- “Like No, I’m making bad decisions and I’m sorry and I don’t know what to do and I know that you don’t really love me the way you think you do because no one ever loves me that way. Like No, this is a future that I’m not going to choose but I wish I had because keeping this all in my chest hurts like a little bitch, Dee. It hurts so bad. Like no. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m going to have such a nose bleed from this one, and because you’re you, you’ll know that I’ve been bullshitting my way through this for a good while. My power’s broken, Dee. Don’t you see? And once I tell you what's going to be left for you to stay?.”---

“Like No,” Remus says, defeated. “I don’t even remember what happened at the Mall.”

Dee stares at him with stolen sapphire eyes, with an emotion he can’t place, with wordless questions Remus doesn’t want to answer.

He doesn’t know what time it is.

A drip of his blood leaks down his lip and lands on the asphalt at his feet. That’s okay.

He breathes in the dry air, feeling it scratch down his throat and butcher his lungs with each inhale. “I...need to make this phone call.”

“Why?” Dee pleads, and Remus thinks that if even Dee can tell it will end badly, he should know better than to go through with it.

But Remus has been thinking too much lately, about too many things. He’s been trapped up in his own head, and the last people he tried to let help him gave up on him.

And he still can’t give up on them.

“It’s her birthday,” Remus says with a smile that borders on deranged, “And she tried, you know?”

He doesn’t know. Remus can tell by the look on Dee’s face. But that’s okay. They made a pact after all, after that first night, that they wouldn’t get personal, that discussions of feelings were off the table. And Dee had said in a future that hadn’t happened that Remus was an investment that will pay out one day. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t know.

“Remus,” Dee says, controlling the stage like he was born to do it. “What will she say?”

Remus shrugs and turns away because he’s never been able to make it past intermission of any production he’s watched. The fifty in his hand has splatterings of blood, his arm aches and whines as he uses it to smear away the waterfall from his nose. At least a couple of the sidewalk lights are broken so he doesn’t scare every single normal person chilling at the rest stop as he walks up.

Remus is twenty one and four months, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t waste forty seven dollars on snacks from a vending machine just to get the change in quarters to call cross country. He’s not hungry but he peels open a Cliff bar and takes a bite anyway. The rest of the food he leaves on the patio floor around the vending machine for whatever comes by, be it the kids he can hear yelling or the raccoons watching from the tree line.

He glances back at the car, their car, Dee’s car. Just to make sure its still there. That Dee didn’t drive off without him.

Dee hadn’t, didn’t, doesn’t. He’s sitting in the driver's seat with the door wide open, half in half out, and it looks like he was fiddling with the radio again.

Remus tosses the other half of the bar into the trashcan and walks the last three steps to the payphones.

She had tried. Remus puts the phone to his ear and tries to remember how to breathe.

The buttons are stiff. Remus’s knuckle leaves behind traces of his blood as he dials. The back of his throat tastes like his inside of his stomach. There’s a gritty feeling along his teeth and the bottom of his mouth from the Cliff Bar. He’s knees tremble to the sound of the ringing, leaving him swaying in the too-long silences, in the bated breaths, in the calm before the hurricane.

“Hi! It's the Regis Family! We’re not available right now, but if you leave your name and number, we’ll get back to you!”

Remus’s mouth tastes like blood. He swallows it down, breathes through the rest of the message, the beep and another moment where his chest just aches with a billion words he doesn’t know how to say.

“H….hey.” His voice is raspy. Why is his voice so raspy? He clears his throat. “I, uh...I was calling to say, Happy Birthday. Hope it was a good one. That’s all. B--”

“--Hello?”

Remus’s jaw clicks shut at the noise, the words, the voice. Because even four years later Remus knows it like the back of his hand, can still imagine it screaming his name in the store, of it laughing as she brushed through his curls, of it whispering softly that everything is fine, everything is okay, I’m right here, Remus.

“Ha, Hi! Sorry about that, you caught us just as we were getting back to the house! Oh, this is embarrassing… Who is this? Our caller ID isn’t working…”

She trails off.

Remus thinks he’s forgotten how to breathe.

She sounds out of breath, flushed and happy and excited in a way that he doesn’t remember her ever being before. His vision tunnels through memories, through scenes in his head where she’s smiled and laughed and giggled the way she’s doing right now. He’s coming up blank.

He grabs the wall to keep himself steady.

“Hello?”

“I’m here,” Remus croaks.

She’s different now. So is he. Everything is different and the world seems to stop at that mind blowing statement.

“.....I’m sorry,” She says, “I really need to know who this is, now.”

Remus should hang up.

Remus needs to hang up.

He laughs, like he’s on death row, like the barrel of a gun in on his temple, like his foot just left the ledge.

“What?” He asks, “Can’t a mother recognize the sound of her own son's voice?”

There’s a breath. A moment. A second. Remus feels it. Like it's tangible, palpable, real. Like all the clocks in the world decided to stop. Like a tick without a tock. Like the past and the present and the future didn’t exist at all. There’s a breath, and Remus thinks that she had tried once, maybe she could try again.

They both could try again.

“Oh my god. Is that...Baby, is that really you? I’m so sorry for what I said. You were right.”

“Wait--”

“You’re always right. And I’m sorry about-- about everything. Please let me make it up to you?” His mother says and Remus gets a sinking feeling in his chest.

“What--”

“Or at least talk about it? Can we do that?” His mother says and Remus should have hung up.

“Mom--”

“Can you come back home, Roman?” His mother says and Remus sees red.

Because, of course, she thought he was Roman. Of course.

Red is the color of Roman. The color of his jacket and his shoes and the ball Remus should have thrown into the road when they were eight. The color of a past Remus can’t get rid of because every time he does anything he can only hear Roman’s voice in his head or picture his mom with her red lipstick telling him to take his pills and stop being so abnormal. It’s the color of a future that he can’t reach because every time he gets a little bit of hope he’s reminded that he’s unnecessary and forgettable.

Red is the color of Remus’s blood that looks just like his twin’s but somehow has always been valued less to their mother.

He squeezes the handle of the phone so hard his fingers go numb from the pain, and the scarf around his wrist turns scarlet. His body trembles and bubbles and boils like its housing a volcano ready to erupt, or a thousand termites are trying to chew their way out of him, or every atom in his body is trying to shake themselves apart.

Remus is twenty one and four months old and he hangs up the phone so hard that it pops right back out of the slot and swings to the ground by its cord.

He doesn’t fix it. In fact he doesn’t even see it because he’s too busy seeing red. Too busy seeing Roman’s head collide with the bumper of a silver sedan, too busy seeing Roman’s neck break when he falls off the swingset wrong, too busy seeing Roman’s body on the ground of his carpet surrounded by the shattered remains of a snowglobe, too busy seeing all the things he should have done or let happen or helped happen.

Too busy knowing that hindsight is 2020 and Remus’s insides suddenly want to be outsides and his arm hurts and he wants to--

He wants to--

--“REMUS!” Dee shrieks from across the parking lot, sprinting towards him because he forgot that he can shapeshift into something faster. There’s a terror in his eyes, a fear, a horror in his expression that's like being stuck under a collapsed building and knowing that no one is gonna come. “REMUS! SOMEONE HELP!”---

But no one is close enough and Remus’s knots are a practiced stubborn thing that has his body convulsing before Dee remembers he can make claws and cut the scarf off.---

But no one is close enough and Remus’s knots are a practiced stubborn thing that has his body convulsing before Dee remembers he can make claws and cut the scarf off.

But by then Remus is already dead.---

But no that’s not right.

He doesn’t want to die.

His mouth tastes like metal, and he’s so sick of the taste of metal, of the smell of blood, of the sight of red on his clothes and on him. He’s so sick of being the weird twin, of being the one everyone wants to forget, of being gifted with a power that's so shitty it his own body rejects it. He’s so, so sick.

And tired.

And angry.

That he spent all day trying to figure out what to say to his mother and she doesn’t even remember him. That his family pushed him away and now he watches himself jump off buildings or into traffic or off tables at a rest stop. That his skin feels too small and his mind too big and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with him but everyone still treated him like there was.

“Pardon me,” A voice says to his left. “Hello? Sir? You seem to be bleeding...”

It belongs to a guy with glasses, big thick blocky glasses that match every other part of him: his sharp jawline, his stiff spine, his set shoulders. It belongs to a guy with hair so dark it might as well have been a black hole, with eyes swirling with so many blues they looked like nebulas, with skin so pale it might as well have been the surface of the moon. It belongs to a guy that reaches out oh so carefully and touches Remus’s shoulder to check that he’s alright and---

-- “A stick in the mud?” Logan suggests sourly as they walk. The rain speckles his glasses and plasters his hair to his head.

“I was gonna say prude, but that works too,” His younger brother shrugs, sipping loudly from his drink. “Girl, you really just need to loosen up. You’re always so stressed!”

“I do not need to loosen up,” Logan counters, “In fact, if anything, I need to tighten up my interactions with people more. You saw what happened to the baristas at the Starbucks.”

“Yeah, and it was Awesome!” His brother motions to the drink in his hand, “Free drinks!”

“Will it still be awesome when they get fired and lose their source of income because they unwittingly gave away merchandise to customers?” Logan asks. He tugs his jackets around him tighter, hunching his shoulders and wishing that between the two of them they had thought to bring at least one umbrella.

His brother rolls his eyes because the rain doesn’t bother him anymore than the slight chill or the cars passing dangerously close to their sidewalk. “Honey,” He says, “Its two free drinks. It’s not gonna kill the infrastructure.”

Logan grunts, dismissing the rest of the argument as he was prone to do more often these days. “Remind me again why we’re here.”

“That prince dude is supposed to be around here today!”

“You mean, Princeps,” Logan corrects. “Assumedly named after the swordsmen from Roman armies pre-Marian reforms. Which does not make any sense considering that he does not carry a sword and his perceived power does not--”

“I wanna get his autograph!”

Logan squints back at his brother. “You want the autograph of a man who is running around the country in tights? You don’t even have anything for him to sign.”

His brother shakes his mostly empty drink and points to the spot right below where the barista had scratched out his own name, not that Logan can see it, or anything. “Duh.”

Logan shakes his head, as his brother prattles on about Princeps face, his biceps, his thighs. And as much as Logan enjoys listening to his brother talk about things that interest him, he wishes that it was something other than men that thought “superhero” was a stable dayjob. He sighs and removes his glasses and to clean them as best as he can with the raindrops being the nice of dimes.z

He hates the rain, hates that he couldn’t ever see more than three feet when it so much as sprinkled, hates that his brother has no such problems at all and can continue walking without a care in the world.

“LOGAN!” His brother yells.

And Logan has just enough time to feel his stomach jump straight to his throat, before he walks blindly into an open manhole. His forehead slams on the outer rim so hard he sees actual stars in the corners of his blurry vision. And he fumbles and flails and falls and...

And the empty air catches him, covets him, carries him off. Because he’s dead as soon as his head hits the concrete floor ten feet below---

Remus inhales like he’s been drowning for the past four years, and hasn’t been able to find the surface. He stumbles back from the stranger who had approached him, from the man who has a younger brother, who doesn’t like superheroes, who’s name is Logan. He stumbles back and feels the whole Earth roll under his feet, turning the solid ground to an uneven puddy.

Logan jerks back as well, be it shock or surprise or something in between and equally bad. He looks at Remus, the way that the first dealer from the Basilisk Casino had, the way that the new freshmen at their high school had when the older kids told them to steer clear of the guy who looked just like the theater star, the way that Roman had when he had first seen the orange bottle of pills that were supposed to make Remus not cry all the time.

“My apologies, you seemed to be in distre--” Logan starts.

“Don’t touch me,” Remus says quicker, louder, angrier. Because Logan doesn’t know that he’s going to die some day in the future, that its going to be a stupid sudden death, that his brother that he actually loves and whom loves him back is going to witness it. Because Remus doesn’t know why he knows either.

His skin blisters and bubbles and itches in a way that tells him he needs to take it off. His arm burns from the scratches, his blood is making his hand and wrist all sticky and his head feels a bit like cotton. His mouth tastes like Starbucks Hot chocolate and ash.

“Don’t touch me,” Remus says again, because he feels radioactive and can smell petrichor in the air and everything about it is wrong. If he says anything else he thinks he might throw up or cry or both and he doesn’t think anything other than more blood can come up.

Remus turns and runs.

“Remus?” Dee asks, when Remus throws himself into the passenger seat the way he should have that morning.

Remus shakes his head. And keeps shaking it because if he stops his thoughts will catch up and then they’ll really be in trouble.

“Drive,” He manages between his inconsolable gulps for air.

“Where?” Dee asks.

“Don’t care.”

He doesn’t. He just needs to be somewhere other than here.

Remus is twenty one and four months and he’s no stranger to travelling without a destination. Dee buckles his seat belt and pulls out of the parking spot without another word. Remus brings his knees to his head and counts, and counts, and counts. If he closes his eyes he thinks that he might see the silhouette of Logan standing next to the payphones staring at his hand still so he doesn’t close his eyes.

“That’s just what I’m saying, John.” The radio says, “All these new people with what can only be classified as “superpowers” and what is the Police doing about this? Nothing!”

“Hotel,” Dee says, “We can order some food there and actually look at those marks on your arm.”

“Whatever,” Remus says.

“Well what do you expect the Police to do?” The radio says, “Their answer to everything is “shoot it.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t want the police shooting at a kid who just so happened to be able to make lightning. You heard about that incident in the Idahoan Mall didn't you? Times are changing. It's up to the people to police themselves now.”

Dee sticks his tongue out ever so slightly, like a snake smelling the air.

“You’re encouraging the actions of people like that dragon guy from that incident? The child from that event is in the hospital right now.

“So is the man that had been robbing the store. Which is better than him being the morgue. I’m not saying that I think that putting children in the hospital is a good idea! I’m saying that only protecting the lives of “good” people is telling everyone to become judge, jury, and executioner. The Idaho Mall Incident could have been handled better-- in fact I think if the new guy, the one around the east wearing the white? You know the one I’m talking about, Karen.”

“Yeah, yeah, the Prince? I think he called himself Prince.”

“Yes. If the Prince had been the one who had handled the Idaho Mall, it could have been handled completely peacefully, without either parties having ended up in the hospital.”

Dee grips the steering wheel, tightly.

Remus reaches out and turns the radio off.

[Part 5]

#Deja vu AU #remus sanders #Janus Sanders #sanders sides #Logan Sanders #roman sanders #tw:blood #tw:suicide #Remus is not having a good time #Demus #Oh look!! A wild Logan!!#And a peek at what Roman has been up too #oooh its almost like....Roman has a power too #ooooo #remus angst #this boy needs some therapy I'm so sorry #Anyone else really hate Remus's mom?

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howtolistentomusic · 5 years ago

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There's a radio sitting atop a pile of boxes. I grab it and hand it over to Carlos. He sets the device on the edge of the container and pushes the power button. We're greeted with a burst of static. He fiddles with the tuner until he stumbles upon "Wicked" by Future.

"Aw yeah!" he says as he turns the volume way up. "Some real music! Anthony, take notes!"

"I'm insulted by the implication that I don't listen to hip-hop."

"You bump 2Pac between Justin Bieber songs?" David says.

"Hell yeah I do!"

"Guacha!" David says.

Pronounced as if a stressed "ah" sound is added at the end of the English word watch, guacha is a Spanish verb for "look." Informally, though, it means something more like I approve! It's typically complimentary though it often carries a connotation of surprise that can come off as condescending. Against all odds, David basically said to me, I'm impressed. Welcome to the big boys club.

"2Pac is the greatest rapper of all time," Carlos says.

"Well, I don't know about that."

Don't get me wrong. I genuinely do like 2Pac. I grew up in Southern California, after all. But the GOAT? There's no way. He's a compelling figure for many reasons but too many others can rap circles around him.

"Listen to All Eyez On Me," Carlos says.

"Illmatic is better."

"What the fuck is that?"

It's the classic and hugely influential debut album by Nas, in case you're rooming with Carlos and Patrick Star.

"Life's a bitch and then you die!" Ruben sings.

"That's why we get high! 'Cause you never know when you're gonna go!"

"Damn, Ant!" David says. "Who would have thought?"

It's unclear whether he recognizes "Life's a Bitch", Illmatic's track three stunner, or if he's simply surprised that I made a weed reference.

"What else are you bumping?" David asks.

"Wu-Tang. Souls of Mischief. Big L—"

"The Based God?" Carlos says. "He fucking sucks!"

"That's Lil B, dumbass."

Dude doesn't know Big L from Lil B and he's never heard Illmatic. And yet here he is, trying to lecture me about hip-hop. Get the fuck out of here.

"Whatever. You're fucking old," Carlos says.

Touché. But I'm trying to keep up. I'm certainly on the Playboi Carti and Lil Uzi Vert bandwagons. "wokeuplikethis*" and "XO Tour Lif3" are great. I have a hard time understanding the appeal of Migos though.

Carlos grabs some bags from the edge of the container. When he turns to dump them into the proper gaylords, I glance at the radio. It's beckoning like a glowing pickup in a video game. I can't resist. Being cool is overrated anyways.

I tune to Live 105.5. "Good For You" by Selena Gomez is playing.

"Hell yes!" I say.

My coworkers laugh.

"Of course you would listen to this bullshit!" Carlos says.

Bullshit? Ok, I get it. So it's totally cool to want to fuck Selena Gomez. It's totally cool to mime and graphically detail the sexual acts you'd perform on her if given the chance, as a few of the guys did a while back when a Spring Breakers DVD came through the warehouse. Respecting the art she creates, though? Nah. Too much.

"Wanna show you how proud I am to be yours," I sing. "Leave this dress a mess on the floor!"

Two yeas ago one of my favorite music writers, Katherine St. Asaph, wrote some brilliant work inspired by "Good for You". Her Singles Jukebox blurb, in which she rates the song a 9 out of 10, is a masterpiece. And in a review of Revival for Time Magazine, she vividly wrote that the song "makes looking good for her man sound like searing a part of herself dead." Despite such a convincing case for the song's merits, however, I can't bring myself to like "Good For You" all that much. It's boring and rote and I totally prefer "Hands to Myself". In a place like this, though, I'll fucking take it. After all, remaining myself while simultaneously playing "dude" well enough to avoid ostracization by my coworkers is a balance I struggle with every time I step foot into this warehouse, so it feels really good to fill the room with a piece of my world for once while these fuckers are forced to deal with it.

"I just wanna look good for ya, good for ya," I sing. "Uh huh."

"Alright," Carlos says as the song winds down. "It's over."

He tunes the radio back to hip-hop just as Anna screams "Break!"

"Fuck," Carlos says as he turns off the device. ***

As usual, I beat the entire crew back to the dock. I hop into the container, turn on the radio and adjust the station.

"Reck a less bee hayve YA ah!" the radio pronounces.

Zayn Malick! Totally over One Direction, rhyming.

"Turn that shit up!" Donald says as the guys finally find their way back to roll-off. "This is my jam!"

"Let's start a boy band, Donald!" I say.

"I'm down!"

David laughs. Carlos shakes his head.

"I'm seeing the pain, seeing the pleasure," Donald sings. He's not kidding; he genuinely seems to like this song. "Nobody but you, 'body but me, 'body but us, bodies together!"

While I'm thrilled to have a temporary companion in poptimism, I must point out that this song sucks. I wish I could play "Little Black Dress" instead. I wonder what the guys would think of that particular track, which pits a traditional dude's reverence for classic rock against his hatred of boy bands.

"That's your last one," Carlos says as "Pillowtalk" gives way to a commercial.

He tunes back to the hip-hop station. "Hold On, We're Going Home" is playing and I have to stifle a laugh. Be careful what you wish for, I think to myself.

Carlos can't stand Drake. He's told me as much. He's a fucking pussy were his exact words. Of course, he'd be loath to admit that now, when control of the radio is at stake. I decide to stoke the fire.

"'Cause you're a good girl and you know it!'" I sing.

"Why do you like literally the worst shit?" Carlos says.

"I can change the station if you prefer," I say as I reach for the radio.

"Leave it!" he says.

"Yes, daddy!"

As soon as he turns his back, I tune back to pop. Mass groaning ensues as Shawn Mendes goes on about stitches. Carlos, however, is silent. He's standing still as a statue, staring me down.

***

If the warehouse gave out game balls at the end of each shift, Carlos would have more than the rest of roll-off combined. This is despite the fact that the dude is hardly physically intimidating. Indeed, the contrast between his tough guy persona and his tiny 5"2' frame is a gift that keeps on giving. One time, in an exercise designed to lighten the mood after a slog of a safety meeting, management made the entire staff of the warehouse line up on the floor of the line, single-file, tallest on the right and shortest on the left. There were approximately 30 people in the building and only a single woman was standing to the left of Carlos. It took the roll-off team hours to get all the laughter out of our system.

Carlos isn't particularly funny or clever either. While his insults come fast and furiously, they tend to be the predictable nonsense you would expect from someone that still considers "gay" a burn in the year of our Lord 2017. It's the same sort of mockery I've been dealing with my whole life. The words themselves don't really bother me.

But Carlos will wear you down through sheer attrition. His short fuse, gangbanger ethics and the fact that he values his pride over his job give him a willingness to escalate that's difficult to compete with. I once witnessed him empty an entire can of shaving cream onto the face of poor old man Kenneth. He also once swung a bag of hard toys, with all his might, at Donald after the two got into a heated argument. Then there was the time he was in a bad mood and discreetly coated some furniture with that aerosol "snow" stuff—the kind that people use on their windows as a Christmas decoration—in the hopes that some naive rube would ruin their clothes.

So I'm not sure what Naive Rube was thinking in perpetuating this tug-of-war over a stupid radio. Perhaps I felt like I deserved a fucking break. Roll-off already has a radio, after all. Sure, Anna controls the station. But everyone seems fine enough, usually, with the soul and R&B she prefers.

In any case, I'm not in the mood for Carlos' shit today.

***

I place a box of books at the edge of the container, right in front of Carlos.

"Are you just gong to stand there?" I ask.

"Give back the radio, you fucking pussy!" Carlos says. "Nobody wants to hear this pop shit!"

I know, dumbass. That's why this is so much fun.

"Give it back!" he repeats. He swipes for the radio but I grab it and place it out of his reach.

Carlos slices a bag of clothes with his pocketknife.

"I'm going to fuck you up!" he says. "Stupid little bitch! I'm going to fuck you up!"

"Cool story, bro."

"Are you really not gong to give it back?"

I laugh. Look, this entire thing is petty as fuck but the dude's entitlement really is something else.

"Give it back simply because you told me to? I'll pass but thanks."

"I'm going to give you one last chance," he says.

"Oh noes! Make sure you play some Justin Bieber at my funeral."

Carlos is fucking seething. He pulls the still-as-a-statue move again in an attempt to intimidate but roll-off simply functions around him. Nobody else seems to care much about the radio war and that's fine by me. When Carlos finally realizes that his protest isn't going to work, he grabs the box of books and gets back to business. Apollo for the win!

As an alternative kid with a preference for dark clothing and bulky accessories, the sun has long been the bane of my existence. This is especially true as I age, as one of the ways I temper insecurities about my ever-expanding waistline is by burying myself in layers. Today, however, the sun is an unlikely ally in my ongoing struggle against Carlos. It's 100 degrees out, see, and when it's this hot outside the container becomes almost unbearable, the metal walls stubbornly retaining the heat in a way that feels like you're working in a giant oven.

Pushing donations from inside the container is typically a two-person task but nobody else is up for it today. And the emptier it becomes, the safer I seem to be getting from Carlos' antagonism as I place the radio further and further from his reach. For a glorious hour I have the device all to myself. Ariana Grande! Lady Gaga! Hailee Steinfeld! Rihanna! I'm singing along, dancing like a maniac, and feeling pretty damn good. Then I hear a loud crash.

I turn around. Carlos is standing at the foot of the container, a crate of dishes in front of him.

I've seen this before. God forbid there's glass around when Carlos is angry because he'll start chucking it, his aim loose enough for probable deniability but accurate enough to make life hell.

He grabs a plate and throws it my way. It shatters near my feet.

"Calm the fuck down!" I say.

"Give me the radio."

"Come and get it.

Carlos hops into the container. Fuck. Here we go.

Of course, he's not grabbing anything without going through me first. It's too damn empty in here. I step towards him to obstruct his path. We meet in the middle of the container. Our faces are inches apart.

One, Mississippi. Two, Mississippi. Three, Mississippi. Four, Mississippi. Five, Mississippi. Six—

"Fuck this gay ass music," he finally says. Then he turns and walks away. *** A short time later we finish unloading the container. Two hours remain in the workshift but supervisor Stella tells us that we won't be getting more trucks until tomorrow. She assigns the guys to other tasks in the building while I stay behind on the dock to tidy up.

For good measure, I empty the batteries from the radio and throw them in a bin designated for hazardous materials. Then I smash the radio on the floor, throw the pieces in the electronics gaylord, then pull it inside the warehouse.

Give me my damn game ball.

#minwagepop

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simatomica · 6 years ago

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- GET TO KNOW ME -

Thank you to the lovely @awolzai for the tag! <3

Find the icons HERE :)

TAG TIME!!! I tag anyone who wants to do this because it’s a lot of fun :) also I’ll add @cupcakegnome @simperbly @themoonglitch @elisabettasims

FEEL FREE TO DO IT EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT TAGGED!! Just tag #get to know me zai OR tag me so I can see :D

Sooo the point is to make a simself (yup, that sim up there is me) and put your traits, things you like and whatever you wanna share. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to!

After the keep reading thingy are +100 questions I found that you can answer if you want, but you don’t have to (it’s tiring as hell)

1. What is your full name? L

2. What is your nickname? Lizer, Lizard, Turtle. Idk why.

3. Birthday? August 13th.

4. What is your favorite book series? Harry Potter series.

5. Do you believe in aliens or ghosts? Both ._.

6. Who is your favorite author? Richard Matheson, the original master of horror stories.

7. What is your favorite radio station? Oldies station

8. What is your favorite flavor of anything? Vanilla and/or birthday cake stuff.

9. What word would you use often to describe something great or wonderful? That’s awesome. I’m a 90′s kid I still use those words dude.

10. What is your current favorite song? I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME - Do It All The Time

11. What is your favorite word? Mhm. I mean it’s not really a word but there you go.

12. What was the last song you listened to? Blind Deaf & Dumb

13. What TV show would you recommend for everybody to watch? The Office.

14. What is your favorite movie to watch when you’re feeling down? Anything from Disney.

15. Do you play video games? Yep

16. What is your biggest fear? Water. (Like the ocean, lakes, or rivers)

17. What is your best quality, in your opinion? my good manners

18. What is your worst quality, in your opinion? my social anxiety.

19. Do you like cats or dogs better? Both! I refuse to answer just one.

20. What is your favorite season? Autumn <3

21. Are you in a relationship? Yup.

22. What is something you miss from your childhood? How easy life was back then.

23. Who is your best friend? @xanezephyr

24. What is your eye color? Dark brown

25. What is your hair color? Black

26. Who is someone you love? My furry babies (My dogs and cat)

27. Who is someone you trust? My mother.

28. Who is someone you think about often? My childhood friend Cyndy.

29. Are you currently excited about/for something? Getting a new computer upgrade so that’s pretty sweet!

30. What is your biggest obsession? Food.

31. What was your favorite TV show as a child? Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

32. Who of the opposite gender can you tell anything to, if anyone? My nephew Aaron.

33. Are you superstitious? Hell yes I am.

34. Do you have any unusual phobias? Water like I stated before. Aquaphobia? I’m too lazy to look up the actual name.

35. Do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it? Controlling the camera.

36. What is your favorite hobby? Sims.

37. What was the last book you read? Gone Girl

38. What was the last movie you watched? Bohemian Rhapsody.

39. What musical instruments do you play, if any? Piano

40. What is your favorite animal? I love all animals, can’t discriminate.

41. What are your top 5 favorite Tumblr blogs that you follow? @deathseeksyou @teanmoon @fuchsiateasims @tekri @mizushiba

42. What superpower do you wish you had? invisibility

43. When and where do you feel most at peace? In the forest, or anywhere green and naturey

44. What makes you smile? My fur babies

45. What sports do you play, if any? Hah no

46. What is your favorite drink? Green tea

47. When was the last time you wrote a hand-written letter or note to somebody? It’s been years I can’t even remember now

48. Are you afraid of heights? yes

49. What is your biggest pet peeve? Spitting. It’s so gross to hear people spitting.

50. Have you ever been to a concert? Yup

51. Are you vegan/vegetarian? I’ve tried both and they just weren’t for me.

52. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? Rock star

53. What fictional world would you like to live in? The Wizarding World.

54. What is something you worry about? Yeah I worry about everything

55. Are you scared of the dark? sometimes

56. Do you like to sing? Not as much as I use to

57. Have you ever skipped school? I use to skip certain classes back in high school and would go over to my friends house that lived a few blocks away from the school and just sleep until school was over.

58. What is your favorite place on the planet? Home

59. Where would you like to live? Up in the cold mountains, or in a green lush forest.

60. Do you have any pets? I have 4 dogs and one cat.

61. Are you more of an early bird or a night owl? Early.

62. Do you like sunrises or sunsets better? Sunsets.

63. Do you know how to drive? Yup

64. Do you prefer earbuds or headphones? headphones

65. Have you ever had braces? Oh yeah

66. What is your favorite genre of music? Rock, Alternative, Oldies, Electronica, Classical. I listen to everything.

67. Who is your hero? Don’t really have one but I do adore Freddie Mercury.

68. Do you read comic books? yes, especially mangas

69. What makes you the most angry? Rude people

70. Do you prefer to read on an electronic device or with a real book? real book please

71. What is your favorite subject in school? history!

72. Do you have any siblings? I have a sister >_>

73. What was the last thing you bought? dog treats

74. How tall are you? 5′8

75. Can you cook? Kind of, depends.

76. What are three things that you love? My family, my animals, and food.

77. What are three things that you hate? social situations, hypocrites, and being broke.

78. Do you have more female friends or more male friends? Female

79. What is your sexual orientation? Pan baby.

80. Where do you currently live? California

81. Who was the last person you texted? Mario

82. When was the last time you cried? Not too long ago. Just shit going on with my dad.

83. Who is your favorite YouTuber? I don’t like a specific YouTuber but my favorite channel is Lutch Green. I like those spooky crime docs.

84. Do you like to take selfies? Nah

85. What is your favorite app? Tumblr

86. What is your relationship with your parent(s) like? Good.

87. What is your favorite foreign accent? British accents are so nice.

88. What is a place that you’ve never been to, but you want to visit? Japan

89. What is your favorite number? 13

90. Can you juggle? I don’t want to brag but yeah *cool glasses emoji* lol

91. Are you religious? I’m spiritual.

92. Do you find outer space of the deep ocean to be more interesting? Both. Though deep ocean sounds terrifying.

93. Do you consider yourself to be a daredevil? Nope

94. Are you allergic to anything? Cat dander

95. Can you curl your tongue? yeah

96. Can you wiggle your ears? no

97. How often do you admit that you were wrong about something? I’ll admit it most of the time.

98. Do you prefer the forest or the beach? forest

99. What is your favorite piece of advice that anyone has ever given you? Expect the worst but hope for the best.

100. Are you a good liar? Probably?

101. What is your Hogwarts House? Slytherin, hence my user name.

102. Do you talk to yourself? yes

103. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? introvert

104. Do you keep a journal/diary? yeah

105. Do you believe in second chances? Depends

106. If you found a wallet full of money on the ground, what would you do? Turn it in.

107. Do you believe that people are capable of change? I’ve never seen it in person but who knows.

108. Are you ticklish? oh yeah

109. Have you ever been on a plane? yes

110. Do you have any piercings? My ears. I use to have my nose and brow pierced but you know my boss was being a bitch.

111. What fictional character do you wish was real? Dracula.

112. Do you have any tattoos? Yes I have 2.

113. What is the best decision that you’ve made in your life so far? Moving to a new town.

114. Do you believe in karma? yeah, it’s always instant for me -_-

115. Do you wear glasses or contacts? Glasses, I can’t afford contacts.

116. Do you want children? idk

117. Who is the smartest person you know? My friend PK, she’s got a Masters in Psychology.

118. What is your most embarrassing memory? I have so many, and they mostly involve me falling somewhere in public.

119. Have you ever pulled an all-nighter? Almost, I was like 2 hours shy.

120. What color are most of you clothes? black

121. Do you like adventures? sure

122. Have you ever been on TV? I have but like as a walking background extra on some cop show in LA.

123. How old are you? I’m a grown ass adult.

124. What is your favorite movie quote?

125. Do you prefer sweet or savory foods? savory

#ts4 tag #ts4 #ts4 sim self #ts4 self sim #self sim #sim self #faqs #tag meme #about me

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completeandrandomshit · 5 years ago

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Linda Ronstadt Has Found Another Voice

The singer on living with Parkinson’s, the perils of stardom, and mourning what the border has become.

It’s been ten years since Linda Ronstadt, once the most highly paid woman in rock and roll, sang her last concert. In 2013, the world found out why: Parkinson’s disease had rendered her unable to sing, ending a musical career that had left an indelible mark on the classic-rock era and earned her ten Grammy Awards. Ronstadt’s earth-shaking voice and spunky stage presence jolted her to fame in the late sixties, and her renditions of “Different Drum” (with her early group, the Stone Poneys), “You’re No Good” (from her breakthrough album, “Heart Like a Wheel”), “Blue Bayou,” and “Desperado” helped define the California folk-rock sound. Along the way, two of her backup musicians left to form the Eagles.

But Ronstadt, now seventy-three, didn’t rest on her greatest hits, experimenting instead with a dizzying range of genres. In the eighties, she starred in Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance” on Broadway, recorded a standards album with the veteran arranger Nelson Riddle, and released “Canciones de Mi Padre,” a collection of traditional Mexican songs, which became the best-selling non-English-language album in American history. The record also returned Ronstadt to her roots. Her grandfather was a Mexican bandleader, and her father had serenaded her mother with Mexican folk songs in a beautiful baritone. She grew up in Tucson, Arizona, close to the border—a place that has since become a political flashpoint.

A new documentary, “Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice,” directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman and opening September 6th, looks back on Ronstadt’s adventurous career. She spoke with The New Yorker twice by phone from her home in San Francisco. Our conversations have been edited and condensed.

What is your day-to-day life like these days?

Well, I lie down a lot, because I’m disabled. I do a lot of reading, but I’m starting to have trouble with my eyes, so that’s kind of a problem. It’s called getting old.

What are you reading right now?

I’m reading Thomas Mann, “The Magic Mountain.” I somehow got to be this age without having read Thomas Mann, and I’m trying to make up for it. I read “Buddenbrooks,” and I fell in love with his writing. His books are nice and long, so it takes a couple of days to get through them.

Who do you spend most of your time with?

My son lives here. My daughter comes over. I have really nice friends; they come over and hang out with me. It’s hard for me to get out. It’s hard for me to sit in a restaurant or sit up in a chair. It’s hard for me to stand around, so if there’s a situation where I’m liable to be caught in a doorway talking to somebody for five minutes, I tend to avoid that.

What kind of music do you listen to?

I love opera. It’s so terrible—I listen to it on YouTube. I’m an audiophile, but I’ve just gotten used to the convenience of being able to hear twenty-nine different performances of one role. I listen to other music, too. I found this Korean band that I thought was sort of interesting on Tiny Desk concerts, the NPR series. They get musicians to come in and play live in a really tiny little space behind a desk. It’s no show biz, just music. They have great stuff. They had Randy Newman. Natalia Lafourcade, who’s a Mexican artist that I love particularly. Whatever’s new. The Korean band I saw was called SsingSsing.

Is it like K-pop?

No, it’s based on Korean traditional singing. It was kind of like David Bowie bass and drums, and then this really wild South Korean traditional singing. It’s polytonal. It’s a different skill than we use, with more notes in it. And a lot of gender-crossing. It looked like I was seeing the future.

When you sing in your mind, what do you hear?

I can hear the song. I can hear what I would be doing with it. I can hear the accompaniment. Sometimes I don’t remember the words, so I have to look them up. It’s not usually my songs I’m singing. I don’t listen to my own stuff very much.

I listen to Mexican radio—the local Banda station out of San Jose. I mostly listen to NPR. I don’t listen to mainstream radio anymore. I don’t know the acts and I don’t know the music. It doesn’t interest me, particularly. There are some good modern people. I like Sia. She’s a very original singer.

How do you cope with the frustration of not being able to do everything you want to do?

I’ve just accepted it. There’s absolutely nothing I can do. I have a form of Parkinsonism that doesn’t respond to standard Parkinson’s meds, so there’s no treatment for what I have. It’s called P.S.P.—Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. I just have to stay home a lot. The main attraction in San Francisco is the opera and the symphony, and I make an effort and go out, but I can only do it a few times a year. It makes me sick that I’m ever not in my seat when Michael Tilson Thomas raises his baton, because he’s such a good conductor, and I miss hearing orchestral music. My friends come over and play music, and that’s where I like it best, anyway: in the living room.

As you tell it, the first symptoms you noticed before you knew you had Parkinson’s were in your singing voice.

Yeah. I’d start to do something and it would start to take the note and then it would stop. What you can’t do with Parkinsonism is repetitive motions, and singing is a repetitive motion.

You broke onto the scene with such a powerhouse voice. What did it feel like, singing with that voice?

Well, I was trying to figure out how to sing! And trying to be heard over the electric instruments. I had no idea that I sang as loud as I did. I always thought I wasn’t singing loud enough, because in the early days there were no monitors. You couldn’t hear yourself.

In the documentary, you talk about growing up in Tucson, Arizona, and how culturally rich that was. How do the current politics around the border resonate with you?

They’re devastating. I feel filled with impotent rage. I grew up in the Sonoran Desert, and the Sonoran Desert is on both sides of the border. There’s a fence that runs through it now, but it’s still the same culture. The same food, the same clothes, the same traditional life of ranching and farming. I go down there a lot, and it’s so hard to get back across the border. It’s ridiculous. It used to be that you could go across the border and have lunch and visit friends and shop in the little shops there. There was a beautiful department store in the fifties and sixties. My parents had friends on both sides of the border. They were friends with the ranchers, and we went to all their parties and their baptisms and their weddings and their balls.

And now that’s gone. The stores are wiped out because they don’t get any trade from the United States anymore. There’s concertina wire on the Mexican side that the Americans put up. Animals are getting trapped in there. Children are getting cut on it. It’s completely unnecessary. In the meantime, you see people serenely skateboarding and girls with their rollerskates, kids playing in the park. And you think, We’re afraid of this? They’re just regular kids!

I spent time out in the desert when I was still healthy, working with a group of Samaritans who go to find people that are lost. You run into the Minute Men or the Border Patrol every five seconds. The border is fully militarized. You meet some guy stumbling through the desert trying to cross, and he’s dehydrated, his feet are full of thorns, cactus, then you see this Minute Man sitting with his cooler, with all of his water and food and beer, and his automatic weapon sitting on his lap, wearing full camouflage. It’s so cruel. People are coming to work. They’re coming to have a better life. You have to be pretty desperate to want to cross that desert.

You were talking about this back in 2013, when your memoir came out, before it became such a national wedge issue. Were people not paying enough attention before?

Well, they didn’t live close to the border. They’d just go back to chewing their cud about it. It wasn’t their problem. I lived at the border then. I lived in Tucson for ten years. I saw what was going on. Putting children in jail—that’s not new. That was going on in the Bush Administration. Barack Obama tried to get immigration reform and Congress wouldn’t allow it. So people have been caught in this web of suffering, dying in the desert. They’re incredibly brave and resourceful, the people who make it. A C.E.O. of a big company once told me—when I said, “What do you look for in hiring practices?”—she said, “I look for someone who’s dealt with a lot of adversity, because they usually make a good business person.” And I thought, You should hire every immigrant who comes across the border.

Why did you decide to move to San Francisco from Tucson?

My children were coming home repeating homophobic remarks they heard at school. And they’d also heard other things, like, “If you don’t go to church, you’re going to go to Hell.” I thought, You know, I don’t need that. So I moved back to San Francisco. I wanted them to have a sense of what a community was like where you could walk to school, walk to the market. More of an urban-village experience. In Tucson, I was driving in the car for forty-five minutes to get them to school and then forty-five minutes to get them back, in a hot car. I didn’t want that life for them.

I can tell that you have a real sense of mourning over what the border used to be.

People don’t realize that there’s Mexican, there’s American, and then there’s Mexican-American. They’re three different cultures, and they all influence eachother. And they all influence our culture profoundly. The cowboy suit that Roy Rogers would wear, with the yoke shirt and the pearl buttons and the bell-bottom frontier pants and the cowboy hat—those are all Mexican. We imported it. We eat burritos and tacos, and our music is influenced a lot by Mexican music. It goes back and forth across the border all the time.

How did growing up in that hybrid Mexican-American culture shape you as a musician?

I listened to a lot of Mexican music on the radio, and my dad had a really great collection of traditional Mexican music. It made it hard for me when I went to sing American pop music, because rock and roll is based on black church rhythms, and I wasn’t exposed to that as a kid. I could only sing what I’d heard. What I’d heard was Mexican music, Billie Holiday, and my brother singing boy soprano.

So what drew you to folk rock in the sixties?

I loved popular folk music like Peter, Paul and Mary. I loved the real traditional stuff, like the Carter family. I loved Bob Dylan. And I tried to copy what I could. When I heard the Byrds doing folk rock, I thought that was what I wanted to do.

How did your recording of “Different Drum” with the Stone Poneys in 1967 come about?

It was a song I found on a Greenbriar Boys record, and I thought it was a strong piece of material. I just liked the song. We worked it up as a kind of shuffle—it wasn’t very good with the guys playing guitar and mandolin. But the record company recognized that the song was strong, too, so they had me come back and record it with their musicians and their arrangement. And I was pretty shocked. I didn’t know how to sing it with that arrangement. But it turned out to be a hit.

Do you remember hearing it on the radio for the first time?

Yeah. We were on our way to a meeting at Capitol Records, in an old Dodge or something, and I was jammed in the back with our guitars. Then the engine froze, and the car made this horrible metal-on-metal shriek. We had to push it to the nearest gas station, half a block away. The man was looking at the car saying it’ll never run again, and we were saying, “What will we ever do in Los Angeles with no car?” And from the radio playing in the back of the garage we could hear the opening of “Different Drum.” We heard which radio station it was on, KRLA, so I knew it was a hit, if they played it on the L.A. stations.

What are your memories of the Troubadour, in West Hollywood?

That’s where you went to hang out. We would go to hear the local act that was playing, or there’d be someone like Hoyt Axton or Oscar Brown, Jr., or Odetta. Nobody was anything particular at the time. We were all aspiring musicians. The Dillards were there. The Byrds hung out there. And then it started to be people like Joni Mitchell, James Taylor. Carole King would play there. When Joni Mitchell played, she played two weeks. I think I saw every single night.

In your book, you talk about being with Janis Joplin there and trying to figure out what to wear onstage.

Oh, I never could figure out what to wear. I grew up wearing Levi’s and a T-shirt or a sweater and cowboy boots or sneakers. And that’s what I left home with, and that’s what I wound up with. In the summer we’d cut the legs off the Levi’s and they were Levi’s shorts. When I got my Cub Scout outfit, that was a real change for me.

You say that you and Janis Joplin couldn’t figure out how to fit in—you didn’t know whether to be earth mothers or whatever.

We didn’t know whether we were supposed to cook and sew and embroider. Roles were being redefined. There were a lot of earth-mama hippie girls who knew how to do that stuff.

There’s a clip in the documentary of you being interviewed in 1977, and you talk about how rock-and-roll stars become alienated and are surrounded by managers who are willing to indulge them, and that’s how people wind up with drug problems.

They got involved with drugs because they felt isolated. Stardom is isolating. There are a whole bunch of people that you’re hanging out with who are trying to become musicians. And some were chosen and some were not, and it becomes a difficult relationship with the people who weren’t chosen. Sometimes they’re resentful, sometimes you feel uncomfortable. It’s like Emmylou Harris has in a song: “Pieces of the sky were falling in your neighbor’s yard but not on you.” The adulation made people feel disconnected. I also think that some people’s brain chemistry is more vulnerable to addiction. I was lucky. Mine was not.

David Geffen says that you had an issue with diet pills.

I had no issue with that. I just took them when I needed them. I didn’t like it. If I ate, I’d have to take a diet pill. It wasn’t something I did for pleasure.

There’s been a lot of looking back this year at the summer of 1969, with these big anniversaries of the moon landing and Woodstock and the Manson murders. What do you remember about that summer?

When Woodstock happened, I was in New York. I remember getting all the reports from people like Henry Diltz and Crosby, Stills & Nash. They’d come back with stories of everybody being in the mud. It sounded like a good thing to have survived, but I’m glad I didn’t go up there. Overflowing toilets and no food is not my idea of a fun time. I was playing some club—probably the Bitter End.

When the Manson family came through, they managed to murder my next-door neighbor, Gary Hinman. I was lucky I wasn’t home that night—they may have come for me. We knew those girls, Linda Kasabian and maybe Leslie Van Houten, too. I lived in Topanga Canyon at the time, and they would hitchhike, and they would talk about this guy Charlie at the Spahn Ranch. But I didn’t know him personally. We knew it was kind of a bad scene. But, when we found out how bad of a scene it was, we were horrified.

People must have been really scared before they were captured.

Oh, everybody was freaked out. We weren’t sure at the time whether the Gary Hinman murder was connected to the other murders, but we found out soon enough.

The music of that era was so intertwined with politics. How do you feel that compares with popular music these days? Is music addressing political upheaval?

Oh, I think so. Especially hip-hop. But I wish there was a little bit more political activism. I’m waiting for the Reichstag to burn down, you know? Because I was interested in the Weimar Republic, I’ve always been aware that culture can be overwhelmed and subverted in a very short time. All of German intellectual history—Goethe and Beethoven—was subverted by the Nazis. It happened in a thirty-year span and brought German culture to its knees. And it’s happening here. There’s a real conspiracy of international fascism that wants to defeat democracy. They want all the power for themselves, and I think that suits Donald Trump right now. He’d like to be a dictator.

In going through your history, I’ve noticed you’ve been selectively outspoken. There’s an interview from 1983 where a talk-show host in Australia asks you about deciding to perform in South Africa under apartheid, and you give this speech about how if you didn’t play anywhere with racism you wouldn’t be able to play in the American South or Boston. You also take shots at Ronald Reagan and Rupert Murdoch. As a popular performer, was there a cost to speaking out?

I never talked onstage for about fifteen years. But there were certain causes that we as a musical community united against, and one of them was nuclear power. We did a lot of No Nukes concerts—James Taylor, me, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt—and if it was a particular cause that I was in favor of. I did what I could to help, but I don’t think my focus was particularly political. If somebody asked, I was perfectly happy to give my opinion.

I also found a clip from 1995 where you confronted Robin Quivers, Howard Stern’s co-host, on the “Tonight Show” about her association with Stern. Do you remember what upset you so much?

Well, first of all, I never heard Howard Stern on the radio. I had no idea who he was. I didn’t have a television. I didn’t know who Robin Quivers was. But it had just been on the news that day, what he had said about—oh, the girl singer.

Selena? He said “Spanish people have the worst taste in music” and played her music with gunshots in the background.

Selena, yeah. And it just offended me. As a Mexican-American, it just offended me that he would say such a horrible thing about someone’s dead daughter. I didn’t realize that Howard Stern made a career out of making unfortunate remarks about other people. And I didn’t know what Robin Quivers was like. I didn’t know anything about it. I just went, “Hey, that really offended me.” It made me angry. I didn’t realize what kind of a hornets’ nest I’d stepped into.

Did you get any reaction from him after that?

Oh, yeah. He said horrible things about me.

Going back to your performing career, in the documentary, your former manager Peter Asher says that you would see people whispering at your concerts and imagine that they were saying, “She’s the worst singer I’ve ever heard.” Were you really that insecure?

I just didn’t feel like I could quite sing well enough. It was best when I forgot about everything and just thought about the music, but it took me a long time to get there. I didn’t want to see people that I knew in the audience. I didn’t like to see the audience, actually. I couldn’t understand why they’d come. It’s a different relationship than singers like Taylor Swift have. I think it’s a little bit healthier that they embrace their audience and sort of feel like everybody’s on the same team. We were encouraged in the sixties to think of us and them. The hippies started that whole tribal thing, and it was the straights against the hippies. It was unhealthy.

How did you overcome your self-doubt?

I’d just say, “Breathe and sing.” As long as I pulled my focus back to the music, I was fine.

Your relationship with Jerry Brown is covered in the documentary and in your book, but not your relationships with some other prominent people, like Jim Carrey and George Lucas. Is there a reason for that?

I was writing about the music. They didn’t have anything to do with my musical process.

What did Jerry Brown contribute to your musical process?

Well, he was there when Joe Papp [the founder of the Public Theatre and Shakespeare in the Park] called saying that they wanted me for “H.M.S. Pinafore.”. But Jerry [gave me the message] wrong—it was actually “The Pirates of Penzance,” which I didn’t know.

Do you keep in touch with him?

Yeah. We’re friends. We’ve always been friends. He came over last Christmas.

What do you talk about?

Water in California. He said when he retires he wants to study trees and California Indians. I gave him my tree book, “The Hidden Life of Trees.” There’s a new history of water use in California that’s fantastic. It’s called “The Dreamt Land.” It’s like John McPhee-level writing. It’s really worth it for the writing alone.

The press always made such a big deal about the fact that you never got married.

I didn’t need to get married. I’m not sure that anybody needs to get married. If they do, I’m on their side. But I never needed to get married. I had my own life.

I have to admit, I was born in the eighties and I discovered you through “The Muppet Show.” What can you tell me about working with Kermit?

I had a crush on Kermit, so it was a problem because of Miss Piggy. He was her property. But we had a really good time on that show. There’s something extraordinarily creative about puppeteers. They’re fascinating, because when they do all their acting, they can’t let it go through their own body. I think they’re just loaded with talent. I loved watching them. It was a very coöperative experience. They let me help them with the story and the songs.

What was your contribution to the story?

This crush that I had on Kermit, they developed into a little storyline where Miss Piggy and I have a confrontation.

She seems like a very formidable rival.

She was. She was nasty! She locked Kermit in a trunk.

Because you’re a singer but not a songwriter, so much of your artistic expression comes through your choice of material. How did you choose songs for “Heart Like a Wheel,” including the title song by Anna and Kate McGarrigle?

I was just ambushed by that song. I was riding with Jerry Jeff Walker in a cab, and he said, “I was at the Philadelphia Folk Festival and I heard these two girls singing—they were sisters. They sang a really good song. You should hear it.” He sang me the first verse—“Some say the heart is just like a wheel / When you bend it, you can’t mend it / But my love for you is like a sinking ship / And my heart is on that ship out in mid-ocean”—and I just thought they were the most beautiful lyrics I’d ever heard. I said, “You have to send me that song.” And I get this tape in the mail, reel to reel, with just piano and a cello and the two girls singing their beautiful harmonies. The manager I had at the time said it was too corny. Somebody said it would never be a hit. And I don’t think it was ever a radio single, but it was a huge song for me. I sang it all the way through my career.

Were you surprised by the songs from that album that became hits?

I was surprised anything of mine was successful, because it always seemed so hodge-podge. I just tried different songs that didn’t necessarily have anything to do with each other, but which expressed a real urgent feeling that I just had to express. “You’re No Good” was an afterthought. We needed to have an uptempo song to close the show with, and that was a song I knew from the radio.

What were the biggest challenges in becoming a public figure?

Not having the ability to observe other people, because people are observing you. I had to keep my head down all the time. It was kind of excruciating. I still feel that way. I don’t like to be on the spot. Also, relationships were hard, because I was always on the bus.

In an interview from 1977, you said, “I think men have generally treated me badly, and the idea of a war between the sexes is very real in our culture. In the media, women are built up with sex as a weapon and men are threatened by it as much as they are drawn to it, and they retaliate as hard as they can.” Do you remember what you were talking about?

No, I don’t! I have to say that when I look at my whole career, over all, what counted the most was whether you showed up and played the music. I saw it happen with Emmylou, and I saw it happen with Joni Mitchell. Joni Mitchell was threatening to everybody. She could play better. She could sing better. She looked better. She could just do it all. But it’s true, there was a certain amount of chauvinism.There weren’t a lot of girls in the business who were doing what I was doing, so my friendship with Emmylou Harris became so important.

Did you find that there were things that were harder for you as a woman than for your male contemporaries?

Well, I had to do makeup and hair. That’s a lot, because that’s two hours of the day that you could spend reading a book or learning a language or practicing guitar. Guys just shower and put on any old clothes. And then there were high heels. I have extra ankle bones in each foot, and high heels were agonizing. I used to wear them onstage, kick them off, hide my feet behind the monitors, and find my shoes again before I had to leave the stage.

At the height of your rock-and-roll fame, you decided to do Gilbert and Sullivan. What drew you to that?

My sister, when she was eleven and I was six, I guess, sang “H.M.S. Pinafore” in her junior high school. My mother had a book of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas on piano, and somehow I learned the songs. I heard my sister practicing them. So, when I heard of “The Pirates of Penzance,” I knew what Gilbert and Sullivan was.

Was part of you tired of being a rock star?

Part of me was very tired of it. I was singing loud in halls that didn’t sound like they were built for music. I liked the idea of a proscenium stage. I think a proscenium has a lot to do with focussing your attention. A theatre is a machine built to focus your attention and allow you to dream. You’re hypnotized, in a way, and the person onstage is your champion, is telling your story. You find emotions you didn’t realize you had.

Throughout the eighties, you experimented wildly with genre, everything from Puccini to the Great American Songbook to Mexican canciones. I’m sure your record label was surprised when you said, “I want to make an album of Mexican folk music.”

Well, before that, I wanted to do American standard songs, and they said, “No, it won’t work.” In fact, Joe Smith [the chairman of Elektra/Asylum Records] even came to my house to beg me not to do it. He said, “You’re throwing your career away.” I’d been away so long working on Broadway.

Were you worried that your fans wouldn’t go along with the standards, either?

I didn’t worry about it until after we made the record [“What’s New”] and we were opening at Radio City Music Hall. And I realized, all of a sudden, people might not show up. They really might hate it. I was ordering matzo-ball soup from the Carnegie Deli next door, and it gave me the shakes so bad that I could barely stand when I got onstage. I was holding hands with Nelson Riddle in the wings—he was nervous, too. He said, “Don’t let me down, baby.” I said, “I’ll do my best.” He was the best of those arrangers—worked with Rosemary Clooney and Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. He wrote beautiful charts for me. I was really lucky to have him. I went back to my apartment that night and just smiled, because we had gotten away with an evening of American standard songs.

When I see something now like Lady Gaga recording a standards album with Tony Bennett, it seems like she owes you a debt.

Well, she owes me nothing. She’s got enough talent to make it on her own. But, up until then, attempts by female pop artists to go back and do standards had not been successful. And Joan Baez had tried to record in Spanish, and that didn’t work. It depends on what the audience is expecting of you. When I did Mexican songs, I brought in a whole new audience. I played the same venues, but it was grandmothers and grandchildren. People brought their kids. And the standards audience was older—they were in their fifties and sixties, which seemed impossibly old to me at the time.

Is it true that you recorded “Canciones de Mi Padre” at George Lucas’s recording studio, Skywalker Sound?

The second album, “Mas Canciones.” I chose it because they have a big scoring stage. It has good acoustics that you can tune with the wooden panels on the side. There was a lot of room ambience. Mariachi’s a folk orchestra, and it was a good orchestra sound. It’s hard to find.

You also collaborated with Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton. Do you keep in touch with them?

Emmy comes out to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, which is a bluegrass festival here in San Francisco, so I see her about once a year. She comes over to my house. We used to sing together. Now she brings her laundry and we talk. When you’re on the road, you always have extra laundry.

Have you kept up with Dolly?

Emmy and I presented her an award recently, and I hadn’t seen her in a while. I don’t think she realized I’m as disabled as I am. She threw her arms around me, and I kept saying, “Dolly, watch out! You’re going to knock me down!” She thought I was kidding. I nearly fell down. I grabbed onto the podium that her award was on and knocked it to the ground. It was made out of glass and it broke. “Congratulations, here’s your award—smash! You get to take the pieces home.”

If you could wave a magic wand and record one more album, what would be on it?

It would be an eclectic mix. There’s a song called “I Still Have That Other Girl,” written by Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach, that I always wanted to record. And there’s a Mexican song called “Paloma Negra” I always wanted to record. I’d record all those songs that I didn’t get around to.

THANKS TO MIHCAEL SCHULMAN AND NEWYORKER.COM FOR THE ARTICLE.

#linda ronstadt #michael schulman #the new yorker #the new yorker magazine #real music #classic rock #newyorker.com

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oberlinconservatory · 6 years ago

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In the Practice Room with the 2019 Rubin Scholars

For each of the past 14 years, Oberlin Conservatory has welcomed the legendary American mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne for a weeklong residency. And after each of the past six, Horne has awarded $10,000 to outstanding students that she coached during her campus visit. Both the scholarship and the Horne residency are made possible by the singer’s close friend and philanthropist Stephen Rubin, president and publisher of Henry Holt & Co. This spring, Horne named soprano Whitney Campbell ’19 and tenor Shawn Roth ’20 the new awardees, each receiving $5,000 in funding for auditions, travel, and the living expenses that accompany the life of a young artist. While singing for THE Marilyn Horne was a bit nerve-racking for both Whitney and Shawn, they both admit that having fun has backed all their hard work at Oberlin.

When were you first inspired by the human singing voice?

Whitney: As a child, I would go around the house singing at all hours of the day. The first time I was inspired by the operatic voice, was when I heard Renée Fleming live in recital when I was 13 years old. Her ability to touch the soul with her voice alone inspired me to pursue this career!

Shawn: Among a few moments that stick out in particular would be the first time I heard a recording of Pavarotti singing “La donna è mobile.” There was just something so other-worldly about it—it sounded too perfect to be of this earth. I thought, “Whoa, opera’s the coolest thing there is,” because nothing remotely came close to listening to it.

What are some of your greatest musical influences?

Whitney: Since first hearing Renée Fleming in that recital, I have always gone back to her as a source of inspiration. I consider her my biggest role model. Her innate musicality and ability to express with her voice is something I aspire to achieve. I have read her book, The Inner Voice, at least three times. Angela Meade, Marilyn Horne, Montserrat Caballé, Eileen Farrell, Mirella Freni, and so many more, also influence my work. In addition to those singing role models, it was my longtime choir director Barbara Walker who introduced me to music and really inspired me to pursue this career. She heard me singing at the pool when I was five years old and recruited me on the spot to join the Livingston Parish Children’s Choir in Denham Springs, LA, where I sang from kindergarten through seventh grade. She is still a major musical influence and mentor to me today. Without her, I probably would not have gotten into music at all.

Shawn: Every day I find another reason to sing, whether it’s because I’ve discovered a new aria or new singer, perhaps I found out something new when I practiced that day, or maybe someone said something I’d like to prove wrong! As far as musical influences go, I’ve had a few constants—one would be Pavarotti. I always go back to him, even if I haven’t listened to him in months. Another would be classical radio programming. I grew up in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, with Pittsburgh’s classical radio station WQED. One night, when I was a kid, I was messing with my radio before bed and came across this absolutely, shockingly mesmerizing sound. It was a beautiful symphony—I unfortunately don’t remember what the piece was, but I remember the host saying it was by an African-American composer. Probably William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 1, now that I think of it. But from then on I would listen to the classical station anytime I could, and I credit that with giving me my love for classical music in particular. When I come home I turn the dial as soon as I’m in range!

Shawn performs opposite soprano Alexis Reed ’20 in Missy Mazzoli’s Proving Up in the January 2019 Winter Term Opera. What have been some of your greatest experiences in Oberlin? Any most valuable takeaways?

Whitney: Having the opportunity to work with Marilyn Horne is definitely at the top of my list! It was an absolutely incredible experience that I am beyond grateful for. During my four years at Oberlin, I was fortunate enough to be cast in all four of the operas conducted by Christopher Larkin. After being in the chorus for the first two, I got to work more closely with him on solo roles in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw and Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites. It was such a privilege to work with maestro Larkin during my time here. He was so inspiring with his encouraging words and musical ideas, while simultaneously teaching us how to work with a full orchestra. It’s incredible that Oberlin provided us—as such young singers—with fully staged, costumed, and orchestrally supported opportunities to grow as artists on stage.

Shawn: Getting accepted to Oberlin in the first place was such a thrill, since I really only began studying voice seriously during my senior year of high school. I’ve been incredibly fortunate for what Oberlin’s given to me. I’ve had the chance to work with an amazing teacher, Salvatore Champagne, throughout my time here. As an underclassman I got to listen to incredibly talented colleagues like Olivia Boen ’17 and Cory McGee ’18 before they took off. I’ve been in master classes with world-renowned artists such as Marilyn Horne, George Shirley, Gerald Martin Moore, and Brian Zeger. I’ve worked on operas with two of the best living composers, Du Yun and Missy Mazzoli. And I’ve been invited to sing with the Cleveland Orchestra as a soloist, twice, because they reached out to Oberlin specifically for singers. How can I possibly pick a favorite out of any of those?! And I still have one more year left, which is hands-down the craziest part. Can’t wait to see what happens next year!

Whitney Campbell in Oberlin Opera Theater’s spring 2019 production of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites. Singing on the Marilyn Horne master classes is one of the most exciting honors for Oberlin singers. What was that first experience of working with the great American mezzo like for you? Whitney: As I was sitting in the audience, waiting for my turn to sing the “Czardas” from Die Fledermaus for Marilyn Horne, I was the most nervous I’ve ever felt for a performance. However, after getting through the first sing-through, she was so kind—I just knew she was rooting for all of us to succeed! She had such great, really helpful advice for me about pacing the piece. It ended up being one of my favorite performances at Oberlin. To top it all off, I got to have an hour-long lesson with her the next day! I never would’ve thought I would have the chance to casually sing through my repertoire for Ms. Horne. It was a life-changing experience, and I still can’t believe it happened. One of the coolest things she said to me was that I reminded her of herself at a young age, which was the best compliment I could ever wish to receive. I’m still reeling from it! I really hope I can continue to work with her in the years to come! Shawn: Oh god, I’ve never been more nervous than when I was waiting backstage to go on stage for Ms. Horne. As the most established living American mezzo, she’s one of the most intimidating people to sing for on the planet...at first. Once I got out there and she started asking me about my pieces, she made me feel right at home. (I think both of us being from western Pennsylvania probably helped, too!) She’ll ask you to do things no one else will, and as a result, can improve your performance in ways no one else can. Working with her in a private lesson was just as exciting—at the time, I was singing baritone, and had Billy Budd’s aria in my package. To help me out, she told me how the first baritone to sing that role sang it, who just happened to be a friend of hers. That’s the beauty of Ms. Horne’s experience—she’ll tell you things that came right from the mouths of Britten or Stravinsky themselves.

Shawn in Oberlin Opera Theater’s fall 2018 production of Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti with castmate and mezzo-soprano Gabriela Linares ’21. What did your path to music and Oberlin look like?

Whitney: Following my years of experience singing in the Livingston Parish Children’s Choir, I decided to audition for the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, right in my hometown. After being admitted at the high school level, I skipped 8th grade and went straight into high school. I studied classical voice with Phyllis Treigle, expanded my art song repertory, participated in a number of opera scenes, and performed in two full operas. It was in those pivotal years that I discovered that opera was all I wanted to do. Throughout high school, I did summer opera intensives at Louisiana State University and the Brevard Music Center. It was during my junior year that my mom convinced me to go to Oberlin’s Vocal Academy for High School Students, and I fell in love with this school! I could just feel that Oberlin would help me grow into a more well-rounded artist. And, the conservatory immediately became my number-one pick for undergrad. Now, as I approach graduation, I realize how lucky I was to receive such a thorough music education from such a respected institution. I am so grateful to everyone that made my experience here such an exciting one! Shawn: So, although music was a constant in my life since day one, I had a lot of insecurity and anxiety about what to study in college. Where I’m from, the only real “path” for musically-inclined kids was to go to one of three or four state schools, get a degree in music education, and try your luck at applying for teaching jobs in the area. Three of my high school music teachers sat me down with my parents one day to try to scare me out of a performance-based career, because it was just such an “outlandish” idea. Of course, I chose Oberlin anyway. I think it’s worked out pretty well so far. So my advice for anyone who needs to hear it is this: Do what you want to be doing with your time. It’s not anyone else’s, and it’s the only thing you can’t get back once it’s gone. Now for a more uplifting story! The exact moment that I knew I wanted to sing for a living came while I was singing with a regional choir in my junior year of high school, led by an incredibly talented conductor, Chris Jackson. We were preparing Mozart’s Regina Coeli, which features a solo quartet out in front of the choir. Wanting that solo so badly and hoping to stand out, I called upon my official sponsor for this interview, Luciano Pavarotti, and just tried to sound like him as much as possible. It worked, and I got the solo! Singing out there in front of everyone activated the strongest emotional response to music I’ve ever had, and I knew then that I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. I still get that feeling when I perform, and it’s one of the strongest highs you can feel. I actually ended up running into Chris last summer, when we were both singing at the Yale School of Music’s Norfolk Festival. During a break in rehearsal, I re-introduced myself and thanked him for letting me discover my passion—then we went right back to singing, this time as colleagues. All the more proof that the classical music world is the smallest there is!

“Do what you want to be doing with your time. It’s not anyone else’s, and it’s the only thing you can’t get back once it’s gone.”

Whitney, Shawn, and fellow voice majors with guest master clinician and acclaimed vocal coach Gerald Martin Moore. Do you have any advice for our incoming freshman singers?

Shawn: Have fun, and listen to each other. A large portion of your education comes from classes and lessons, but perhaps the most valuable things you’ll learn will come from your friends and colleagues. Be easy to work with—it will pay dividends in the long run. Even that still boils down to just being receptive to the people around you. Your entire time as an undergrad is an audition for all your peers, because they’ll be the ones who will get you jobs later on. And people who are easy to work with will be easy to employ. So show up with your music memorized, do the things the conductors ask you to do, and have fun with it, because that’s why we all do it at the end of the day. Also, learn German. The Germans already know English.

Whitney: Absolutely don’t forget to learn from your peers! Be supportive of each other—don’t tear each other down! Be a good colleague. Be respectful. Be prepared. Always be on time. It will only help you in the long run to have a reputation of being respectful and dependable. And, lastly, remember why you came to Oberlin. You came here to do what you love: sing opera. You are here to do it for you, and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks or says. Have fun with it!

#opera #singing #classical voice #classical music #music #Marilyn Horne #Whitney Campbell #Shawn Roth #soprano #tenor #bass #mezzo-soprano #music school #Oberlin #Oberlin Conservatory #summer program #Louisiana #New Orleans #pennsylvania

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daisydezem · 6 years ago

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Get to know me Tag

Wow this took longer then I thought it would! But thank you so much for tagging me @cruelhumanbean & @cloud-9-sims! I’m gonna tag @deathbyhysteria, @rethasim, @shellisims and @king-mikeyy! I loved updating my simself. It has been a while but I still think she is way to pretty. I just can’t make real people. Then there are 125 questions answered in the cut down below! So it’s a long list!

1. what is your name? Daisy (Officially Dasy. My dad forgot the i -_-’)

2. what is your nickname? Dezem, Dees, Dee, Esseborre... anymore...

3. birthday? April 24 1990

4. what is your favorite book series? Harry potter... Or does Manga count? Then Skip Beat!

5. do you believe in aliens or ghosts? Aliens Yes! Ghost not really.

6. who is your favorite author? UHM... I don’t like reading books. I’m dyslectic so the only reading I do is Manga and webcomics. For that I really like Yoshiki Nakamura. (from skip beat)

7. what is your favorite radio station? Veronica!

8. what is your favorite flavor of anything? Anything spicy!

9. what word would you use often to describe something great or wonderful? In English - Awesome and in Dutch - Super... I know it’s also a english word but it’s used a bit different

10. what is your current favorite song The sound of Silence - Disturbed

11. what is your favorite word? Inevitable. It has a nice tongue feel... Idk... Oh and In Dutch - Schatig. It means cute but it sounds really harsh for people that don’t speak Dutch.

12. what was the last song you listened to? Freak on a leash - Korn

13. what tv show would you recommend for everybody to watch? Battle star Galactica!! Walking Dead Lucifer Supernatural Game of thrones New Girl Dexter Friends More?

14. what is your favorite movie to watch when you’re feeling down? Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny it always cheers me up!

15. do you play video games? Uhmm... YES!

16. what is your biggest fear? Being alone

17. what is your best quality, in your opinion? I know what I want and do whatever I can to get it.

18. what is your worst quality, in your opinion? Being afraid of change. Being a control freak. Being a perfectionist

9. do you like cats or dogs better? CATS! I’m kinda afraid of dogs... pictures are cute tho:P

20. what is your favorite season? Spring I guess. Not to warm and hopefully dry. Everything get green:)

21. are you in a relationship? Yes uhm... 7 years now. And a kid of 4 (almost).

22. what is something you miss from your childhood? Believing in the good and magical things.

23. who is your best friend? Nouk! (Not her real name her nickname tho)

24. what is your eye color? Brown

25. what is your hair color? Naturally Brown... But I change it a lot!

26. who is someone you love? Hubby, Son, Mom, Dad, Stepdad, Stepmom, Siblings, Grandpa’s, Grandma’s, Nouk, And a lot more!

27. who is someone you trust? Hubby, Mom, Stepdad, Nouk.

28. who is someone you think about often? Rn? Uhm My little brother and grandpa. They are not doing so well.

29. are you currently excited about/for something? Yes! My son is about to turn 4 so after the winter/Christmas vacation he will be going to elementary school!

30. what is your biggest obsession? Tbh... Sims... haha I just think about what when how all the time:P

31. what was your favorite tv show as a child? Telekids!! It was a dutch kids gameshow between two school and in between cartoons! On Saturday morning!

32. who of the opposite gender can you tell anything to, if anyone? Well my hubby!

33. are you superstitious? Not really. I do know a lot so I pretend to be sometimes when it is convenient.

34. do you have any unusual phobias? No!

35. do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it? Oh actually I like both! I like seeing pictures of the past because it brings back memories. But I do like taking pictures as well. And to be fair. I’m not good at both hahaha

36. what is your favorite hobby? Gaming!

37. what was the last book you read? The Hobbit

38. what was the last movie you watched? The new Incredibles! Is was... SUPER!

39. what musical instruments do you play, if any? I play guitar, bass and drums. Bass best tho! I got a piano now so I’m trying to learn that if and when I have some time.

40. what is your favorite animal? Cats!

41. what are your top 5 favorite tumblr blogs that you follow? Oh god... I always feel horrible doing this. Because it changes all the time and well I like many more as 5. But okay let just do it! @cosmic-espie @pink-chevalier @brisberries @wildlyminiaturesandwich @plumpug. Okay yeah... There are many more!

42. what superpower do you wish you had? Reading someones mind. Easier to know if someone lied.

43. when and where do you feel most at peace? At home.

44. what makes you smile? Weird stuff my son says or does.

45. what sports do you play, if any? I used to dance! Ballet, Jazz, Modern and Hip-hop... But can’t anymore.. Classical ballet is hell for your knees!

46. what is your favorite drink? A coke! (My addiction)

47. when was the last time you wrote a hand-written letter or note to somebody? I can’t remember!

48. are you afraid of heights? Used to be. Then I went bungee jumping with a height of 169 meters (555 ft) and now I’m not afraid anymore!! (this is the bungee jump video is not me picture is tho!)

49. what is your biggest pet peeve? When I’m at work and people start with a question instead of saying hello first or don’t look at me at all when checking their tickets!

50. have you ever been to a concert? Yeah! Greenday, Paramore, Billy talent, My chemical romance, Iron Maiden, Doe Maar and Infinite(in paris!)

51. are you vegan/vegetarian? That’s a def no...

52. when you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? A teacher!

53. what fictional world would you like to live in? The Dragon ball Universe!

54. what is something you worry about? The health of my grandpa and little brother.

55. are you scared of the dark? No, I prefer the dark...

56. do you like to sing? Yes! I was never allowed to sing in the band tho.. I was allowed to scream tho!

57. have you ever skipped school? Yeah.... Sssssst don’t tell my mom. She still doesn’t know. ;)

58. what is your favorite place on the planet? Home <3

59. where would you like to live? Where I live now.

60. do you have any pets? Yes!

61. are you more of an early bird or a night owl? Night Owl!

62. do you like sunrises or sunsets better? Sunsets! If I ever see a sunrises someone will be dying... (the one that woke me up that early!)

63. do you know how to drive? Yeaaaasssss! I LOVE DRIVING! and yes also with a gearbox!!

64. do you prefer earbuds or headphones? In-ear earbuds!

65. have you ever had braces? No!

66. what is your favorite genre of music? Rock!

67. who is your hero? My mom!

68. do you read comic books? Web comics (rn the gamer and dice) and manga!

69. what makes you the most angry? People who did something wrong and then blame you.

70. do you prefer to read on an electronic device or with a real book? Electronic. Real books are to heavy to take a lot of with you.

71. what was your favorite subject in school? Math and science!

72. do you have any siblings? Yes! Sister at my Moms and a Brother and Sister at my Dads!

73. what was the last thing you bought? Food:p But uhm as of last fun thing was the cam for the facecam on streams!

74. how tall are you? 171 cm (5′7 is that right?)

75. can you cook? Somewhat... I like cooking but I usually work during dinner time so don’t do it to often.

76. what are three things that you love? My family (incl my own and my parents, siblings and grandparents) Playing games (incl sims, final fantasy, dragon quest and stardew) My roomba! (I hate vacuuming)

77. what are three things that you hate? Liars Cleaning Waking up early

78. do you have more female friends or more male friends? I think male...

79. what is your sexual orientation? I’m straight.

80. where do you currently live? The Netherlands (HOLLAND HOLLAND HOLLAND) ;)

81. who was the last person you texted? My hubby!

82. when was the last time you cried? Today.... hahaha I hurt my back still went to work. Got worse and at the end of my shift I could barely walk. I felt like a wuss and that made me cry.

83. who is your favorite youtuber? MATPAT (game theorists) Jen (xurbansimsx) Mage Masher and Jacksepticeye

84. do you like to take selfies? Sometimes...

85. what is your favorite app? Webtoons

86. what is your relationship with your parent(s) like? Very good

87. what is your favorite foreign accent? German

88. what is a place that you’ve never been to, but you want to visit? Seoul and Kyoto

89. what is your favorite number? 4

90. can you juggle? No

91. are you religious? No (Maybe the flying spaghetti monster tho)

92. do you find outer space of the deep ocean to be more interesting? OUTER SPACE! I love space! I’m a bit scared of the ocean tho

93. do you consider yourself to be a daredevil? No BUT if needed I will be.

94. are you allergic to anything? No

95. can you curl your tongue? Yes :P

96. can you wiggle your ears? Yes that too! (Just checked btw)

97. how often do you admit that you were wrong about something? Not that often... If proven wrong I would tho.

98. do you prefer the forest or the beach? Forest

99. what is your favorite piece of advice that anyone has ever given you? It will always be darkest just before it will get lighter again. (no matter how awful things seem it will get better)

100. are you a good liar? A very good liar...

101. what is your hogwarts house? Gryffindor

102. do you talk to yourself? All the time!

103. are you an introvert or an extrovert? Both... I guess.. But more Extrovert.

104. do you keep a journal/diary? Nooooo I can’t! And if I do it’s for 2 weeks and then I forget!

105. do you believe in second chances? Yes but not in third.

106. if you found a wallet full of money on the ground, what would you do? Give it to the police.. I can’t keep it because I would feel bad...

107. do you believe that people are capable of change? Change... Not really. However I do believe in the adaptability of people.

108. are you ticklish? Yes... unfortunately...

109. have you ever been on a plane? Yes to Spain, Hungary, Italy and Malta

110. do you have any piercings? Yes I had more. Did you know if you get pregnant your body can just resist them? I lost 5 piercings because of that but gained a lovely little boy so everything is good. <3

111. what fictional character do you wish was real? Oeee this is hard... there are so many. But uh let me just say Gohan. I just love him. Strong, kind and smart. (Also my first crush when I was young hahaha)

112. do you have any tattoos? Yes 3! And I want so many MORE!

113. what is the best decision that you’ve made in your life so far? Changing jobs!

114. do you believe in karma? No... I don’t believe in anything I can’t see or can’t be proven my science.

115. do you wear glasses or contacts? Glasses

116. do you want children? I got a kid already hahaha but Yes I would like a second child at some point.

117. who is the smartest person you know? I think it would be my sister @galaxymiep! She can do stuff I could never do. <3

118. what is your most embarrassing memory? Oh Idk... I’m not embarrassed easily. But I think I would be when my workpants had a hole in it and I didn’t notice until someone told me...

119. have you ever pulled an all-nighter? So many times.

120. what colour are most of you clothes? Black

121. do you like adventures? Not really. I had my adventures days. I’m boring now hahaha

122. have you ever been on tv? UHmm... Yes... Local tv station about concrete blocks. Why?

123. how old are you? Old... hahaha I’m 28

124. what is your favorite movie quote? From the movie Moulin Rouge: “The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”

125. sweet or savory? Depends on my mood. But mostly Savory!

#tagged #simself #125 questions!!

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hallucinosims · 6 years ago

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Hi here’s the get to know me tag let’s get to knowing

I was tagged in this by @gunthermunch

125 questions under the cut, if you do decide to read i suggest getting a snack first

I tag @emovatore @humanitys-shortest @liliithvatore if you haven’t done it yet

1. WHAT IS YOUR FULL NAME? Elio

2. WHAT IS YOUR NICKNAME? Lee and Leo are the go-tos in real life but I get called Hall on here and I think that’s a rad nickname too

3. BIRTHDAY? Feb 5th

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BOOK SERIES? I am a slut for the Percy Jackson series and Leo Valdez was one of the reasons why I started going by Leo more often then my full name

5. DO YOU BELIEVE IN ALIENS OR GHOSTS? Yes yes absolutely yes. One, earth really can’t be the only planet in a universe with infinite possibilities to have life on it, you know? And ghosts is more like a spirit thing.

6. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE AUTHOR? oooh fuck me up this is a hard one uhhhhhh Classic author probably Edgar Allen Poe but Contempoary I’d say Tony Kushner

7. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE RADIO STATION? the Musical Theatre station

8. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FLAVOR OF ANYTHING? I don’t really like... food. I don’t enjoy it. But I guess I like savory over sweet

9. WHAT WORD WOULD YOU USE OFTEN TO DESCRIBE SOMETHING GREAT OR WONDERFUL? neat

10. WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT FAVORITE SONG? Liar by Queen or Greek God by Conan Gray

11. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE WORD? I-Cunt-tic, pronounced like iconic but... you know

12. WHAT WAS THE LAST SONG YOU LISTENED TO? Please Never Fall in love again Ollie MN

13. WHAT TV SHOW WOULD YOU RECOMMEND FOR EVERYBODY TO WATCH? Kidding, that Jim Carrey tv show that premiered this year. Beautifully edited and told story

14. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE TO WATCH WHEN YOU’RE FEELING DOWN? I’ve seen Bohemian Rhapsody 6 times this month alone so probably that on wards

15. DO YOU PLAY VIDEO GAMES? yes

16. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR? dying in the same place i was born

17. WHAT IS YOUR BEST QUALITY, IN YOUR OPINION? my empathy

18. WHAT IS YOUR WORST QUALITY, IN YOUR OPINION? the depression (tm)

19. DO YOU LIKE CATS OR DOGS BETTER? idk, i’m not really an animal person

20. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SEASON? fall

21. ARE YOU IN A RELATIONSHIP? nah

22. WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU MISS FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD? playing in the ika playscape

23. WHO IS YOUR BEST FRIEND? i have quite a few best friends but when im at school/work then my good friend Julio

24. WHAT IS YOUR EYE COLOR? a very doe eyed dark brown

25. WHAT IS YOUR HAIR COLOR? i re-dyed my hair black recently so let’s go with that

26. WHO IS SOMEONE YOU LOVE? my mom

27. WHO IS SOMEONE YOU TRUST? my dad

28. WHO IS SOMEONE YOU THINK ABOUT OFTEN? myself

29. ARE YOU CURRENTLY EXCITED ABOUT/FOR SOMETHING? going to denmark to be a farm gay on my semester off

30. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST OBSESSION? currently Sims, Queen, and Falsettos (the musical)

31. WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE TV SHOW AS A CHILD? i didn’t have cable but there is no way in hell i’m saying cyberchase so, Mia and Miguel

32. WHO OF THE OPPOSITE GENDER CAN YOU TELL ANYTHING TO, IF ANYONE? Julio

33. ARE YOU SUPERSTITIOUS? very

34. DO YOU HAVE ANY UNUSUAL PHOBIAS? none that i can think of

35. DO YOU PREFER TO BE IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA OR BEHIND IT?i actually really enjoy both

36. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE HOBBY? sims

37. WHAT WAS THE LAST BOOK YOU READ? True West, it’s a really good play

38. WHAT WAS THE LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? ...Bohemian Rhapsody for the 6th time

39. WHAT MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS DO YOU PLAY, IF ANY? most stringed instruments i can figure out pretty quickly but i’m best at guitar and piano

40. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ANIMAL? humans

41. WHAT ARE YOUR TOP 5 FAVORITE TUMBLR BLOGS THAT YOU FOLLOW? i follow over 5k people i don’t even know who i follow

42. WHAT SUPERPOWER DO YOU WISH YOU HAD? basically Kirby. I want the power to take others powers

43. WHEN AND WHERE DO YOU FEEL MOST AT PEACE? in michigan on rainy afternoons in my bunk bed with my laptop on my lap. Or like, the floor of a bookstore

44. WHAT MAKES YOU SMILE? loaded question

45. WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY, IF ANY? I used to do competitve dance, competitve cheer, biking, and volleyball

46. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DRINK? watah

47. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WROTE A HAND-WRITTEN LETTER OR NOTE TO SOMEBODY? like a week ago to my grandma, she likes getting post cards in the mail

48. ARE YOU AFRAID OF HEIGHTS? i used to be. not so much anymore

49. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST PET PEEVE? people who saunter. We got places to be fellas

50. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO A CONCERT? yup!

51. ARE YOU VEGAN/VEGETARIAN? i’m to anemic to be either

52. WHEN YOU WERE LITTLE, WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP? a performer

53. WHAT FICTIONAL WORLD WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE IN? i’m actually not to into media that take place in other... wait i take it back i wanna live in Hobbiton

54. WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU WORRY ABOUT? breathing

55. ARE YOU SCARED OF THE DARK? ehh sometimes

56. DO YOU LIKE TO SING? It’s a part of my career so hopefully

57. HAVE YOU EVER SKIPPED SCHOOL? i’m skippin school rn

58. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PLACE ON THE PLANET? manhattan Lower East Side

59. WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE? Manhattan’s Lower East Side. I live in the Upper West Side right now and it’s aight but it’s not the LES

60. DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS? nope

61. ARE YOU MORE OF AN EARLY BIRD OR A NIGHT OWL? i just dont sleep

62. DO YOU LIKE SUNRISES OR SUNSETS BETTER?sunrises

63. DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DRIVE? nah

64. DO YOU PREFER EARBUDS OR HEADPHONES? earbuds

65. HAVE YOU EVER HAD BRACES? yee

66. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE GENRE OF MUSIC? anything

67. WHO IS YOUR HERO? Tony Kushner

68. DO YOU READ COMIC BOOKS? yee and before you ask my fave is Deadpool

69. WHAT MAKES YOU THE MOST ANGRY? when people be on some bullshit

70. DO YOU PREFER TO READ ON AN ELECTRONIC DEVICE OR WITH A REAL BOOK? real book

71. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SUBJECT IN SCHOOL? IN High School I loved history

72. DO YOU HAVE ANY SIBLINGS? one sister who is ten years older than I am

73. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU BOUGHT? ... iced coffee despite it being 30 degrees out

74. HOW TALL ARE YOU? 5′3

75. CAN YOU COOK? I’d like to think so. Wish I had a oven tho

76. WHAT ARE THREE THINGS THAT YOU LOVE? music, my family (sometimes) I’m trying to love myself so let’s throow that one in there

77. WHAT ARE THREE THINGS THAT YOU HATE? people who stroll/saunter, when people are on their bullshit, dark chocolate

78. DO YOU HAVE MORE FEMALE FRIENDS OR MORE MALE FRIENDS? male “friends”. But, I know a lot more girls that I keep up with more often.

79. WHAT IS YOUR SEXUAL ORIENTATION? lesbian

80. WHERE DO YOU CURRENTLY LIVE? Manhattan, Upper West Side

81. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TEXTED? Me mam

82. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? Thursday in my Theatre class but we were all crying so i’ll let it slide

83. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE YOUTUBER? i don’t really watch anyone consistently

84. DO YOU LIKE TO TAKE SELFIES? i do

85. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE APP? tinder

86. WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR PARENT(S) LIKE? prety solid i love them both even if my mom hates my sexuality and threatened locking me at home when i came out to herelol

87. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FOREIGN ACCENT? italian

88. WHAT IS A PLACE THAT YOU’VE NEVER BEEN TO, BUT YOU WANT TO VISIT?Copenhagen! I’ve wanted to go to Denmark since I was ten

89. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER? 7

90. CAN YOU JUGGLE? Nah son

91. ARE YOU RELIGIOUS? defenitly a lot less than my story style insists lol. I do believe in God tho

92. DO YOU FIND OUTER SPACE OR THE DEEP OCEAN TO BE MORE INTERESTING? LOADED QUESTION BECAUSE I WANNA EXPLORE BOTH

93. DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF TO BE A DAREDEVIL? ehhhhhhhh no

94. ARE YOU ALLERGIC TO ANYTHING? strawberries and some medicine that i can’t remember the name of

95. CAN YOU CURL YOUR TONGUE? yes i’m a lesbian it’s what we do

96. CAN YOU WIGGLE YOUR EARS? nah

97. HOW OFTEN DO YOU ADMIT THAT YOU WERE WRONG ABOUT SOMETHING? Literally anytime i’m wrong about soomething. I love being exposed, put in my place, roasted.

98. DO YOU PREFER THE FOREST OR THE BEACH? Forest so I can find my mans... my MOTH mans

99. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PIECE OF ADVICE THAT ANYONE HAS EVER GIVEN YOU? you know what you want, don’t let your concerns get in the way of your ambitions

100. ARE YOU A GOOD LIAR? Yes

101. WHAT IS YOUR HOGWARTS HOUSE? Ravenclaw

102. DO YOU TALK TO YOURSELF? Deadass I talk to myself more often than otherpeople

103. ARE YOU AN INTROVERT OR AN EXTROVERT? introverted

104. DO YOU KEEP A JOURNAL/DIARY? yee

105. DO YOU BELIEVE IN SECOND CHANCES? I give everyone I can think of second chances because i’m a forgiving sone of a bitch and yet they continue TO BE ON SOME BULLSHIT

106. IF YOU FOUND A WALLET FULL OF MONEY ON THE GROUND, WHAT WOULD YOU DO? THat be mine i may be forgiving by moral compass be broke as hell and I haven’t eaten in like 3 days because i’m so broke

107. DO YOU BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE ARE CAPABLE OF CHANGE? When I’m answering this question for a job application i sure do

108. ARE YOU TICKLISH? tragicallu

109. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ON A PLANE? yes

110. DO YOU HAVE ANY PIERCINGS? i have 5 holes in my ears and a nostreil piercing

111. WHAT FICTIONAL CHARACTER DO YOU WISH WAS REAL? Mark Cohen or LEO VALDEZ

112. DO YOU HAVE ANY TATTOOS? yes 2, one chest, one forearm. But that’s only because I don’t have money i need more

113. WHAT IS THE BEST DECISION THAT YOU’VE MADE IN YOUR LIFE SO FAR? move to new york

114. DO YOU BELIEVE IN KARMA? yes and she’s a bitch

115. DO YOU WEAR GLASSES OR CONTACTS? both

116. DO YOU WANT CHILDREN? eventually I feel like I would make a pretty solid kid

117. WHO IS THE SMARTEST PERSON YOU KNOW? my dad

118. WHAT IS YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING MEMORY? Being high for three days straight

119. HAVE YOU EVER PULLED AN ALL-NIGHTER? i just finished pulling one

120. WHAT COLOR ARE MOST OF YOU CLOTHES? black as you can see by my simself i really do dress pretty much only in black because i aged poorly out of my goth phase

121. DO YOU LIKE ADVENTURES? yeeee

122. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ON TV? Yep, Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, Trade Show stuff, probably for school or local news a few times

123. HOW OLD ARE YOU? 18

124. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE QUOTE? Know in your soul like your blood knows the way from your heart to your brain, know that you’re whole. - HEdwig and the Angry Inch

125. DO YOU PREFER SWEET OR SAVORY FOODS? This is a really boring last question but savory but if you made it this far i’ll expose myself a little more. I’m black and Jewish, I go to a performing arts Conservatory, and this took me so long to answer because I hooked up with someone in Brooklyn last night and i had trouble getting back to my dorm.

#get to know me tag #hall posts #saviorhide #long posts

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snowlilys-wife · 7 years ago

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Get To Know Me (Tagged)

1. What is your full name? Sorry, I’m just “Hannah” to yall

2. What is your nickname? Any classic “Hannah-(insert rhyme here)” joke you can possible think of

3. What is your zodiac sign? Leo

4. What is your favourite book series? Im not into a lot of books, but manga-wise, my favorite is Fruits Basket and Servamp

5. Do you believe in aliens or ghosts? Nope

6. Who is your favourite author? Dunno????

7. What is your favourite radio station? I don’t listen to the radio

8. What is your favourite flavour of anything? Usually anything chocolate or strawberry will be good

9. What word would you use often to describe something great or wonderful? “Awesome!” or “Nice!”

10. What is your current favourite song? Currently: “All Eyes on Me” by OR3O

11. What is your favourite word? ??? I dont think I have one

12. What was the last song you listened to? All Eyes on Me^^^^ XDDD

13. What TV show would you recommend for everybody to watch? Fullmetal Alchemist, Servamp, Ouran High School Host Club, Durarara!!, among many others

14. What is your favourite movie to watch when you’re feeling down? Servamp or Ouran

15. Do you play video games? Ahhhh sometimes

16. What is your biggest fear? Being alone or unhappy the rest of my life

17. What is your best quality, in your opinion? Uhhhhhh???

18. What is your worst quality, in your opinion? My attachment and dependence on other people

19. Do you like cats or dogs better? Cats

20. What is your favourite season? Winter/Spring

21. Are you in a relationship? No

22. What is something you miss from your childhood? Having no responsibilities and being carefree about a lot of things

23. Who is your best friend? Asia, Honour, Emily, Briana

24. What is your eye colour? Brown

25. What is your hair colour? Naturally dirty blonde/light brown, but dyed Auburn Red

26. Who is someone you love? All my friends mentioned above

27. Who is someone you trust? All my friends mentioned above

28. Who is someone you think about often? All my friends mentioned above

29. Are you currently excited about/for something? Anime Expo and my 21st bday

30. What is your biggest obsession? When am I not obsessed with anime

31. What was your favourite TV show as a child? Depends on how young. As a kid, i watched a lot of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network (so think early 2000s cartoons) and Sonic X and Xialolin Showdown too!

32. Who of the opposite gender can you tell anything to, if anyone? My friend Nick

33. Are you superstitious? Not really

34. Do you have any unusual phobias? I’m afraid of a lot of things lol

35. Do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it? I enjoy being in front of the camera if I look good

36. What is your favourite hobby? Drawing, singing to myself, and video editing

37. What was the last book you read? Don’t remember

38. What was the last movie you watched? Don’t remember

39. What musical instruments do you play, if any? Used to play piano. Not much now

40. What is your favourite animal? Cheetahs and Sloths

41. What are your top 5 favourite Tumblr blogs that you follow? All my friends mentioned above (crazyanime3, karmakitty, sleepyem1, and mermaibee)

42. What superpower do you wish you had? Invisibility or Flying

43. When and where do you feel most at peace? In my room late at night

44. What makes you smile? My friends, anime, good music, good art, my ocs, my OTPs

45. What sports do you play, if any? I used to play softball in high school

46. What is your favourite drink? Peppermint White Mocha, Caramel Macchiato, and Dr. Pepper

47. When was the last time you wrote a hand-written letter or note to somebody? Been years tbh

48. Are you afraid of heights? Im afraid of falling, but not of heights by themselves

49. What is your biggest pet peeve? Drivers who dont use their signals, when people say im a good “draw-er” (its not a word, people)

50. Have you ever been to a concert? Yeah a few

51. Are you vegan/vegetarian? NOPE

52. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? A fashion designer

53. What fictional world would you like to live in? Durarara, Soul Eater, or Ouran I guess

54. What is something you worry about? A lot of things

55. Are you scared of the dark? Not really

56. Do you like to sing? Yes but im terrible at it

57. Have you ever skipped school? Only in college

58. What is your favourite place on the planet? I enjoy coffee shops and ramen shops

59. Where would you like to live? In Washington or Oregon

60. Do you have any pets? My family does, but none of them are mine. We have 3 dogs

61. Are you more of an early bird or a night owl? I prefer to be a night owl, but I can easily fuction in the morning, I just need to get enough sleep

62. Do you like sunrises or sunsets better? Sunsets

63. Do you know how to drive? Yup

64. Do you prefer earbuds or headphones? I like both. Headphones at home, earbuds in public

65. Have you ever had braces? No

66. What is your favoruite genre of music? Rock and Alternative

67. Who is your hero? Dunno

68. Do you read comic books? Yes

69. What makes you the most angry? Jerks and people who think they are better than/more entitled than others

70. Do you prefer to read on an electronic device or with a real book? Both depends on what it is, but typically real books.

71. What is your favourite subject in school? Art and Drama/Theater

72. Do you have any siblings? Yes

73. What was the last thing you bought? $250 worth of Servamp merch

74. How tall are you? 5′7-8″

75. Can you cook? Some things, but not really well

76. What are three things that you love? Friends, anime, affection/attention

77. What are three things that you hate? jerks, public speaking, gross food

78. Do you have more female friends or more male friends? Female

79. What is your sexual orientation? At this point, pretty bi I guess.

80. Where do you currently live? California

81. Who was the last person you texted? My friend Clover

82. When was the last time you cried? A week ago

83. Who is your favourite YouTuber? Game Grumps, The Anime Man, Kubz Scouts, YandereDev (if that counts)

84. Do you like to take selfies? Yes, but only with filters

85. What is your favourite app? Spotify/Tumblr

86. What is your relationship with your parent(s) like? Mostly okay when there is no conflict

87. What is your favourite foreign accent? British

88. What is a place that you’ve never been to, but you want to visit? Japan

89. What is your favourite number? 12

90. Can you juggle? No

91. Are you religious? I’m Christian

92. Do you find outer space of the deep ocean to be more interesting? Both are terrifying and I dont like to think about them

93. Do you consider yourself to be a daredevil? Nope

94. Are you allergic to anything? No

95. Can you curl your tongue? Yes

96. Can you wiggle your ears? No

97. How often do you admit that you were wrong about something? If I believe I am justified, then no, but I will almost always admit when I’m wrong

98. Do you prefer the forest or the beach? Beach

99. What is your favourite piece of advice that anyone has ever given you? "Keep going”

100. Are you a good liar? Depends

101. What is your Hogwarts House? I've never seen or read Harry Potter but I guess Hufflepuff?

102. Do you talk to yourself? Yeah, a lot

103. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Depends on who Im around

104. Do you keep a journal/diary? Not really but sometimes i write out my vents if i need to

105. Do you believe in second chances? I give chance after chance after chance after chance

106. If you found a wallet full of money on the ground, what would you do? Turn it in

107. Do you believe that people are capable of change? Yes if they are willing to

108. Are you ticklish? Yes, very

109. Have you ever been on a plane? Many times

110. Do you have any piercings? Just my ears.

111. What fictional character do you wish was real? Snow Lily and Sakuya from Servamp or Mikorin from GSNK

112. Do you have any tattoos? No

113. What is the best decision that you’ve made in your life so far? Joining SL Discord

114. Do you believe in karma? Not really, no

115. Do you wear glasses or contacts? Both

116. Do you want children? Yes, lots!

117. Who is the smartest person you know? I know a lot of smart people

118. What is your most embarrassing memory? Cringey weeaboo middle school me

119. Have you ever pulled an all-nighter? A few times

120. What colour are most of you clothes? Black and red

121. Do you like adventures? Depends

122. Have you ever been on TV? No

123. How old are you? 20

124. What is your favourite quote? Cant think of one

125. Do you prefer sweet or savoury foods? Definitely sweet

-collapses- That took way longer than I expected. Ive got a few more on the way too. Thanks for reading!

I tag: @kavourikarma , @sleepyem1 , @mermaibee , @chubbychicken1412

#about me #tagged

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itsmomorin · 7 years ago

Text

Strictly Unprofessional

- Jennie Focus

Word Count: 2346

“I have your coffee ready, Ms. CEO.” You said in a formal manner.

“How many times did I tell you, you can call me Jennie.” Jennie joked as she flashed you a smile before taking her coffee off of your hands.

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Oh? Who says? The CEO? Oh wait, I’m her.”

“Jeez, you are so unprofessional.”

“Haha, welcome to the job, (Y/N).”

Jennie was the most laidback, carefree, and fun boss you’ve ever worked for. If you compare her to another company’s CEO, her mental age would be literally five years old. While other CEOs are busy building relations with sponsors and other companies, Jennie would be watching Netflix in her own office, calling you to buy her a pizza. Now you understood why the job offer had ‘must be open minded’ under the requirements. While Jennie was carefree most of the time, she was definitely qualified for her job because when she was on a rampage, she made all of the other CEOs look like toddlers. Luckily for you, she rarely showed you that side of her. Ever since you’ve become her personal assistant, you’ve been wondering when you’ll actually get real work assigned to you. For the past two and a half weeks, you’ve been delivering different foods to her office, searching up the most expensive and exquisite restaurants, and booking appointments for her at the best salons in the city. In fact, Jennie barely makes you work as she often goes around teasing you during work hours. Your normal day with Jennie would go something like this.

“Hey (Y/N), I need you to tell the CEO that we have a meeting planned for this afternoon at this location. Make sure she shows up, alright? This meeting is extremely important.”

“I got it. I’ll let her know immediately.”

You would walk through the hallway where all of the guys would give you the evil eye, while all of the girls would stare for days. The guys were obviously jealous of how you were treated by Jennie and the female employees. It’s not everyday that you get to be adored by all of the females in your workspace. Of course, most of them didn’t dare to approach you because Jennie held an iron grip over you. You would walk into her office, find Jennie with her bare feet propped up on her custom made wooden table, and sniffling at a sad movie that was playing on her computer.

“Ahem, Ms. CEO? I’m here to notify you that you have a meeting this after-”

“Hush! It’s almost over.” Jennie would quickly say without glancing at you.

You would just stand there, waiting patiently for her movie to end.

“Well, don’t stand there! Come watch! Hurry, it’s the big finale.” Jennie urged, motioning for you to come over.

So thirty minutes would pass by like this, with you pulling up a chair beside hers and join her in finishing her movie.

“Well, wasn’t that a good movie? Man, I almost cried. Almost! Phew, I should’ve prepared some tissues, just in case. Maybe next time. Anyways, what did you want to say?” Jennie exclaimed, flicking her lights back on.

“I just wanted to tell you that you have a meeting in… an hour. This meeting is-”

“Very important to the company, yada, yada, yada. Gotcha. An hour, you said? I need to start preparing now then. You’re coming with me. Be ready to leave in forty minutes, we need to get there earlier to show them our dedication.”

It was in these moments that Jennie actually seemed and acted like a CEO of a multi-million dollar company. Forty minutes would quickly pass by and you would be waiting outside of her office, waiting for her to come out.

“Are you ready?” Jennie asked as she closed and locked her door.

“Yes, of course.”

“Really? Your fly’s undone. Should probably fix that.” Jennie quickly remarked before getting out her car keys.

“What! Really? Wait. You tricked me… sigh, Ms. CEO, you really need to stop doing that.”

“Hahahaha, never gets old! Come on, let’s go now.” Jennie would say, before laughing loud enough for the entire office to hear.

Jennie drives herself to meetings so you sat shotgun, which in turn, meant that you were in charge of the music.

“Change the station! I don’t like this song.”

“This one’s overplayed… next!”

“Are you kidding me? I didn’t know they played music from the 1700s. Moving on!”

“Too many ads, who in the world would want to listen to their station?”

“This person’s voice is pretty annoying. Next please and thank you!”

Apart from being the most relaxed person you knew, Jennie was probably also the pickiest person you knew. Finally, you had no choice and decided to use your own device.

“Oh, what kind of music does my cute assistant listen to? Curious, curious.” Jennie commented after seeing you setting up the bluetooth connection. You scrolled through a few selections before picking a song.

“Oh! I know this song! Good taste, I like this song. Boombayah!” Jennie sang along.

Jennie would then proceed to roll down all of the windows and then stick her arm out and feel the wind blowing against it. She would also blast the music from her expensive SUV and tell you to sing along with her. As soon as you two would get to the meeting, however, Jennie would close all the windows and play some classical music on the radio. She would walk with elegance and class as she smiled and greeted each of the people that came to the meeting. No jokes, no teases, Jennie would formally introduce you as her personal assistant and that would be it for you, you would just sit there and wait for Jennie to finish discussing. She would give a nod of her head and send off every single person after thanking them for coming. After all of that, she would leave with you, first to come, last to leave, that was her rule. Often, you would think that whoever managed to capture Jennie’s heart would be one of the luckiest people on Earth. Other times, you would fear for that person’s life. You were pretty sure that Jennie didn’t have a boyfriend, she drove herself everywhere and you accompanied her to almost every meal of the day, except for the weekends. When you thought about it, you didn’t actually know that much about Jennie, you knew that she was mischievous, funny, cheerful, and energetic. What you didn’t know were her opinions on topics, people, subjects, and her personal life. Not that you should, but she always felt more like a friend than a boss to you.

“Sigh…” You sighed deeply, as you poured yourself a cup of coffee.

“Tired?” Cassie asked. She was a colleague of yours, and was very beautiful. In fact, she was the first person to introduce herself to you when you first came here. She helped you get used to the layout of the floors, so you were grateful to her for that.

“Oh, yeah, long night last night. Didn’t really get a lot of sleep.” You replied.

“Same. I know how you feel. What were you up to last night?”

“I was just sorting some stuff out for the CEO's schedule this week.”

“Do you like her?”

You almost choked on your coffee as you coughed multiple times before you could regain your composure.

“Do I like her?”

“Yeah, you know, like as a boss. Does she treat you well?”

“I think she treats me pretty fairly.”

“Really? This was a rumor going around a few months ago that Jennie was utterly heartbroken by someone. Anyways, she got over him, we think. Apparently though, Jennie wasn’t very good at expressing herself, something about her being too friendly with others. Everyone got yelled at for no reason because she had to blow off steam. Even now, it looks like she’s just playing around with you, teasing you whenever she wants to.”

“I think that whatever she did, she did for a reason. It seems to me that Jennie may be a silly person sometimes, but she really is considerate to people. She always places other people above herself. Maybe she was hurt, but she’d never let harm come to anyone else. She’s one of those people that just keeps all of her feelings bottled up. Jennie’s not like that.”

“Hmm… looks like you do like her. But you know, I’ve always had eyes for you, ever since you first came.”

“What are you trying to say, Cassie?”

Cassie approached you slowly as she placed her cup of tea on the counter. She quickly tippy toed and kissed you briefly on your lips. You were so stunned that you didn’t even react for a full minute.

“Cassie… I…” You began.

“I want to date you, (Y/N).” Cassie boldly stated.

“What was that just now?” Jennie asked in an extremely cold tone from behind.

“Ms. CEO! I… we…” You started, trying to clear up the situation.

“Hush. I know what I saw.” Jennie said to you without looking to you. Her eyes were focused onto Cassie.

“Ms. CEO, I remember you saying that office romance is allowed in this building. Was there anything wrong with what I just did?” Cassie snapped back, she wasn’t about to back down to Jennie.

“Heh. Okay. I see how it is.” Jennie smirked.

Jennie took you by your hand and brought you into the middle of the office space.

“Ahem! Could I have everyone’s attention for a brief moment please? It has been brought to my attention that because office romance is permitted by me, that public confessions can be made here during work. Now let me be clear, all of you can date whoever you wish in this office. Except for (Y/N). He’s strictly off bounds, if I see anyone even remotely flirting with him, they will be punished.” Jennie announced to everyone.

“And why is that? Just because he’s your personal assistant doesn’t mean that he can’t be attracted to anyone else except you.” Cassie questioned harshly from the back.

“Alright, maybe I wasn’t being clear enough. Let me reword it. Especially to you, Cassie. (Y/N)’s mine. Back off.” Jennie said with a commanding tone.

You could see Cassie bite her lip at the back of the room as she folded her arms. Everyone grew silent with raised eyebrows. Wait, did Jennie just say that I was hers? In front of the whole office… Uhh…

“Come, I need to tell you something.” Jennie muttered before returning to her office.

You followed Jennie back to her office and she closed the door after you came in.

“I overheard what you and Cassie were talking about. About me being heartbroken and yelling at everyone. At first, I was just curious about your answer. Wondering how you would respond. Then after I heard your answer, I… didn’t know you were that observant. You’ve only known me for three weeks, yet you act as if you’d trust me with your life.” Jennie said while leaning on her desk.

“Even though it’s only been three weeks, I feel like I have a good grasp on your character.”

“Thanks for defending me. The truth is, Cassie’s right. I did get my heartbroken and I did yell at some of my employees during that time because I was frustrated. Most important of all, she was right about me playing around with you. To be honest, I didn’t exactly recover from… whatever that happened in the past. I admit it. But after these few weeks, I’ve... fallen for you.”

“Fallen? For me?”

“Haha, yes, I’m not joking right now, if you can’t tell. Of course, I don’t know how you feel about me. In fact, I wasn’t even going to tell you about my feelings until I saw Cassie kiss you. She was so assertive, so confident, she knew what she wanted and…”

“And you wanted to be like that too. Fight for what you wanted.”

“Yes. See, you’re already finishing my sentences for me. Anyways it’s alright if you reject me. You can go now.”

“Is that it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said all of that, and now you’re just giving me a chance to walk away. You either don’t really like me all that much, or you’re just scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“Scared of where this could go.”

Jennie didn’t say anything and looked to the ground. You could see her hands stiffen up on her table. She was conflicted, but you wanted her to be sure that this was what she wanted. So you tested her. You slowly walked towards the door, leaving enough time for Jennie to say something or stop you. When she didn’t, you turned around to see if she was still there, leaning on her desk. Then you felt Jennie’s hands on your cheeks, she had thrown herself across the room towards you.

“I’m not afraid.” Jennie whispered before she pressed her soft lips onto yours.

“Good.” You replied, smiling briefly before you kissed her back.

You held Jennie close to you after the kiss.

“What’re you smiling about?” You asked happily.

“I didn’t think you would respond to my feelings. I never asked, but when did you fall for me? I had no idea this entire time.” Jennie answered.

“Hm, take a guess.”

“I don’t know… just tell me.” Jennie pouted cutely.

“I obviously fell in love with your sense of humor. That, and your endless teasing.”

“I knew it! You know, we could continue, no one’s going to bother us.” Jennie suggested, twirling her hair with her finger.

“Jennie! We can’t do that. People are hard at work outside, it’s not fair to them.”

“Yeah, well, let’s just ask the CEO if we can continue. Oh wait…” Jennie smiled mischievously.

“Sigh, you are the most unprofessional CEO I have ever met.” You exclaimed before you and Jennie leaned in once again.

- itsmomorin

#jennie #kim jennie #blackpink #blackpink scenarios #kpop fanfiction #fanfic #jennie scenarios #yg blackpink #blackpink imagines #jennie imagines

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thehooliganhangoutspot · 7 years ago

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You wouldn't believe how many label presidents I've heard say, 'Bruno doesn't have what it takes, we don't know how to market him, we don't know what kind of music he does.' You know, 'Who's this beige-looking kid with curly hair? We can't figure him out.' It was devastating. Bruno Mars, 2011 FROM THE ARCHIVES: Caught in Mars' orbit Caught in Mars' orbit The sky's the limit for this Grammy nominee and his cohorts. February 06, 2011|Matt Diehl In early September 2010, Bruno Mars found himself sitting in the posh lounge of North Hollywood's Larrabee Studios, a high-tech temple designed for creating pop-music smashes. Platinum discs from artists who've recorded there line Larrabee's walls, and in an adjoining room, renowned mix engineer Manny Marroquin rushed to complete the 25-year-old singer-songwriter-producer's debut album, "Doo-Wops & Hooligans," due out less than a month later. Marroquin's Midas touch is legendary, blessing hits for Alicia Keys, Rihanna and Usher, among others; in his short career, Mars' ability to create pop blockbusters is proving similarly gilded. At this point, Mars had already helped write and produce chart-toppers for artists such as B.o.B, Flo Rida, Cee Lo Green and Travie McCoy; as a solo artist, Mars' first single, the stirring ballad "Just the Way You Are," was midway through its chart ascent. By early October, that song would reach the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, attaining triple-platinum status; "Doo-Wops" would also eventually crest at No. 3 in the U.S. and top charts internationally. But Mars didn't know this back in September: Despite the hit-making firepower backing him, he was nervous. His label, Elektra, was preparing to follow up "Just the Way You Are" with a soulful power-pop ditty called "Grenade," and Mars exuded anxiety about its reception: "What's 'Grenade' compared with 'Just the Way You Are'? I'm crossing my fingers, hoping people dig it." They did, demonstrated by Mars' seven Grammy nominations in 2011, second only to Eminem's 10. "Grenade" would also top the charts, making him the only male solo artist to do so with his first two singles. "Hearing Bruno on the radio for the first time is almost like discovering the pre-pubescent Michael Jackson," says McCoy, whose 2010 hit single "Billionaire" was a Mars collaboration. "Bruno is poised to be one of the next generation's greats," notes Green, whose Grammy-nominated hit "[Forget] You" was co-written and produced by Mars and his production team the Smeezingtons. "I'm feeling like a winner right now, sir -- I'm not going to lie!" Mars exclaimed in a recent phone interview between European tour stops. "But I'm still crossing my fingers about the Grammys. They stay crossed: I tend to overthink things. I'm not the guy who screams 'This is a world smash!' when I finish a song." The Grammy Awards take place next Sunday at Staples Center. Indeed, although "Just the Way You Are" was nominated for best pop vocal performance alongside John Mayer and Michael Jackson, Mars seems more excited by his collaborations. "I'm fortunate to work with guys like Cee Lo and B.o.B," he says. "'Nothin' on You' by B.o.B was the first song where I heard myself on the radio. I'd been trying my whole career to write a song like that, which incorporates live instruments with hip-hop and singing." And Green's 2006 hit as part of Gnarls Barkley, "Crazy," captured Mars' imagination: "It epitomized what I wanted to achieve: a song that would be played on pop stations, on hip-hop stations, on rock stations -- just because it was good." (At the 2011 Grammy Awards ceremony, Mars will perform with B.o.B and another crossover success of last year, Janelle Monae.) Mars' voice and production style -- blending classic soul, reggae-tinged grooves suggesting the Police and Sublime, OutKast's iconoclastic hip-hop and Sade's smooth internationalism -- have become pop radio's dominant sound. "Bruno's songs have no boundaries," says John Ivey, program director for the influential top-40 radio station, KIIS-FM. "No one in the past year has had hits as varied. When we first heard 'Just the Way You Are,' it was a little shocking. We'd assumed he was a hip-hop artist, and all of a sudden he's Billy Joel!" Born to a Puerto Rican father and Filipino mother (his birth name is Peter Hernandez), Mars grew up in Hawaii, playing in his family's cover band, the Love Notes. By age 4, he was performing onstage as "the world's youngest Elvis impersonator," and appeared in the film "Honeymoon in Vegas," where he sang "Can't Help Falling in Love." Mars attributes his unique sound to this multicultural upbringing. "Honolulu is a melting pot," he explains. "Melody is everywhere you go. Kids would come to school with guitars and ukuleles on their back, and we'd all jam at lunch." At age 18, he'd moved to L.A., quickly scoring a solo deal with Motown; within a couple years, however, that deal soured. "You wouldn't believe how many label presidents I've heard say, 'Bruno doesn't have what it takes, we don't know how to market him, we don't know what kind of music he does,' " Mars says. "You know, 'Who's this beige-looking kid with curly hair? We can't figure him out.' It was devastating." In L.A., Mars associated with future stars Ne-Yo, Kesha and Kanye West collaborator Jeff Bhasker (with whom Mars performed in a cover band called Sex Panther) as each waited for their big break. "Ne-Yo was one of the first people I saw write a song," Mars recalls. "He'd make something that sounded like a hit record within an hour -- I couldn't believe it. Kesha and I were signed to the same management; we'd call each other up and see what the other was working on, which was usually nothing." To keep his dreams afloat, by 2007 Mars had hooked up with two other young music-industry hopefuls: Philip Lawrence, a singer and songwriter, and sound engineer Ari Levine. "Bruno was a cool, normal dude, but even years ago, when he played his music, it was incredible -- a no-brainer,' " Levine recalls. Working out of Levine's LevCon Studios, set in a ramshackle cottage between a Laundromat and a medical mari- juana doctor on a seedy Hollywood side street, the trio honed their songwriting and production skills as a means of survival. "We worked long and hard in this little shack, hoping just to pay rent and have someone listen to our songs," Lawrence says. Calling themselves the Smeezingtons -- "We'd say a song was going to be a smash, which turned into a 'smeeze,' which turned into a 'smeezington,'" Mars clarifies -- the group developed its distinctive mode. "We're that weird middle ground, where there's live instruments but it's still rhythmic and pop," Levine says. "I'll listen to the Strokes or Black Keys, while Phil can sing any Motown song." "I'm the Nickelodeon version of DangerMouse," Mars adds. He says he's a fan of simple songs "that stand the test of time: 'Just the Way You Are' was inspired by songs like 'Wonderful Tonight' and 'Nothing Compares 2 U.' Writing for other artists helped me figure out that magic you have to capture to make everyone connect with a song." "Bruno is extremely talented, and not formulaic -- and that goes equally for all the Smeezingtons," notes Green (who says he was offered "Just the Way You Are" and holds other unreleased, single-quality gems from their sessions together). Undeniably, Mars' Grammy success represents an equal triumph for the Smeezingtons, nominated in the producer of the year category. The Smeezingtons began writing for the likes of Kn'aan, Matisyahu and Brandy, but their first big hit proved the hook for Flo Rida's "Right Round," catching the attention of Atlantic/Elektra's Senior Director of A&R Aaron Bay-Schuck. "Bruno came in with his guitar and it was love at first sight," Bay-Schuck says. "Among the songs he had were 'Billionaire' and 'Nothin' on You,' which sealed the deal." "Every song Bruno and his team had was a smash," adds John Janick, co-president of Elektra Records. "Immediately, we had to sign him. They were doing something different, creating their own sound." -- Making headlines The Smeezingtons' run continues beyond Mars' solo success: the group produced R&B singer Mike Posner's upcoming single, Flo Rida's current hit "Who's Dat Girl," and much of Koreatown pop group Far East Movement's recent debut album. The anonymity of Mars' studio work has been upended by his pop-star status and some headline-grabbing events, however: He recently took a plea deal on cocaine possession charges after an arrest in Las Vegas last September; coincidentally, he entered his guilty plea right as "Grenade" topped the charts. Although he declined to comment on the Vegas incident, he has quickly become aware of the trappings of celebrity. "I have to be a little more cautious about my surroundings," he says. "I'll be eating breakfast at a hotel, having just rolled out of bed -- without realizing people are filming me with flip cams and cellphones. In that way, life has changed, but that's not that bad. Everything I've ever wanted, I have right now." This past December, Mars, who still lives in L.A., headlined the Blaisdell Center, a 7,000-seat venue in his Honolulu hometown, and all that's happened came into perspective for him. "I'd done arena shows," he says, "but this was my first ticket that said 'Bruno Mars' at the top. The show sold out, but all I could think about was how close I came to giving up before 'Nothin on You' hit. I live for this. The best part is, it's just the beginning. I still have so much room to grow; I'm learning something new every day." According to KIIS-FM's Ivey, he does have it all: Mars' triple-threat status as a performer, songwriter and producer puts him into an elite echelon that appeals to Grammy voters. "Kanye West, Diddy, Prince, Jack White -- these are just music guys who can do it all, and really well," Ivey says. "I'm anxious to see where he goes: We need to hear more to determine what he is. But the sky's the limit in terms of potential. If this is the way he starts off -- man, there's no telling what this guy could be." "Bruno's still a work in progress," Green says. "Life isn't shaped as a pop song. He needs to go deeper, try harder, but that's his ambition: Soon he's going to win in that area, too, and be whole." -- [email protected] ............................................................................................................. In honor of Bruno's birthday, the LA times posted an old throwback article about Bruno from when he was just starting out. It's inspiring to see how far he's come despite the obstacles he's faced. I'm so proud of him. ❤️❤️❤️

#Link #submission

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hookedonapirate · 7 years ago

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Wild at Heart (Chapter 4/?)

Read: Prologue Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3

Graphic Art credit to the lovely and wonderful @jell-obeans Thank you so much!

Summary: Born and raised by rich parents, Emma Nolan has always done what’s expected of her, from what clothes to wear to what school to attend, what career to pursue and even who to marry. After graduating from Harvard and going back home to Storybrooke, South Carolina, she agrees to marry Oz Walsh by the wishes of her parents. With a year of engagement behind her, she goes to Boston for business and has to fly back home to get to her wedding. What happens when she has a run-in at the airport with a dashing, blue-eyed thief who is apparently bound and determined to throw a wrench in all of her plans? Will she make it back to Storybrooke on time for her wedding or will she find her home along the way?

A/N: Ahhh! The first time I posted this chapter on the other fanfiction platforms, I forgot Emma’s last name is Nolan and I put Swan instead... many times. I have so many stories going it’s hard to keep track. I think I corrected them all but if I missed any don’t hesitate to let me know.

Rating: M

AO3 FFN

Emma pressed her forehead against the window, watching her breath fog up the small area of glass as her cheek rested on her fist. The clouds were dissipating and the sun was shining through the clear azure sky as she watched the distance between the yellow bug and the tall buildings of Boston grow wider and wider through the passenger mirror.

She wasn't sure what she did to deserve this. Sure, she's made some mistakes in her life, but she's also put up with everything and rarely ever complained about anything. She’d always seen the look on her parents’ faces when they were proud of her, it was just too damn difficult to disappoint them. So one could say that everything she's done was to see their proud, happy smiles. Everything she'd ever done was for her parents. Even now, she was not to trying to get to Walsh because she wanted to marry him. She was going back to him because she wanted to see her parents be blissfully happy watching their daughter walk down the aisle.

“It's too bloody quiet. What do say we listen to some tunes?” Killian’s voice pulled Emma from her thoughts, but as he asked her the question he was already turning on the radio and changing the station to heavy metal.

Emma frowned, turning her head to narrow her eyes at him. “How about we don't and say we did?”

“What's the problem, Nolan? Not a fan of music?”

“No, I'm not a fan of these people considering themselves musicians when all they do is scream into their microphones.”

Killian sighed and changed the station. “Maybe you just don't have good taste in music.”

“Yeah, what would I know about music?” She asked sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “I started playing the piano when I was four and by the time I was ten I could play the flute, cello and violin and won first place in various international competitions as well as playing piano at the Carnegie hall. And that was on top of the gymnastics, swimming and fencing classes I took. So you're right, what the hell do I know about having good taste in music?” Emma veered her eyes towards her window again, watching the trees pass by in a blur.

She could feel Killian's gaze on her and there was a brief pause before he spoke in an impressed tone. “Ah, well then I underestimated you, Nolan. But it's easy to accomplish those things when your parents can afford all of those classes and extracurricular activities. Most children are not as privileged.” He spoke the words as though he knew far too well what is was like to be underprivileged.

She shot her eyes at him, glaring at the bastard. Making her feel sorry for him after he kidnapped and blackmailed her was not going to work. “Money did not make me talented in those things. Dedication, focus and practice - a few things you obviously know nothing about.”

“So you think… well guess what princess, you know nothing about me,” he said quietly, offended. “I'll have you know, I'm skilled at many things and I didn't need classes or money to be good at them,” Killian almost snarled through his teeth as he turned the volume up on the radio. At least the music wasn't as bad. Classic rock was something she could bare to listen to.

Emma turned the music down so she could ask the question that had been blooming in her brain since he mentioned it. “So tell me, if money's not important to you, as you say it's not, then what do you need $500,000 for?”

Killian turned up the volume again and spoke louder. “It's none of your business.” He started whistling along with the music, obviously trying to avoid anything else she might be inclined to ask him.

Emma pouted, crossing her arms over her chest as he continued to sing. She had to admit he had a pleasant voice, he knew how to hold a tune at least. She sank back in her chair and closed her eyes, wishing for this trip to over as soon as possible.

Half an hour went by and she remained silent as he continued singing. She had attempted to fall asleep but had no such luck.

“You know, Nolan, for someone as musical as you claim to be, I would think you wouldn't be opposed to singing along to a good tune in the car.”

“Yeah, well I don't sing. And this is hardly what I would call a good tune,” she rebutted.

He shrugged and reached into the center console, pulling out a cassette tape.

Emma scoffed when he inserted it into the cassette player. “Who has tapes anymore? You do realize this is the twenty-first century right?”

“Aye, but as you can see this car doesn't have a CD player or other fancy way to play music.”

“Well, maybe when you get your money, you can invest in a better stereo system or better yet a decent car. That is if my father doesn't throw you in jail.”

“You mean Daddy?” He teased with a snarky smirk.

Emma scowled at him.

“Oh Daddy, please save me from this terrible man,” Killian mocked in a high-pitched tone.

Emma promptly reached over and punched his shoulder. “I do not sound like that!”

“Sorry, love, but you kind of do,” he said, chuckling as he removed one hand from the steering wheel and rubbed his shoulder. “Although I must say, you may sound like a five year old daddy's girl but you certainly don't hit like one.”

“You're just lucky it was your shoulder and not your face… or worse,” she spat as she eyed the spot she was referring to.

“Oi! Unless you're referring to more enjoyable activities, you can leave my jewels out of this.”

“Believe me, I'm not, so don't test me,” she threatened firmly.

They were silent after that, until a particular song started playing that caused Emma's ears to perk up and Killian rolled the windows down and started singing along as he rested his elbow on the door and tapped on the side of the roof with his hand, matching the beat of the music.

“I see a bad moon a-rising I see trouble on the way I see earthquakes and lightnin' I see bad times today.”

A small smirk threatened her lips but she’d be damned if she were to give into it.

“Come on, Nolan, sing along. You know you want to,” he encouraged, turning his head to smirk at her. “Don't tell me you're too sophisticated to sing in the car with the windows rolled down.”

Emma ignored him and looked out of her opened window.

“Fine. Suit yourself.” He continued singing, the music igniting memories of when she was a child and listening to her Walkman, this particular song playing when she was sick of the more “eloquent” music, as her mother would call it, that she spent two hours a day on the piano bench playing. The Walkman was a gift from her father that she was not allowed to tell Mary Margaret about. It was their little secret, he would say to her. And so she kept it hidden in her oak chest when she wasn't listening to it.

“I hear hurricanes a-blowing I know the end is coming soon.”

Killian glanced at her in surprise, a dark brow raised to the creases of his forehead. Even Emma was shocked that she still remembered the lyrics of the song. She instantly felt nervous, but she pushed down her nerves, a task she became very good at over the years and continued, her voice hitting an alto vocal range.

“I fear rivers over flowing I hear the voice of rage and ruin”

Feeling self-indulgent, enjoying the familiar tune, she started belting out the lyrics, even with Killian staring at her heavily before watching the road again.

“Don't go 'round tonight It's bound to take your life There's a bad moon on the rise.”

She got into it, even humming the guitar solo as Killian whistled along to it. Then he started singing along with her.

It felt rather freeing, singing and hanging her arm at the window, feeling the harsh wind on her skin. It was something she hadn't done since she was in college.

“One eye is taken for an eye Oh don't go 'round tonight It's bound to take your life There's a bad moon on the rise There's a bad moon on the rise”

The song ended and Emma had a smile on her face.

Killian flashed her a questioning look. “I thought you didn't sing?”

“I normally don't... but I used to listen to that song as a kid,” she explained. “My father bought me a Walkman was I was younger.”

“Do you still have it?” he asked curiously.

She shook her head. “No,” was all she said and then it grew silent again.

Killian drove for two hours before Emma begged him to go to a rest stop so she could use the restroom. Instead, he pulled into a gas station.

“Oh no, I'm not using the toilet here,” she stated firmly.

“And what's the bloody difference between going here and a rest stop?”

“They're much cleaner. They have janitors who clean the toilets. You think the minimum wage gas station attendant gives a shit about cleaning the toilet? I'm not using the nasty restroom.”

“Then I guess you're holding it in until we get to Maryland, which is three hours away.”

“Then I'll just pee on your seats.”

Killian shrugged nonchalantly. “If sitting in your own pee is what will make you feel better than by all means. I guarantee it's not the worst bodily fluid that's made contact with that seat.” He said, wiggling his eyebrows and flashing her a cocky grin.

Her face scrunched up in disgust. “Ugh.” She lifted her hand to the door handle and opened the door. “Fine. You're an asshole,” she huffed and started to get out.

“I've been called worse,” he called out behind her.

Emma slammed the door and marched into the gas station asking for a key to the ladies room when she realized it was locked Like it was a fucking privilege to use the shit-hole they called a restroom. The attendant handed it to her on a red wooden stick and she pulled out a tissue from her purse to take it. People looked at her strangely but she didn't care. If people took it in the restroom with them, who knew what it was contaminated with. She carried the key as though it would burn her. She went inside the restroom and covered the toilet seat in a mountain of toilet paper while holding her nose with her other hand. It was probably the most unpleasant experience she ever had while using the restroom... and she used to live in the dorms.

Making her way back to the car, she saw that Killian was not there. She looked behind her and saw him inside through the window, so she scurried over to the car and got in on the passenger side, turning around and reaching into his duffle bag from the back seat. She rummaged through it as quickly as she could, but to her dismay, there was no diary, just his clothes, underwear, a sketchpad and also some condoms and a pair of handcuffs. The damn bastard did have handcuffs! Grumbling to herself, she held them up, certain that they were not used for some weird, kinky sex fetish. “I'm not keeping you against your will my ass,” Emma cursed under her breath and she threw the handcuffs back into the bag.

“You know, if you wanted to get a peek at my underwear, all you had to was ask.”

She jerked at the sound of his voice and quickly closed the bag, turning around and sitting back in her seat. “In your dreams. I want my diary back,” she demanded in a haughty voice. “How do I know that once everything is all said and done, I'm not going to find out that you mailed it anyways?”

He tilted his head at her as he reached into his jacket and pulled out a pack of twinkles. “It's called trust. You should try it sometime.”

Emma eyed him suspiciously. “Did you steal that?”

He shrugged as he opened the wrapper, but before he could take one of the twinkies out, she snatched it from his hands. “Oi!”

“You stole this didn't you?”

“So what if I did? It's a dollar fifty.”

“Well, I'm not going to jail over a fucking twinkie.” Emma felt anger rise in her blood and opened the door, stepping out.

“Where are you going?”

“I'm going in to pay for it, what do you think?” she muttered as she started heading towards the station.

Killian quickly got out and ran around the car, catching up to her and taking the twinkies back. “Emma…”

Emma stopped and turned around, scolding him. “Why did you steal it?” she asked him as though he were a five year old child. “We could have easily paid for it.”

“Because that's what I do, Emma. If you haven't noticed, I don't live the glamorous life that you do. I haven't had everything handed to me by my parents, I had to fight for what little I have,” he muttered spitefully.

Emma's blood was running hot. “Everything my parents gave me, I worked hard for and I've never stolen a goddamn thing in my life, so don't pretend you know me!” she shouted angrily, very much annoyed at this point. “What else did you take? Let me guess, you stole this piece of shit too?” she asked, pointing to the car.

“Actually it was given to me by a friend and it holds a lot of fond memories, thank you very much.”

She scoffed. “Yeah I'm sure it does.”

Killian looked down, his eyes full of sorrow and sadness and Emma glanced at his arm as he held the twinkles in his hand, remembering the tattoo that was hidden underneath his jacket sleeve.

“It belonged to her, didn't it?” She asked softly. He looked up at her, confused and surprised. “Milah from your tattoo? I saw it when we met in the airport.”

He looked up at her, revealing a side that Emma hadn't seen of him before. He showed his vulnerability on full display, she could see it in his eyes. “She was my girlfriend… and she passed away along time ago. The car was her brother's and we were close friends. He gave it to me after she died.”

“I'm sorry,” she said sincerely, although it was no excuse for becoming a thief, but she had a feeling there was much more to the story. She stepped closer, attempting to offer a kind gesture because wasn't that what people did in situations like this? She reached her hand out, placing it gently on his arm, but he backed away, deflecting her attempts. “Tell me something, Emma… have you ever been in love?” he asked bitterly.

Emma shook her head. She knew there was no point in trying to lie. He had already seen the proof written in her diary. And she certainly didn't love the men she had casual encounters with at work. She merely used them as an escape from reality. “No, I've never been in love.”

“Then you couldn't possibly understand what it's like to lose someone you love.”

“Killian, I wasn't trying to... I was just-”

“I'm fine,” he said curtly, interrupting her. “I'll pay for the damn twinkles.” He turned around and marched inside before she could say anything.

Emma sighed, exasperated as she got in the car. When Killian joined her again, he tossed her a pack of twinkies as well, and she caught it instinctively, taken off guard by the gesture. “Happy now? I paid for the twinkies and even got you one too.”

“Thanks…” she murmured, eyeing it curiously.

He looked over at her knowingly. “What? You can't tell me you've never had a twinkie before, love?” he asked, his words much more kind than before.

She shook her head. It did look tempting but, looking at the nutrition information on the back of the wrapper, she could see that it was loaded with sugar, fat and preservatives.

“You can't look at that love. It's unhealthy, that's the whole point.”

She glanced over at him, confused. “And what, you intend on being old and fat with a huge twinkie gut when you're older?” she laughed at the image she implanted in her own head.

“No… I mean that twinkies are a guilty pleasure. You know it's bad for you but you do it anyways because it's like a small piece of heaven and too sinful and delicious to pass up.”

“Kind of like stealing?”

Guilt fell over his features as he gave a nod. “Aye, like stealing. There are consequences, but the high you get from doing something forbidden… there's nothing like it.”

Emma nodded understandingly. “Kind of like when I used to climb out of my bedroom window in the middle of the night, even though my parents told me it was bedtime and I wasn't allowed to leave the room. But I felt a sense of freedom and a rush of adrenaline pumping through my blood from the fear of getting caught,” she explained, a spark of nostalgia in her eyes from the memories.

Killian chuckled. “Aye, exactly.”

Emma was still unsure about the golden treat in her hand, but she took one out of the package anyway.

“Go ahead, try it love. You won't regret it.”

She brought it to her lips and tentatively opened her mouth, taking a bite of the creme-filled goodness. It was soft and sweet, melting in her mouth and she closed her eyes, enjoying the flavor and licking her lips.

“See? What did I tell you, Nolan?” he asked playfully. “It's delicious isn't it?”

She opened her eyes again, swallowing the bite of the twinkie in her mouth. “You're right, it's like a small piece of heaven. I've never had anything quite like it.”

Killian grinned widely in success. “See, it's not so bad giving into your sinful desires once and while, is it? I’ll have you converted soon enough.”

Emma rolled her eyes as she licked the sticky sweetness off of her fingers. “It's just a twinkie. Now, can we hit the road? I want to make it on time for my wedding.”

“As you wish.”

Killian drove another three hours, listening and singing along to music and chatting with her occasionally to pass the time before he was too sleepy to drive anymore.

They were now in Maryland, about halfway to Storybrooke.

“What do you say we get a motel for the night?”

“You could let me drive?” she suggested.

He shook his head. “Absolutely not. You already tried to find your diary once, I'm not letting you drive while I sleep.”

“What, you don't trust me?” she asked, throwing the use of his own word in his face with an innocent ring in her tone.

“Not when the only thing stopping you from fleeing is a bloody diary. I mean, if I were you I certainly wouldn't be here for any other reason, especially when my family is being threatened and tricked.”

“And tell me something, what happened to yours?”

“Wouldn't you like to know?” he muttered sarcastically.

“Perhaps I would,” she admitted earnestly.

“Another time. Right now we should both get some shut-eye.”

“Fine, but we’re going to a hotel.”

Killian didn't bother to argue with her and they drove to the nearest one, gathering their bags and heading inside. They went up to the desk asking for two rooms with king-size beds.

“I'm sorry, we only have one available for the night on such short notice and it only has one king-side bed.”

Emma sighed and Killian gave her a cocky smirk along with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows. “It looks like we’re sharing a bed, love.”

“No, it looks like you'll be sleeping on the floor,” Emma assured him with a sarcastic smile as she handed the desk clerk the money for the room. “We’ll take it.”

They went to their room, setting their bags down when they entered. Emma walked around the small room and the bathroom, making sure it was suitable. Even if it wasn't, she was certain Killian wouldn't move to a different hotel anyway, plus it was the middle of the night and they were lucky they even managed to get this one. Emma removed her jacket, not looking forward to her night there.

“I'm going to take a shower. Can I trust you won't go anywhere, love?”

She shrugged. “Would you trust you?”

“Fair point, Emma,” he said with a grin. “I'll just be taking these with me then, he said holding up the bag and jacket that contained all of his belongings along with her diary. He stepped into the bathroom and she huffed in frustration, crossing her arms as she plopped on the edge of the bed.

She waited until she heard the shower turn on before she went to the bathroom door, hoping to snag her diary while he was in the shower, but the door was locked. She became even more angry, and if she were being honest, it killed her not being able to contact her family. She knew they were worried sick.

Emma pursed her lips in thought, pondering a way to escape this predicament.

Killian emerged from the bathroom ten minutes later, one hand carrying his duffel bag and jacket and the other securing the towel he had wrapped around his hips.

Emma's breath hitched when she saw him, her eyes drinking in his half naked form. Beads of water were dripping down his body as he threw the bag down next to the bed and draped his jacket over the arm of a chair and she couldn't help but notice his muscular arms and sculpted chest, dark hair matted down as a thin trail of it lead her eyes over his taut abs and the v-shape below that pointed to the towel-covered area.

Her cheeks became warm with blush when she realized how long she had been staring.

“See something you like, Nolan?” he asked, but she could tell by the amusement in his expression that he already knew the answer to that.

Emma stood from the bed and sauntered over to him, a mischievous smirk gracing her lips. “What if I do?”

She could see the visible transformation in his features. His adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, his eyes growing wide. with shock. “You know, I was just thinking about what you said before when you talked about it being okay to give into sinful desires once in awhile.” Emma spoke in a dark, seductive voice as she placed her hand on his chest, feeling his heart thumping widely underneath her touch.

“Is that so, love?” he asked curiously.

Emma's grin broadened, her eyes following her fingers as they danced along his skin, making their way to his waistline. “It is very much so.” She could hear the stutter in his breathing as she stepped closer, locking eyes with him. “Just think about it… what would my father do if he found out it his little girl was fucking the thief who held her for ransom?” Watching his pupils dilate as her eyes studied his face with a dark smile, she could tell his interest was highly piqued.

Killian licked his lips, his eyes falling to her mouth. “Once again I underestimated you, Nolan. You're a very naughty girl,” he managed, his voice shaky and deep. “And you deserve to be punished.”

Emma laughed roguishly and leaned in, brushing her lips across his ear as her hand curled around the end of the towel that was secured at his hip.“You have no idea how naughty I can be,” she whispered before loosening the towel, pulling it from his body. She could hear a small gasp escape his lips as she pulled away to take in the sight, his long, hard length on full display as she licked her lips. “But I think you're the one who needs to be punished.” Suddenly, she pushed him against the wall, smashing her lips into his and he made no protest as he sharply grabbed her hips and groaned into her mouth.

Her tongue eagerly found his and he tilted his head to deepen the kiss as his hands rose to cup her cheeks.

Emma slid her hand between them and slipped her fingers around his cock, earning a rough growl as she turned him around and backed him up toward the bed. She had to admit, he was a really good kisser and god, he felt good in her hand as she roughly stroked his dick.

She released him only to push him onto the bed and she climbed on top of him, her knees straddling his hips as she reclaimed his lips. The kiss became heated, every inch of her skin on fire as his tongue eagerly worked against hers swallowing the little moans she offered. His hands crawled under her shirt and she tore her lips from his, leaving them both panting as she sat up. She could feel his hard member against her core as she pulled off her shirt and tossed it to the floor. Killian reached for her breasts, his strong hands kneading them through the lace material of her black bra as she leaned down to kiss him again. She swallowed the guttural groan that he offered as she reached for his length again, taking him in her hand. His breathing was shattered as she bit his lip, softly nibbling and sucking as she pumped his cock, and it took everything in her to break the kiss. “Condom?” she asked, her words strangled through her heavy panting.

“Aye, it's in my bag,” he replied desperately. “Hurry love, or I might explode far too quickly.” She hurried off of the bed and bent down, reaching into his bag. She searched for the condoms and found them quickly before turning her head to look at him as she quietly grabbed the handcuffs.

Still catching his breath, his eyes were dark with desire as he looked over at her, eagerly awaiting.

Emma smirked and came back to him, keeping the cuffs behind her back as she held out the condom in her left hand. She straddled him and leaned down almost touching his lips with hers, her right hand moving to the side of the bed out of his line of vision. He reached for the condom, but she pulled it away and shook her head. “Ah ah, let me put that on for you,” she giggled, then kissed him breathlessly, slipping the condom between her fingers as she grabbed his right hand and held it above his head. She moaned into the kiss, keeping him distracted as her other hand rose up and reached above his head. With his right hand pinned to the headboard, Emma smoothly and quickly put one end of the handcuffs around his wrist and the other she clasped around the wooden bar before he even knew what was happening. She pulled away and got off of the bed as fast as she could and watched as his face fell in confusion. He pulled sharply on the cuff. “Nolan?”

With hurried movements, Emma put on her shirt before grabbing his jacket. His eyes widened, realizing her tactics. She reached into his jacket and pulled out his car keys and her diary, hearing him let out a heavy sigh. “Bloody hell… don't do this please… I'm begging you…” he pleaded angrily as he pulled harshly on the handcuffs, but she didn't stop her mission until she gathered her suitcase and reached the door, looking back at him.

“Sorry love, but it looks like the lawyer outsmarted the thief.” Emma flashed him a satisfied grin as she took in the view of the naked man handcuffed to the bed one last time before turning and opening the door. The maid would certainly get a show when she came in to clean the next morning. She heard a particularly hard bang of the metal handcuffs against the wood as she scurried out the door, hearing him shout after her.

“Nolaaaaaaan!”

Emma slammed the door shut and ran for the yellow bug, jumping in and and taking off so quickly, the tires shrieked against the pavement as she pulled out of the parking lot.

@rouhn @iejimi @kmomof4 @katie-dub @ijenny16 @lovepurplepumpkins@jennjenn615 @piratesbooty63fan @galadriel26 @ladyciaramiggles @andiirivera @queen-of-dancing-stars @galadriel26 @juliakaze @nfbagelperson @hey-it-is-jess @mcakers @kobe116 @phoenixsxul @winterbaby89 @allie-jimenez123-blog @lindseythompsonxoxo @ultraluckycatnd @its-about-bloody-time-cs @acaptainswaneternity @fleurreads @love-with-you-i-have-everything

#cs ff #cs fic #cs ff au #cs fanfics #captain swan #captain swan fanfiction #hannah writes #wild at heart #enemies to lovers

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driveneed17-blog · 5 years ago

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Laurent Clerc Details Little People’s Deep, Danceable New Album “Landloper”

Photo by Dee Ramadan

No one would ever accuse Little People for being the type of artist who’s quick to rush his music out, let alone one to take the path of least resistance. Born Laurent Clerc, the Anglo-Swiss electronic musician and producer has been putting out instrumental dance music with a playfully tongue-in-cheek bent for little over a decade under his ‘nom-de-guerre’ moniker Little People, touring across the States and Europe beside the likes of electronic music duo ODESZA and downtempo wunderkind Emancipator — all while he carves out his own lane, in his own time.

To describe Little People’s music is to describe a dozen different continents of sound unifying into a Pangaea of modern orchestration; he grew up listening to artists like A Tribe Called Quest and DJ Premier on his hometown radio station in the Swiss Alps, before discovering the wide and shifting world of electronic music when he moved to the UK to attend university. From the bass-heavy snarl of Mobb Deep and the mischievous plunderphonics of Xploding Plastix, to the cinematic sobriety of Endtroducing-era DJ Shadow and the minimalist serenity of Steve Reich and Ryuichi Sakamoto, Clerc’s inspirations prove just varied as his sound: an eclectic brand of downtempo electronica infused with the verve of classical music, underscored with the vivacity of hip-hop. That he refers to his stage moniker as a ‘nom-de-guerre’ is absolutely intentional.

Clerc’s newest album Landloper—his first in six years—is a cumulative one, pooling together the best learned lessons of his past work while pointing forward to a bright and beat-laden future. The producer’s most dance floor oriented record to date, Landloper pulls from the disparate corners of disco, John Carpenter-esque synth riffs, and glitchy IDM for a seamless expansion of Little People’s existing sound. We had the opportunity to speak with Clerc over the phone about Landloper’s production, his creative process as an artist, and what it means to create music in the very online space of 2018.

In the six years between the release of your first album, Mickey Mouse Operation (2006), and your second, We Are But Hunks of Wood (2012), you’d taken a break from music, traveled the world, worked an office job, fallen in love, and had two children. What’s happened in your life now in the six years since your last album and this one?

It does feel like it’s been quite a long time, hasn’t it? In my head it’s almost felt twice as long. (After I released We Are But Hunks of Wood, I came out with a remix album and the [Csay Csay] EP three years later.) I’ve been raising my kids — I have a set of twins and a newborn right now—and all of us went over to the U.S. for a year in 2014, so that I could be out there, and write music. Which I did, and it was actually really quite productive. The album you’re hearing now kind of, really, the core of it was written over the course of six months. I’ll admit that I’m fairly slow with my music in that, I struggle to put things out the door because I want them to sound just right, which is why it can take such a long time.

But yeah, it is a bit ridiculous. Six years is a long time between albums, and I admit that [laughs].

Let’s talk a bit about the name of your new album, Landloper. It means “wanderer,” or “adventurer.” It’s a fun word, though not one you’d likely hear spoken often. How did you first come across it?

It’s a title that sort of represents my professional life. I’ve lived in a lot of places, traveled through a lot of places while touring. It comes from the experience of being in a lot of places, making new friends, experiencing new things—this feeling of wandering and finding your place in the world. So Landloper is a word to describe the journey of my move to the US, this chapter of my life, and the experience of playing music in all these different parts of the world. And on top of that, it’s just a lovely sounding word! I thought the title should be a word that looks familiar, but is also strange and exciting.

You’ve spoken before on how your collaboration with Tif Lamson of GIVERS came together on the track “Skies Turn Blue.” How did you first link up with your other two collaborators for this album, Reva Devito and Rahel Debebe-Dessalegne?

So for Reva, she lives in Portland and she’s a friend of a friend of mine. I was looking around to record someone whose voice could be used as, sort of, sound mix fodder, and it just so happened that she was in town and I asked her to come in and record something. So I basically recorded one of her voice sessions and then she sang some percussion stuff. So what I did was, I just got loads of samples of her singing and cut them up into syllables and sounds and resequenced them as a guiding point. And then I just chopped them up again and reworked them, and so her voice is scattered throughout the whole album. She’s a big part of the record in a lot of ways, not necessarily through lyrics but as a sound, as an instrument.

For Rahel, I saw her play a show and met her shortly after that. She tours with a lot of different artists, one of which is a musician and composer named Matthew Herbert, so she played a show with him and I thought “Well, I’ll give it a shot,” so I found her details and reached out through email about working together and she was really into the idea. I initially thought it would only be one song, but she was up for doing all three! [laughs] So we did the recordings in South London at a studio around when I had just gotten back into town. I remember us doing a take and she would just intuitively know where to improve on it and where to take the track next, so we would just re-do it. She’s extremely good at what she does.

And then Tif, I met her actually through Glassnote Records, who were looking at my record at the time, and they put me in touch with her. What she does with her band is quite far away from the stuff I do and I thought, Will this work? Yeah, this could work,’ so I sent her over some tracks, and “Skies Turn Blue” came out of that. I was very pleased with it and I think she was happy with it as well.

Your second album marked a transition away from the sample-heavy sound that defined your first and had you experimenting with new equipment, like using an old Akai reel-to-reel tape machine to record and process a string ensemble to resemble the textured sound of vinyl compression. What were some of your favorite instruments or equipment to use in the making of Landloper?

It’s kind of a whole host of different instruments, but I guess just generally it’s a crossover between synthesizers, analog and digital, and I just think that for me it’s less about tools and more like using what I have on hand at the moment. I’ll just mess around, create sounds on a synthesizer, sample that, and then play with that again. My songs will go through so many iterations where samples are cut up, cleaned, and tweaked that sometimes, I can’t even remember how I got to a particular sound!

So that’s kind of the essence of what I do: very iterative, spontaneous, and in-the-moment. The laptop is home to everything I do; that doesn’t change. I like to start off from a point ‘in the real world,’ with analog sounds and instruments like a piano or xylophone, but generally, it’s [about] taking those sounds and bringing them into a digital realm. I’ll record strings, woodwind stuff; I love collecting and playing with high-pitch bouncing samples and incorporating those into my music. I never do just one thing. I want my music to have a lot of variety, a lot of color, and a lot of character.

The orchestration on this album is impressive. Who did you work with to record the strings? What did you learn working with a string section back in 2012 that came to bear on making Landloper?

Well, when I was working on We Are But Hunks of Wood, I was learning how to direct a string section—how to gesture towards the sound I wanted, and guide the section to that outcome. This time around, I had a more cohesive approach to achieving that; I actually went to a studio when I was living in Portland, and worked at replicating the sound of a much larger string ensemble. We only had four string players, but we still had eight chairs—so we recorded one take with players sitting in one set of chairs, and then did a different take of them sitting in a different set of chairs, and then overlaid those recordings, so [that] it ends up sounding like eight players at once. That resulted in a much fuller sound, which I feel really comes through on the tracks for this record.

Photo by Vania Read

What are some things that surprised you in the course of producing Landloper? Is this album, this evolution of your sound, what you had in mind when you first started work on it back in 2014?

I find it very hard to pinpoint one idea from the next. It’s more like, ‘This is where I want to get to’ and ‘This is what I want to do.’ As it often happens, my process starts with trying for a certain sound and then ending up with 50 different ones, which I think is fairly typical when making music. I have many artists that I admire, tracks that I think are incredible and I’ll think ‘Wow, how did they do that?’ And then I’ll give it a go and probably not end up anywhere near with what they did. But by doing that, I’ll have probably landed somewhere with a track that no-one else has done.

That tends to happen when you’re chasing a sound: it forks into several different ones, and you end up in a richer place for having followed your instincts. But as far as where I wanted to go with this album, I wasn’t sure. I think that the time I spent on this one made for a richer album than what I could’ve imagined at the start, in my opinion; when I first started, I didn’t think this album was going to have so much collaboration going into it and that was kind of a nice surprise—to have so many people to work with and share this experience.

You’ve cited a fairly eclectic range of influences over the course of your career, from Mobb Deep and DJ Shadow to Steve Reich and Ryuichi Sakamoto. What sort of music and artists have been your points of contact while producing Landloper?

I think it tends to be fairly varied. I’ll admit that my listening habits have kind of changed a lot with the advent of Spotify. I’ve always loved discovering new music, but Spotify makes it almost too easy now [laughs]. I have a big playlist of music I was listening to while I was working on the album, but picking out one or two particular artists is difficult. I think whatever algorithm they’re working with is fantastic, and it does a good job of accommodating to diverse tastes. Y’know, if you’re listening to a little bit of Afrobeat here and there, and a little bit of hip-hop as well, but also throw in some classical music, all those things will be represented in your mix somewhere. So, I guess as far as artists that have influenced me, there’s only a few artists that I listen to that I feel like, outside of what they do, have been a guiding light for what I do. The usual suspects in my book are Jon Hopkins, Four Tet, Caribou—people like that. But I also love one-off songs. Some people make moving tracks that eclipse anything else that I’m aware of [from] them, in terms of their output. It could be something I find incredible. So I wouldn’t say I’m influenced now by any one artist, but by ideas I come across that happen to spark something in me.

Tell us about your new label, Future Archive Recordings. I noticed that some of your co-founders and signees, like Sun Glitters and Blockhead, are people you’ve worked with before in the past. What influenced your decision to launch Future Archive Recordings?

It’s actually all very recent. When it sort of came around was, I had been working on my own for awhile and thought I would benefit from working with an actual record label, but things didn’t really quite materialize. I was toying with the idea of self-releasing the record, but then I started talking with a few people and just thought, ‘Welp, it seems kind of stupid to be doing all this work on your own.’ The first person I talked to was Blockhead, and then a bunch of others had been thinking the same thing, so we went from there. We started talking about it in July, I think, and then by September we had our first compilation out, so we moved really quickly.

Basically the idea is to have a platform in place for us to put out new music—not in a way that’s predicated on making money, but on encouraging creative expression. We take a lesser share of whatever profits the record makes, and it all goes directly back to the artists. It’s a like-minded group of musicians who want to do their best work, either on their own or together. We all have our own skills that we share, so it makes for a nice division of labor.

What’s next for Little People in 2019? How do you see your career, your journey as an artist evolving and changing in the future?

Well that’s the thing—it’s down to how this record does. There’s a bit of a question mark at the end of that, how things are going to go. I think what I have seen over the past, let’s say, three or four years, is that music has kind of gone from being initially a hobby to now a trade or a craft, which only now I feel like I’m beginning to master. I’m excited to, once this record’s out the door, put my head down and write new music. I’m pretty sure the next bit of music might take some time to come out [laughs]. I still feel like I’m mastering my field. It’s funny, the more you work in a field the more you realize you knew so little before. But I finally feel like I know what I’m doing now. It’s tough to say what I’ll be doing, but I’ll be looking into more collaborations, ideally producing for some other people. But yeah, I’m looking forward to releasing more music under the Little People moniker in the future.

One last question. You’ve said in the past that if you weren’t a musician, you’d probably be a cook, and one of your favorite hobbies is trying out different foods while touring. What’s your favorite food to cook, and what’s your favorite food to be served?

I’ve always really been into Asian food. That’s usually my go-to. It’s fresh, it’s quick to do, and always flavorful. I also really enjoy heavier, European fare; between those two are generally where my palate sits. If someone’s cooking for me, I like to choose things I could never be bothered to do myself, things that are messy or tricky to do. So anything to do with frying—I’ll gladly go to restaurants and pay for that instead than do it myself [laughs].

-Toussaint Egan

Source: https://daily.bandcamp.com/2019/01/03/little-people-interview/

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

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