#fuck a chorus fuck regular song structure

[guccigarantine]

now that there are more mainstream bands without labels i need them to start making weirder music like you don’t have anyone holding you back you should be doing whatever the hell you want

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 22/06/2023

Satinpanties Symphony

Season 5 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume D

Ripped by eg_9371 Visuals by moralem (art), RHMan (chart), brubsby (recording)

There's a lot to be said about the frequently-ripped things on SiIvaGunner. I've already covered how rips like Wii Shop Bling paved way for the Wii Shop Channel theme becoming a permanent mainstay on the channel, and there are several other tracks like it that cemented their place on the channel in one way or another. Sometimes its out of popularity, like with the Super Mario 64 Slider rips, or out of a longstanding in-joke like with the Five Nights at Freddy's Circus rips (believe me, we'll get to those one day). But with a few exceptions, like Season 7s infestation of Raft Rides, a lot of these reoccurances stem from some sort of, long-running legacy so to speak.

Which is what makes the channel's direct ties to Friday Night Funkin' so interesting to me. The game effectively came out of nowhere at the tail end of Season 4, and without skipping a beat it started receiving regular rips as soon as Season 5 began. What set these rips apart was the effort that consistently went into them - visuals and charts were edited or made ground-up specifically to match the original game, like they were all-new songs to play in-game. On top of this, the rips were of course consistently bangers - it was a perfect storm that pushed FNF as an inseperable part of SiIva's identity in no time flat.

In the same way that FNF honors the legacy of Newgrounds, its always felt to me like the FNF rips on SiIva honor the channel's own legacy. Be it Gangster Mario, Among Us Drip, Astronaut in the Ocean - so many of the rips just feel tied to the channel's own foundation and community, especially in how it creates FNF character designs for these in-jokes. And to tie it back to these frequently ripped tracks I discussed earlier, todays rip highlights one of those in particular - Stickerbrush Symphony from Donkey Kong Country 2. A track less so heralded for its nostalgia or potential funnyness, but for its unbelievable quality despite the hardware its on. Its an important piece of music to a lot of VGM-invested people, and Satinpanties Symphony does it justice in spades. It stays authentic to the source track its building on and the game's general call-and-response structure between singers, even free-styling certain sections a bit to better fit FNF's pace, without ever losing the essence of the track its adapting. The serotonin that hits when both parties sing in harmony leading in to the chorus hits crazy hard, its honestly hard to listen to the track without a smile.

And that's really the thing - eg_9371s output on the channel is fucking HUGE in a way that I don't believe I could effectively summarize, yet almost all the rips I've heard from him just make me smile in the simplest of ways. His output is so varied it might as well be SiIvaGunner distilled into just one ripper - the consistent throughline being quality no matter what.

[greenlikethesea]

Song recs for sleepover night!!! Also what’s your favorite song off folie a deux and why?

song recs for sleepover night!

fast in my car - paramore

shawty - remi wolf

antonia - motion city soundtrack

fine without you - best coast

ex-factor - lauryn hill

dead oaks - now, now

on the regular - shamir

garden song - phoebe bridgers

nibble nibble - say anything

my nene - mykki blanco

west coast - the forecast

bad - tablo ft jinsil

trash - bully

like a pen - the knife

the worst - jhene aiko

blood infections - frank iero

mercury - bloc party

clementine - halsey

anxiety - megan thee stallion

jealous - ingrid michaelson

my favorite songs off folie a deux are she's my winona, tiffany blews, and w.a.m.s!

i love she's my winona lyrically -- few things have described how i experience mental illness quite like "i'm never the same person when i go to sleep/as when i wake up, as when i wake up". i think the contrast between the fast paced, racing verses, with a lack of cohesive prechorus, into a sweeping and triumphant chorus, "hell or glory/i don't want anything in between," creates a dynamic, intriguing song that has me hitting repeat. i think this song, out of all of the songs on this album, is the closest to nonfiction that we get, the closest the listener gets to seeing pete as himself as opposed to the many characters that he writes from the perspective of in this album. and we LOVE a key change.

tiffany blews is interesting on a lot of levels -- i think it really shows how funny pete wentz can be as a lyricist ("i'm not a crybaby/i'm THE crybaby" is objectively hilarious, because relatable as fuck -- hey now, if you're gonna make fun of me do it right, etc etc) and i think the lil wayne guest is their most important and best guest to date, only followed by big sean in the mighty fall, and contains lyrics that are so so so "not the boy i was/the boy i am is just venting, venting/dear gravity/you held me down in this starless city" . as well as this it's SO musically engaging, patrick deconstructing the traditional song structure by having the big pause in the beginning pre-chorus and the subsequent pre-choruses flowing into the main chorus as a meta commentary on the lyrical content, the feature completely changing the mood of the song with arrangement/tempo/melody.

w.a.m.s. is, like jetset life by mcr, completely inscrutable lyrically and musically, and also contains some of the meanest pete lyrics to date, because it's simultaneously mature and immature "oh freckle, freckle, what makes you so special? what makes you so special? i'm gonna leave you, i'm gonna teach you, how we're all alone." the lyrics themselves are damning, very bare and psychologically telling, but patrick's anguished, almost sniveling delivery really seals the deal with its vindictiveness. plus -- mayhaps my hottest take yet -- but i think the spoken word at the end is far superior to the spoken word at the end of "get busy living or get busy dying" by a LONG SHOT. it's mature. it's unnerving. it's a man at the brink, and it actually flows into west coast smoker, unlike the abrupt beginning of "xo".

[fixa-ryeter]

Rating Songs Based On How Fun or Torturous or Easy etc etc They Are To Sing With a Cold

because i’m tired of memorising leaf structures and i like singing. don’t claim to be good at it. i’m decent though. i have a bitching cold right now and breathing is difficult so. i wanted to document this.

p.s. sounding good/decent/bad is written while taking into account that i have a cold. L for me i guess

Gray (sajou no hana) - 10/10 - ok this was nice. this was fun. it sounded decent to me despite my nose being as congested as the traffic in KL over here. so woo! it truly does make you push high notes in regular voice bc blocked nose = bye bye half of your falsetto range

Memosepia (sajou no hana) - 6/10 - ow on the high notes. still kinda easy for how relatively quick this song is. i mean, it's kind of difficult for me to enunciate quickly and clearly when i have a cold so that considered, not a TERRIBLE experience

Inferno (Mrs. Green Apple) - 7.2/10 - low notes on the pre-chorus were a pain but that's as usual so nothing new. sounded decent. surprisingly easy to switch from high to low in the chorus. it was fun though so i don't mind

如果我們不曾相遇 (Mayday/五月天) - 7/10 - this song is a nostalgia banger so it gets extra points <3 it was pretty ok and i could juuuust reach the low notes too so i don't mind it. it's fun and didn't sound too bad

99 (MOB CHOIR) - 7/10 - i'm sorry half of these are mob psycho songs but this was a shuffled playlist i promise BUT not bad not completely torturous quite fun. 'mitsuuukaru daaaROOOUUUUU' (my favourite part) is still manageable so points for that too

勁歌金曲 (Leo Ku/古巨基) - 7.8/10 - yep the 10 minute medley of canto/mando pop classics. i think literally the only reason why points are taken off is because of enunciation difficulties and low note difficulties (torture) but I LOVE THIS SONG!! or songs? is a medley a song or a songs. i know not

Renai Circulation (Kana Hanazawa) - 8/10 - listen man i haven't watched bakemonogatari i am sorry. but also somehow this song was nice with a blocked nose like. surprisingly pleasant and not a pain. for positive shock factor it gets points

残酷な天使のテ—ゼ (Yoko Takahashi) - 6/10 - ok this one wasn't bad. it was ok-sounding. it was. still kinda fun though. because i like this song. props to the song. i love this song

餓狼傳說 (Jacky Cheung/張學友) - 8/10 - yeah ok can't blame this song for being a fucking banger and fun to sing at the same time. sounded good. blocked nose has almost nothing on this. it should be higher actually. let's make it a 9/10 instead

火红的萨日朗（要不要买菜）- 5/10 - nothing against the song itself because it's nice to listen to but. it was just plain boring to do. had to switch between octaves but. it's what i do anyway. there was. no challenge and no additional fun. nice song still though

Cobalt (MOB CHOIR) - 2/10 - before i say anything I LOVE SANA-SAN'S VOICE. OK. i am so in love with both her voice and this song. makes me go ham every time. i love Cobalt with all my heart. that said. PAIN. PAIN. ITS TOO FAST. TOO MANY QUICK NOTE PATTERNS. my nose did not allow me to catch up with any of this and it sounded HORRENDOUS. NO FUN, ONLY TORTURE, SOUND BAD, NO.

Empires (Lamya) - 8/10 - somehow this was pleasant, fun, manageable, and the song is a beauty anyway. i can't do Lamya justice, cold-inflicted or not, but it sounded surprisingly good to my ears (again considering my nose is clogged like overused toilet.) good fun

so that's all yeah i did this for absolutely no reason i just thought it would be fun and it was. i like to blabber. did you know that. now you do. thank you for coming to my ted talk

[coconutdays]

Cry Baby

Eren Jeager x reader one shot

Synopsis: The hot guy who looks like a picture perfect bad boy keeps popping up at every party you go to and you don't know what to do when he asks for your number like the idiot you are

Warnings: Some suggestive material, mostly fluff

Word count: 2.5k!

Loosely based on this song

There's this guy you keep seeing at every party you go to and that's saying something since you don't go out too often, but then again you guys probably have the same cirlcle of friends.

He's hot though and you can never leave these parties without having made eye contact with him at least once due to his hard stares.

Sometimes he even plays the guitar at these parties and he's caught you staring at him when he gets into a certain chorus more than once.

He has a strong presence, his friends are always yelling his name, more so his last name, and he just seems confident in himself because he dresses like a slut.

Yea, a slut.

The first time you saw him, he was wearing these tight denim jeans, a white wife beater, and a black leather jacket. It wouldn't have been so hot if he didn't a wear a ring on almost every finger of his and have his hair up in a messy bun that let stray pieces of his chocolate colored hair frame his annoyingly hot face.

You couldn't forget about the necklace too.

That stupid key that dangled from his neck never failed to make you stare at his chest, which oh so temptingly rose and fell everytime he let out a laugh with his friends.

Right now though, he was wearing a these loose fitting faded green pants and a regular black tshirt that didn't seem so regular when his arms were begging to break free from the short sleeves.

It gave you a perfect view of all the tattoos littering his arms even if you had always wanted to see what was hiding on his chest considering the small blot of ink that always peeked out whenever he wore wife beaters.

No.

You were here to hang out with your friends and he looks like he breaks hearts for fun. Besides, you should enjoy the music more. Whoever had the aux cord at these parties always played the best music and your favorite song never failed to make an appearance, which just so happened to be now.

"Staring at Eren again?" Your best friend giggled.

"I like eye candy." You responded before shaking your head, "He'd break my heart though so I won't bother to look anymore."

Your friend hummed in response before her eyes widened for a bit the moment she got a glimpse behind you.

"Good luck y/n"

"What." You leaned forward to catch her words again.

Did she just wish me good luck? Why?

A shadow from behind you that made the gold in your bracelet gleam less caught your attention and made you turn around.

"Hey"

Eren stood there before you, his hands in his pockets, his posture as tall as ever as he kept your eyes locked with his.

You did not want to be played with tonight and although you found his heart breaker appearance hot as hell, you wouldn't risk your your own for it.

You looked at him like a mother looks at her child when they've interrupted her conversation and smiled, "Hi."

It had the same tone structure as a 'can I help you?'

He caught on to your slight guard, but chose to still speak to you.

"I'm Eren."

"I've heard."

He held back a small laugh. He didn't want you to think he was being a jerk.

"And I've heard yours is y/n."

"Is that the only thing you've heard?"

"I asked someone a couple parties ago," He admitted, a toothy smile splitting his mouth apart dashingly, especially due to his sharp canines, "but only managed to get your name."

"Glad they gave you the right answer." You politely nodded, not wanting to seem a total bitch.

Eren huffed at your facade a little, shaking his head because of how cute he thought it was when you were literally oogling at him moments ago.

"Listen y/n."

"I'm listening Eren."

There you went with that mother-like tone again. It crossed his mind how much he wanted to fuck that attitude out of you, but he'd save that for another time.

He had to win you over first if he'd ever to get to do that.

He chuckled, "I think you're pretty and I'm trying to get your number so I can take you out on a date."

"If that's fine with you." He added politely, confidence never wavering which was annoying.

His confidence annoyed you because it wasn't cocky. His confidence was simply him being comfortable with himself, and damn him because it made him harder to resist.

You really wanted to give him your number...

At this point it was obvious to the both of you that you were looking for an excuse to say no. You didn't even try to hide it anymore with that childish squint of your eyes at him and it made him laugh.

You let out a sigh of defeat and to Eren that could only mean one thing-

"You hear this song?" You pointed at the ceiling

Eren cocked his head to the side in confusion, "Yes?"

"If you learn this entire song on the guitar I'll give you my number."

Your cheeks were kinda puffed in self assurance, you thought you had given him an almost impossible challenge, which may seem like it to you but he wouldn't let you know that. It was cute.

"You want me to learn Cry Baby by The Neighbourhood, y/n."

You nodded like a smartass at his clarification and his knees almost buckled at how so adorable you were that he could just eat you up.

In approval, Eren raised up his hands as he nodded too.

"Fine. Just be ready to give me your number at the next party."

You gave him that kidish doubtful look of yours again before agreeing, "Okay, Eren."

As he shook his head with a smirk on his face, Eren turned around and went walking back to his friends just as you turned to look back at your best friend.

She was giving you a look of 'really?'

It was a tell tale sign she was about to bully you.

"y/n he's going to do it."

She leaned over to smack your arm, "You should have just given him your number dumbass."

You pouted as you soothed your arm, "Hey! I just wanna see some effort! Besides I think he'll forget and that's gonna say enough."

She rolled her eyes at you, "He literally stares at you every single time we see him. He won't forget."

Like a child, you crossed your arms over each other and let out a huff, "We'll see then."

You didn't see Eren again that night and like a fool you ignored the fact that it bummed you out. It wasn't necessary to stare at his neck whenever he threw his head back to laugh or watch the way his arms strained whenever he tried to put his hair up.

At least that's what you told yourself.

The new week came and passed by until the streets lit up again in the vodka, music, and lust of the weekend and you hadn't really thought about Eren. You remembered his promise to you when you were just about finished with your makeup and smacked your lips together while observing the application of your lipgloss.

He probably forgot about his promise the day after.

Nonetheless, you put your pretty heels on and walked right into that party with your best friend and this time you weren't going to lie to yourself when you looked around the room for that pretty brunette.

You couldn't find him.

Whatever, less heart break for you.

You dragged your best friend to the rest of your friends that would also attend the party. There was some commotion in the groupchat about somebody's girlfriend finding out their ex was talking to their mom's friend and the information was too juicy to let go of.

"And then my mom sent me a screenshot of this guy in her friend's comments talking about some-"

The conversation went in through one ear and out the other when that song started playing a little too finely through the party stereos.

Yeah, that song.

Your ears perked up and the electric guitar sounded too crisp to just be coming from the aux cord of a spotify playlist.

You looked around the room, following a particularly long wire that was connected to the stereo. You looked past plenty of heels, feet, and random shoes until you saw a pretty black guitar at the hands of him.

Eren.

He was completely invested in the guitar on his lap, fingers picking and choosing what strings to play and you were glad because you wouldn't be able to handle eye contact with him right now if he looked up.

"Told you." Your best friend giggled into your ear as she flicked your forehead gently.

Whenever Eren played the guitar, it was normal for a little bit of people to gather to look. It wasn't new for a guy to play the guitar at parties, especially him, but it was still interesting to see.

Your best friend lifted you up by grabbing your hand

"Gotta live up to your promise." She sang to you teasingly as she took you near him.

You whined, "Can we at least sit, I don't wanna stand there like a weirdo."

She shook her head, "Fine, but we'll sit where he can see you."

You nodded in dramatic defeat before she added, "And you better be ready to give him your number."

"Yes ma'am."

In all honesty, you were too shocked that he actually learned the song to let the giddy feelings register in your stomach on time, so you resorted to being whiny about it.

Except,

it registered when you sat down and he was already looking at you.

The rest of the four minutes that passed by were painful, they were comprised of the knowing looks Eren sent your way, you shuffling in your seat, and the actual part of you that was trying to enjoy the way he was playing the guitar for you.

They were painful but they passed by pretty fast, a little too fast in your scared and flustered opinion.

You watched Eren hand his electric guitar over to an eager friend who was probably gonna take a chance to play a song on it and saw this quick opportunity to voice your sheepishness to your friend.

"I think-"

Your best friend was no where in sight. She wasn't even sitting next to you anymore.

When did she leave you here?

You were going to kick her-

"My number?"

A fearful gulp made its way down your throat as you looked up at the handsome figure before you.

Eren cheekily had his phone out in your direction, his screen already lit in the light of his keypad.

You took the phone from him rather roughly in your opinion and bit back your smile as you typed those ten numbers on his phone and added your name to its contact.

Eren did not in fact think you took the phone from him roughly and would have compared the sight to a baby taking back its candy, but he feared telling you would ruffle your feathers. And he says ruffle your feathers cause you remind him of a sparrow, tiny but always mad for no reason.

And he loved it.

He sat down next to you when you finished typing your name and held out his phone for him to take back, which he did.

"Someone's surprised I learned a song for her." He sang, just as teasingly as your best friend did to you just moments ago.

Chills ran up your spine at the blatant mention of him doing something for you.

"So what if I am." You huffed a little, unaware of the way you turned your body to face him.

But Eren was quite aware, so he did it too.

"I'll learn more if you want me to." He offered, his hand painfully close to yours.

You turned your face away from him bashfully to hide the effect he had on you which only made it worse because he took it as an opportunity to close the distance between your faces a little more.

"How does that sound hm pretty girl?"

His breath was hot on your skin, even reaching your neck.

Mustering the courage, you turned back to look at him, even though any movement could cause you to kiss him due to the close to nonexistent distance between the two of you.

"It sounds nice." You peeped quietly

Eren's eyes were glazed as he observed you, he wouldn't even be surprised if somebody said he had stars in his eyes.

"Not so bratty now huh." He laughed warmly in tenderness at your state before him now.

Unable to stand his stare on you again, you looked down at both of your hands, fingertips touching.

You danced your fingers around over his hand, feeling the contrast of his cool rings against the warmth of his fingers before you set your hand on top of his.

"I'm giving you a million more songs to learn by the way." You murmured.

Eren shifted so he could have his face in front of yours again and there again came the intensity of his lips oh so close to yours and the unavoidable glimpses towards each other's mouths the both of you would give.

"I'll learn one for every date you let me take you on." He breathed in assurance

Your brain was foggy at how alluring he was

"I like the way you play the guitar." You admitted

And Eren's pants tightened at the way your eyes fluttered up at him when you said that.

"Yeah?"

"Mhm." You nodded, unaware yet again of the way you were pushing yourself onto him leaving Eren to yet again restrain himself from pouncing on you and scaring you away.

"Stop teasing me." He murmured, eyes on your lips.

"I'm not teasing you." You whined a little, doing that innocent thing with your eyes again and Eren pleaded with himself for more restraint.

"Fuck."He let out

You gave into the tension and started by giving his lips a soft peck to test the waters. That peck let Eren put his other hand on the back of your neck and it let you go back in again for another peck, except he kept you in place to actually kiss you.

His warmth completely melted into you as he needily moved his mouth across yours and left you growing more and more needy for him.

If it wasn't for everyone near the both of you, he would have continued, but your sake and his, he agonizingly let go of you.

"I think your friend is waiting for you." He swallowed on nothing, a bright red painting his cheeks.

And as you let your best friend take you away with a pout on your face, he checked his phone to make sure you left your number in there.

And you did.

y/n

[jacksope-lives]

Writing prompt idea if you like it: Ryan or Min musical theater phase

Okay so with this my first thought was "Modern Musical theater" BUT I decided to go old school, hope you enjoy!

Min really shouldn’t have been as embarrassed about this as he was. Plenty of people liked musical theater, right? And it wasn’t like it was the biggest thing in the world. When he had started working at Dumpty’s, in an effort to connect with his coworkers he had asked them all what music they liked, so he could try and get into it as well. One of his coworkers had given him a cassette of something called “Cats” and that was where the trouble had begun. Min-Gi had a new obsession and it’s name was Cats.

He’d memorized all the parts over the course of a week, could play almost the full soundtrack on synth, accidently belted out “Memory” at inappropriate times. But Cats wasn’t the only issue of course, he’d also snagged a tape of the British performance of “Les Misérables” which he heard might come to Broadway this year, he bought bootleg tapes of the revival of “Me and My Girl” and “42nd Street” was in regular rotation. So yes, Min maybe was a little bit obsessed with musical theater.

That wasn’t the problem however, the problem was that he and Ryan had disembarked from a magical train, bought a new van, and were currently on their way to New York City via road trip, and Min-Gi really wanted to blast some of his favorite musical tunes. But then...what would Ryan think of him, hearing him sing these really dramatic and embarrassing songs. That was what he loved about musical theater, the dramatism, the presentation. It wasn’t for everyone of course but it was for Min, and he wanted to share it.

“Hey Ryan...what do you think of musicals?” Min-Gi questioned as Ryan drove them towards their next motel stop on the way to New York City. Ryan looked at him curious at the question.

“Depends on the musical I guess?” he replied and Min took a deep breath to ask the next question, as if it was the most important thing in the world.

“What about um...Cats?” he asked and Ryan looked at him dumbfounded for a moment before bursting into uncontrolled laughter.

“Cats? Oh my god it’s fucking hilarious! It’s like...so weird and horny and I just….Cats!” he said, through his own laughter. Min-Gi quickly retreated inward, he knew that Cats, and musical theater in general had a reputation among people who didn’t like it, but they were being unfairly judged. Cats was good! He liked cheesy over the top dramatic musicals like Cats, and now he felt embarrassed about ever bringing it up.

“Yeah haha…Cats is uh...really stupid.” he muttered, putting the cassette back with his things, hidden from the judgement of others. At least he could enjoy it in secret, even if Ryan was laughing at the mere idea of being into something like that. The rest of the ride to the motel was silent, and Min climbed out of the car, quickly grabbing his bag and heading to the room. He did this so quickly in fact that he didn’t even realize the Cats cassette had fallen out of his bag.

“Hey you dropped your…” Ryan cut himself off as Min-Gi was already out of earshot having entered the building and besides he was now more interested in looking at the thing for himself anyway. It seemed Min was into Cats and the musicals of the sort, and now he felt supremely bad that he’d laughed at the idea. Maybe Ryan didn’t quite get the whole musical theater thing but he’d be more than willing to give it a chance if Min liked it. So that night, as Min slept in the motel room Ryan took out his Walkman and headphones and listened to Cats.

It...wasn’t bad. Not really his type of music upon first listen but it certainly had its charms. And then Ryan listened again, and again, and again. He wasn’t sure he actually got any sleep that night considering how many times he listened to the Cats soundtrack. And Ryan wasn’t sure when, or how, but he got it. Weird costumes and structure aside, at least from a musical standpoint, Ryan finally felt he understood Cats and he adored it. The quirks weren’t bugs, they were features.

“Ready to hit the road again?” Min-Gi asked as he slid into the driver's seat. Ryan nodded and took out the Cats cassette.

“Yeah, and you dropped this yesterday by the way.” he said, showing it to Min who looked supremely embarrassed at the whole thing.

“Oh! I don’t even know how that happened, this is so embarrassing.” he muttered. Ryan smiled and popped it in the tape deck.

“It’s all good, I listened to it and I think I’m a little obsessed with Cats now.” he said and Min blushed. Sure, it was easy to make fun of musical theater people, easy to make fun of people who liked stuff like Cats but...it was really sweet of Ryan to make that effort for him. Ryan skipped the Overture and started with the Prologue, the two going back and forth until the big show-stopping semi-chorus kicked in where they harmonized together, enjoying the dramatic over the top energy of Cats.

The rest of the trip was more of the same, Min introducing Ryan to all of the musicals he had in his repertoire until they ran out, the two fantasizing about making time to go down to Broadway and see this stuff on the stage as it was meant to be experienced. They were headed to New York, to their dreams of music and fame and making it into rock history. Of course, none of that canceled out the fact that maybe they’d also want to belt out show tunes along the way. Both were possible, as long as they were together.

[radramblog]

Album Discussion- The Fall of Troy

Last week I discussed an album that, more or less, was defined by looseness and empty spaces. This might as well be the polar opposite of that.

(man no-one seems to have uploaded this album art in high res)

Released in 2003, The Fall of Troy is a self-titled mathcore/post-hardcore/screamo debut album made by 3 17 year olds- and in some ways that shows, but it’s not like they were fresh, they’d had two EPs under a different name by that point. The Fall of Troy is probably best known by their song F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X., having been featured as a bonus track in Guitar Hero III, which is notably, not on this album. Rather, their second album, Doppelganger, had a few tracks that were basically retakes of songs from this first album. But we’re not talking about Doppelganger (and I still can’t find a bloody CD of it), we’re talking about The Fall of Troy, by The Fall of Troy, so let’s bloody well dive in.

The first song on here, Rockstar Nailbomb!, is as much a statement of intent as anything I’ve ever seen. It’s starts with hoarsely screamed, incomprehensible vocals over a frenetic set of guitar riffs, that cuts back into a more traditional song structure, you know, after a bit. Like any good opener, it’s introducing what you’re going to be getting from the album- songs that, while extremely energetic, tend to cut between sung vocals and screamed ones at a moment’s notice, complex and overlapping guitar riffs, and a very deliberately unpolished sound. The technical skill on display is incredible considering the age of the band, as well. For such a short song, Rockstar Nailbomb! goes in some real places, closing with a line that would be appropriate to finish off the album as a whole- but of course, we’re just getting started.

The next song is called Spartacus, and it shows off the talent of the drummer in a way that the previous didn’t. Unfortunately, I almost feel like this song was kind of a half-formed idea, considering it’s a minute and a quarter long, and the…squeal…? Near the end is kind of offputting. A mid one.

Oh boy it wouldn’t be a nerd band without ridiculous track names- next up is The Circus That Has Brought Us Back to These Nights (Yo Chocola), and no I don’t fucking know what that means. This one ironically feels the most like a song than the others before it, a slightly more traditional structure, the screaming and singing vocals forming something of a call-and-response that would probably make more sense if I could understand the lyrics half the time. Despite this, it’s no less speedy, frantic, and intricate, mixes between melody and dissonance that are basically the band’s signature.

The fourth track is named Mouths Like Sidewinder Missiles, and it’s one of my favourite tracks on the album. I can’t really describe why, though, so I’m going to take a minute to talk about something else. See, this is one of the tracks that was redone for Doppelganger, and on Spotify, for whatever reason, has the title misspelled “Misssiles”. I let them know about this years ago and they never fixed it, so I guess this is my callout post. For what it’s worth, I think the Doppelganger version is a bit looser, adding in some elements in the empty space (there’s a reverb after the initial riff I really love), but both have their own merits.

Okay, mild rant over, back to regular old rambling. The next track is The Last March of the Ents, Lord of the Rings reference very much intended. This is one of those tracks I always forgets exists to be honest, like the intro started and I was like…what was this one again? And then the bit at like 50 seconds came in and I remembered everything. That section is honestly really strong, though unfortunately the rest of the track kinda feels just like Mouths like Sidewinder Missiles, but like, slightly worse? Which is especially awkward considering it immediately proceeds that song. I will say the part of the song where it slows alllll the way down is really enjoyable, it’s very gradual and smooth, gives the bass a bit of time to shine, before blowing back up again because these guys just can’t bear to play slow for half a minute.

The next track is F.C.P.S.I.T.S.G.E.P.G.E.P.G.E.P. This is the song that their most popular track, F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X. is a version of, and they’ve never actually stated what the acronym is for. A common (and I believe discredited) suggestion is, and I quote, “Fuck condoms, premarital sex is the shit, get ‘er pregnant get ‘er pregnant get ‘er pregnant”, which is A Take. It also has nothing to do with the lyrics of the song itself. This track is actually by far the loosest and slowest on the album completely, appropriate considering it’s first words are “slow down”. There’s really not a lot of screaming on it, left only to the chorus, and they’re actually understandable which is nice (or maybe it’s just because I know it’s “come running home”). This is undoubtedly an emo track, based on the lyrics, but it’s also just kind of excellent, similarly complex lyrics slowed down to a comprehensible tempo and a bridge that builds in a supremely satisfying manner. The comparison to R.E.M.I.X. is of course, inevitable, and I will say the tightening up did help in some places- the very slow section at the latter part of the song probably doesn’t need to go that long, and that’s easily the part that gets sped up most in the redo. Still, the song stands out very naturally, feeling more thoughtful and controlled than its peers.

The next song is titled “Whacko Jacko Steals The Elephant Man’s Bones”, apparently a reference to…a music video where Michael Jackson danced next to a recreation of the skeleton of a famously deformed man. Yeah, ok, sure. I don’t actually have much to say about this one, it’s very scream-led, but doesn’t really stand out to me apart from the naming. It’s play rating supports this, being the second least listened track here, but it’s by no means bad. It’s just kinda long and as generic as something like this can be, I suppose. Honestly I kinda forgot all the directions this goes, some of these sections are really quite excellent, but the song is probably like 2 minutes longer than it needed to be. I’m just saying. Like I kept waiting for this song to try and change my mind and it kinda just didn’t.

Reassurance Rests in the Sea is up next, and god that little riff it’s building around, that just noodles around but at triple speed, is just so sick. It’s a song that spends a lot more time cutting itself down- like F.C.P.etc. it’s looser and slower, but substantially more disjointed than that one is. This song, uh, completely breaks off like two minutes in and just stops. And becomes a different song. Like, I don’t think this is a bonus track or anything, it’s just a part of the same song. And that second half is a really sort of chill (for this album) instrumental, lead by a bassline that slowly gets more riffs over the top of it. And then that bit stops itself, and the main song returns again for like the final half a minute or so. And honestly I was just like, wait, no, go back…….

The actual least listened to track on the album is number 9, The Adventures of Allan Gordon (it’s apparently about a book). Honestly, I’d kinda love to hear this live, because the first minute or so of it is the kind of thing you’d play as an interstitial to keep the audience going while you get your shit ready for the next song. Eventually (and I mean eventually, song’s a third through at this point) the lyrics and such come in, and yeah ok I see why this one isn’t as popular. It’s like, fine? Like, that cut back section is pretty overall mediocre, but when we get back to the screaming and the riffs and the noise its as solid as ever. It’s a little frustrating, because they can do the more lyrical stuff, F.C.P. is right there, but this one doesn’t quite make the mark for me. A shame.

Track 10 is I Just Got This Symphony Goin’, which does not have an actual symphony, but it does present and absolutely killer opening riff, so it’s not all bad. This is one of the songs I most associate with the album, even if it’s one of the ones also on Doppelganger. Its speeding up and slowing down and screaming and singing and lots of interweaving and yeah. I like it. Iunno.

The final song, What Sound Does a Mastodon Make? (I dunno, ask a paleontolgist?), is a full seven minutes, 2 minutes longer than the next longest track. It’s kind of interesting, since the second half of the album going by tracks is much much longer than the first half. It does this really fun bit where the lead guitar and rhythm guitar do their own little call and response thing, immediately followed by one of the weirdest vocal noises I’ve ever heard, and I don’t have a word to describe it, so you’re gonna have to either trust me or listen to it yourself. This song is just really, really long, man, and it goes in a lot of places but none of them are exceptional enough to really justify slogging through a total 7 minutes of it. I’m going to be honest, I’m probably not going to listen to it unless I’m going through the whole album. The extended build near the end is pretty sick, I guess? And the way the last minute just decides to, like, drop everything, and just end with a very quiet, indie-esque instrumental. Like the very “we did it, now we can relax” sort of moment. Lets both you and the band know its over, and you can move on past your energy high to something a bit more chill.

I think the best phrase I can use to describe The Fall of Troy is “ADHD music”. Both in that it feels almost a little distractable sometimes, multidirectional and often not fully resolving its lines, and also in that said lines are great if you’re someone like myself who’s brain needs something to be chewing over while the more conscious parts are trying to do something else. To be clear, I consider this a compliment. Like most music I discuss, this certainly isn’t for everyone, as you’re going to need a tolerance for adrenaline and screaming to enjoy this album, but I do think it’s worth the attempt. Now, I haven’t listened to Doppelganger (or any of the other albums for that manner) in full, so I can’t comment on how the style of The Fall of Troy would evolve over time. But at the very least, this is a very solid starting point for what would become a surprisingly long-lasting act.

[caiuscassiuss]

sasaeng | l. taeyong (m)

DESCRIPTION: Someone’s obsessed, but it’s not who you think… In which an idol is completely, utterly, disgustingly obsessed with you.

Genre: stalker/ sasaeng + idol au angst | “romance” | psychological thriller WC: 15k Warnings: graphic smut (humping, masturbation, fingering, cum shot/creampie, preg kink), unhealthy obsession, drug addiction, graphic violence (depicted beating, poisoning), slight coercion

(⚠️Warning⚠️: This ain’t your regular idol au. There is drug addiction, body issues, unhealthy obsession, and whole lot of dark stuff, and that, if it triggers you in any way, DON’T READ THE BOOK. Also, the author does not condone ANY unhealthy behavior in this book in any way, shape or form. I AM NOT romanticizing stalking and obsession; I wanted to write this to explore a unique dynamic and twist to the Idol AU. This behavior is unhealthy and not normal, and please, seek help if this were to ever happen. Apologies if I have written any behavior unrealistically. ⚠️)

A gentle humming fills the bathroom as the shower is turned on. A female enters the shower, naked, and precedes to cleanse her body of the troubles and worries of the day.

Yet, the eye at the keyhole isn’t noticed. In fact, it will never be… if he has his way.

Shocked gasps come over the studio as, for the first time in history, two idol groups tied for 1st place on a Music Show. Every vote, every score was match for match. While celebratory confetti cannons and music blared pathetically in the background, the audience, the staff, the crew came to a standstill while the idols stood, frozen, on stage.

What were they supposed to do? There was only one trophy after all. Were they supposed to cheer? Boo? Scream?

The in-ear on Ong Seongwoo blared to life as the producer came to his senses.

“Quick! Congratulate both groups, I’ll just— fuck— how did we not see this coming—”

Seongwoo pasted a smile to his face and reanimated his lively and cheerful self. “Well, that’s was unexpected, but, congratulations to both NCT U and FEM for winning 1st place on this week’s broadcast of Music Core!”

Gradual clapping and cheers came from the crowd, which rose even louder as a crew member rushed onto stage carrying 2 trophies. The idols on stage slowly began to move, whispering and gossiping amongst themselves at this unexpected development.

The groups in question themselves were smiling but shooting confused and worried glances at each other. Was this supposed to happen? 

The crew member hurriedly passed one trophy into the slender fingers of Lee Taeyong, the leader of NCT U, and the other into the arms of Sunmi, the leader of FEM. They both regained posture and, while avoiding looking at each other, bowed. The other groups left in a flurry of confetti and streamers, while NCT and FEM stayed on stage.

Seongwoo furrowed his brows as he listened intently into his in-ear. He nodded, turned, then smiled broadly at the audience, not a single piece of his hair out of place of his signature comma hair style.

“We will be playing the winners’ songs in no certain order, thank you everyone!”

3 taps of a drumstick signaled the vocal-heavy and flowery track of FEM’s 2nd EP, “Halo”. NCT U politely took a step back as FEM flounced onto the middle, dazzling in the sparkling lights.

As lead vocalist Sunmi began to start her first line, her voice began to crack and tears were bubbling at the edge of her periphery. She choked out a tearful “sorry” and buried her face into the slim shoulders of your fellow member, Bolin, the main dancer. Both clung together like glue, clasping each other for comfort as the monumental accomplishment swept over them like a tidal wave.

Our 1st win, you thought, smiling slightly and wiping the tears off the edge of your vision. Our 1st win since our debut a year ago.

You were tapped on the shoulder and turned to see FEM’s main rapper, Bella, smirking and shoving the mic at you. You quickly realized that Sunmi was belting out the pre-chorus, and you got ready to sing the difficult chorus.

Lee Taeyong stood to the side, full of mixed emotions. Was it anger? Jealousy? Indignancy? His light blond hair hung around the the bony structure of his face, highlighting his slight gauntness. He stared at FEM, not knowing what to feel until he saw her.

It was some damned drug trip, wasn’t it? Because there was no way the spotlight rested solely on her, as sobs came out of her pretty pink lips while she laughed in joy. Her silky dress flowed around her like it was upheld by a heavenly wind, in tune with the concept her company presented her as.

A goddess.

A goddess of heaven and earth.

Taeyong could only stare like he was a starved man, drinking in the sight like seeing an oasis in the middle of a dry, dry desert. His tinted lips hung open as his gaze remained solely on the vision she presented.

The longer he saw, the more he saw her. A goddess in group of harpies, yet, so insecure and hurt. Was this what it felt like when Pygmalion laid eyes on Galatea? The way Hades saw Persephone?

His heart stuttered in his chest and he felt like he couldn’t breath.

A goddess for him and himself.

1 Year Ago

“I’ll lead you, I’m the boss! I move you, I’m the player!” The heavy bass and domineering synths echoed throughout the gymnasium, thousands of green light sticks moving in unison to the catchy beat. It was quite a sight to see 60,000 plus green sticks fill the gigantic Seoul Olympic Stadium in the night in expansive 360 degree seating.

A chorus of male, synth voices harmonized together for the outro, the group of seven in a triangle formation broadcasted on gigantic screens. The crowd let out thunderous roar, shouting the fan-chants in order.

“Taeyong! Doyoung!”

The 7 men in tailored army suits, silver chains glinting as they swung around from the sheer force the men were putting into their movements. The managing crew of the concert watched the men through their many screens, communicating through headsets.

“On the count of three, release the stage door, alright?”

“Jaehyun! WinWin!”

The flashing lights of the monitor played over the director’s passive face.

“One.”

“Jungwoo! Lucas! Markeu!”

“Two.”

The crew member reached out the arm to turn his monitor closer. His sleeve brushed against the control board, brushing against a certain switch.

“NCT!”

The lead figure, glaringly obvious with his blood red hair in the middle of the formation, suddenly disappeared from screen. From the tops of the stands, the audience could see the large gaping hole slightly off to the left of the stage.

Murmurs and gasps filled the stadium as the 6 remaining figures broke formation to swarm around the gaping hole. Mark, WinWin, and Doyoung  knelt down near the hole while Jaehyun and Jungwoo looked down at the stage sidelines, visibly panicking on the billboard screens. Lucas frowned as he pulled his in-ear closer, his full lips pursed while listening to the crew’s directions.

2 staff members in “NEO CULTURE TECH: LUCID DREAM” t-shirts climbed up to the stage from the bottom ground, guiding the anxious members off the stage.

Cries and shouts arose from the worried crowd. All lights shut off, and the clamors gradually grew louder and louder until the overhead speaker blared to life.

“Everyone, we are sorry for the inconvenience.”

Under the jungle of metal bars and concrete, the red-haired man groaned in pain. His leg was twisted awkwardly, having caught on a metal bar his high fall down. Through his tears, he looked a few feet up to see Mark’s and WinWin’s worried faces peering down at him.

“Due to the early releasing of the stage platforms, Lee Taeyong fell through the hole and we are currently awaiting his status.”

A swarm of team members maneuvered through the concrete structures, crouching around his figure. The remaining NCT members, bar the BOSS members from the stage, ran to his position, and peeked from behind the crew.

“Taeyong-hyung!” Chenle’s high voice shouted, his face the pallor of white as anxiety ran through all members present. Johnny and Jeno clutched onto him tightly, their mouths parted in shock and fear for the pillar of NCT.

A young woman looked up at the rest of the crew, her eyes wide.

“Quick, get an ambulance! He’s broken his leg and I can see blood!”

“Lee Taeyong, leader of top boy group NCT, injured at Seoul Concert!”

“World Group NCT, leader Lee Taeyong breaks his leg at concert!”

“NCT leader Lee Taeyong hospitalized after serious accident at Seoul concert!”

“NCT Taeyong rushed to ER for a broken leg after stage accident at concert!”

“Global Boy Group NCT: leader Lee Taeyong taken off roster for first leg of NCT world tour due to an accident at kick-off concert!”

“NCT TOP VISUAL TAEYONG UNABLE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE FIRST LEG OF NCT’S 20- CITY WORLD TOUR AFTER ACCIDENT AT SEOUL CONCERT!”

You opened your eyes, hearing the air conditioning and the warm lights of your dorm room. You could hear the hum of the television screen from the living room and the smell of bulgogi from the kitchen.

You yawned, stretching your arms and padded off to the kitchen, wrapping a furry robe around yourself. You saw through your bleary vision your group’s leader and proclaimed “omma” Sunmi stirring something on the oven, her curvy figure in a tank top and leggings. Sulhee and Boram were recumbent on the couch, their hair up in towels as they chatted casually.

“Good morning, everyone,” you smiled tiredly. It had been a late night practicing.

“Y/N.” Sunmi smiled at you.

“Unni!” Bella and Lin cheered, rising from their places on the couch.

You grinned at their boundless energy. Bella and Bolin were the same age, younger than you and Sunmi. You called them your “happy little flowers” and their room “the flower garden”, which they always laughed at.

“Hi, my lovely juniors. How are you~?” you giggled, taking a seat at the breakfast table.

“We have a break day today! Isn’t that great?” Bella wriggled into the seat adjacent from you while smiling wildly.

“We’re totally free Yeday!” Bolin cheered in her accented Korean, a bit of her native Chinese slipping through.

“Today, not “yeday”, Bolin. Good job though, you’re improving very well,” Sunmi’s calm voice entered your conversation. “Also, we’re not totally free. We just get to spend the day in the dorm.”

“Why do you have to ruin my thunder?” Bella whined, pouting her lips and her infamous “aegyo” face that many a show host melted for.

“That’s reality, sweetie,” you smiled at Bella.

The four of you chatted over the table, drinking tea and coffee as the noon sun began to peak through the floor-to-ceiling windows of your dorm. You all began to gradually migrate to the couch area, your group’s favorite place to hang-out and chat when resting.

“Wah, look at them!”

At Bella’s shout, you craned your head to look at the television monitor and saw the rerun of Music Bank flashing on screen. This part, however, displayed the famous NCT U members dancing to their latest hit song.

At the lead of the dance was a handsome man in light blond hair.

Lee Taeyong.

This was his first time performing on stage in a year, and he looked like he came back better than ever. He looked so fierce, his sharp features dominating everyone’s attention including yours. His moves were so sharp and clean that you couldn’t help but be mesmerized.

You vaguely remembered the news when he first broke his leg at the concert a year ago. Back then, you felt a huge amount of pity but also a huge amount of annoyance, as his injury caused a media frenzy that overshadowed your debut. NCT had been on top of the world then. The SM group broke records in Japan, China, and Korea and had been reaching into the European and South American markets successfully due to a flood of show appearances and concerts. While you never thought the whole world-domination thing would work, NCT seemed like they were well on their way to make it happen. 

They still were on top of the world. NCT was now a household name all around the globe, but they had lost their shining star for a good while.

“NCT Taeyong? Yeah, he may be handsome and all, I just… have a bad feeling about him. Not an auspicious guy,” Sunmi murmured, looking suspiciously at the screen.

Bolin snorted. “You sound like my grandma who lives in the province. “Oh, you have such a lucky nose Bolin-ah!”” she mimicked her grandmother, hunching over for the effect.

Bella and you burst into laughter, almost knocking over your drinks in the process.

Still, you couldn’t get his face out of your mind. Watching, staring, boring…

…into your soul.

Taeyong stumbled into the bathroom at 3 AM, shaking greatly and noisily opened the bathroom cabinet. He slammed the orange bottle onto the sink top and the sound of rattling pills filled the bathroom.

OXYCONTIN

Pain Killer Medication

Prescribed for LEE TAEYONG

1 PILL PER DAY

Well, it’s his third today.

Taeyong knocked back the pill with a glass of water, sitting on the ground with his head in hands until the shaking went away. Grimacing, he slowly got up on weak legs, supporting himself on the sink as he stared into his reflection.

The unnatural sharpness. The gaunt hollows of his cheeks. The deep dark circles. The blood-shot eyes.

The face of handsome, living death stared back at him in the mirror. He couldn’t even remember how he looked like a year ago, when he was fresh-faced and healthy.

Ever since the accident happened.

Since that day, everything was ruined. His fans, NCTzens, his favorite people in the world and the people keeping him going— he couldn’t even see them because of the damned injury. He couldn’t perform, couldn’t sing, couldn’t dance— all he could do was sit in his parent’s house, watching the videos of his members enjoying life while he hoped and prayed this injury wouldn’t put him out of commission for life.

Even when he could perform with them on the last leg of the tour, he was on a chair. Helpless. Unable to perform. Invalid.

The pain medication the doctor prescribed helped. It shut away his pain, physical and mental, and let him feel alive again. He felt like he was performing, singing, and fucking just in one pill. Slowly, his dosage decreased and he felt helpless, resorting to lying about his pain to the doctor to get those fucking pills.

And it turned him into this. A reflection of what he had been in the past. Fuck, how had it gotten this far? He hadn’t even looked this gaunt and pale during Boss and Baby Don’t Stop. He couldn’t even face his members without them looking at him like he was to be pitied. Like an injured animal, they had to take care of him instead of him taking care of them.

He padded quietly down the hall, trying not to wake any of the tired, sleeping members from yesterday’s music show. He creaked open the door to his and Johnny’s room, sighing quietly in relief as he realized Johnny was fast asleep and snoring. The only sounds heard was the puffs of the air humidifier in the room and the regular sounds of urban life.

Settling onto his bed, reaching for his handphone. The artificial light lit up the room before he hurriedly turned it down until it only cast a slight glow on his face.

Taeyong scrolled through the hundreds of pictures he had saved of you, whether it be from performances to press releases and more. It was like he didn’t feel the burning and incessant call of the pills in a tiny orange bottle whenever he focused on solely you, lost in your smile and in your eyes. He smiled softly at your simple pre-debut photos, and smirked when he saw the HD fan photos of you from your latest concert. God, you looked like an ethereal dream from his high. A goddess descending from the heavens. His Helen to his Paris.

“You need to lose weight, seriously. At this rate, you’ll be obese in a few months!”

You gaze turned downwards at the scolding voice of your manager, whom had been staring back at your reflection in the waiting room mirror.

“Yes, Mrs. Kim,” you sighed.

“I saw you stand next to Twice’s Tzuyu at the Hallyu Wave Concert and you looked like a short, fat, rat next to her! Do you know how embarrassing that is? To the company? To the members? Aish, really, you’re so plump I can barely look at you!”

You bit your lip and tried not to let tears leak out your eyes. You knew that if she were able to see your tears, she would yell at you for ruining the makeup on your face. God, why did she have to be so mean to you? 

This was not even the tip of the iceberg. Much more degrading insults have been spit out her mouth when she was first assigned your manager. She has ripped into every single fibre of your being, degrading your looks, your singing, your dancing. “Are you even worth being the main vocal? The trash collectors sing better than you!” to “Fuck, you’re so dumb. Dumber than those retarded kids.” She was… horrible, to describe in one word.

Mrs. Kim was an idol from the nineties, and was picked as your rookie group’s manager solely on her experience in the entertainment industry. Even staring at her while she was making some calls, you could see the faint shadows of beauty to her aging face.

You slowly slipped out of the room, trying to get away from red-faced and ranting Mrs. Kim. You finally did, and when she saw you escape, Mrs. Kim yelled after you even louder but was unable to chase after since you were already in the hallway. She didn’t make want to make a scene, afterall.

Shivering in the cold of the hallway, you rubbed your arms up and down and cursed your groups’ stylist. Damn her for putting you in a dress with only spaghetti-straps on your bare shoulders. Even though it was summer, South Korea had an obsession with keeping cool and often overran the poor air conditioning unit.

You tottered around in your block heels until you rounded a corner and practically crashed into a warm chest. Toned and muscled arms wrapped around you to keep you from falling down

“Oh, I’m so sorry! Are you alright—”

You tilted your face up to the man’s impressive height, and instantly took a step back.

Shownu from Monsta X.

His sculpted face smiled down at you, a smirking curve to his plump lips.

“Yeah, I am. After running into you, how could I not?” he laughed, the rumble of his chest vibrating against your hand.

Well, at least your were no longer cold now. In fact, you were burning with embarrassment.

Shownu was an idol that you knew everyone in the industry wanted. In bed.

You’ve met love-struck girls on these shows, giggling after him as they passed by in the hallway. It was because of his handsome and manly looking face, a fresh departure from the flower boy visuals every one else had. God, his body was an attraction on its own— a broad, chiseled chest, narrow waist, and muscled legs that went on for longer. It’s been a few years since he debuted, but now, Shonwu was the kind of sex symbol even 2PM had trouble rivaling.

You stepped back even further and gave him a low bow.

“I’m so sorry! Please forgive me, sunbaenim,” you repeated, face burning in embarrassment.

“Nah, sweetie, you don’t have to do that. It hurts to see such a pretty girl bow so low,” he soothed, his face smooth even though there was a tint of mortification.

Probably because he didn’t want to be seen with a rookie girl like you. Ugly, talentless–

“It’s really my fault, I just was jogging without looking where I was going. And uh, sorry but I didn’t catch your name?”

“Oh, um, Y/N. Thank you. Excuse me—” you avoided his piercing eyes and tried to step past him, but, to no avail, he placed his bulky body in your path.

“Hey, do you wanna take a walk with me?” He said casually, like he wasn’t practically leaning over you like a shadow. So suddenly? you thought.

“Um, I really better get going— “ you stuttered, trying to get out of the situation. Shownu was nice and all but you didn’t fancy going alone with one of the biggest sex symbols of the industry.

“Please, I insist.”

Well, that’s how you found yourself wandering around backstage with Monsta X’s Shownu. You could barely stop staring at him in his half-open black shirt, tight, ripped jeans, and pointed shoes.

“So… uh… I heard the shouting,” Shownu mumbled and turned away, scratching his head.

Your brows furrowed in confusion until they relaxed in realization. Shit, if someone found out about this…

“I also heard the, em… insults.”

You cringed and turned away, rubbing your arms in comfort.

“Uh, it’s nothing. I just did something wrong and she just got a little heated with her scolding,” you lied.

Shownu stops in the middle of the hallway, hands on his hips.

“Does she usually do this?” he asked, his voice raising in anger.

You waved your hands in front of you. “N-No, she just was… in a bad mood today,” you winced; even your voice sounded weak in your ears.

Shownu seemed to catch on it too, his hackles rising. His breathing seemed to get heavier as his broad shoulders went up and down harshly.

“Y/N, this isn’t good. You can’t excuse her behavior— look, I know I just met you and it may seem weird that I’m getting kinda angry over this, but it’s disgusting! Especially to someone like you? It’s unforgivable.” He shook his head, his knuckles under fingerless gloves tightening.

“You’re very kind—solicitous, too— but I am perfectly fine,” you said firmly, resolve clear in your face. You couldn’t stir up any trouble whatsoever. You just won your first show award and the hype around your group has increased, but the public wouldn’t hesitate to crucify you for any transgressions, real or not.

He studied your face carefully, as if he were searching for any sign of cracking or weakness.

Finding nothing, Shownu sighed heavily.

“Well, if it ever gets out of hand, I’m here, Y/N,” he relented grimly. He placed a large hand on your shoulder in comfort and you smiled reluctantly, thankful someone has your back.

In the shadows, a blond-haired man watched the bulky man lay his hand upon the small girl’s shoulder, his clenched fists shaking in anger.

Taeyong darted across the street in the night, dressed in charcoal black to blend in with the shadows. He lifted his black hood over his baseball cap, and tugged his mask tighter over his face. He could not be seen at any cost.

After weaving through the rambling streets of Seoul, he stopped in front of a non-descript apartment complex. He checked his phone and verified this was the right address, before walking to the back of the building.

He had a mission to accomplish.

Taeyong carefully stepped through the trees and clambered up the high stone wall dividing the street from the building’s backyard. He landed with a soft thud and he cringed, hoping the creaking of the wood wouldn’t give him away to the people residing inside this particular unit.

Taeyong saw the soft glow of lights from the floor-to-ceiling windows of FEM’s dormitory and cheered, thanking god that someone was home. He checked the forum for FEM sasaengs, for god’s sake. The calendar said that Sunmi, Bella, and Bolin were out recording for a radio show while you stayed in the dorm to recover your voice, as you had lost it by overusing it a few days ago.

He had planned for this moment days in advance. He had to needle your address from a staff member from your company, and had to ensure that his schedule was clear too.

The red-haired man crept nearer to the glass, peaking hesitantly around the corner. However, when he did, he saw the most beautiful sight in his life.

You were humming as you sat at your vanity, rubbing several creams and lotions on your face. You were still beautiful bare-faced, in Taeyong’s eyes, even more beautiful than made up in makeup and shadows. His eyes hungrily drank in your bared skin as you were just wearing a thin tank-top and underwear.

Finished doing your night-care routine, you got up from the vanity you and Sunmi shared. You grabbed the lotion sitting on your cabinet and proceeded to hoist one leg up on the bed.

Taeyong nearly creamed himself at the sight of your beautiful legs bared to his vision, your core only covered by a frilly underwear piece. You proceeded to pump some lotion onto your hand and rub it down your legs.

The blond-haired spectator fumbled for his phone in his pocket and pressed record, tilting his camera at the perfect angle to record your half-naked figure.

Your hands got closer and closer to the crevice of your thighs and Taeyong rubbed his hardening erection through his jeans. He bit his lip as the tips of your fingers brushed the edges of your panties, and he nearly dropped his phone when he saw the tips of your nipples jutting through your thin t-shirt.

Taeyong followed the line of your body as you stretched and proceeded to dim the lights. Your half-naked figure flopped onto bed then curled up in the sheets. The boy idol ended the recording and walked carefully closer to your side of the window. He grunted softly at his erection nearly bursting out of his jeans, making it uncomfortable to walk.

He snapped a few pictures of you sleeping, your bared backside clad only in frilly underwear. God, he imagined grasping that full ass as you rode him, you covering your mouth so your moans wouldn’t escape and eyes closed in utter rapture.

Was it wrong to dream such lewd things about someone who just turned twenty?

You were jogging around the Han River extremely early in the morning. Your manager had woken you up from your sleep and forced you to go running, yelling insults at you as you ran out the house.

Biting your lip, you tried not to cry when you remembered the way Mrs. Kim had called you a fat, dumb pig over and over this morning. The members couldn’t even hear her insulting you because it was so early in the morning and no one was awake.

You were on your third mile and already breathing hard. There was an already painful stitch in your side that had developed around the two and a half mile mark and sweat dripped uncomfortably down your back.

You gritted your teeth and kept on running, determined to show Mrs. Kim you weren’t a pig. Nor were you dumb or untalented.

Besides being a devil of a woman, your manager had unfortunately woken you up from one of the most pleasant dreams of your life.

It was filled with vibrant colors and happiness, pleasure and bright lights. The only concrete things you could remember were dark, dark eyes and pink, pretty lips pulled up into a smirk.

You had been feeling antsy these past few days ever since you felt like you were being watched at night. You grew more paranoid, looking out the window frequently and checking your back. Curiously, you also grew restless, as in… unfulfilled. Something in you felt restless while your underwear was always soaked. What was happening? Did adults usually experience this?

So caught up in your thoughts you ran into someone standing by a pier. You gasped a little as you fell flat onto your butt.

You rubbed your head, which was smarting from the impact into someone’s broad shoulders.

“Miss? Are you okay?”

You opened your eyes to see those black eyes from your dreams, hidden behind a white baseball cap. Your eyes were drawn to those pretty pink lips from your dreams, which were bared from his pulled down mask.

“L-Lee Taeyong- sunbaenim?!” you stuttered nervously, curling into yourself. God, you probably looked like a glazed donut with how sweaty and unkept you were.

His eyes widened in surprise. “Y/N-ssi?”

“What are y-you doing here?” you asked, still in shock at his presence. He was the face that brought you all those bright lights and vibrant colors in your dream.

He chuckled slightly, the dark sound rumbling in his chest. He offered a hand, smiling slightly at you.

“Why don’t I help you off the ground first? It seems rather uncomfortable down there.”

Ah, so this was the gentleman people told you that was Taeyong.

You took his proffered hand and he helped lift yourself up. You saw his toned arms quite well, as he was wearing one of his classic sleeveless tank-tops. His veins and muscles bulged slightly with the effort and you decided to focus on that rather than the handsome man’s face.

The pair of you stared at each other in silence, drinking in each other’s features.

Taeyong watched as horror crept over your face until you bowed deeply.

“I’m so sorry! I forgot to greet you, sunbaenim—”

Taeyong grasped your shoulder until he could see your sparkling eyes.

“It’s alright, it’s alright. Just call me Taeyong-ssi, is that okay with you?”

You nodded, your flushed face and gleam of sweat reminding him of something else—

“So, what are you doing out here so early in the morning?” you asked, averting your eyes from his gaze.

“Oh, uh, just walking. I love the morning, y’know?”

Gradually the two of you struck up a conversation while walking next to the Han river. He really was kind and easy-going, which surprised you greatly. You thought he was a cold man, but he got rid of that notion as he made you laugh.

During your walk, Taeyong suddenly hissed in pain and held his leg.

“Taeyong-ssi? Are you alright?” you asked in panic, holding arm unwittingly.

“Y-yeah, I’m fine,” Taeyong grunted out.

“Are you sure?” you questioned, looking at Taeyong holding his leg gingerly.

“Yeah, it just the leg. I don’t know if you know, but I had a stage… accident a year ago. Broke my leg, put me out of commission for our group’s tour. It’s just probably one of the pain echoes my doctor told me would occasionally flare up since I was so active after the injury.”

“Oh my god, that’s horrible! I’m so sorry,” you said, genuinely feeling bad for the handsome idol. You imagined him performing when one of those pain flashes hit, and he had to grit through the pain and perform.

Taeyong smiled at you until he rose up, standing closely beside you as you kept walking.

“Well, enough about me. Was there something specific that brought you out here on such an early morning?”

Your bright smiled dimmed, and Taeyong noticed it immediately.

“Just wanted to exercise, that’s all,” you murmured in a soft voice.

He’s watched you enough in videos to know you were lying, and that made him worried. Taeyong lifted up your chin with his pointer finger until you were forced to look at him directly.

“Hey, hey, is something wrong? You can tell me, you know,” he whispered lowly, looking at you with so much care and compassion in his eyes you almost melted in his hand.

You then remembered the words of your mentors when his thumb started to stroke you lips. “Be careful of those predator idols, alright? There’s many male idols that like to prey on young, rookie idols like you.”

You stepped slightly backward, eyes wide. “Are you one of those predator idols my teacher told me about? Because please, don’t touch me.”

His eyes widened slightly until he burst into laughter. You watched in confusion as he cracked up, holding his waist with how hard he was laughing.

“No, I’m not. I promise. I can tell you some idols from my company that are like that, but I promise you, I’m not.”

You pouted suspiciously at him until he smiled disarmingly at you, and you relented.

“Alright.”

A brief silence ensued until Taeyong spoke up. “But seriously Y/N, what’s wrong? You seem… really troubled.”

An inner war raged inside you for a few minutes until you turned to him.

“I’m exercising because I’m fat,” you told him, hugging yourself in comfort.

“Wait, what?” Taeyong exclaimed.

“Yeah. I just… well someone told me I needed to lose some weight so,” you waved your hands helplessly, “here I am.”

Taeyong never felt so furious in his life. Who would dare insult this goddess? Y/N was perfection, she was better than anyone he’s ever known.

“What the hell? Y/N, I can confidently tell you that you are one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever met and I’m from SM, for god’s sake. You are gorgeous, okay? Don’t let anyone ruin that for you,” Taeyong exclaimed, struggling to keep his boiling hot temper in check.

You sighed. “It doesn’t even matter if I’m pretty. I’m kind of dumb too, and I can barely sing.”

Taeyong was one word away from snapping and murdering whoever planted these thoughts in your head. What kind of bullshit was this? Y/N was the kind of person who deserved to be always smiling and laughing, not wallowing in self doubt. His fingers clenched in the pocket of his windbreaker.

“Look, whoever told you this bullshit is lying out of their ass, okay? You are not dumb, and you can sing. I’ve only known you for a little while but I know you are intelligent, even just talking to you for a bit. Plus, you’re the main vocal for a reason. You can outsing most of these female rookies these days. Seriously, fuck the person who told you this crap,” Taeyong seethed.

You saw how angry he looked and warmth filled your being. Was he really this mad on behalf for you?

You touched his arm, and he settled down a bit. You looked at the deep, dark eyes you thought you feared and smiled widely. Taeyong thought you looked beautiful, smiling a real smile unlike the ones you plastered onto your face during those variety shows.

“Thank you... oppa.”

Taeyong never felt so aroused and in awe time at the same in his life.

Fuck. You had messed up big time.

Your voice had cracked, in the middle of your fucking high note on stage during the live recording. Holy crap, you were in for a world of trouble when you got back to the dressing room.

“Shit, shit, shit,” you mumbled, striding across the hallways.

“Y/N?”

Shownu, in his manly glory, stood in front of you with his face a mask of utter concern.

“S-Sunbaenim.”

“It’s just oppa to you, alright?” he smiled.

Oppa. Even saying that in your mind felt wrong.

“Is it not a bit unprofessional? We hardly know each other,” you asked cautiously, trying not to cross any boundaries. Sometimes, you hated this culture of having to be so respectful to your elders to the point of self-degradation.

His smile fell. “O-Oh, that’s fine. If that’s more comfortable for you.”

You kind of felt guilty at the forlorn expression on his face, but even so, it just felt wrong.

“Well, anyway, you did great on stage,” Shownu offered.

You snorted in disbelief before covering your mouth, horrified at your lack of grace and respect.

“I… was not satisfactory at all. I have to work harder.”

“What’s wrong? I saw you dancing. You and your group did amazing.”

“Sunbaenim, my voice cracked. During my solo part. In the climax.”

He was speechless for a moment, unable to respond to that. Shownu quickly recovered, a disarming smile back in place on his chiseled face.

“I, well, that’s unfortunate. However, you’re just a rookie– you have a lot of time to improve!”

You bit your tongue to stop yourself from arguing him. He debuted once, he knows what it’s like for rookie idols. Even now, the standard is so high for rookies to be perfect in looks, dancing, and singing. It was unreasonable, but the business was harsh; that’s what it was.

“Thank you, sunbaenim.” You bowed to him politely.

He bowed in return and almost turned to leave until it looked like he remembered something.

“Wait, is your manager still doing… you know?”

You bit your lip, desperately trying to find a way out of this.

“Ah! Look at the time. The stylist told me she needs to, um, retouch something! Yeah, so I better get going. Bye!”

You quickly fled before you could see the intrigued expression on the handsome man’s face. Running reluctantly to your group’s dressing room, you hesitantly opened the door and entered.

“Yah, what the hell was that?!”

There she was again, in her full resentful glory. Mrs. Kim.

You sighed, rubbing your temples as you took off your heels. Reaching up to loosen the velvet pussy-bow tie that was suffocating you, you slumped back into a chair while the other members were… what were they doing? Practicing?

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Kim,” you offered weakly, hoping to end this scolding soon because you felt like you were about to fall asleep any minute.

“Sorry? Sorry?! That’s all you can say for yourself for that, that travesty you dishonored the company with on stage?!” Mrs. Kim yelled, slamming the door and getting up in your face. You could see the stress lines in her forehead and the remains of her old beauty, her youthful beauty turned into this old hag.

“I- It was a mistake,” you stuttered, folding your hands in your lap and turning your gaze downwards.

“Your voice fucking cracked on stage— what the fuck? I thought you were our main vocalist for a reason! We should just replace you with a dying pig and no one would notice!”

Mrs. Kim went on to pace angrily throughout the small dressing room, releasing a barrage of insults while throwing things around. She got red-faced and puffy, violent, ranting how you were an utter disgrace and you were a slut who couldn’t even sing.

“ — hope you realize the gravity of your actions today! Why, if I were you—”

“But you’re not,” you whispered, feeling a strange energy in you.

Mrs. Kim paused in her furious pacing, and turned to your folding chair.

“What did you say to me, you pig?!” She hissed, getting all up in your face again.

“Are you deaf? I said, “I said “But you’re not”, Mrs. Kim,” you sullenly glare up at her.

“I’m going to kill you—”

You suddenly push back your chair, the poor folding chair sliding back harshly until it banged into a makeup desk.

“Wake up, Mrs. Kim. You will never be me, nor can you ever be me,” you gritted out, suddenly towering over her until she had to step back.

“You don’t know shit, you’re a failed idol. You had one hit-- a dance hall song!-- and that was it, until your fame and beauty faded out and then you were forgotten in the eyes of the public.”

You crossed your arms as she seemed conflicted, a mixture of rage and anger and wounded pride glimmering hatefully in her beady black eyes.

“How can you even criticize me when you didn’t even sing? Dance well? You couldn’t do anything as a MGirls member, not even perform.”

“Then, when all of it was gone, you asked yourself many times, “why am I working at the gas station? I was an idol”, until you started blaming the world.”

You felt invincible. You saw Taeyong smiling and getting angry on your behalf and his lips and color and vibrancy— it was like something physical inside you snapped and released all your anger on your manager.

“It’s their fault I’m barely making money, it’s their fault I can’t perform well, it’s their fault that I’m not loved or payed attention anymore— until you finally met someone that you could vent your anger out onto: me.”

“But wake the fuck up Mrs. Kim. You can not and never will be what I am. Don’t be jealous that I’m living the life you always wanted,” you spat in her face.

Uncharacteristically, she went silent for a moment. The perpetually deep lines on her face softened and made her look much nicer, much motherly. Mrs. Kim was truly unreadable and you couldn’t tell what she was thinking at all.

The edges of your lips lifted.

Suddenly, pain bloomed in your cheek as your head was slapped to the side. Her slap hurt so badly that the site of impact felt numb and you lifted your hands, rubbing your probably red cheek.

You didn’t have to time to recover as she reared back her fist with an expression of utter rage, her lips pulled up in a ferocious sneer as her beady eyes looked like they wanted to pierce you.

The blow hurt stung the crown of your head and you cried out, but Mrs. Kim quickly wrenched your long hair and pulled. Your mouth opened to scream, but her other fist gripped your jaw so tightly it felt like she wanted to crush it with her manicured hands.

“You bitch,” your irate manager snarled, as she spit in your face.

Her foot delivered a punishing blow to your exposed midriff, and the air was taken out of you as you fell back onto the ground. You tried to curl into a fetal position as she pulled her leg back again and again to hurt you, punish you as her embarrassment and rage against the world culminated in a tiny dressing room backstage of a music broadcast.

The world was spinning as she forced your face to look up at her, while you were lying, wounded, on the ground. In your blurry vision, even you could see the psychotic and deranged smile on her face as she knelt beside you.

“Thank god we’re done recording,” she said, and then the world went black.

Taeyong was roaming around the halls of backstage, unable to stay in the dressing room with the members awkward and nervous atmosphere. He wasn’t a fucking stranger, for fuck’s sake but they acted like he was a new member in the group. Taeyong gritted his teeth and his jaw went taut as he remembered when they thought he wasn’t looking, they sent him pitying glances and sighs of sadness.

Taeyong inconspicuously grabbed some pills from his bag and burst out the door, unable to handle the stifling environment. He fully intended to take the two white tablets in his hand in some kind of isolated place, but first, had to remember where all the good places were.

He remembered the first time roaming these halls and meeting his sunbaes, incredibly in awe of their confident yet polite demeanors. Now he was the sundae, as groups younger than him and new rookies nearly tripped over themselves to bow and greet him. They looked at him in awe, “Korea’s Visual Treasure” as nicknamed by Vogue, while not looking discreetly at his formerly broken leg to see if he was limping or something like that.

And as always, his thoughts drifted back to Y/N. His smile turned utterly lovesick and infatuated when he thought of seeing you when you were a rookie, in your demure pink tennis skirt and fucking stockings. The ones that ended at mid-thigh and was held up by garters, the ones that every senior boy group jacked off to every night.

He fingered the thin slip of lace in his front pocket, rubbing it between his fingers in tandem with his heeled boots clicking on the ground.

What were they?

Why, they were your panties, of course.

What else would it be? Whose else would it be?

Taeyong lovesick grin was luckily not seen by anyone as they curled up in a delirious edge. They were hard to attain, as was everything related to you was. He had gone through several parties to find your dorm’s housecleaner, a young girl that was easily bribed into taking a pair of panties and some of your tank tops from your drawers. His love for you knew no bounds, nothing as silly as the law and the right to privacy would stop him.

But then, he remembered that guy.

Shownu.

That son of a bitch touching Y/N, looking so concerned when he was basically on top of her. Taeyong saw the intentions in his eyes, the way he undressed you with his mind and the way they roamed over your figure.

He was going to kill him, one day, he swore. Maybe chop off an important part or something so Shownu could never lay a damned finger on your holiness.

His phone buzzed. As he looked at his phone, he realized it was nearing prep time and grimaced. He looked for a door leading downstairs, vaguely recognizing the hallway as the fifth floor. Taeyong opened the door to what he thought was the stairwell, and instead realized it was a storage closet.

The blond-haired man was about to shut the door until he saw the hall lights striking upon something shimmery and he stepped forward to take a better look.

It seemed to be from some kind of fake clothing gem, attacked to the middle of a pussy bow. His eyes followed the shape of the pussy bow to the top, followed the new line of something vaguely human and soft and when he opened the door a tiny bit more to see better, his heart leapt into his throat.

It was you.

Taeyong saw you, the girl of his dreams and nightmares, spread across the dirty tiles of the storage closet like a doll whose strings had been cut. Even in the dark and with red and purple bruises blooming like flowers onto your skin you were still enticing.

His panic gave way to unwanted lust, his addiction to this girl coming back in full force when she was right in front of him like she was delivered there. He bit his lip as genuine care and concern battled the shameless wantonness that arose when he saw the tantalizing peaks of your breasts through the white shirt. Your skirt had splayed haphazardly across your legs, revealing inch by inch the delicious skin leading to your core until his vision was impeded by black safety shorts. Taeyong’s hungry eyes made out the shape of your mound through the spandex and dropped to his knees, so overcome by care and lust that his weak body could barely contain the sensations.

His vision swam until it focused back on you, where the dark lights illuminated your body like a halo. He crawled on his hands and knees, the package between his thighs physically throbbing in need, while he came closer to your prone body.

He raised a tentative hand to touch your glowing skin until his right mind screamed at him to stop, that this was immoral and dishonorable but the pill he took 15 minutes ago egged him on to go on. The hand that had paused in the air resumed its descent onto your body, landing softly onto your knee.

Taeyong held his breath as he softly stroked the skin of your knee, and when you didn’t show any signs of waking up he got braver. His whole palm rested on your played out leg, tracing over the bruises with tenderness. His hand seemed to wander down to his trousers on its own, palming his cock in his cupped hand roughly until he was dry-humping his own hand. He closed his shadowed eyes shamefully, blocking out the shear embarrassment of the situation.

Taeyong heard a small moan of pain then jerked his hands away from his half-stained trousers when he saw your petal lips open slightly.

The first thing you saw when you opened your eyes was darkness and the silhouette of a person stood against the cracked light of a doorway,

Then you registered the burning pain all over body, mainly on your stomach and back. A pained scream left your lips as you curled deeper into yourself, trying to escape the bone-deep ache of the injuries.

“Shhh, shhh,” the silhouette whispered as the presence settled beside you, a man’s almost painful heat pressing into your skin like a brand.

He started stroking you back and you unconsciously leaned into his heat, wanting his all-consuming warmth to burn away the aches and pains that you body was composed of until you snapped back into reality.

You jerked away suddenly from the man and his touches, backing away frantically until your back painfully banged into a metal shelving unit.

Your mouth opened to scream but it was blocked by a hand, his hand, and it clamped over your mouth so that it muffled your panicked noises.

“Wait, shit, hold on—“

The dingy light of the supply closet flicked on and the cold light threw everything into relief. Your thrashing ceased as you saw those haunting eyes staring right at you, so uncomfortably close you didn’t know how to react.

Taeyong-sunbaenim kneeled in front of you, the gaunt hollows of his face deepened even further by the light of the one light bulb hanging above you.

As he saw you were not protesting anymore, he carefully removed his hand and leaned back, sitting on the floor in front of you.

An awkward silence enveloped both of you until you caught sight of your bruised arms and legs and you yelped, frantically trying to cover the evidence of your weakness from one of the most handsome and captivating individuals you’ve ever met.

The most handsome and captivating individual.

Ever.

“Hey, hey, no, it’s alright you don’t need to hide it from me,” Taeyong urged, extending his hands as if to help.

Please don’t, he begged silently. Don’t hide yourself from me. Don’t deny me your perfection.

You curled further into you self and buried your face into folded knees, hardly looking at him. You struggled not to burst out in tears, whether it be from the furious beating you received or the embarrassment you did not know, but they still bubbled up.

More silence preceded until he broke it.

“What happened?” he whispered tenaciously.

“…me,” you whispered back.

You heard a small huff of air when a pair of arms wrapped around your trembling body.

“It was that person, huh?”

You bit your lip and nodded into his broad and strong shoulders, feeling tired and drained all the sudden. It was like his touch had sucked away all your anxiousness and worries, just leaving you and him and nothing else.

“Y/N?”

“Oppa,” you mumbled. You didn’t hear the sharp intake of breath as you continued. “Oppa, she beat me up.”

“Who’s she, baby girl?” he urged, but you still didn’t hear the dangerous edge to his deep voice,

“M-my manager,” you said almost silently.

Somehow, he must have heard you or felt your lips move against his shoulder because he tensed up and his grip on you tightened.

“You’re fucking manager did this? She beat you up? Called you fat? Dumb?”

Even though you didn’t answer as a wave of brutal pain passed over you, he understood.

“I’m going to rip the throat out of that motherfucking whore—“ he hissed as he motioned to get up until your small hands tightened on his shoulders.

“...Please, don’t leave me. Please,” you cried, clinging tightly to him.

Taeyong looked down at your face, knew that you were delusional with pain and probably wanted anyone to hold you, but he couldn’t resist your red eyes and trembling lips…

His shoulders untended and he carefully sat back on the ground, pulling you into his lap. You straddled his lap while you sobbed into his silk stage shirt in total pain.

Totally forgetting his prep and the pills he was supposed to take in his pocket,  all of his intense focus was on you. After this small taste of your gift, he knew he would never be able to live without it again.

He just couldn’t.

You looked out the window of the private clinic, deep in the neighborhoods of Seoul. IV’s and various cords were hooked up to your arms as you shifted against the cotton material of your hospital dress.

A sigh escaped your lips when you saw the piles of bandages wrapped around your legs, reminding you of an embalmed body from Egypt or South America.

Wonderful thoughts.

The door creaked open as the nurse click-clacked in, a polite smile on her face.

“I’ll be rewrapping the bandages again, is that alright?”

“Y-yes,” you croaked out, immediately reaching out for the glass of water beside you.

Your eyes began to get entranced by the repetitive actions of the nurse as she unwrapped and wrapped, snipped and snapped.

When you turned to look around the room, you could see the nurse out of your periphery looking piteously at your bruises. That summed up most of the reaction of the clinic when you limped in with Taeyong. They quickly and quietly admitted you in, and when finally asking the origin of the injuries, you had lied. You had told them you fell in the gym while Taeyong thrummed in anger beside you and the doctor scribbled in the false information. They even knew for sure that you were beaten up when they examined your wounds, but they pretended not to know and put you to bed.

“There, that’s all better,” she smiled softly.

Just as she was about to walk out the door, she seemed to remember something.

“Oh, also, someone left you a get-well gift. I’ll get it.”

Soon your hands arms were full of a fluffy pink teddy bear, it’s beaded eyes and stitched-on smile beaming dopily up at you. A sky-blue ribbon was wrapped around its neck, and you shifted the bear like it was a baby to read the note attached to it.

“Get better soon, my lovely junior. -Oppa :)”

Your lips parted slightly in shock as you stared at the beautiful present, not believing the larger-than-life Global Idol Lee Taeyong would send you a get better gift. Or let you cry on his shoulder. Or accompany you to the hospital. Wow.

The door to your room opened once again, but it was not the nurse that walked through, but the main doctor.

“Y/N-ssi, it’s nice to see you looking better.”

He sat down in a chair beside your bed and pulled out an important looking binder, emblazoned with words that disappeared too fast for you to read as he opened it.

“Y/N-ssi, I want to talk to you about your injuries.”

You automatically grimaced and your hands clasped your arms, hugging yourself.

“We all know you were physically hit in some kind of fashion.” he continued, maintaining eye contact with you.

“We also wanted to know if you wanted to file a police report.”

“No!” you automatically rejected. First, it was because of the embarrassment, but then it was the fact that you were an idol and you weren’t supposed to get into these kind of situations. Plus, who would believe you anyway?

“Well, alright, if that’s what you think is best for you—”

Suddenly, the door to the room burst open and you spot Sunmi panting.

“Sunmi?” you asked, perplexed. The doctor in front of you could only stare in utter confusion.

“Y/N,” she wheezed. “It’s manager Mrs. Kim.”

“She’s in the ER— injured.”

“Sunbaenim?” you asked through the phone, voice muffled from crying.

“Y/N? Is everything alright? Also, it’s oppa,” Taeyong urgently replied. As usual, his deep timbre sent shivers down your spine even through a phone line.

“C-can you come here? I’m so sorry, I know that if you can’t, it’s alright, it’s just—” you rambled in embarrassment, ashamed of having to ask for help.

“Y-yeah, it’s alright, I’ll be there soon, okay? Stay put for oppa.”

The line goes dead and you stare out the window of your dorm room blankly. No one was in the dorm right now, all visiting Mrs. Kim in the hospital while the company ordered you on bedrest.

You weren’t exactly rioting.

After dropping the huge bombshell on you, Sunmi tried to get you out of the room but the doctor had refused, stating you had to rest at least a week to go back outside. Sunmi sullenly relented while you hadn’t protested at all from the side.

Bits and pieces of information filtered back to you in your hospital bed. Mrs. Kim was currently in the hospital in a medically-induced coma after she was found 11 stories down from her apartment roof, splayed out on the road. She was barely breathing when the EMT reached her.

The doctors had stated they were unsure if there was foul play involved, since Mrs.Kim had shown an increasingly frayed psyche in the past few months. However, there was evidence she was pushed off the roof since her injuries showed signs of fighting.

You didn’t know what to think.

At this time, you heard the doorbell ring and you jumped up from the bed, almost tripping as you tried to get to the front door. The cold air conditioner breeze brushed your thighs and you were suddenly reminded you were half naked, only clad in a gigantic t-shirt and panties.

A blush rose up on your cheeks as you fumbled to find some shorts. Can you imagine what would’ve happened if you faced the mighty Lee Taeyong clad only in an oversized shirt and tighty-whities?

After pulling on a pair of shorts, you pulled open the door to find the slender figure of Lee Taeyong dominating the entryway. He was sporting just a regular white t-shirt and black skinny jeans, although not without shades and a medical mask. Taeyong looked like every manhwa fantasy school girls had, the picture perfect image of a bad boy on the regular.

You hurriedly pulled him in, looking around the hall to see if there were any nosy neighbors but finding none, you closed the wooden door.

Suddenly, he was too close to you. Your head was close to his chest and you smelled his expensive cologne and something that was just him, something that broke through your willpower and insisted you just stand there and inhale all of him. A small “eep!” escaped your mouth at the unfamiliar distance between you and Taeyong.

“C-come in! Do you want anything to eat? Drink?” you stuttered, guiding him to the living room as he took off his expensive-looking sneakers.

“Nah, I’m alright,” he said, and plopped himself on a couch.

An awkward silence pervaded the area as you looked down in embarrassment and his eyes wandered all over the place. Oh god, he probably spotted the huge pile of dirty dishes in the sink. And the copious amount of junk food you and Bella had scattered on the counter.

“Well, uh, I’m sorry, but—”

“Hey, no, you can tell me everything, okay?” he rebutted, the perfect picture of concern.

You fidgeted again, inwardly hating yourself for being so weak and shy in the presence of Taeyong. He probably thought you were so weak rookie girl who couldn’t deal with shit.

“Well, I don’t know how to tell you anything if you can’t start. Trust me,” he beamed, leaning in closer to you.

So you started. You told him all about what happened (all though he had a glint in his eye when you told him your manager was in a coma) and what you were feeling, the guilt of being ecstatic that the person who helped make your career was now effectively a vegetable.

“Fuck, I don’t know what’s going to happen. The company doesn’t have any staff that could help with this mess, and we’re almost bankrupt for god’s sake, and adding to the fact that we have a new album repackage coming up? I literally have no idea what’s going to happen.”

You rub your temples and bury your face in your hands. Taeyong is pensive for a while until you can feel his weight shifting on the couch, scooting closer to you.

You feel his tentative hand grasp your shoulder and a cool hand grasp your chin.

“Hey, look at me,” he whispers soothingly. His hand moves down from your shoulder to your upper arm, rubbing soothing circles into your arm. “I honestly am no help to you. But, realistically, after looking at your debut, you’re on an upward spiral.”

You didn’t feel his fingers trembling on your skin as you were so enraptured by his eyes, deep dark depths that bored into like a drill.

“– you’ll get those brand deals, the concert invitations, just wait for it, ‘cause I know I did.”

The edges of his lips lifted in a small smirk as his hand trailed from your upper arm to your curled hands, grasping them softly and then with more pressure. Long, slim fingers folded over your own like a vice.

“I’m here, y’know?”

Your heartbeat rapidly as you closed the door to Taeyong, your whole body quaking in nervousness? Fear? Excitement? You had no idea anymore when it came to this man.

His fingers felt like they were still blazing fire over your skin, still leaving goosebumps in its wake. It was like those colors and feelings in that dream but in real life, splayed out in front of you.

You shakily padded back to your room, the cold air-conditioning brushing on your skin in a lacklustre reminder of Taeyong’s touches. You staggered onto your bed, collapsing into it and melting into the sheets.

Faux fur brushed against the side of your face, causing you to sneeze. You came face to face with the rather large teddy bear Taeyong sent you a few days ago, it’s black, beaded eyes staring right into your own as your curled around its stuffed body.

Funny, they looked like Taeyong’s, but had some kind of depth, like a camera lense or something…

You remembered his hands and his lips and his eyes as your hand unwittingly wandered down to your shorts, slipping beneath the waistband and fingering the lace of your panties. A small moan left your lips as your inner thigh nudged your teddy bear.

Everything felt hot as you slipped down your shorts and rolled over onto your belly, lying atop Taeyong’s gift. Your panty-clad hips undulated onto the bear as you hid your heated face into your pillow. It was so embarrassing to do something like this, god, this was so wanton. Who the hell humped their teddy bear?

The teddy bear’s fur tickled your thighs as you ground down more upon it, jolting energy into your whole body and making every hair stand on end. It was like the soft caress of a lover, the brushes of Taeyong’s hand that made you shiver in pleasure and at that the unusual feeling.

Your t-shirt rode up and up until it reached right under your breasts, and the mound of material annoyed you so much you took it off and threw it off to Sunmi’s general side of the room. Your bare breasts were sensitive to the fabrics underneath you, your nipples scraping your sheets over and over until they were erect.

“Oh, fuck,” you whispered, feeling the wet stain on your panties with your fingers.

Still, your hips ground more and more into the bear until your panties were so soaked through they were basically useless and you slipped them down your legs. You were completely naked now and clutching onto your bedsheets for dear life as you thighs clamped down upon the toy.

A delirious cry left your lips as your clit felt the tiny hairs of the fur brush once, twice upon your nether lips. You could only move faster, gritting your teeth at the unexplainable feelings that exploded inside of you. You felt like you were possessed, a slave, to your desire as your fingers slipped themselves inside your sopping wet hole.

You imagined they were Taeyong’s fingers sliding in and out of you while you were curled on his lap. Your face would be buried into his shoulder, involuntary tears slipping out as you ground against his slender appendages. You would feel his broad chest rumble with laughter, clutching you tighter as he thrusted harder and harder into your core.

His thumb would slowly sneak it’s way up to the bundle of nerves hidden under a hood of skin, and when he would suddenly press his thumb on it—

“Shit!”

Colors and flashes of light exploded in your tightly-closed eyes, your teeth biting into your lips with force. Your bare body seized in pleasure, contorting in all sorts of ways, unable to handle the pleasure. A flood of liquid left your pussy and it coated your thighs, the fur of the teddy bear clenched in between your legs. Tears leaked out of your eyes in sheer pleasure, and you pitifully ground your hips into the bear to prolong your orgasm.

You could only hear the sound of heavy breathing in your room and you rolled onto your back, staring at the stark-white ceiling above you. A glint from the periphery of your eye caused your head to turn.

Your mouth dropped open at the puddle of glistening liquid coating the teddy bear Taeyong had bought you, staining the fur a dark pink. God, what the hell had you done?

Embarrassment quickly took over you as you cleaned yourself up, putting the bear and your soaked panties in the washing machine. Everything cleaned up, you fell back into bed and turned off the lamp.

As you lied in bed, ready to sleep, one thought occurred to you.

How did Taeyong know your address?

A few miles away, in an state-of-the-art dance studio, a blond-haired man in a bathroom could only stare in shock at the image of Y/N’s breasts bouncing as she ground back on forth on something. When he got the daily notification of his private camera in the feed named “Baby Girl”, he rushed

However, he didn’t expect this.

This masterpiece of Y/N, her pretty pink lips parted and presumably giving way for moans. Her eyes were shut in pleasure as both of her hands clasped over her mouth, and Taeyong could see the angle of the camera shifting downward as she humped more and more.

He could see the fur of the bear and her core rolling over and over the belly, yet he couldn’t see her true treasure. Flashes of popped up occasionally as she rose up like a tidal wave but only to sink back down into the stuffing of the bear.

Taeyong took a deep breath and flushed down the pills in his back pocket into the toilet, knowing how much of an idiot move this was. You couldn’t go cold-turkey, he knew; you had to go through therapy and rehab and all that kind of crap. But, Taeyong didn’t have time. Idols were discreet and expected to deal with messes alone, so he could deal with the withdrawal period to focus his full attention on this.

Y/N bouncing up and down on his phone screen, in pleasure.

Just for him.

Only for him.

Shownu yawned as he walked to his apartment’s mail cabinets. Dressed in only sweatpants and a sweatshirt, he hoped no one from the press would see him.

It was relaxing to be alone. So he bought an apartment away from the members, an apartment building filled with the elderly so fans shouldn’t be here. It was his own haven of isolation, his breath of fresh air from the punishing lights of the stage.

He shook his head in disbelief at his silly philosophical thoughts, and pulled out his key.

Inside the box was a fat bunch of mail, him guessing it was probably 75 percent junk mail. As he walked up the stairs, he sorted the various flyers and letters and his guess was right.

Seriously, he didn’t need another ad for plastic surgery.

However, when soon got up to his apartment door, a small letter underneath all that pile of junk remained in his hand.

A simple “셔누” (Shownu) graced the front, but no return address listed. There were no postage stamps or anything.

Suddenly, he felt a bad feeling about this. Shownu was not usually the superstitious kind of guy, but when something as minimal and small as this shows up, it’s never something good.

Was it a sasaeng, an obsessed girl trying to contact him? Trying to get his attention?

God, he hated sasaengs. Did they have no shame? No basic respect for privacy? For god’s sake, he had to break the lease on the apartment he was about to get 3 months ago when a fan found out he was moving, and now he was here.

They were so obsessed with this ideal of him, an idyllic version of someone who he probably wasn’t at all. The girls that followed him on flights, called his number in the wee hours in the morning, the one time someone actually broke into his hotel room in California.

They weren’t in love, they were fucking psychotic. Infatuated with someone who wasn’t him.

Shownu shut the door to his apartment and after throwing all the junk mail into the trashcan, he stretched out on his favorite leather sectional.

The simple white letter with simple black letters stared back at him. Should he at least get this screened or something first?

To hell with it, he was curious.

The first thing that fell out was a newspaper clipping. On the 3rd page of the Korea herald, was a small section announcing the hospitalization of Kim Sohye, a middle-aged woman whom was a popular idol in the nineties. The article went on to detail how she was splayed across the road in blood, having either been pushed or fallen off the roof of her apartment building. Now, she was in a medically-induced coma.

What did this have to do with him?

He was quite annoyed, thinking someone was probably fucking with him, until he saw the last part of the article.

Kim Sohye is the manager of FEM, a rookie girl group who has just gotten their first win. No word has been released from their company on what will happen to the group’s activities.

While he was shocked, Shownu lad a large part of him that yelled “good riddance!” to the woman who had verbally abusing Y/N.

Good for her then, he’d have to find some way to check up on her. Maybe backstage at Music Core?

Another white paper fell out of the envelope, the paper feeling quite slippery to the touch.

Shownu,

I took care of the manager when you couldn’t. I actually did something instead of watching from the sidelines. Anyways, good luck trying to reach Y/N. She isn’t interested in you, you know? My goddess is simply too good for your whoring ways.

With much loathing,

A Fellow Idol

(P.S. By the way, I don’t think you’ll be able to reach her anyway. You should’ve stuck to your gut and got this piece of mail screened. This letter is coated in a poison that goes airborne when the envelope is opened. You won’t be touching Y/N anytime soon. Rot in hell, you son of a bitch.)

Shownu, horrified, belatedly realized the slipperiness of the paper was due to the poison. He was so confused, so filled with fear and that all ended when everything went black.

Laughter filled the apartment as sunlight streamed through the window.

“D-Did you see that? He- ha!”

“He just— I’m dying!”

You and Taeyong were curled up on the couch, laughing your asses off at the viral facebook post of cute shiba dogs being clumsy. You were stilled wrapped up in your laughter, however, the man’s warmth next to you still made you self-conscious. Taeyong might be a comfortable friend instead of an intimidating senior, but he was still an intimidating man. Pretty-boy looks he was known for, but whenever you were near him, there was a sort of self-assuredness and confidence that cornered you and had you speechless.

Well, not so much nowadays. Taeyong and you were genuinely good friends after the whole debacle. He talked to you, listened to you, gave you advice: even drove you to the hospital to visit your injured manager while standing as emotional support outside the room.

Although, Taeyong was sort of… strange? Perhaps it was just you, since you had never had a close guy friend or any romantic relationship of the sort, but something felt off. The handsome man never really wanted to leave you, not in the lovey-dovey kind of way but in the kind of intrusive fashion that made you late for things. Talking about other men in the presence of him had him incensed and sullen, often blackening his mood and ruining the day for both of you. He also had a weird thing about calling him oppa, always insisting you use the term instead of “sunbaenim” or”-ssi”.

You stroked your teddy bear in thought, hugging it tightly and blushing, remembering the things you had done with the teddy bear. Hugging it tight and close in embarrassment, a hard object pressed into your chest. Hoping Taeyong (who was enraptured by the video on screen) was not looking, you gently felt up the teddy bear.

In your fingers was something hard and square underneath all the fluff and stuffing of the bear’s head. You imperceptibly frowned. Was it a box of some sort? Maybe it was a device that helped it speak?

You watched Taeyong through your eyelashes, his sharp features glinting with the reflected light from the screen. God, he was so handsome.

Momentarily forgetting the box, you felt a deep ache in your heart for Taeyong. He was too kind, too gentle and caring for you not to fall deeply for. Stupid, inane, ridiculous— this infatuation was all sorts of stupid for so many reasons.

You were barely 20, he was already 25.

You just debuted, a rookie; he. an established senior.

You an idol from a small company; he, from a behemoth.

You, a girl who would get attacked for whatever she did; he, a beneficiary of a double standard.

But the heart wants what it wants.

You felt tears inadvertently well up in your eyes as you finally feel the hopelessness of the situation. Turning away so Taeyong wouldn’t notice the glistening tear roll down your cheek, you quickly compose yourself and turn back.

“Oppa? I’m going to get something, okay?”

He turned and you were once again faced with the full force of his attention. It was like a bag of sand on your shoulder, except you weren’t an air balloon and they weren’t getting cut off. No, they were piled and piled onto you like you were supposed to drown.

“Yeah, yeah. I get the cute babies and dogs all to myself now,” he joked, leaning back into the couch.

You took the hand of your teddy all the way to your bedroom, wiping your eyes along the way. You imagined you looked somewhat like a distressed toddler, padding back to your room.

Holding down the bear, you raised the pair of scissors over the gift.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

White stuffing exploded out of the cut, going this way and that way as you stuck your hand in. After a few seconds of blind searching, you pulled out the box you had felt against your chest earlier.

There, resting on your palm, was a camera with a blinking red light.

Taeyong lounged on the couch, feeling content but a little restless.

A feeling that usually pervaded his whole body when he was away from you.

When he could not touch you, see you, feel you, Taeyong was antsy. He couldn’t sit still, his eyes zoomed around like balls on a roulette table, couldn’t focus. It was like withdrawal, but from you.

His members noticed. They noticed he was maybe a tiny bit healthier, less gaunt, but forever distracted. Yuta remarked sullenly that he was always on his phone, never making time for the rest of the members in the dorm.

But how could he? How could he focus when dancing when his baby girl was just one swipe away?

Taeyong’s leg bounced up and down as he waited for Y/N to return from her room.

“Sunbaenim.”

Taeyong’s dark brows furrowed as heard your voice. You haven’t called him “sunbaenim” in private in weeks.

He turned around and what he saw nearly made his heart stop.

Taeyong’s face went through several phases. He turned bone-white in shock, eyes wide in panic, and stuttering in desperation.

“What is this?” you asked, your tone deceptively light.

“Y/N—”

“Why did I find a camera recording inside the stuffed bear you gave me?”

For once, Taeyong was speechless. He didn’t have a smooth condolence or excuse to give you. His eyes looked pained when his hands reached out towards you.

“Y/N, baby, let me explain.”

“Don’t call me baby! You better have some damn good explanation for this, I- after all this time? You’ve been spying on me?” you voice had gotten very angry but then had immediately turned anguished.

“Baby girl, please, I had to keep eyes on you somehow! I couldn’t just let you go, can’t you understand?”

“Understand what?”

“I’m fucking in love with you! I need you! I can’t breathe, can’t sleep, can’t eat without you!”

You reared back in shock.

“Taeyong, this isn’t love,” you spoke slowly, backing away from him. “T-this is obsession. You need help”

“This is love, Y/N. I have given up everything for you, I’ve done everything for you.”

He stalked towards you slowly, trying to not scare you off like a frantic doe.

“Why do you think your manager suddenly fell of a building? That bitch certainly didn’t fall off by herself. I fucking pushed her fat ass, I hid near the roof entrance and threw her off the skyline. It’s a pity she isn’t dead, but you know what? She’s in a coma and in pain, she deserves it after hurting you.”

“Oh my god—”

“There’s more! Remember our dear, handsome, Shownu?”

An expression of horror befell your face and seized your heart.

“No—”

“Your dearest Shownu is in the ER after being poisoned. It isn’t on the news, but I sent him that letter. It was a letter coated in poison. Poison that goes airborne after being exposed to the air after 24 hours in being in liquid form. He couldn’t man up for you, so I did away with him!” he shouted, sounding crazed and delirious and not like your Taeyong at all.

“Taeyong, you’re scaring me!”

He sucked in a gasp of pain, distress radiating from his whole body. His eyes were like fractured glass, broken, and had a touch of desperation shining in those mesmerizing depths.“Oh no, baby—”

You stumbled away from his body.

He relented and sat back down on the couch reluctantly. When he sighed, it felt like he was on the cusp of doing something but he just put his head in his hands.

After a moment of tense fear, he spoke up. “I gave up so much for you. I gave up the pills for you.”

“Pills?”

“After my injury last year, I was addicted to narcotics. They just got rid of all the pain in my body and in my mind. You have to understand, baby girl, I was distraught. I couldn’t participate in the world tour with all my members, couldn’t see my fans, couldn’t even fucking perform of my broken leg. I didn’t even know if I would be able to perform afterwards.”

You let out a small gasp.

“But for you, after seeing you on stage on our win looking like salvation, I gave it all up—”

“ —and focused all on me,” you whispered.

He nodded, his eyes scanning over you and his body tense in anticipation, like he expected you to bolt.

Your head was spinning. All these revelations being revealed. Taeyong, the sweet, caring, oppa of yours that had helped you through pain was the a criminal, a menace to society that had nearly killed two people. He was insane, delusional, a sasaeng of the worst kind— the kind that thought he was in love. You needed space, or else him and his eyes and his passion would consume you and never let go.

“I- I Taeyong—”

“Oppa,” he muttered.

“-this,” you waved a frantic hand between the space of you two “isn’t healthy. I need to think—”

You hadn’t even blinked before Taeyong slammed you into a wall, pressing his lips onto you like a brand. His hands grasped your waist tightly to him like he was trying to meld your body with his, trying to crawl into a cavity and never come out.

“Baby girl,” he said in between the kisses. “Don’t leave, me, please.”

“No, we need to talk this out—”

“No talking, Y/N. Sometimes we need our bodies to express some things that can’t be spoken for us. I have been waiting to touch you for real for months.”

His slender fingers didn’t even fumble when they slid underneath your t-shirt. His thumbs massaged the skin of your sensitive sides. His fingers left goosebumps in their wake while they slowly traveled up and up until his hands were right beneath your bra.

Meanwhile, his other hand had played with the edge of the back your shorts. Slipping in and out, unable to choose whether to play with elastic of your shorts or your panties.

Please, just go in! You frantically thought and then immediately recoiled in disgust. This criminal, this murderer, was touching you and you submitted to him like a bitch in the heat? You raised your knee to hit to where the sun didn’t shine.

Almost predicting your actions, he smirked into your kiss and slipped in whole hand into your panties. Your knee dropped as you clenched your teeth, the wall supporting the whole of your weight. He was now cupping your butt in his large, slender hands and he pulled you in even more towards his body.

“Oh, baby girl, you’re mine, you know that? Since the day I saw you…”

His hand abruptly pushed your bra cup and was holding your breast in hand. A reluctant moan came from your lips as you tensed from the sensations.

“…to the day I saw you getting off on the teddy bear I gave.”

You gasped, embarrassed and ashamed then tried to push him off, but Taeyong took advantage of your parted lips and slipped his tongue. You were still a deep red, now knowing he knew of that time you humped his teddy bear picturing him, imagining his fingers you.

He chuckled deeply, letting it hang in the air. “What a naughty girl, huh? No one would never expect that kind of wantonness from you.”

“But, me?” He whispered, right at your ear. The puffs of air coming from his lips rushed over your skin and you shivered. You were so over-sensitized, feeling his hands on your butt on your chest on your neck— fuck, he was everywhere. You needed him stop before you couldn’t think why this was wrong and- “I see it. You’re all for me to devour.”

Taeyong started stripping off your shorts, and a soft hiss was heard as they were dropped to the floor around your feet. His talented hands started unclasping the clasp of your bra strap and you felt the decompression of the band around your chest.

“You’re like alcohol, you know? To me,” he casually said, as if you were having a conversation instead of groping each other.

He rubbed his fingers near the crevice of your thighs. “You begin the night wanting to nurse a glass, to savor it, taste it.”

“But in the end, you just end up drinking the whole damn thing and get the most wonderful high.”

Taeyong, without warning, pinched your clit. A shout left your lips and he quickly quieted you down, pressing his lips against yours. Your hands clenched his broad shoulders like a vice and you shamefully looked downwards, unable to look this man in the eyes. What were you doing with this- this sinner?

Rubbing two fingers against the wetness coating your nether lips, he slipped them in and curled.

“Taeyong!” you gasped.

He played your pussy like a well-practiced instrument, undulating with an unheard rhythm known to his ears only and you could only anticipate. A bit pressure this way, he learned, made you gasp, but a curl in this direction made you keen loudly and hump against your hand. You couldn’t believe your mind was kept captive by your helpless body, and you wished so badly you could tell him stop but--

He lightly stroked your clit and you jumped, shaking in his arms until he held you still. Over and over again he pressed but never at the prefect pressure or the perfect spot.

Abruptly, he pulled his fingers out of you. He nearly creamed himself when he saw you pouting your perfect lips up at him, pressing yourself against him like a wanton whore.

“Do you really want this, baby girl? Tell me,” he said, wrenching at your shirt to get it off.

“Yes!” you hissed, far beyond rational thought at this point.

“Well, my baby girl has to show it for oppa, okay?”

He scooped your bare legs up and sat on the couch, you straddling his lap.

“You’re going to cum while grinding yourself against my dick,” he smiled wickedly as he roughly guided your hips atop his bulge.

“W-what?” you asked confusion.

He grabbed your hand and placed it atop the bulge in his trousers. The bulge twitched and thrummed under your touch while a vein popped out from Taeyong’s forehead.

Taeyong leaned up to your ear. “You get to hump yourself against a real dick this time. Not some pathetic teddy bear.”

You looked reluctantly at him, butbegan to undulate your panty-clad pussy against his clothed dick.

“Faster, baby. You can do better than that.”

More and more you went over his dick, stimulating your clit in the most wonderful of ways. Actually having a warm presence under you increased your pleasure ten fold and adding in the fact it was Taeyong? One hundred fold. You felt a wet spot forming on his trousers and already soaking your ruined panties.

“I want to see you come undone for me. Need me. Want me.”

You clenched your eyes shut as you stuffed a hand in your mouth to stop yourself from screaming. You tried to angle your clit into touching the hump of his dick underneath his trousers, but it just rubbed against your pussy lips.

Taeyong thrust up for the first time while you, in mid grind, harshly pushed against his dick.

It hit the spot.

Even with your hand covering your mouth, your scream could be heard throughout the apartment. You came apart on Taeyong’s lap, not even being penetrated, and you shook uselessly against his chest.

He laughed that annoying chuckle again, cool and calm as a cucumber. He stroked your back as you came down from your high, holding you against him desperately.

“Good job baby girl, I’m gonna do my part now.”

Flipping you over on your back, he pulled at your panties you lifted yourself up, allowing him to take the soaked material from your core. Your pussy was exposed to the cold air and, seeing his eyes resting on your vagina, you clenched your legs together.

“Tsk, tsk, my baby girl shouldn’t hide herself away from me,” he spoke serenely while painfully wrenching your legs apart, veins popping out for his forearms from the effort.

He finally took your bra off your chest, and your nipples stiffened in the cold air.

Taeyong’s eyes glazed over and he groaned, nearly falling to his knees from the pure perfection of the sight of you naked.

Taeyong took off his shirt then unbuttoned his trousers and he exposed his cock to your hazy vision. He stroked his dick, spreading the precum along the veiny sides.

Lowering himself, he buried his head in your neck and his cock pressed against the entrance to your core. You grasped onto his broad shoulders, feeling his defined collarbones beneath your feelings, and tightened your grip.

“You’re the first thing I think of in the morning, anytime, and I’ll make you think of no one but me.”

With that, he thrusted harshly in. Mutual moans of appreciation were elicited from you two. He was a perfect fit inside of you, providing the puzzle piece to you incomplete puzzle. It felt like your nerves were going haywire after being surrounded by him.

“I knew you would be a perfect fit. You’re mine,” He stated it like a fact of nature.

He rolled his hips against yours and you couldn’t stay still. Your hand searched for something to latch onto in an ocean of pleasure, and Taeyong’s hand was the beacon of light to hold on to.

Your pussy clenched him at different times, often catching Taeyong off-guard and having to rein himself in from cumming inside you too quick. After your last pulse which nearly brought him crashing headfirst into oblivion, he removed himself from you.

You whined, your legs trying to bring him back in. However, Taeyong just flipped you over and dragged you to the edge of your couch, throwing you over the arm. Your butt stuck up high in the air while you buried your face into a pillow, screaming in anticipation. He quickly slipped himself back in and you screamed.

This position let you feel him better, and let him go deeper. He hit spots he hadn’t before while you were on your back. He was panting loudly, and you could bet sweat was running down the sides of his chiseled face.

All your pining and his obsession was coming to a culmination. He thrusted harder and harder into you until you could feel your cheeks turn red. You could feel his desperation in his hands, that clutched you like he was never going to let go and his thrusts, rutting into you like a demon.

“My goddess, my goddess,” he repeated like a mantra.

“Taeyong!” you yelped. Inside you was an even more vibrant explosion than your dreams could have ever fathomed, consuming your vision and you body and everywhere. You thrashed in this overwhelming pleasure, being consumed and devoured by a passion.

“Yes, baby girl, cum for me— oh, fuck!”

His hips stuttered as his cum coated your walls white, thrusting his semen into you. The feeling was so pleasurable you felt like you nearly had a second orgasm. You felt his cum coat the lips of your vagina and slowly run down your thighs.

He stopped, and hunched over you, breathing harshly. Taeyong put a shirt on you as he fell back into the couch, pulling you to sit on his lap.

“I- I love you!” you blurted out suddenly. You groaned in embarrassment as you covered your eyes.

“Baby girl, you don’t know how glad I am to hear that. I’ve loved you from the first time I saw you. I can’t even explain what I feel for you, that’s why I’ve done crazy things for you. Feelings like this come once in a lifetime and you can’t let them go, no matter the price,” he whispered, stroking your belly with infinitive care, knowing what must be forming in your belly right now.

The sound of a click resounded throughout the apartment and you looked up to see the three horrified faces of Bolin, Bella, and Sunmi through the doorway.

Sleep, Y/N. We’re going somewhere far, far away from here and I promise…

… you’ll love me…

…YOU’LL NEED ME…

holy shit, i have had to repost this because it’s not showing up in the tags im so sorry if you’ve seen this like 12837293472 times

[ber-bonfamille-lyons]

Made You A Mixtape: September 2015

@simba-lyons

Happy Three Year Anniversary to Simber!!!!! To celebrate, the following playlist is the first playlist that Berlioz made Simba. Yes, that’s right, I have tried to recreate what it would have been here, which means that these songs reflect three criteria:

1. They came out in 2015 or before 2015 and would be on Berlioz’s radar  2. They remind Berlioz of Simba, and so they are mostly cheerful and a bit funky and are Big Sounds 3. Lowkey Berlioz is in love with Simba and these songs are telling him if he would just PAY ATTENTION. This is most obvious in the fact that Ber put two of his fave songs ever on this playlist-- Eskimo Kiss and Wood. They are both on this like massive playlist that he gives people for like Songs That Sound Like Ber’s Soul so yes!

So this is not a ship soundtrack as much as it is a Simba Soundtrack or a Simba-as-he-sounds-to-Berlioz-in-September Soundtrack. <333 The following descriptions are all basically incoherent, so I apologize. 

Out of the Blue- Prides 

Hear you come, my heart's only drummer I've been holding out for your symphony The air in my lungs is like thunder And I can't fight what you've made of me.

This is a Big Sound Song and a good way to open the mixtape in Berlioz’s opinion. He’d talk to Simba about the scratchy guitar that rumbles under like thunder, those drums, and that persistent, driving synth. And when he’s talking about those sounds, what he’s really saying is basically what the lyrics are saying honestly, like-- this song “text paints” very well, as in, it uses a storm metaphor for a lot of it and builds a storm with its instrumentation by creating a very heavy sonic atmosphere, like with all those layers and booming drums-- wow i really do sound probably how Berlioz sounded when really what he was saying is “You’re like thunder to me” and that’s really romantic and super embarrassing 

Shut Up And Dance- Walk the Moon 

A backless dress and some beat up sneaks My discotheque Juliet, teenage dream I felt it in my chest since she looked at me I knew we were bound to be together Bound to be together

GOD this CHEESY 80s dance guitar powerhouse of a jam!! I feel like i don’t even need to describe how this is such a Simba song in every single way and why Berlioz would think of Simba at once. But yeah, I mean: the sheer joy of it, not to mention that honestly Simba is the discotheque juliet teenage dream in this song who is grabbing Berlioz and telling him to dance. But yeah, I mean it’s so over the top in like every single way. Like Simba.

On the Regular- Shamir

Hi, hi, howdy, howdy, hi, hi! While everyone is minus, you could call me multiply Just so you know, yes, yes, I'm that guy You could get five fingers and I'm not waving "hi" Guess I'm never-ending, you could call me pi But really, how long till the world realize?

Kay so Shamir is a HELLA Simba artist and this song has a lot of these kooky sound samples that Berlioz really loves, especially when it comes to Simba. I want to say that tapping noise is a cowbell? Super fun and funky. And of course, lyrics wise, this song is brimming with confidence and attitude which is definitely how Berlioz saw Simba at first. (He still sees that, but of course this song I think, more than others, really reflects the beginnings of their relationship because obviously Ber knew nothing about the drinking and depression etc.) So yeah, Berlioz literally thinks Simba’s “regular” is this cool, funky, ridiculous guy and including this on the song would be conveying that impression, while also being like “Hey Simba, you should check out Shamir if you don’t know him because his sound is You.”

Oh Girl You’re the Devil - Mika  

And I said follow me Whoever you want to be Don't care where you where you go As long as you stay with me

This is another song along the same lines of “On the Regular”-- very groovy, playful, with some fun quirky sounds and structures that just evoke Simba musically more so than lyrical content. But it’s definitely a song that Berlioz would think Simba would like and find fun to dance to/sing along to. And I mean honestly: this entire album is Simba. Me and Berlioz really struggled with which song to put on here. In addition, this was one of Mika’s more personal albums when it came to his sexuality and including Mika on here and probably writing “Please listen to all of No Place in Heaven” in the margins of the notes included with this playlist was Berlioz subtly talking about his own sexuality to Simba.

Bite Down- Bastille/HAIM

You’ve got your claws buried deep Bite down, bite down into me Bite down, bite down into me You better sink your teeth before I disappear Bite down, bite down into me

Ah yes, another “I’m very into you please make out with my face” subliminal message (is it subliminal?? Is it?) Here’s why this is a Simba song-- because its carnal and aggressive and Big. I do body rolls during the pre-chorus anyone else just me?? And the shifts from chorus to verse to post-chorus is so jarring, it just grabs your attention and keeps your attention, which is probably what Berlioz would point out to Simba. And that’s a very Simba thing too, at least a Simba thing according to Berlioz. Also, I personally love the irony considering this song foreshadows the back and forth that Simber will go through in the winter.

Love Me Anyway-The Mowglis

Oh, you know I love you But no, I am not a saint Oh, I make stupid mistakes But you love me anyway Oh, I forgot your birthday And yeah, I show up late Oh, I'll get it right someday 'Cause you love me anyway

So The Mowglis are a very Berlioz band and this album was probably something Berlioz was definitely listening to. The sing-a-long chorusy stuff is VERY Simba-sound as well as the lyrical content just being so very Simba. I like to think that even though Ber and Simba were very much getting to know each other, this chorus still makes a lot of sense since Simba would show up late and forget all these little things-- but obviously, he has such a big heart and always came across as so sincere to Berlioz. It’s a song Berlioz would maybe learn how to play on guitar and think to himself “Hey I bet Simba would really like this song!”

Eskimo Kiss- the Kooks

Oh lonely bones I'm coming through the sun And our lives have just begun Oh lonely bones I'm coming through the sun And our lives have just begun

As I mentioned above this is literally the biggest fucking tell that Berlioz has a big ol fat crush on Simba. This is one of his favorite songs, ever. This was not even a little bit new, it came out in 2011, and yet Berlioz listened to this song and to lyrics like “She's like a rose without a thorn/She's like the sunflower/That never looks back at the sun” and his first thought was “Simba.” He’d probably say some bullshit about how he just liked the lyrics because they were nice and it seemed like the kinda cheerful thing Simba would like. But it was bullshit and what he was really saying was lets please eskimo kiss under the bar rn because you make me feel both sunshiny like this first half of the song and achey and tender like this second part of the song, so, like, how i imagine how love feels like. That was the inner monologue there. And really, the shift in this song from the upbeat jangly acoustic to that tender part emulates Simba’s two sides, because he is very capable of being a gentle honeybun sweetie pie. 

Smile - The Royal Concept 

I've got to dress sharp, you know I will Give you what it takes cause I'm not Gonna be outdone By those beautiful fakes In your halo, there's gotta be gold I've got you waitin' on I'll step on a grenade so you Can see I'm the bomb

And here we are back at that interesting mix of Berlioz finding some funky songs for Simba but also songs that speak to Berlioz’s perception of Simba’s characters in subtle ways/songs that Ber really wants Simba to be into so they can talk about it! So musically wise, you’ve got a lot of the same elements as previous songs here, lots of powerful guitar and some layered vocals and a pretty groovy tempo. Basically this is an alt rock song that makes you want to dance, and that’s the perfect place where Songs-that-sound-like-Simba live (there aren’t a lot of straight pop songs on this mix as you might have noticed.) But then of course, it’s all about this guy trying to go out of his way to make a girl smile (he “carries sorrow” and will “step on a grenade” for her etc) and if that isn’t the most Simba thing. What i like is this is one of those lowkey sad songs that sounds super upbeat and happy too-- which is also a Simba thing, and I like to think Ber would pick up on those vibes. He’d definitely notice Simba trying to make others happy. And I mean.................. who else was making Berlioz smile............

Shine- Years and Years

I was biting my tongue I was trying to hide (Ooh oh oh oh, ooh oh oh ooh) I'll forget what I've done I'll be redefined

Okay, I admit: this song is really not about Simba at all, this one is Berlioz trying to tell Simba he likes him by putting this song on this mixtape and look I am not responsible for Simba not getting that.

Okay but more seriously: shine/sun/light etc are all motifs that reoccur for Berlioz when it comes to Simba, and have for Simber in general. Years and Years debuted the summer before Ber met Simba and was, again, this openly queer artist who Berlioz was definitely listening to a lot of, so it makes a lot of since that he’d go into their album and put a song on there, hoping Simba would get into them so they’d have this kind of shared connection. He picked Shine because of all the songs, Shine is the most optimistic and romantic, so naturally he thought: Simba. And again, there’s this lowkey thread of Berlioz using music to address his sexuality without actually talking about it.

By My Side- Great Good Fine Ok

Baby when I come to get you I'm all I find Every time I go to come back to see it's not my time Any time you think something is on my mind I'll tell you when it's all about you, I need you by my side

So Great Good Fine Ok is like the contemporary BeeGees, and their velvety falsetto and solid dance beats were Berlioz’s Jam in 2015. Seriously, go back and look, I reblogged all their stuff. ANYWAY, so this song really hits all three of the criteria as I talked about above-- this is a band that Berlioz was SUPER excited about and he wanted Simba to like. Sound-wise, totally upbeat and those trumpets in the end!!! scream Simba, which was basically what Berlioz said to him. He’s always associated brass with Simba, that’s just like, a general known fact. He said “The ending with the trumpets really reminded me of you.” And the translation for that is “Please be my boyfriend.” And of course lyrically, this is about someone pining over another… and that’s really not a Simba mood but it is a Ber one.  

Indian Summer- Jai Wolf

It would not be a Berlioz mixtape without at least one instrumental song or something. And this one! This one! If you noticed, Berlioz organized this playlist so it shifted toward more techno/dance music in the second half and part of that was to BUILD to this song right here, his musical climax if you will. Everything about this song screams Simba to him and I honestly do not have a developed enough vocabulary for music to talk about how that works. Maybe it’s just the scope of the song-- and that it has that very BIG scope and it goes from soft, chime-like sounds to exploding outward in these huuuge moments  that are Cinematic as heck. It’s beautiful and soft while also powerful and strong (and that’s simba for u, those four things). It sounds like adventure, like starlight, like camping? And he thinks Simba would like all those things and was probalby like “Oh he’ll like running to this song.” 

man anyone having serious simba feelings at this point just me or 

Wood- Rostam

Sunlight on your eyelids You were sleeping Ah ah, ah ah ah Sunlight on your back You were dreaming

And following a climax, you must have your falling action and resolution. Berlioz decided to end softly and tenderly with another one of his all time favorites, therefore revealing that he associates Simba with all of his favourite sounds-- all the plucky violin and bongo drum and flute. Plus, it describes sleeping with your lover. That’s it. That’s the whole song. And that’s what Berlioz wants: cat naps in the sun with his sunshine boy. 

He wouldn’t have said that obviously, he would have been like, this “cool percussion bro.” 

But we all know what he meant. 

[wernerherzogs]

I feel like I remember being really hype for SOTT video and it just didn't...go anywhere???

i’m so glad you sent this ask because HERE’S WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY. talk about death below, sorry, please tread carefully! also apologies if the cut doesn’t show on mobile, this is… long. rip.

so sott is pretty much about death (harry has #confirmed as much), and i think that the music video focuses on death by suicide specifically (that’s My Interpretation, and i’ll explain my idea for this mv according to this reading). the mv operates on two pretty straightforward* metaphors: flying as being free (and flying = killing yourself; freeing yourself from the burden of living “down below” on earth, etc.), and then you have dramatic imagery of nature as a direct representation of A Man’s Anguish (aka 10000% European Romanticism. death was a big topic in Romanticism too obvs.) like the landscape is absolutely a character in this mv, too.

(*i want to stress that the idea for the mv to be simple isn’t a bad thing. i would actually make the same decision. i don’t want an elaborate mv, i want my audience to focus on the lyrics and to take them on an Emotional Journey. i want them to ANGST TO THIS.)

a music video is no movie (be it a short or full feature), but the best mvs are stories nonetheless. and with every story it’s good to have some kind of a beginning, the middle, and then the ending. like even simple mvs that feature, idk, people at a party usually have a noticeable narrative structure, too. for example: a girl arrives at a party, a boy notices the girl, tries to hit on her, they get together at the end or not. and, FUN FACT, even most of arthouse films follow the most basic pattern of constructing a narration in a film (except where a ~regular movie would explicitly show on screen something like a character death to milk the shock factor, an arthouse film might have that death happen offscreen and not be acknowledged by other characters for a while, but the death would still happen at the same minute mark as in a ~normal movie; just a simple example), but that’s a digression for another day, maybe.

sott is a long ass song that takes it sweet time to reach its conclusion (aka the bridge + final, most dramatic chorus). meanwhile in the mv, they have harry flying with the first chorus at the 1:20 mark, which leaves the remaining 4 min 20 sec with the “will he, won’t he? (kill himself)” question already answered (yes, he will). the audience already knows the ending. meanwhile the song continues to build up and build up in the background, but the viewers have already seen the big climax – he’s already been sent flying, doesn’t matter that the video cuts back to him back on the ground after that. the audience keeps listening to the song and still waits for something Big to happen because /the music/ urges them to, but they’re left hanging at the visual level.

so what you gotta do is prolong the inevitable + control the pacing. yes, it’s that simple. what i’d do personally is play with the idea of physical movement as a representation of spiritual struggle more? because, again, we don’t have to do anything complicated here. so i’d begin the mv with harry completely immobile, just lying on the ground. wide shots of nature in the beginning, have camera take a moment to find Very Small Harry Among the Big Hills and Tall Grass, etc. then some close ups of his limbs lying completely still before i even have my audience take a first look at his face. and then i’d basically make the “walking” part of the mv longer – i’d even have harry pretend to learn how to walk at first. i’d have him sit on the ground once or twice along the way, because maybe he wants to give up right there and then? then he walks some more. now’s your time to cut to those beautiful shots of nature, too. like that’s your time to show that as a director – because he’s maybe, maybe not about to give up on all of that beauty. you gotta show what exactly he’s leaving behind.

and then you have the moment from the gifset i reblogged earlier – for me it’s one of the two Money Shots™ of this mv, tbh. like it moves me so much, because it feels like a direct, 1:1 translation of that specific moment of struggle where a person is considering: am i killing myself now, am i waiting a while longer? it’s a beautiful shot, his feet touch the ground, then they don’t, and then he’s back at the ground again. he doesn’t do it yet, and the mystery is back, the audience is still left wondering. i’d do that once or twice before he’s finally sent flying for real.

i’d have him flying after the bridge! (and you can do some big, dramatic fall - maybe he’s walked to the edge of a cliff and you except him to jump and fall into the water, but boom, he TAKES OFF instead) aka around the 4:45 mark, and then you still have a FULL minute to play with footage of him under the sky. and i’d focus SOLELY on that for the remaining part of the mv, i wouldn’t need my filler footage of trees or waterfalls anymore. i’d also milk the moment that happens around 5:02 more, have it be 2-3 seconds longer maybe. because that’s my second Money Shot™ of this mv. like not to sound like a cheesy old lady, but that shit is breathtaking, bro. you can’t even see his full face at first, and then he’s looking up with tears in his eyes, but looking so fucking happy? IT WORKS. IT WORKS SO WELL. LIKE GREAT JOB, STYLES, THIS SMALL MOMENT STILL HAS ME MORE SHOOK THAN HIS WHOLE PERFORMANCE IN DUNKIRK TBH. like i get emo deadass everytime i see it.

this is a good moment to mention the sun setting in the background at the end. i love it, i’d’ve played with that imagery of a day ending/light changing in the background more, actually. i love that the day is ending (death, End of Things, etc., another simple but effective metaphor), but he’s so fucking HAPPY. he’s embraced death, he’s found solace in it. he’s leaving his pain behind/on the ground.

i’d COMPLETELY delete that footage of him running across the water, god, it RUINS THE MOOD COMPLETELY. DOESN’T FIT AT ALL. would’ve left the shot of him hovering above the water, maybe, but i’d have the water be still. like have that one bit filmed in a studio or something, i don’t care, i don’t need those helicopter waves? they kind of break the spell a bit.

and…… that’s basically it, i guess? lmao. like i said, i do like the idea behind the mv, i’d just have made it more (imho, at least) effective. like, punch that audience emotionally. yeah, he is dying. have people wait for it, so they can be properly moved when it finally happens. the end.

[grimelords]

My July playlist is here, just in time for September! Four hours of hits from Lana Del Rey, Iannis Xenakis, KISS, Cameo and everyone in between. Please enjoy.

This Is What Makes Us Girls - Lana Del Rey: This is a really underrated Lana song I think. It's such a beautiful song and it's so heartbreaking the way she sings "they were the only friends I ever had". It's like an origin story for her whole thing detailing how she got bitten by a radioactive pabst, I love it.

Walking Into Sunshine (Larry Levan 12" Mix) - Central Line: A powerful good mood song that quickly takes on a vibe shift near the end when he says I've got to do it now, I've got to walk into the sun' which carries a different meaning than 'walk into the sunshine' to me. Embracing positivity versus self immolation in a nuclear furnace.

Fine di Cobb - Stelvio Cipriani: This is the most jamming harpsichord I think I have ever heard. This is from the soundtrack to an italian cop film called Mark il Poliziotto (Mark The Narc) that I found in a spotify playlist called Best Of Eurocrime that I cannot recommend enough. https://open.spotify.com/user/cinevox/playlist/1o3c0Con0ormlKc9r1gqxgSince 

Last Wednesday - Highasakite: Highasakite might be the worst band name I've ever heard and they're so lucky this song is as good as it is that it cancels that out.

Hilary $wank - Joey Bada$$: I was originally just going to post the instrumental of this because the beat it just so, so good. So busy without being cluttered and nicely melodic without clouding the space for the vocals. I also like this song a lot because just by virtue of being so upbeat it escapes the worst parts of a lot of other Joey Bada$$ 'real hip hop' type songs that are going for a throwback vibe but end up just sounding dated.

Girls - Royal Headache: Girls! Think they're too fine for me! Oh Girls! And I'm inclined to agree!

Something To Tell You - Haim: I'm slowly coming around to Haim's second album and I've finally decided it's good actually. I just hope they do a live album or something soon because their songs are so tightly structured that I think it's almost to their detriment, and every live video I've seen of them they really pull them apart and expand them in a nice organic way that just doesn't come through on the album.

Lavender - BadBadNotGood & Kaytranada: I can't tell whether I like this orginal version or the Nightfall remix with Snoop Dogg better, the verses are just regular Snoop but the vocals they put on the chorus are so good I sort of wish there was a third version that was just them with some other rapper.

New Seeds - Boards Of Canada: Realising that the sound at the start of this is extrapolated from mobile phone interference was a shocking moment for me.

Alligator Engine - Hunters & Collectors: Hunters And Collectors early albums where they sounded like the Talking Heads of the Mad Max universe don't get enough respect because of their huge regular sounding hits a few albums later and it's areal shame because this song is pure primal funk.

Fly Like An Eagle - Seal: This is the song that plays on the little muzak speakers in the cryogenic chamber for the four minutes you're still conscious while your body cools to absolute zero. Then you wake up in 400 years still humming it.

Come To Dust - Boards Of Canada: I was having such a huge moment with this album this month and lamenting the imminent end of our favourite earth The Earth, and this is really such a peaceful sort of resolute song right near the end of the album before the real ending of Semena Mertvykh makes you feel like a body dumped in the desert for scientific research into the nature of decomposition.

Kiss You All Over - Millie Jackson: I'm still not sure how I feel about this new Millie Jackson album that's old multitracks re-mixed by Steve Levine. The whole thing sounds kind of whack. What's good however, is when she adlibs "I wanna bite you on the ankles baby" out of nowhere near the end, and then says "on the ankles.. on the kneecaps.." as the song's fading out.

The Sorcerer - Twain: My girlfriend sent me this song and I have no idea where she found it but I love it. As soon as I heard the opening line I was completely hooked. It's such a beautiful and foreboding song that I really can't get a proper read on, I love it.

Men Today - Health: I'm looking for a chrome extension that makes this song play at maximum volume whenever anyone makes a post containing the phrase 'men today'. Huge wall of noise. Bloodthirsty drums. All the dirt owns us now, what we were ends in the ground.

Where Love Lives - Frankie Knuckles: I'm eagerly awaiting the day coming soon that 90s piano house goes from naff to revered and rockets back up the charts.

Nein König Nein - DJ Koze: This is the B side to Seeing Aliens off of DJ Koze's new album and I really love it, mostly for the groove it get into about halfway through, it reminds me of High Fidelity by Daft Punk where it's just chopped to hell and builds these sort of disparate rhythmic cuts into a really melodic frankenstein.

Blush - Leon Vynehall: I think I found this song and the next one by Spotify Radio off of the DJ Koze song above. I got into a real groove at work one day and these two were the best two to come out of it. The bassline/strings melody that centres this whole song is so good and so circular it could feasibly play for two hours and I wouldn't notice.

Last Land - John Talabot: The way the vocal sample just keeps bleeding into itself is hypnotising here, and it's also maybe the best and most unique kick sound I've heard in a long time.

Suzinak - Ross From Friends: I almost feel bad for Ross From Friends because he's making some really amazing music but he's stuck with this dogshit soundcloud name. The Durutti Column sample that forms the basis of this song is really nicely placed without just feeling like a rip-off, but where this song really shines is in the last minute or so where it magically transitions into a crunching guitar driven thing that sounds like it's playing next door.

Canary Yellow - Deafheaven: The most incredible thing about this album is the sense of optimism that pervades it. This isn't a genre that really lends itself to hope or beauty but somehow Deafheaven have captured it in a way I didn't really think possible. It feels like they've expanded the emotional palette of the whole genre with this album, without sacrificing any of what makes it great.

Strutter - Kiss: I had this song stuck in my head the other day, but I'd remembered it wrong and had it mixed up with the chorus of Lovers And Sinners by Dallas Crane. In my version he's saying 'strutter' the way they say 'lovers'. There's an incredible song in there somewhere, but the original is pretty good too.

Lovers And Sinners - Dallas Crane: See above I guess. It's interesting listening to Dallas Crane now as a new generation is reappraising and being inspired by pub rock all over again and somehow the difference between Dallas Crane and Jet versus Bad//Dreems and Peep Tempel couldn't be more pronounced despite their shared roots. Where the former idolises the glamour of a bygone age of rock and roll the latter are reapprorating it in a more directly emotional, less flashy way.

Evryali - Iannis Xenakis: From what I understand from reading the wiki article on this piece this was generated by doing about five different kinds of extreme nerd graph maths and then turning that into music via more maths and when he finally turned up with the completed score it was so fucking stupid it had notes that don't physically exist on a standard piano in it. Now that's rock and roll. It's hard to make sense of this without the context of its composition because it feels incredibly random, but this performance by Stephnos Thomopoulos really brings meaning to the total chaos of it. I think solo piano is such a good medium for generative-type works like this because it feels like the simplest way to see everything happening without the tonal clutter of synthesised or orchestral sounds muddying the already extremely muddy waters.

Easy Way Out - Money For Rope: I love bands with two drummers and Money For Rope really know how to use two drummers, which is simply use them exactly like you would one drummer but pan them left and right so I can hear when they do different fills at the same time and get a thrill. A really good song about killing yourself when you're old(?)

Sophisticated Lady - Art Tatum: I've been having a big Art Tatum phase recently and it's hard to overstate just how much I believe Art Tatum came from another planet to teach us about the piano. He is really and truly from another dimension. So off the charts insanely good at making a whole universe from a simple tune. It's like every single note gets its own full trip around the block before he moves on.

Stay As Sweet As You Are - Art Tatum: This is an absolute odyssey in five minutes. Without ever losing focus, or losing track of the central theme, it's like he takes it apart piece by piece and reassembles it anew every single bar right before your eyes.

No Line On The Horizon - U2: 2000s U2 gets a bad rap, and it's mostly deserved but there's still some very good stuff in there. This song is so good, and so nicely produced it's a real shame that it opens the album that eventually contains Get On Your Boots.

Tools Down - The Presets: Not only is this song great, but they use the exact same synth sound as the one they used for Madeline's voice in Celeste, which has the nice side effect of making it seem like Madeline is singing along to this great song.

Open Sesame (12" Version) - Kool & The Gang: I've definitely put this on my list before but this is probably the best song ever recorded. It's incredible top to bottom for all 9 minutes and never fails to put me in a great mood.

Peril - Martin O'Donnell: I was thinking about the Halo 2 soundtrack and was shocked to remember correctly that this strange Enya knock-off made it into the highest selling game of 2004.

Drumgasm - Weiss/Cameron/Hill: I cannot belive I haven't heard of this album before now. It's Janet Weiss from Sleater-Kinney, Matt Cameron from Pearl Jam and Zach Hill all playing drums for 40 minutes and it's incredible. I would never have expected Weiss and Cameron to be the sort of drummers to do something like this, but they absolutely nail it. The different styles of the three really meld well and they all seem to lead at different times. This album is the sort of thing that seems like it would be extremely exhausting, and probably would be in most circumstances but somehow they pulled it off. It's engaging and for the most part, driven, purposeful music with direction; which is saying a lot for an album of three drummers just going absolutely hard as motherfuckers for most of an hour.

Apollo - St Paul & The Broken Bones: I love this song but the way he sings the first line makes me laugh because it sounds almost exactly like Drew Tarver's Donny Gary character. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9ArjvUUptw and I'm blessed to have this song about reusing mcdonalds cups play in my head every single time I'm in a mcdonalds.

Million Times Alone - Bad//Dreems: This is maybe the best song about working night shift and having depression I've ever heard. The part about sleeping in the day in the bright sun in a boiling hot house is an especially vicious sense memory for me.

Slow Mover - Angie McMahon: My girlfriend showed me this and I absolutely love it. I also feel extremely old because I just googled it and apparently it's an Unearthed song that made the Hottest 100 this year and I didn't even notice. The best approximation I can make of how I feel about this song is the google autocomplete when you google it that goes 'angie mcmagon slow mover meaning?' and the top comment on the Genius page for it that says 'I cried my eyes out when I first heard this song.’

Drop The Bomb (feat. MF DOOM) - YOTA: Youth Of The Apocalypse: This is the new band from the non-Clash guitarist and bassist from Gorillaz, as well as Jamie Reynolds from Klaxons and I'm so glad it exists because the new Gorillaz album was such a snore and this really feels like what it should have been. Somehow it seems Damon Albarn is not the thing that makes Gorillaz great, it's the other guys which is very very strange.

Word Up - Cameo: Mostly thinking about this song because of Carl Tart's extremely good episode of Comedy Bang Bang where he spoke in the cadence of this and the other Cameo song for the whole episode https://www.earwolf.com/episode/word-down/

Lee - Tenacious D: I don't know what's going on but I got into a real Tenacious D thing this month. Thinking deeply about comedy music for some reason. Anyway this song is so much fun and it reminds me of Tony's Theme by Pixies.

Tony's Theme - Pixies: I love the idea of writing a nonsense song about your friend Tony, who you love, to put right in the middle of your otherwise pretty serious alt rock album. If you know any other songs in the genre of Lee and Tony's Theme please reply and tell me them because I think it's really funny genre.

Burning Down The House - Tom Jones & The Cardigans: I woke up one morning with the sound of Tom Jones singing 'strange but not a stranger' in my head and it took me so much googling to find out it was this version of Burning Down The House that I was thinking of, without having heard it in probably ten years. I like that this song is ostensibly a duet but Nina Persson has such a thin voice and Tom Jones is the most powerful man to have ever lived that she's sort of just automatically relegated to backing vocals by default.

Horseshoe Crabs - Hop Along: I heard about this from the Jason Mantzoukas What's In My Bag video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecfWVhz-wyc. I cannot believe how her voice sounds, it's just incredible. The way she sings "baby's heading home" at the start shocked me, it sounds like recordings of three different people cut together. It's just amazing. I already loved this song a lot and then when I looked into it I found out it's about Jackson C. Frank and it made me cry.

Long Wat - Khun Narin: This is another one I got from the Jason Mantzoukas What's In My Bag video, it's a Thai pschedelic street band and it's quite simply the jam of a lifetime.

listen here

[zenruption]

Seattle’s Smokey Brights: The Only Band in the Building

by: The World’s Luckiest Music Lover, Brian Mckay

Over the Treefort weekend, I had the pleasure to meet and watch the Smokey Brights on more than one occasion. This is a band that is more than just a simple concert review. They are worthy of their story and what lies ahead being known. That story that is represented in their songs and stage presence. It is a band I intend to follow and anxiously await their upcoming album. Judging from the crowd’s response, I am not alone in this assessment.

Fronted by Ryan Devlin (guitar and vocals) and Kim West (keys and vocals) and accompanied by Nick Krivchenia (drums) and Luke Logan (bass). The band’s story is compelling. As a couple, Ryan and Kim bring their synergy and strong love to the stage in both their harmonies and stage interaction.

The band was officially born out of necessity, due to some very underfunded bank accounts, insufficient for gift giving, going into the Christmas season as a couple. The incredibly talented Nick, came along via Ohio from a family of musicians. Grooving away Luke, is via Alaska with a background of singing folk songs with his family and is a great third for an always perfect harmony.

You can see a slight punk, influence pulled into a signature Seattle sound with, what can only be described, as their own genre. While comfortably in the alt rock category, it’s obvious that Smokey Brights will take whatever they feel or find interesting and make something new and totally their own out of it.

Again, it is the experiences that shape this band and probably my best candidate to interlace a review, pictures, video, and an interview all mixed together. Considering their amazing mixture, I hope they like it.

Interview conducted Saturday, September 25th at Neurolux

So el Korah tonight is so retro cool that it’s awesome. The sound is really good and the time you play is kind of after main stage…

Kim: Dude, I’m stoked.

Ryan: I feel really honored we got moved to that slot. Eric (a Treefort founder) was out at the Neurolux show about a month ago and we were going to play Humpin’ Hannah’s at 10 and that ended up not working out as a venue for Treefort so they bumped us over to el Korah, which is a bigger room, great slot and I am just swelling with gratitude that he trusts us enough to put us in that spot.

 Indeed, el Korah ended up being the perfect spot for Smokey Brights to play. Having had the honor of playing the first concert at the Record Exchange in 18 months on Thursday, a 9.30 pm slot at el Korah on a Saturday turned out to be an absolute perfect fit.

For a Treefort with smaller crowds due to COVID, the room was the busiest I had seen it during Treefort. The first thing you notice of Smokey Brights is an energetic, open crowd that immediately jumps in with both feet. Check it out:

 So, I’ve always gotta ask, what do you think of Boise?

Kim: We love Boise. Big fans. Big Fans!

Nick: Boise loves us back.

Ryan: Boise is a live music town with venues and great people and a great history of bands and we can drive to it from Seattle, which makes it Valhalla for a West Coast musician. It’s amazing.

Boise showed Smokey Brights its love at both the el Korah and Hideout stage performances. Dancing was common, as was extensive cheering. The one time that I heard the crowd just singing along with the band at Treefort was the Hideout crowd singing to the I Love You but Damn chorus as the band closed out the set. Our photographer, Greg, said, “I don’t really know the song but feel compelled to sing along.”

Smokey Brights brought their amazing energy and Boise responded, “We love it!”

 On your song, I Love You but Damn, I think, wasn’t it that song you mention Reno and then it also looks like you’re going to Reno soon..

Ryan: In less than a week we’ll be in Reno.

So, can I assume you kind of like Reno too?

Ryan and Kim: We do like Reno. (with laughs from Nick and Luke)

Ryan: Reno is like scrappy. I grew up in Seattle and Tacoma and like my friend that grew up in Tacoma with me, he’s always like, “Reno is just Tacoma with gambling.” And that is what it feels like to me. There’s kind of a blue collarness to it. Kind of a punk rock fuck it attitude, but it’s also like their working hard to make it cooland kind of a good hang place.

Kim: It’s like the dirtier, more scrappy version of Vegas.

Ryan: I want to hang out in Brooklyn, not Manhattan or Oakland and not San Francisco and I want to hang out in…

Kim and Ryan in unison: Reno and not Vegas.

 This is a great way to define Smokey Brights. Everyone’s band with an affinity for all the punks that have come and gone. Ryan’s punk past is alive in every show and strongly influences his amazing talents on the guitar.

If you are in Reno for the Offbeat Music Festival on Friday, October 1st, check them out at 7pm. Having once lived in Reno, they fit the place so well and will light it up. After watching much of the Freakout Records lineup on Sunday, I’m thinking that watching Smokey Brights and the rest of the bands on November 11 in Seattle could be amazing.

So, what have you guys mostly been up to during COVID?

Ryan: Writing.

Luke: Staying busy. Writing, Rehearsing. You couldn’t get in front of crowds but we could be with each other so we kept working looking forward to the time we could put on a good show.

 You’ll notice that most of the bands here have albums coming out. In fact, a couple came out this weekend. A lot of people, like, they wrote a lot during the pandemic but their whole tone was impacted by it. Esme Patterson last night, who is amazing, really had some songs that reflected a lot of loneliness and were written during the pandemic. How do you guys think it impacted your writing for the next album?

Kim: It definitely impacted our writing.

Ryan: For this record, which is not out yet… and I tease it too much because it could be another year but like, even when we’re not writing about the sensation of going through this diminished life, I feel like that tonality pokes through. We’ve got a song, it might be called, I’m Not Through this Yet. Kim sings it and like the first lines are “I’m not through this yet, can I learn to love this mess, can I reassemble myself from the parts that I have left”. And like, every time Kim sings that, that feels like the state that a lot of us are in right now.

 I really love the song 72. That is spectacular.

Kim: Thank you.

I also love, I Love You but Damn, was amazing and what was it, Save Us Sarah was spectacular.

Ryan: Right on! There’s three songs you can get into.

So, Unity…

Kim: That’s coming out in October.

So, tell me about that one.

Kim: So, Unity and Honey Eye are two songs we recorded. They are coming out October 29th. And they are two songs we recorded during I Love You but Damn, and they didn’t quite fit on that record but they fit really well together and so we just sort of held on to them and decided to release them this fall, which feels like a really good moment for them. They are really about kind of just working together and giving a shit. You Know. And the chorus of Honey Eye is “I wanna rock the world with you, before it splits in two, don’t know what else to do”. That’s kind of a thesis statement for, I feel like, doing anything right now intentionally. Who knows what the hell the future holds because as we have all seen with the traumatic events we have lived through the last 20 years, nothing’s guaranteed.  It’s been insane, all you can do is do as good as you can and be as intentional as you can and be as kind as you can and give a shit while there’s still shits to give.

  Smokey Brights are the embodiment of a band that gives a shit. You can sense the caring for each other and the cohesion of the group as a whole. Most importantly, they give a shit about their crowds and no show will ever be neglected, no crowd will ever leave less than completely fulfilled.

 I Love You but Damn, was obviously kind of your tour song.

Everyone: yeah, yeah

Like, did you guys all kind of write that together?

Ryan: I mean, Kim and I co-write lyrically everything to the point where when we get done with a record, it’d be very difficult to use a highlighter pen and say who did this one.

Kim: And the songs are definitely like, it’s the unit that makes the song a song and the arrangements and…

Nick: Production wise, we came into the studio not knowing what were going to play really besides the chordal structure.

Ryan: Well, we knew the cords and the melody.

Nick: Andy the producer kind of like plugged in a drum beat and said, “Okay, play to this”.

 So, was that right after tour because it kind of reflects that weariness and loneliness?

Ryan: I mean, that one is specifically, that one’s kind of coming from my point of view. It’s talking about the first couple months when Kim and I started dating. How many years ago? 13?

Kim: Yep

Ryan: 13 years ago. And I was touring in punk bands and I was on tour in a van 3 out of the first 6 months we were dating. You know. We would be on again, off again. I’d come back into town and things would be good and then go back on tour and we’d break up and it was just like, we are touring in an old junky Dodge van that would break down too. And just like coming to some realizations that I might be in love with this person I might need to treat myself better. I might need to think of my life in a different way.

That’s a big chunk of romantic love is recognizing that someone cares about you. You should probably keep yourself in okay condition too.

 I Love You but Damn closed out the Hideout set for Smokey Brights and closed out their Treefort. Watch the fans and you’ll see why they need to become a Treefort staple and Boise regulars.

   So you’ve been together since about ’13?

Kim: So we started… I guess the vague conception of Smokey Brights began about 2011, which was when we recorded a demo in our original bassist’s mom’s house in Olympia. We put out our first recorded a couple years later in 2014. I would say it was kind of 2016 when Luke joined the band and we just got really intentional that this is what we want to do. This is what we want to be when we grow up. And we want to tour and we want to play live and we made our minds up for that to happen.

I really feel like, you know, Smokey Brights has been a band in the sense we are now since 2016.

 Okay last question. Do you think that Seattle needs to bring back the Sonics?

Everyone: Yes!

Ryan: Bring our Sonics back!

 About the title: So why are Smokey Brights the only band in the building? Watch the crowd. When they are playing, that crowd might even think they are the only band in the world.

I loved meeting them, look forward to more shows, and couldn’t recommend catching this band more.

Look out for their two new songs, Unity and Honey Eye, on October 29th and a new album, umm well, sometime.

Thank you Smokey Brights for helping make Treefort the best festival anywhere.

[changterhune]

Interview with a Madman

Recently a friend (who has asked to be anonymous) asked me one of the most amazing questions anyone has ever asked about my music. The ensuing conversation fgascinated me so much I asked them if I could write about it and they agreed. I’ve redacted some sensitive and personal information but here it is almost in its entirety. We’ll call them CCD for obvious reasons.

CCD: Can you explain your music to me?  First off, I am tone deaf (this is literal as my ear bones are fused) so I'm trying to understand how the melody and harmony of your music works together.

CRT: Wow! Great question. So do you enjoy music in general or certain types or is it all just noise to you? Answer honestly as it will help me answer you better. And I won’t get offended. 😆

CCD: I do enjoy all types of music.  Actually, I really love music.  It's very emotional.  But the kind that you and {REDACTED} make seem chaotic to me.  I think I need a deeper understanding of what is going on so I can process it.  I may not be hearing it properly so my brain cannot interpret it as it was designed.

CRT: Ahhhhhh ok. No you’re hearing it just fine. Let me ask you this: what was your favorite music and who were your favorite bands when you were ages 13-16?

CCD: Well I’ve known {REDACTED} since college, so I have watched his music evolve. He introduced me to musician I hadn't heard before, Like Kate Bush and Lush. Ok. Um...  Well....  Do we have to back in time to the 80's? 

CRT: Yeah! Hahaha!

CCD: I grew up in New Orleans, so aside from the popular 80's music, I also liked Jazz, R&B, and zydeco.

CRT: Oh cool! I didn’t know that!

CCD: I didn't listen to Country/Western until I moved to Texas in 86'. I didn’t gravitate to that stuff until the last 5-7 years. Now I’m amazed by it. Always listened to classical.

CRT: Ok. Reason I ask is that musical tastes and inclination is formed around age 14 or so for most people. Definitely for me. I’ve been revisiting a lot of 80’s new wave and pop from when I was 14 and it’s still alive to me. But I’ve also gotten into newer stuff as it comes out.

CCD: Ah, so we should dive into the 80's deeper then?

CRT: Hah! I’d love to but that might be another interview in and of itself. Now, to finally answer your question. My wife views this type of music as very cerebral and masculine in a lot of ways. But she likes it. And the people who make stuff like this are 90% males. Now there are some women doing this but not a whole lot.

CCD: Wait, that is cool to know. I agree with your wife here.

CRT: Yeah she’s smart. Introduced me to Brian Eno, Leon Russell and Dr. John. See ultimately what I’m looking for in my music is a way to fuse my love of melody and harmony with the weird stuff.

CCD: Sweet!

CRT: I’d say a big factor in my music and your friend’s is the use of repetition, drone and cycling sounds to induce a semi-hypnotic state. Which is clear from that first song of his I played

CCD: He is very mathematical. Like genius.

CRT: Ok! Yeah! Now a lot of these cats who like this stuff are mathematically inclined unlike me. But they all come to programming and technical stuff easily. Which is why they can work in the musical programming langauges with ease. Whereas a lot of sequential logic has evaded me for a long time.

CCD: Yes, he is also a programmer.  Cool stuff.

CRT: So there you go.

CCD: Wait, to go back to sequential logic in music - 

CRT: Ok, Shoot.

CCD: What is it?

CRT: Well you need it for certain basic things like verse chorus structure, music theory and stuff like that.

CCD: This sounds very complex.

CRT: Well sequential logic is actually simple. You use it all the time without thinking. Cooking, dressing, etc. If things go out of order you have problems. But when you get into the more electronic stuff it gets very reliant on it.

CCD: I’m reading it for circuitry.  But now you are applying it to motor planning.

CRT: YES EXACTLY!!! Are you a PT? I learned it through doing yoga.

CCD: I have two sons with motor planning disorders.

CRT: Ah ok then. I learned about it through a pt working with my mom after her stroke. And yoga taught me motor planning I.e. sequential logic applied to human physiology. You dig? I really came to understand how to use and move my body outside of the regular things. It was no longer just a vehicle for walking to work or sex or whatever.

CCD: Yes, it's a lot like a stroke.   So I do kind of get what you are saying with the music. I may have to understand what the musician was thinking when making it then?

CRT: Wait have you done yoga? And if not you should. Might help your boys, too.

CCD: All inputs and outputs (historical) also help decide what is next in the song?

CRT: Whoa that’s a good question. Yes. Kinda. That’s my initial answer.

CCD: The boys do OT.  Yoga would totally be impossible because they can't stop moving for sensory input needs.

CRT: Ok. You said it was like motor planning. So what’s their overarching diagnosis? Autism? Or is that part of it?

CCD: My oldest son is global dyspraxia.   It affects his speech and movement.  But not his cognitive ability (but it does make it the cognitive process slower, but not inaccurate).  He is actually very good at math, but awful at reading. My youngest son is awaiting dx.  Not as bad at older son.  Has issue with crossing the midline and sensory integration.  Speech and cognitive processes intact. For us, it is genetic.  My brother and his children also have some form.  We also have Auditory Processing Disorder (notice I said we, because I have it too).  I have 3 out of 4 kids with it, plus 3 cousins.

CRT: Wow!

CCD: But, we all love music.  My youngest son loves ELO, REO Speedwagon.  My youngest daughter loves Electronica, like her dad. My oldest daughter liked this opera death rock in high school but has mellowed a bit now. I'll have to look more into the physiology of music.   My son's are listing to TLP.  Have you heard of it?  Music that helps the brain?

CRT: Wow! That’s fascinating! The human brain is a weird and wonderful landscape. So how does that APD manifest? I had an employee who couldn’t learn stuff verbally. Training her was a nightmare. Had to let her go when a mistake of hers cost me $1,600. Agony for her of course but for me as I felt such guilt firing her (Yeah my employee was also probably really high all the time). I’ve got ADD which was diagnosed midway through my post-graduate year. I’m a better auditory learner but also kinetic.

CCD: For APD, the person afflicted with it needs to get speech therapy or a home program where they can learn to isolate foreground sounds from background noises.   Some types of OTC hearing aids in work situations can help with this.

CRT: Ah ok. Interesting.

CCD: They also have to watch everything the speaker says. And write everything down.  And ask for all materials in advance so they can learn at home before being formally taught.

CRT. Ok that makes sense. CRT: Is the issue that certain sounds can’t be isolated?

CCD: Yeah if I don’t have my meds I’m easily distracted especially by sound. There is actually several kinds of APD. 31 flavors do to speak.

Sounds drop out from words.

The person can't hear spaces and everything runs together

Both ears won't work together

Both ears can't work separately.

My son has 3 out of 4.  My daughter and I only have 1. It's really fucked up. But like I said, Dx'ed early and you get the therapy so you learn to deal with it when you become an adult. When you were dx'ed with ADD what did they do for you? I'm learning a lot about ADD just with my kids in OT.   Like the fact, that ADD is Dx'ed when the real issue was APD or VPD. Or was SPD.

CRT: I was given Ritalin and a little instruction on how to learn and cope with it. Afterwards I went to a place called Learning Strategies where they actually re-taught me how to learn using my skills. Very helpful.

CCD: Ok so music?

CRT. Hah! How to make sense of what me and your friend make?Hmmm...

CCD: Wait, tell me how your music affects you.

CRT: Good question!

CCD: Like, what does it do for you emotionally?   Does it sedate you?  Get you ramped up?

CRT: It depends. I’m weird because I listen to my own music more than most musicians do. I use it to zone out to or as background noise sometimes. I think it’s best suited to soundtrack, TV or film scores. It’s hard because I think it works best when people don’t listen to it directly.

CCD: {REDACTED} also is bipolar, and uses music as therapy.

CRT: Interesting. Me, too.

CCD: So you mean put it on and vacuum or do the laundry a few times? Like not pay attention, just have it in the background?

CRT: Yes exactly! You must have a little laundry with 3-4 kids right? Hah! Though it does bear up to direct examination I think.

CCD: My whole house is laundry. It’s easier when the kids can do it on their own. Already training #2 for that. I just want them all driving a car by 5th grade.

CRT: Hah!

CCD: Well, thanks for explaining the music to me. {REDACTED} is neat, but he has a genius complex that can sometimes make it hard for him to  compassionately explain something to the uneducated. And if you ever get another employee with APD, let me know.  I'll help you work with them.

CRT: Lol cool. I don’t think I answered you at all though.

CCD: I do think I understood it better.  The motorplanning analogy was a big help.

CRT: Oh good!

 ~END~

[theseventhhex]

Children of Bodom Interview

Children of Bodom

Children of Bodom’s skyrocketing start in the mid-90s was a takeoff that newcomer metal bands are still being measured against till this day, almost all of their albums earned gold or even platinum status in their home country and over the past two decades they‘ve become regulars on some of the world‘s biggest stages. Brought into existence in 1993 by childhoold pals Alexi Laiho and Jaska Raatikainen at the astoundingly young age of 13 and 14 years respectively, the Finnish formation was completed by keyboardist Janne Wirman and bassist Henkka Seppälä. With every subsequent album, the band manages to improve and perfect their unique sound. Thus, they build a pillar in the metal pantheon. They are long known for their light hearted musical principle of operation and for their grave work ethos rather than a just-for-fun-attitude, which is why they could position within the front lines of the world’s finest metal bands… We talk to the iconic CoB frontman Alexi Laiho about his songwriting, touring and Freddie Krueger…

TSH: Over twenty years into the band's existence, the consistency with each Children of Bodom body of work is truly remarkable. How rewarding is it to know that you guys have a seamless way of communicating a trust that is expressed musically?

Alexi: It feels great man. Essentially we are just like family; this is a band of brothers who respect each other very much. I don't know if there is a key factor to our consistency, but because we grew up together, as well as going to the same school since we were like 11 years old, that's obviously given us a unique bond. We've kept the same four of us since the first album too. Also, when you tour as much as we do, you get to really know a person even more so. You can't compare this band to a marriage or anything like that, there's just simply a great balance of harmony and chaos with each passing album, and that's what it's all about.

TSH: How do you feel your songwriting had evolved in recent years?

Alexi: I've always felt that anything and everything that's happening around me somehow finds its way into my music. I guess even world events affect me in some way, whether it's conscious or not, but I feel like my songwriting is not pulling from what you commonly hear on the news. I tend to draw from real life experiences. I don't really like to focus on religion or politics, but I guess even if you don't know it, those things are impacting you in some way, simply because there is so much bedlam that cannot be avoided. Negativity has always been an outlet for me to write about. I guess it sounds cliché, but writing about negative things is like the best form of therapy for me, and the only form of therapy that actually works...

TSH: You've stated that when you feel bummed out or pissed off is when you feel strongest…

Alexi: Absolutely, and that's something that I learnt at a very early age. I always kind of cherish that feeling, when you feel, as you said bummed out or stressed, but you can turn it into something positive with music. I like it when I get that one second of fucking pure rage and it makes me feel like superman. Also, feeling bummed out doesn’t have to be anything heavy like feeling suicidal, I haven't felt suicidal since I was 18 years old - it doesn't have to be anything too dramatic. You can still find inspiration from small moments of rage - like being in a traffic jam and getting super-pissed off. There is no human being on the planet that will run out of shitty feelings, it just won't happen, so all this negativity and shitty energy can actually be a good source of inspiration. Life isn't always one big party, I mean I do like my poison too, but sometimes you need to find a balance between the two.

TSH: You're no stranger to being told that you're a guitar god. Being incredibly gifted and skilled on guitar, does it please you that you're constantly changing the conversation and taking your guitar playing to new heights?

Alexi: Oh, for sure. It's great that the guitar continues to take me to new avenues. This instrument has always just been so intriguing to me, I guess intriguing doesn't do it justice; I'm actually obsessed with the guitar! I've loved it since I was like 3 years old. I got my first guitar when I was 11 and the rest is history. To this day it remains important to enjoy practising on my guitar and even just playing the guitar for the hell of it.

TSH: I wanted to get your views on some classic Children of Bodom tracks. When you look back on a track like 'Sixpounder', what resonates with you most?

Alexi: I do remember that track was the first time that we used drop tuning on a Children of Bodom song, and it instantly stood out from the rest of the songs. I remember it had this super heavy and hardcore feeling and it was very different for us. As far as the song structure goes, it actually has a pretty simple verse chorus, verse chorus thing going on. 'Sixpounder' is one of those songs that we still play today and it fucking kills every time we play it.

TSH: Furthermore, 'Everytime I Die' is a song that many individuals connect with and interpret in their own way. What does this track convey to you?

Alexi: I'm pleased that our fans and various individuals can connect with this song and apply their own feelings. I've had fans from around the world tell me how they associate with the lyrics and energy of the song - it's so cool. You know, for me, this song is kind of venting and it has this tension, but I also feel that there is a lot of positivity in 'Everytime I Die'. It's very much like when you're on your knees and you just let go of the weight on your shoulders to feel free.

TSH: I understand that starting a song is the most frustrating part for you, after the initial few riffs, everything comes out naturally. Is it still a case of having to switch off and have a deep level of concentration?

Alexi: Yeah man, it's always been this way. Right now, we are starting to work on new material and every day I'm fighting with a blank page and looking to just sort of get the first riff out of my system. I've got tons of ideas, but I find it's important to get the first song down to makes things a little easier. Man, making new music is fucking hard! It's a hell of a challenge, but I live for challenges and embrace the hurdles that I need to overcome. After all these years, trying to sound fresh means you have to find the right state of mind when you're writing, therefore overcoming that initial first challenging phase is always vital.

TSH: Children of Bodom has constantly performed in the US and Europe, you've even taken your shows throughout, South America, Indonesia, India and Japan. How liberating is it to perform to such a loyal legion of followers and to know that you have a bond with fans where English isn't even their native tongue?

Alexi: It's fucking amazing man, it really is! Performing live to metalheads around the world is probably the main reason that we are still doing this. Touring is always a pleasure, I don't give a shit if it's a dive rock club, a large festival, or an arena - it pays off once you get onstage and you see people going crazy. Sometimes it pisses me off when bands are bitching about touring. It seems like everybody is trying to prove a point that there is nothing glamorous about touring. I say fuck that attitude! Touring is fucking awesome! To be on the road and play live often is not a bad job to have at all.

TSH: How's your shoulder feeling after surgery?

Alexi: Much better. I had surgery two months ago, which was long overdue, so I've been trying to rehab and get back in shape. It's all about making sure that my body stays whole and healthy. I do concentrate on preserving my voice a lot these days too.

TSH: How are your days off being spent?

Alexi: When I do have a day off, I just watch brainless TV, something that doesn't make you think too much, ha! I like to watch sitcoms a lot, especially trashy ones. I really do like Seinfeld, and obviously horror movies are a must for me...

TSH: Being a fan of Stephen Kings IT, you must be looking forward to the remake this September?

Alexi: No way man! I didn't even know there was a remake! You'll have to send me some links. Pennywise the clown is a fucking scary character - highly rated, for sure!

TSH: Is Freddie Kruger your ultimate horror movie icon?

Alexi: Ha! Yeah, man. By far Freddie Krueger is my favourite character. Man, when I was a kid, the Elm Street movies were specifically banned, we were not allowed to watch them. When I was in the first or second grade, I remember my neighbour's parents had the Nightmare on Elm Street tapes on VHS and we watched the first two. It was an amazing experience! Those movies were the scariest and most fucking appealing films ever! To this day I love the music, the feel and everything about those movies. You can't beat 80s nostalgia.

TSH: Are your intentions with Children of Bodom to very much always attempting to get better as a performer, player and singer?

Alexi: Absolutely. I'm always looking to improve on all levels with this band. You know, I had this need when I was a teenager to show the world that I can succeed and prove people wrong, even now this attitude is still driving me. I had many doubters and people that did not believe in my intentions initially, and proving people wrong over the years has become one of my favourite things in the world. I would do anything to fucking prove someone wrong if I disagree - I get crazy with it! If I have an aim with this band, I'm going in 110% sure that it will happen. I mean who'd of thought we’d be able to keep this up for 20 years, that even surprises me, yet we still have so many amazing fans! We have fans that weren’t even born when the first record came out! That's fucking insane and mind-blowing dude! I'm just so grateful for the support and I’ll always look to give it all and deliver our best work possible with every Children of Bodom release and live show.

Children of Bodom - “Morrigan”

I Worship Chaos

[weedeyedhoney]

it’s okay to blame your parents.

i blame my parents. for, EVERYTHING. i blame them for the way i shut down when everything goes wrong, for the way i carelessly spend money, and how stubborn i can get, especially when something doesn’t turn out the way i anticipated it to. i blame them for the way i choose to love, because i never had a choice of seeing a beautiful love blossom, but instead, an abusive relationship crumble. sometimes, i think about how pleasant it would be if i could time travel to the day they first met, and act as some sort of guardian angel giving them a warning signal: “you two aren’t meant for each other. for the sake of your children, your first born especially, don’t start a family.” although i have hope for my siblings, i’m scared they’ll turn out like me. i would never wish that upon somebody. which explains the main reason i don’t want to have children of my own.

i don’t want to bring children into this world if it’s only going to lead to pain and suffering. i don’t know if i’ll ever find someone i’ll be comfortable raising a child with. i’m not sure if i’ll ever find my lifelong partner, the person i want to tackle this ugly life with, my one true love.

obviously, i’m not in a very good place right now. i’m coming on 6 months as a 22 year old, and i’ve never felt more directionless as i feel right now. it’s kinda funny, i’ve been saying that for about 2 years now, “i’ve never felt more directionless.” it’s funny because i try to convince myself that i’ll be laughing at the pain in a year because my life will be soooo much better. it’s funny because it’s always the complete opposite that ends up coming true. i’m so naive. i’ll genuinely think that things won’t get worse than they are. but they do. everytime.

i don’t mean to sound this depressing. but, i can’t help it. i’m DEPRESSED. i’m knee deep in the fire, but it doesn’t burn anymore. actually, the more i pretend that everything is fine, the more content i feel. wild how your mind can play tricks on you like that? ignorance really is bliss. i know that my coping mechanisms may be unhealthy. i know that lying in bed, stoned, ALL day is NOT the best way to do something with my fucking life, but at this point, what do i have to lose? especially since i’ve already lost everything: my responsibility, my money, my brain cells, my ability to open up, my fucking dignity. seriously, what’s the fucking point? honestly? what’s the bullshit about this life needing me? i wasn’t made with love to begin with. i was made with a relationship based off of cheating and lies. i was an accident. i wasn’t supposed to be here.

when i reach ~that~ part of the high, when i’m laying like a stone across my bed. some sad, sappy harry styles song is playing in the background. i think about the night i so desperately wanted to kill myself. i never think about dying, just how much i regret not going through with it. i suck at everything, i can’t even get a fucking suicide attempt right. fuck. then i hear the second chorus to two ghosts, and i remember that a month after i got out of the hospital, harry released the promo for his first single, sign of the times. i don’t mean to be dramatic, but that song was written for me. that song was a message from myself in every single other alternate universe i wasn’t living in, telling me that i needed to stay. it wasn’t my time to go.

things i didn’t learn from my parents:

1. what living in a dorm was like

2. how to pay my college tuition

3. what financial aid was

4. how to navigate financial aid

5. loans??

6. how to interview for a job

7. budgeting!

8. how to file my taxes

9. what a good relationship is

10. how to spot real friends

11. how to not give up everything you have for someone

12. how to ask for help

okay here’s the thing: my mom is the oldest of 7 kids. she had to grow up, FAST. my grandma was in a very abusive relationship. my mom would tell me stories of her mom waking her up in the middle of the night to get all of her siblings ready, because they needed to go pick my grandpa up from another woman’s house, and nobody could be left home alone. they’d all pile up in my grandma’s tiny car, and off they were. my mom would peak through the car window and see my grandma dragging my grandpa out of the house, drunk. the car ride would reek of alcohol on the way home. the scary part? that was a regular thing for them. my mom probably saw my grandpa in my dad. my mom, also, probably never knew what a healthy relationship looked like either. she couldn’t tell she was in one. she let it go on longer than it should have. she endured a lot of pain. my dad on the other hand was an only child. he was raised by my ama. ama was a single parent. i’ve never gotten the full story, just bits and pieces. from what i know, my dad’s real father left them when he was really young. in fact, he probably doesn’t remember. she married ruben years later, my dad was already grown at the time. so, for the most part of his life, he was raised by my ama and his tíos/tías/and his grandpa. to be honest, he was surrounded by constant love and affection. his family has always been super close, however, let us not forget that we are mexican. although he did come from a big, loving family, he was still raised under the traditional mexican values regarding gender roles. basically, my dad was raised to be a headass. it didn’t help that he grew up with a majority boy cousins. it also made sense that when my dad cheated and left my mom, the majority of his family took my dad’s side. they talked mad shit about my mom, saying things like “she was never good enough for him anyway.” it was ugly, but also confusing. how could a family that seems so wholesome, turn so quick? i think the way my parents grew up also had an awful lot to do with the structure of their relationship. my mom was use to the abuse, and my dad grew up knowing how to abuse. it sucks, because... it gets passed down to me, and it’ll just get passed down to all my future children.

ama and ruben are the only couple i’ve ever known in my family who have demonstrated the closest to a perfect love. i spent ALL of my childhood with them, or at least that’s what it felt like. my parents would drop me off with them pretty often. in my memories, they had a date night almost every day, and i was always there. we’d watch cartoons on their old dial up tv. my ama would make me papitas, and after we’d all pile up in ruben’s truck and go to HEB or Super S, to pick up some neopolition ice cream. our nights would usually end with us sitting on the porch until the sunset. during the summer, ruben and i would catch fireflies with mason jars while ama would sit on that one white rocking chair she had, watching us from the porch. we’d usually stay outside until we heard my parents car, but on occasion, i’d stay the night. ama and ruben slept on different beds, and in separate rooms. i never saw them kiss, i’m not quite sure they ever did. he never grabbed her hands in any situation. she never leaned on his shoulder. i never saw them commit any act of pda. in fact, for awhile, it didn’t register to me that they were married. i had always thought of ruben as my grandma, but i didn’t think of him as someone who was married to my ama. i remember once as a child, my mom casually mentioned it in a conversation. i got wide eyed, “WAIT?? ama and ruben are MARRIED??” i remember her cracking up at how surprised i was. “yes silly!!” i thought about my mom and my dad, and how even though they fought all the time, i still saw them kiss, or hold hands. i thought about the couples on tv, and how they all slept in the same bed, and made it a point to be physical, like, being physical was some sort of proof that two people were dating, in love, or married. ama and ruben were never physical, but as i got older i quickly realized that they were more in love than a lot of the couples i knew. they would joke around with each other, they went everywhere together, he’d buy her flowers and let her decorate their house whichever which way she wanted. their marriage was a conversation and they continually kept talking. one of their strengths was the love they shared for their 3 grandchildren. they did everything for us. they were a team. they were best friends, and he loved her until the day she left this earth. i always tell myself that when i find ~that~ person, it’ll feel like sitting on the porch at night, and catching fireflies.

[i-am-very-very-tired]

Who is Joyner Lucas?

Joyner Lucas is an American rapper from Worcester, Massachusetts currently signed to Atlantic Records. He garnered widespread exposure and critical praise after the release of his single “Ross Capicchioni” in 2015. In 2017, he released his fourth mixtape (and first on a major label), 508-507-2209.

Joyner gained national attention when he appeared on the 2015 BET Hip Hop Awards Cypher. He was the first artist to be moved from the web platform of the show to the televised syndication

Um, do you even know who Joyner Lucas is? This sounds like it was lifted directly from his Wikipedia page

.

Because it was. And to answer your first question, I know who Joyner Lucas is, and I’ve known exactly who Joyner Lucas is for a little over 90 minutes now.

So basically you’re doing an explainer about a rapper you literally just discovered today?

Yes. And that’s no shade to Joyner Lucas, by the way. From what I’ve heard, he’s a pretty talented dude. I just don’t listen to much new music or the radio at all. My Spotify playlist primarily comprises Kanye, movie scores (my favs: Jesus Christ Superstar and, surprisingly, Inception), Radiohead, Ghostface and, of course, Rick Ross for when I want to scare white people.

I see. So why are you writing about him today?

A couple days ago, Lucas dropped “I’m Not Racist”—a now-viral video with 2.8 million views on YouTube and 24 million on Facebook. It depicts two men (one black and one white) sitting by themselves in what looks to be a warehouse, and each has the opportunity to air his racial grievances at the other.

00:0000:00

The white man—decked in a “Make America Great Again” hat and “regular-people” clothes—basically raps that black people are lazy, government-assistance-dependent criminals who use slavery as an excuse for our behavior and are more concerned with looking cool than taking care of our kids. Basically, everything we’ve already heard on every message board, in every comment section and from every American politician ever.

When he’s done, the black man offers his rebuttal, which is ultimately that racism is the reason we’re forced to do the things the white guy accuses us of doing. Throughout each verse, “I’m not racist” is repeated like a singular chorus breaking up each stanza. The point? Neither of these men is racist. They just need—and want—to understand each other better.

And when both men are done rapping, they hug.

Also, just because I anticipate some confusion here, Joyner Lucas is black and he’s actually the one rapping both the white verse and the black verse.

This sounds like a pretty cool video.

It is, actually. It was produced well, and although the lyrics veer a little corny at times, you can feel the emotion and the rage bubbling through them. It’s palpable. As is the thought and care Lucas very obviously put into creating this. I don’t know if this is the type of song you’d listen to on the radio or in the car—it feels more like a spoken-word performance than an actual song—but I don’t think it’s intended to be.

So what are your problems with it?

The most obvious part, after watching this three times now, is that the black guy’s rebuttal is weak as fuck. The white guy spits all of the Breitbart and Bannon talking points, and the black guy cites ... Tupac? Sure, he also does mention how historical structural racism makes him feel, as if he’s living in a “frying pan.” But his overall rebuttal is more “Racism is why I do these bad things” and not “Actually, most of us don’t do those bad things you think we all do.” He basically returned shrapnel fire with a spitball.

Also, it shouldn’t even exist.

The entire video?

Yes.

I thought you just said it was cool.

I did. But it’s cool the same way two bags of Cheetos can alleviate hunger. It’s an empty coolness because the concept—the song and the video—is based on a faulty premise.

What’s that?

That white people’s race-related gripes and black people’s race-related gripes are equal—equally justified and deserving of equal time and attention. They are not. There is no conversation that needs to happen between the races in order to create some measure of truce and racial conciliation. The only conversation that can do that is white people talking to other white people to try to find a way to be less awful to black people. (Also, saying “Hey, stop discriminating against and hating and killing us” is not asking for a truce. Just for them to stop doing what they’re doing so we can breathe.)

Yes, it would be great if whites and blacks came together on some kumbaya shit. But there’s no meeting in the middle here. There’s no finding a common ground. They have to come where we already are, and they have to recognize, acknowledge and begin to make amends for why the separation exists in the first place.

Let me put it this way: How offensive and absurd would it be if, instead of a black person and a white person having this conversation, it was a Jewish person and a Nazi?

Um, that analogy doesn’t work. No one would dare do something like that.

Actually, the analogy works specifically because no one in their right mind would dare do something like that. We give the Holocaust the respect it deserves. We recognize the horror of what happened to Jewish people and the evil of the Nazis. (Well, we generally do these things.)

But America doesn’t give the centuries-long trans-Atlantic slave trade the same acknowledgment. The analogy doesn’t seem to work because our country doesn’t believe it was as serious and destructive and transformative and evil as the Holocaust was. And we still don’t fully acknowledge the pervasive residue of slavery and the metaphysical construct and constraint of racism still existing today. We haven’t reckoned with that evil and that violence. And because of that, the thought behind videos like “I’m Not Racist” exists.

The message on-screen at the end of the video provides a perfect snapshot of the faultiness of this premise. It states, “We were all humans until race disconnected us, religion separated us, politics divided us, and wealth classified us.” It’s fulfilling and uplifting in the same bag-of-Cheetos way. But this video is dealing specifically with American race relations between black Americans and white Americans. And saying “until race disconnected us” removes the very active role white people had in creating race specifically to disconnect.

We weren’t disconnected by race. We were disconnected by people who deemed themselves white. And that acknowledgment fucking matters, man. It’s not some nonessential detail. It’s the only one that matters.

Damn. Well, anything else?

I actually do appreciate what Joyner Lucas attempted to do here. And I’d appreciate it even more if he read some bell hooks and Kiese Laymon and Kimberlé Crenshaw and Ta-Nehisi Coates and Toni Morrison and Derrick Bell and tried again.