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c-optimistic · 3 years

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Not sure if you’re still taking prompts, but I just watched Hozier’s from Eden music video and now I can’t stop thinking about Lena and Kara on the run finding and saving a kid from a bad situation...

obviously slightly different from the video and also an unambiguously happy ending

Alex handed over the keys to the beat up car, her eyes not straying from Kara’s for even a second.

“Travel at night as much as you can. The tank is full, but you need to make it last as long as possible.” She blinked, bit her lip, and squeezed Kara’s hand. “No powers. Not for anything. And no contact. I’ll find a way to let you know it’s safe.”

Kara nodded, pulling her sister closer and enveloping her in a tight hug, trying to memorize the way it felt, the warmth that burrowed into her bones and eased her mind. “We’ll be fine, Alex,” she said, injecting as much confidence in those four words as she possibly could. She was glad that Alex couldn’t see the tears she wasn’t quite able to suppress. “I’ll be listening for you.”

Alex pulled away and opened her mouth to argue, probably to point out that Kara’s statement went directly against the no power rule, but then her mouth snapped shut, like she knew better than to argue.

“Don’t put on any music you like on the radio. You know it makes you want to sing, and that sort of thing is bound to attract attention,” Alex said instead, smoothing over Kara’s shoulders and tugging slightly on the collar of her borrowed leather jacket. “Take care of each other,” she added, clearly no longer able to hide her anxiety behind jokes. Her eyes didn’t stray from Kara, but the comment was undoubtedly meant more for Lena than for Kara. “I love you, Kara.”

“Danvers sisters, right?” Kara said thickly, holding back tears. She pulled Alex in for one more tight hug, taking care to listen to her heartbeat, to memorize its unique rhythm. “I love you, too. You call if you need me. Okay? Do you promise?”

“Promise,” Alex said, pulling away and wiping at her cheeks. “All right. Go. Go.”

Kara and Lena didn’t need to be told a third time. They got into the car, and drove off into the night, Kara’s eyes on the rearview mirror long after Alex had disappeared entirely from view.

Very quickly, they developed a routine.

Hats, thick sunglasses, hoodies, and overall easily forgettable outfits became their norm, much to Lena’s eternal dismay. Kara would pretend not to see her wince as she pulled on sneakers, and Lena returned the favor by not calling Kara out when she used her superhearing to listen for Alex every single night.

They drove throughout the night for the most part, sticking to unpopulated areas as much as they could, not speaking much to the people they ran into at gas stations and diners. When the posters with their faces began cropping up on public restrooms and outside of convenience stores, Lena suggested they die or cut their hair.

During the day, they slept. Sometimes in the car, no relief from the sweltering heat. Sometimes, if they figured it was safe enough, they’d sleep a few hours at a motel before setting off again.

They definitely didn’t use each other’s names. Not once. In fact, they didn’t speak much at all.

(One thing filled both their minds:

Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving.

As long as they were on the move, Lex couldn’t get to them.)

It wasn’t much of a life, but it wasn’t all bad either.

It meant Lena would surreptitiously take her hand out of anxiety or a desire to provide comfort when driving past other cars. It meant when Lena’s always busy mind became bored, she’d invent new games to play as they drove along.

It meant huddling up together one particularly cold desert night.

It meant becoming very familiar with the song Lena hummed as she showered.

It meant learning to decipher Lena’s mood based on tuts, clicks of her tongue, breathy sighs, and the roughness of her voice when she would break the silence between them.

No, it wasn’t a bad life, being on the run with her best friend, the only person on this planet after Alex who’d ever made Kara feel at home.

It wasn’t a bad life, with money carefully hidden in the car, under the mats and inside the seat cushions, their every need anticipated and planned for, long into the future. Theoretically, they could stay on the run for years, evading Lex’s long reach.

It wouldn’t be a bad life, but to be fair, when your only goal was survival, having a good life (or really living at all) just wasn’t the point.

Kara chewed on her lip as she refueled the car, her eyes on the meter, her ears on the men coming out of the gas station.

They were laughing, clearly a bit drunk despite the time of day, one of the men complaining loudly as they walked towards their car.

“Costs me a fortune to feed that boy. Clothe him. Give him a place to sleep. And if she can leave him, why can’t I?”

Kara didn’t react. She finished refueling, paid, then slid into the driver’s seat, watching as the drunk men piled into their car and pulled away. Her grip on the steering wheel was tight, knuckles white. Just a tiny bit more pressure, just a little bit more of a squeeze, and she could shatter it in her hands.

“Is something wrong?” Lena asked, reaching out and brushing her hand over Kara’s shoulder, so careful, so tentative. “You seem upset.”

Kara turned to her, still chewing on her lip.“What do you think about getting a good night’s sleep tonight? I know a place we can go. It’ll be safe.”

Lena’s eyes roved over Kara’s face for a moment. “What did you hear?” she asked finally, gesturing with her head in the direction the men had driven off to.

“Just that they’re leaving and won’t be back for a few days.”

Lena eyed her skeptically, clearly knowing there was something else, something Kara wasn’t sharing, but she didn’t comment. “Okay. Okay, if it’s safe. We can both use the rest.”

Kara didn’t respond, but her grip on the steering wheel finally eased. She didn’t speak as she inserted the key in the ignition and started the car, pulling slowly out of the gas station and down the road.

And Lena let out a breathy sigh, the only indication of her displeasure at being kept in the dark, though belied by the slight quirk of her lips.

(And as they drove, windows down and hair billowing in the wind, Kara wondered if Lena felt the way she did:

An aching need to stop running, even for just a moment.)

The floorboards of the house creaked under them as they stepped inside, Lena immediately wrinkling her nose at the smell—something harsh, like paint, and underneath it, the sickly sweet smell of rotting flowers.

“No wonder those men were in such a hurry to leave,” Lena muttered, distaste coloring her features as they stepped further in the home. The floor was littered with empty beer cans and filthy clothes, the smell of rotting flowers growing stronger. “This place is disgusting. Who would live here?”

Kara didn’t respond, just kept walking towards one of the rooms in the very back of the house. She wondered, briefly, stupidly, how Lena couldn’t hear what she could: the sound of a little heart, pounding furiously away in an equally small chest, body and bones rattling in fear.

“Where are you going?” Lena asked, still following dutifully. “Kara?”

It was the sound of her name that made her pause, turn around, and smile. “I had to help him,” she explained in a whisper before dropping to her knees and gently pulling a closet door open, revealing the pale, dirty face of a little boy. “Hi,” Kara said softly, heart breaking as he pressed himself against the wall of the closet in an attempt to create distance between them, his legs tangled in rags that made up what must have been his bed. (And in the corner of the closet, flowers, long dead.) “Don’t be scared,” she continued, though she didn’t advance further. She stared at him, listened to the terrified pounding of his little heart, and she came to a decision. Without thinking about it for longer than a second, she reached up and let her hair out of its ponytail, then pulled off her glasses. “Do you recognize me? Do you know who I am?” she asked, ignoring Lena’s warning hand on her shoulder, silently urging her not to do this.

The boy pushed away from the wall, approaching Kara with more than a little hesitancy. But his eyes never left her face. “Supergirl?” he finally whispered in awe, mouth falling open just a little bit. “Are you really her? Are you really here?”

“Yeah,” she answered, holding out a hand. “Yeah, I’m here.”

He paused for a moment more, as if not entirely sure she was telling the truth, but then he rushed forward, allowing Kara to pull him into a hug. “You’re really her. You’re really here.”

She broke Alex’s rules and used her powers to speed through cleaning the home. Lena was in the kitchen with the boy, digging through the cabinets and the fridge to make him something to eat, eventually settling on soup that Kara heated with her laser vision, much to the little boy’s glee.

Much later, when the child was wrapped in blankets and letting out soft snores as he slept in the only bed in the house, Lena handed Kara a mug of tea and motioned for her to follow her outside. They sat on a rickety bench on the porch in silence, sipping their tea and taking in the cool night air, the miles of empty desert around them. And then:

“You didn’t tell me because you knew it was a bad idea. You knew we shouldn’t have come here.”

“I wasn’t going to abandon this kid.”

“You don’t know this kid,” Lena admonished, sounding tired. And in her tone, something else. Guilt, maybe. “I know what you’re thinking, Kara. But we can’t help him. Lex is still after us. Being on the run is no place for a kid.”

“But what we found him in is?” Kara asked, turning to look at Lena. She took their mugs and placed them on the ground at their feet, then grabbed Lena’s hand. “You can’t look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want to help him. I know you, Lena.”

“It would throw everything off. All our plans, the sacrifices we’ve made,” Lena said, pulling her hand out of Kara’s grasp.

Kara felt her back stiffen. “I know you’ve planned for a decade or more, but I can’t, Lena. I can’t live like this. I don’t want to look over my shoulder running from Lex forever. I just. Life has to be more. And this kid needs our help. We can’t use Lex as an excuse forever.”

This was very clearly the wrong thing to say.

“I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you. No one asked you to go on the run with me. It was your choice, if you remember.”

(It was.

But here was the thing, the thing that Kara wasn’t sure how to put into words: she would’ve made the same choice again and again. She would’ve given everything up for Lena a hundred times over.)

“Lena, you know that’s not what I meant,” Kara said softly, reaching for her hand again, grateful when Lena grabbed on tightly.

“We can’t stay here. We’ll have to drive through the day and night for a while,” she said after a long pause. “We’ll need to get him clothes. And you need to explain to him he can’t mention Supergirl ever again,” she added, narrowing her eyes at Kara.

Kara nodded quickly and, absolutely unable to help it, leaned over and pressed a kiss to Lena’s temple.

“Have I ever told you you’re my favorite?” she asked as she pulled away.

Lena just rolled her eyes, picking up their mugs and getting to her feet.. “After Alex, maybe,” she said with a grin, holding out a hand for Kara to help her up.

“That’s different. Alex is my sister. You’re…” Kara trailed off, not noticing the tremble in Lena’s hand, “you’re you.”

“Very eloquent, love,” Lena laughed, the endearment making Kara’s heart skip a beat. “To think you’re a journalist.”

They laughed as they put away the mugs and settled for a sleepless night on the lumpy couch in the living room, Lena’s head resting on Kara’s shoulder as she slowly dozed off.

And Kara sat there, breathing in the smell of Lena’s shampoo, half of her focus on the little boy’s gentle breathing in the next room, the other half of her focus on Alex’s heartbeat thousands of miles away, her thoughts on what it meant to be a family.

It was after several days of driving that they found a place Lena determined to be safe enough to rest.

The boy, who had yet to tell either Kara or Lena his name, ran ahead of them, heading straight for the small garden littered with colorful flowers.

“We shouldn’t stay here long,” Lena said as she grabbed one of their bags from the car, struggling a bit with its weight. “Have you been listening for him?”

Kara didn’t ask who him was. Either it was Lex or it was the boy’s unfit father, and regardless of who Lena was referring to, the answer was yes. Of course she’d been listening for him. “No news,” she confirmed, taking the bag from Lena, swinging it easily over her shoulder. “I have heard some odd frequencies lately though. Not sure what to make of it.”

Lena, who was smiling gratefully at Kara’s help, suddenly stopped, fear taking over her features. She pulled Kara to a halt by the wrist, eyebrows furrowed. “You don’t think—”

“—no,” Kara assured her, shifting the bag so that she could pull Lena into a loose, one-armed hug. “It’s similar to the frequency on Alex’s watch. I thought it was her way of signalling it’s safe but—”

“—but it seems more like a warning?”

Kara nodded, watching as the boy raced back towards them, a handful of flowers he’d pulled from the garden clutched in his fist. “A day or two,” Kara said in an undertone. “Just to rest. Then we’ll move on to the next place.”

Lena didn’t respond, but her hands twisted into the fabric of Kara’s shirt, and she pressed her face against Kara’s shoulder, and Kara figured that was answer enough.

Their routine changed.

It was as if, in their determination to give the child everything they possibly could for as long as they could, the fear and dreariness of being on the run was replaced by laughter and joy.

Lena took them all on a shopping trip, letting the boy pick out bright colored clothes, even rolling her eyes and conceding when Kara got them all baseball caps.

Rather than stay at sketchy motels, Kara would constantly be on the listen for people going on vacation or on weekend getaways, feeling better about ‘borrowing’ the home by making sure the home was immaculate when they left, Lena purposely leaving behind a small stack of bills.

They ate whatever the boy wanted, from sugary snacks to cheesy burgers. There was always music, usually a bubbly pop song Kara liked and they found that the boy preferred, leading to impromptu dances in the kitchen—with one memorable time, which Kara rather thought was seared into the back of her eyelids, Lena making the boy laugh as she grabbed his hands, swinging his arms to and fro, shaking her hips in time with the music.

(And in the dark, long after the child was asleep, Kara and Lena would lay together, heads close, trying to calculate what resources they had left, how much more they could stretch it out, how much longer they could continue this way.

And every night, long after Lena had finally drifted off, her head nestled on Kara’s shoulder, Kara would close her eyes and listen to the ever-closer frequency she didn’t recognize, increasingly worried about what it could mean.)

Then Lena changed their routine again.

Every morning, as Kara would make them coffee, Lena would press a lingering kiss to the corner of her mouth. She had them play the games she’d invent on the spot, winking at Kara when the boy would win every single one. And at night, every night, rather than just fit her head in the juncture between Kara’s head and shoulder, she would tangle their legs, hold Kara’s hand, pressed so tightly against Kara that she could feel Lena’s heartbeat against her skin.

(And Rao, did Kara want to take one of those moments, freeze it in time, commit it to memory, wanting it etched into her heart, where she could carry it forever.

But mostly, mostly, all Kara wanted was to close those few inches between their lips and finally, finally, kiss her.)

One night, weeks after finding the boy, after he’d already been tucked in and reminded that the next morning they would have to move on to the next place, the next town, Lena played with Kara’s fingers as they lay in the dark, the little breathy sighs she let out every few moments warning enough that she had something serious on her mind.

So Kara shifted a little, pulling away so that they were facing each other, hands still intertwined. And she made it a little easier for Lena. “I can practically feel the gears turning in your head. Just tell me what you’re thinking.”

Lena didn’t respond right away. Instead, her eyes were fixed on Kara’s, and after a moment, she used her free hand to smooth over the scar above Kara’s eyebrow. “How do you do it?” she finally questioned, voice so soft that Kara wasn’t sure she’d even be audible without superhearing. “How are you so effortlessly good all the time?”

It wasn’t really what Kara was expecting (and if she was honest with herself, it wasn’t what she was hoping Lena was thinking about either). “What do you mean?”

“You came with me without a second thought. Then, with the boy, you didn’t even pause to help him. You knew he was in trouble, and that was all it took.” She closed her eyes, her brows furrowing, almost as if she was in pain. “But my first thought was how it would make things harder for us.”

“That’s not true,” Kara said easily, and without really thinking about it, she pulled Lena closer, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You know it isn’t.”

“Do I?” Lena snarked back, but her heart wasn’t in it. She allowed Kara’s closeness, even going as far as burying her head under Kara’s chin.

With her hand that wasn’t still tightly in Lena’s grasp, Kara began to rub comforting circles on Lena’s back. “Your first thought was the danger he’d be in just because of us,” Kara reminded her gently, still rubbing her back. “Besides, I don’t know if you know, but you’re incredible.”

“Kara, be serious.”

“I am,” Kara laughed. “Being good...it’s easy. It’s the default setting. But you, you’re extraordinary. You were told your entire life that the opposite was true. That the only thing you could do was evil. And yet look at you. You did good anyway.” She paused, wanting Lena to soak in her words. “Do you see how amazing that is? Every single time you make a choice, you have to go through years of noise, years of interference, years of lies, and every time, you find your way through all that,” she tugged their joined hands up, pressing it against Lena’s chest, right over her heart, “to this. A good, kind heart.”

Lena pulled away suddenly, leaving Kara wondering if she’d said the wrong thing, but then she noticed the expression on Lena’s face, the blazing look in her eyes. “Do you really believe that?” she asked, voice barely a whisper.

“I mean, yeah, I wouldn’t have said it otherwise, gosh Lena, I—”

But Lena didn’t let her finish. Instead, she swung one leg over Kara, straddling her, and after waiting for Kara’s eager nod, finally, finally, kissed her.

(It was okay, Kara thought as Lena’s hands pinned hers to the bed, that Lena didn’t let her finish her sentence.

There was all the time in the world to tell Lena how much she loved her. For now, showing her would have to be enough.)

The frequency only Kara could hear, the one that worried her so, got closer every day, and so they stopped staying anywhere for more than a few hours.

It was hardest on the boy. He and Lena had especially grown close, falling asleep in the back of the car as Kara drove, chancing a look at them in the rearview mirror every now and then, feeling her heart swell with fondness. But Lena’s whispered concerns, about how he was faring, how he was feeling, felt more and more serious as the days dragged on.

Being on the run was no place for a kid.

“We could fight,” Kara suggested one night as they drove through the darkness, the child asleep in the back, clutching a toy Lena had bought him weeks ago. “Just wait for Lex to find us and fight.”

Lena tugged on Kara’s right hand, pulling it out of its vice-like grip on the steering wheel, then brought it to her lips and pressed a kiss to the back of it. “We went on the run because we couldn’t fight. Nothing’s changed.”

“Everything’s changed,” Kara said, turning to look at Lena. “What do you want to do?”

“We have a two day head start on Lex, right?” Lena confirmed. At Kara’s nod, she pressed another kiss to the back of Kara’s hands before releasing it. “We’ll find a place, spend one more night with him.” She motioned towards the child. “Then we’ll take him to the police station. CPS, I don’t know. Once he’s safe, we can wait for Lex.”

“No,” came a small voice from the back of the car. Kara watched the boy slowly sit up, toy clutched to his chest, meeting her gaze through the rearview mirror. “I’m staying with you. I want to be with you and Lena.”

(They tried to argue with him, tried to make him see reason, but Kara knew it was a lost cause. There was no convincing a boy who felt he’d found his family that he’d be better off or safer anywhere else.

Kara would know: she’d felt that way after landing on Earth, after Clark sent her away.)

So they made their last stand.

With Lena’s help, Kara found a fairly sturdy home, one that seemed to have been empty for some time, and they began to prepare.

Kara put her suit on for the first time in almost a year. Lena pulled out what she’d called her ‘emergency technology’ and the boy was secured in the house, letting Lena hug him to her as Kara sat nearby, her focus on everything beyond the walls of the house.

The frequency drew closer, the sound almost maddening in Kara’s ear. But there wasn’t much of Lex’s fanfare. No explosions, no gunfire. No whirring of new Lexosuits. There was nothing except for that sound in Kara’s ear and cars approaching.

“Kara?” Lena questioned, taking her hand and breaking her focus.

“He’s here.”

(She could hear it, cars and trucks coming to a halt, heavy footed people beginning to surround the house, the sound of their weapons in their hands loud in Kara’s ears.

And also, something else, something Kara hadn’t heard from this close in a long time.)

“Kara, I’m scared,” the boy said, looking to her, still gripping tightly to Lena.

“That’s okay,” Kara told him, brushing his hair back and then getting to her feet. “But you’ve got nothing to be scared about.”

“Kara—”

But she waved Lena’s concern off. “Trust me. We’re safe.”

One of the people surrounding the house broke down the door, making the boy hide his face in Lena’s stomach. Footsteps approached. A gun was raised. And then:

“Alex. You found us.”

The DEO was loud. Or maybe it was that the city was loud. After being in the middle of nowhere for so long, the sudden influx of noise was a little a little different.

Different, but nice.

“So, you broke all my rules, right?” Alex said as she followed Kara out on the balcony, standing next to her and leaning against the balustrade. “I said to keep a low profile, you kidnapped a kid. I said no powers, I find you in your suit.”

“I didn’t sing,” Kara said with a grin. Lena was still with the boy, holding his hand as he was checked over by doctors, happily sucking on a lollipop that Alex had offered him. “Your watch is broken, the frequency it lets off is wrong, I thought you were Lex for weeks.”

“I had a run in with an Aellon. I knew the watch was acting fritzy afterwards, but Brainy said any changes in the frequency would be ‘nearly imperceiptible.’” She grinned a little, bumping her shoulder against Kara’s. “So, while I was busy working with Brainy, Nia, J’onn, and Kelly to bring Lex down...you and Lena started dating and adopted a kid?”

Kara snorted, turning her head, watching as Lena and the boy (who were clearly done with all the tests) walked over to where she was standing with her sister.

“Pretty much,” she told Alex, marveling at finally having her entire family together again.

#I watched the video once #sooo I'm sorry in advance #supercorp #fanfic

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pixtalgia · 4 years

Text

Friday Night Funkin headcanons part 1

I’ll break it down by the weeks The days before week one. BF meets GF they hit it off pretty nicely and get talking about all kinds of music. GF listens to pop and rock most of the time but has a pretty diverse taste in music generally. BF is mostly the same but listens mostly to oldschool hip hop and house. BF has a soundcloud with a small dedicated following. GF teases BF to demo some of his skills.

Week one:

Dad: Dad is retired rockstar who still works with with his old label from time to time and does some reunion gigs a few times a year to make that cash. He actually did not invent the challenge. He had to win it against granddad who was a country legend. BF knows Dad’s music and is starstruck when he meets him but doesn’t let him notice that. BF keeps his trademark snide attitude but they both take a liking to each other.

Tutorial - GF explains to BF the rules and terms of dating here, it’s here where she mentions the challenge her father issues to any of her BFs

Boopeebo - her dad hears whats going on in the living room - He formally issues the challenge and starts it off with this song - Boopeebo is merely a vocal warmup - Dad probes the water and wants to hear BFs vocal range

Fresh - He teases BF about his tastes and wants to prove that everyone can beat box and rap - he is surprised to actually see some skill since most former BFs can’t even survive a song in their chosen genre

Dadbattle - this is the one where he is actually trying - The song is actually one he wrote for a younger artist to feature with. its playing up and down on every radio station - if BF wins this, he’s got his approval Dad actually wants BF to win against the other family members. They both become inspired by each others music. BF samples some of Dad’s older tracks into some of his soundcloud releases.

Week two:

Cousins Skid and Pump They honestly just want to fun. Skid and Pump are not in the music industry but they still get vocal training and want to release “spooky music” in the future. they challenge BF solely because they are bored and want to know if BF would be a worthy addition to the family, they go at it with their songs at a 100% to see if BF can keep up. They love the living Tombstone and Neil Cicierega

Spookeez - They demoed the song to the label Dad is working for but they seemed reluctant to put out spooky music around Christmas. - Skid wrote this one

South - Their battle trap mix of choice - Pump wrote this one and they both invented the spooky dance to go along with this one

#Fnf #fnf boyfriend #fnf gf #fnf skid and pump #skid and pump #fnf dad #friday night funkin

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sytco · 3 years

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common blessings [joochan]

pairing: childhood friend!hong joochan x reader

word count: 3.5k (!)

requested: "toothrotting fluff ft. joochan"

dedicated to @sahiflowers.

a/n: im SO SO sorry this took so long and i hope u like it even a little and that it makes u smile thank u for being so patient ily!! ily!!! reminder im always here for u!!

In which you find that time is meaningless when Joochan is not by your side.

wonderboy.

Sometimes, you speculate whether Joochan has some kind of genius for finding you as soon as the school bell rings, signalling the end of another day.

Today, he surprises you behind the auditorium where you lean against a maple tree, hugging your bag to your chest, because you’ve skipped your last period (Introduction to Psychology) in favor of lying on the grass so you can watch the clouds in peace. And Joochan smiles a fond, fond smile because you have that look on your face again that you only get when you’re lost in thought.

“Missed me?”

You tense from shock before relaxing at the sight of your boyfriend who widens his arms so you can walk right into them.

“How’d you find me?” Your voice is muffled in the fabric of his vest and Joochan reaches up so he can play with the back of your collar.

“Just had a little hunch you might be here.” And this is the answer he always gives, accompanied with the same smug smile each time.

You pout even if Joochan can’t see it. “That doesn’t explain anything.”

“Well now,” he says in an affected voice that sounds like the narrator from that National Geographic documentary on penguins the two of you watched last week, “I can’t afford to have you getting your hands on all my secrets, can I? I’ve got to keep some things to myself so that in ten year's time, you’ll still think I’m the most amazing and magical boy in the universe.”

It’s ridiculous, you think, how it’s nearly winter but the way you can feel the laughter that starts in his chest and electrifies you to your fingertips is more than capable of keeping you warm and making you feel like you’re really alive.

“Doesn’t matter if I find out all your secrets or not,” you mumble, “you’ll always be the most amazing and magical boy in the universe to me.”

From the courtyard around the corner, you can hear Jaehyun shouting a loud “Oi Joochan!”.

Joochan ignores him and instead casually pecks your cheek with a kiss that feels like a blessing. “Always?”

You tilt your head as though unsure. "Well… for at least fifty years, probably.”

“Fifty?!” Joochan echoes in mock outrage, and you playfully poke his side to which he flinches slightly.

“I was lying. I meant for all of time ever.”

And despite him doing his best to hide it, your boyfriend melts instantly, burying his face in the crook of your neck where he’s probably smiling his brilliant smile that feels like the sun against your skin.

Jaehyun’s voice interrupts the peace and quiet once again with a noticeably louder and more panicked tone.

“Hong Joochan! We’re going to be late for soccer practice!”

Joochan groans exaggeratedly and you can’t help but giggle at his theatrics. “Wish I didn’t have to go to stupid practice,” he grumbles.

“You know, I’ll wait for you in the library until you’re done,” you offer and Joochan perks up - if only slightly because your arms still feel like heaven after years of loving you, and two hours of kicking a ball around (while Donghyun and Jibeom brainstorm inventive ways to trip each other up, much to Coach Lee’s chagrin) just can’t compete. He tells you as much in the way his arms tighten around you.

“You’re the best,” Joochan declares suddenly, “I might be the most amazing and magical boy in the universe, but you’re the best.”

You snort. “Go to practice already before Jaehyun starts going spare, wonderboy.”

Joochan kisses your forehead one last time before he detaches himself from you with a dejected sigh and picks up your bag, slinging it over his shoulder despite your protests. “Walk with me to the oval?”

You slip your hand into his hand only to find it a perfect fit and wonder briefly if there is anywhere in this world you would not walk to with Hong Joochan, the boy who has a smile like sunlight and a personality like a billion shooting stars.

“Of course.”

fm.

There is the occasional moment in which you wish that your boyfriend wasn’t so exceedingly talented in nearly every field he tries his hand at, because the various extracurriculars that Joochan (being the naturally energetic and enthusiastic person he is) involves himself with have an awful way of making tremendous demands on his time towards the end of the semester.

Right now is one of those moments when Joochan trudges into your room and dives face first onto your bed without even bothering to shake his coat off. “So what was it today?” you ask in a voice that betrays your concern and Joochan can’t help but smile at it.

“Theatre rehearsal,” he yawns, “then string quartet practice. Also an hour of soccer drills with some of the boys. Even though it’s a Saturday.”

You get up from your chair at the desk so you can sit on the bed where Joochan immediately moves his head onto your lap, lifting your hand and resting it on his hair. You absentmindedly start stroking it, staring out the window at a soft grey sky.

“Did you eat?”

Joochan shakes his head. “No time. My dumb E string broke again so I barely managed to have half an apple before we went straight into a new Mozart piece today. Think we might perform it at the next concert. You’d come, right?” And he asks that in a self-assured tone, because he already knows what your answer is going to be.

You give it to him anyway because there’s no point in hiding your blatant admiration for all that he does. “No matter what.”

“And just to see me, right?”

You fake a pause that has Joochan peering up at you suspiciously.

“You do know I have friends who aren’t you that are participating in the concert, right? Like Jangjun and Sungyoon?”

Joochan scowls. “But none of those hooligans are your boyfriend, who - in case you forgot but I do know you’d never - is me.”

“That’s quite true,” you concede before leaning down to kiss his cheek with a smile that makes Joochan’s stomach fill with butterflies which are probably colored pink and green and blue. It never gets old, he thinks: your talent for turning his world upside down in a look or a word or an action. And you don’t even know you’re doing it most of the time.

“Mean,” he accuses but in a half-hearted manner and your smile only widens because you know that Joochan is supremely happy despite his exhaustion, if the way his brow has smoothed completely and he has started drawing little stars on your knee is anything to go by.

There’s a gentle lull in the conversation while you continue to run your fingers through Joochan’s hair, and especially his fringe. It’s almost as though time has passed you by, leaving you together in your own little reality where things like hazy futures and big concerts and broken violin strings do not dare draw near.

“Wanna order something later on for dinner?” you ask quietly.

“Maybe,” he grins through closed eyes, “but nap first.”

Your radio continues to run, and you drift in and out of listening to the DJ duo while watching the rain finally fall outside.

“It’s been pretty cold recently, hasn’t it?” one of the DJs opens the conversation after a small stream of ads.

“Sure has, pal. And speaking of the cold, apparently our first snow of the season is scheduled for next week Friday!”

“So do you have any plans lined up with a special someone?”

“Just had to remind me of how single I am, didn’t you”- rambunctious peals of laughter crackle from the speakers - “but maybe some of our lovely listeners will send in their plans for next Friday.”

“I sure did - and wow, they’re already pouring in! Do you wanna read one out?”

“Let’s see… Listener ha_miii_ran says: ‘I’m planning on confessing to my crush of two years. I’m pretty nervous about this so I’m hoping the two of you will wish me luck!’ All the best of luck to you, Ha Miran-nim, from the both of us. I don’t know how you’re planning on it, but hopefully the first snow will act as a good luck charm for you!”

“Yeah, good luck Ha Miran-nim!” the other DJ chimes in. “Be sure to update us on how it goes!”

“Well, we’ll be back with some more stories after this excerpt from a famous piano concerto - maybe some of our more classically-inclined audience will recognise its globally renowned composer.”

A beautiful melody begins to play and you’re on the cusp of losing yourself in the music when you are most abruptly interrupted by a sleepy, but decisive, “Gershwin.”

You blink down at Joochan. “What?”

“It’s Gershwin. The composer. Don't you think your boyfriend's clever for knowing that?"

“I thought my boyfriend was asleep, actually,” and you narrow your eyes.

“I was,” Joochan protests, “I only woke up when they were talking about the snow or something. And then they talked about that person who’s confessing to their crush of two years - got me thinking about how I can relate because I vividly remember having a crush on you for at least three before I could muster up the courage to confess. Which ended up working out for the best, you know,” he adds in a thoughtful tone, “but sometimes I’d get so nervous just thinking about it that I couldn’t sleep at all. Anyways, I’m really hungry now, so can we order something soon please?”

Maybe it’s the way he so nonchalantly wears his heart for you on his sleeve, or maybe it’s the way he looks at you as though you have strung the Milky Way itself together and made a gift of it to him. Maybe it’s the way you simply realize that you might not be able to live with yourself if you were to lose your boyfriend, ever. But for whatever reason it is, a thousand smiles bloom in your heart and you lean down to give Joochan a kiss that hopefully tastes like everything you cannot possibly put into words.

“Anything you want,” you whisper, and Joochan draws a heart on your knee in response.

enchanted.

You’re outside the auditorium again but in front of it, this time, and not behind. The post-concert hubbub has died down, mostly owing to the fact that much of the audience has left already whether it’s to a late congratulatory supper or down to the boardwalk where fireworks are scheduled to go off at midnight. The bouquet of lily of the valleys in your hand trembles slightly as you use your other hand to fumble around for your ringing phone.

“Hello?”

“You’re waiting outside, right?” Joochan asks.

“Yeah, I am.”

“See, Donghyun, I told you I was right about - wait. Wait! Don't move!”

And then you have less than two seconds to process exactly what is happening before your boyfriend catches you up in a running embrace that sends the world spinning in a flurry of snow and stars and kisses that Joochan plants all over your cheeks. He remains blissfully unaware that somewhere in the vicinity, Donghyun has started making gagging sounds at your very public display of affection, punctuated by Jaehyun’s giggling. (You pay them no mind.)

“Did you enjoy the concert?” he asks, fond expectation twinkling in his eyes.

You nod too much. “You were incredible,” you tell him honestly, and Joochan beams.

“I was, wasn’t I?” he says in a satisfied voice as he pulls you closer. “Guess all those hours of practice paid off.”

“It’s almost like that’s the whole point of practicing,” you tease.

“It’s lucky you’re cute and I’m hopelessly in love with you,” Joochan crinkles his nose in contrived distaste for your little jab before hugging you again so he can hear you whisper just how proud you are of him, right into his ear.

And the two of you stay like that for a little before you remember the gift you brought with you.

“For me?” And the look in his eyes reminds you of how he looked at you when you first told him that you loved him too - or maybe of every time you’ve told him that you love him too.

“Who else?”

He snaps up the bouquet, pressing it against his nose and inhaling deeply with a smile. "This is a nice surprise."

"They mean 'return to happiness'," you say, gently touching a little white bloom that looks like a star against the backdrop of Joochan's black school blazer. "Thought it was cute. And the florist was sold out of roses anyway."

Joochan laughs with the warmth of a thousand sunbeams and puts your hand in his so he can start gently tugging you away.

“But your violin”- you begin protesting.

“But nothing,” he shushes you as the school gets smaller and smaller behind you in the distance. “I don’t even want to see that thing for a week. Hey, and guess what - I found a secret place for just you and me so we can watch the fireworks without being pressed up against everyone else like sardines in a tin can.”

“You and I are going to watch the fireworks?” you echo, surprise colouring your voice.

Joochan’s exhale turns into a giggle. “Who else?” And you dig an elbow into his side, hiding a smile at his antics.

The two of you stroll down quiet streets and you lean into your boyfriend’s comforting warmth. Most shops are closed with the exception of some fast food chains and convenience stores, but you notice almost none of them now as Joochan picks up the pace, his excitement bleeding into the quiet song he sings that floats up in the air and is lost somewhere in the stars above.

“Here we are,” says Joochan proudly and he helps you up into the little gazebo at the top of the hill you hadn’t realized you were climbing. “Take this,” he adds as he tosses you a torch that brightly illuminates the space you’re in as soon as you switch it on. You turn to the rustling sounds on your left, finally seeing the wooden bench that Joochan is busy spreading a rug over.

“You planned this beforehand?” And there’s a note of wonder in your voice - the same kind that only Joochan ever seems to be able to evoke. “I thought we were going straight home.”

He gestures for you to sit next to him with a charming smile and you do so immediately. “Told you I can’t give up all the secrecy. Not yet.” Or, he thinks privately to himself, not when you look at him like that.

The golden light from the torch casts long shadows over the grass and gives Joochan’s face a nearly ethereal glow that reminds you of summer sunsets despite the cold. You slip into a soft and easy silence - one that comes from memories built upon memories, resulting in a code made up of gazes and touch that only the two of you will ever understand. And so when he squeezes your hand gently, you instantly open your arms for him to sink right into.

There’s only a few minutes left until midnight when you finally speak.

“Joochan,” you murmur.

“Mm?”

“You ever think about where we’ll be this time next year?”

Joochan shifts his posture slightly. “Often, actually. Especially when I go to sleep at night and think about tomorrow - then I’ll wonder if it’ll even remotely go the way I want it to.”

“And how do you usually want it to go?” you ask.

“Someone has a lot of questions today,” Joochan remarks with a droll look on his face that makes you laugh briefly before his expression sobers. “But usually I want it to go safely. You know? Everything in its proper place and things like that. And more importantly, I want to know all the time that I’ll be able to see you.”

You’re silent for a moment, looking out over the view of the city. If you squint, you can just make out the boardwalk by the beach and the crowds of people who have gathered there, young and old alike. “I’m scared sometimes.”

Joochan frowns. “Scared of what? I’ll fight it off for you,” and he waves a threatening fist at nothing in particular.

“The future, I guess. It sounds silly but… sometimes I don’t know if we’ll always be okay. Like this, the way things are right now. Whether it’s tomorrow or next year or even after that.” Your voice fades in volume until it’s nearly lost against the threads of your scarf, and Joochan’s heart breaks a little when he hears it: the genuine uncertainty and timid fear that seeps past the smile you give him in an effort to hide it.

“Why do you think we might not be okay?”

You look down at your feet, almost embarrassed by your own honesty. “Well, people… change, Joo. They move places, and have goals to achieve and dreams to chase down. And we’re not immune to that either.”

It’s Joochan’s turn to be silent for a bit as he mulls over your words before he straightens in your hold, turning his face towards you so he can affectionately bump his nose against yours. “You’re right,” he says in a voice that mirrors your sadness, “and it would be a lie to say I don’t think about the same things you do. But”- and he leans in to give you a quick kiss that’s shaped like a smile - “it’d also be a lie to say that every dream doesn’t feature you in it. Because every dream of mine that I’ve ever had places you centre stage.”

He kisses you again, a little longer - a little more wistfully.

“You see, the real problem here is that you have me perpetually thinking that I can’t do any of this without you,” he says simply. “Whether it’s late night phone calls or early morning messages; or maybe we’ll find ourselves having to book flights for each other, holding bags full of gifts that remind us of us. And maybe it’ll be hard and maybe I’ll wake up some days, knowing I won’t be able to see you. But that doesn’t mean we won’t be okay.”

You swallow and Joochan watches you carefully, the urgency in his eyes prompting him to lift your chin so you can see it too.

“Even if we change,” he continues in a whisper, hoping you will understand the heart in his words. “And we should. And we will, and we’ll still be okay. You believe me, don’t you? Seeing as I’m the most amazing and magical boy in the universe?”

Somewhere, midnight comes and goes and the fireworks start, dousing you and Joochan in bursts of coloured light.

“Of course I do,” you smile with eyes that glitter with tears of relief and he pulls you into a tight hug, so tight you can feel every movement of his rib cage as he breathes in and out.

For once, you do not feel that fear deep down that threatens to taint your time with the only boy you think you cannot live without. And so you unreservedly hold him in return, fingers running through his hair as he tells you that he loves you, over and over again.

up, up and away.

There had been a time during your childhood when your one greatest wish had been to go see the stars.

So your friend Joochan, in all his clumsy sincerity, had done his best to make you a rocket out of a box he’d found at home. He’d then brought it to your house after he’d finished it, blue marker staining his fingertips and glitter shaped like stars lost in his thick fringe.

The two of you had sat in it together and looked up at the moon, holding hands from childish innocence and recounting thrilling tales of adventures you’d never had. And before having to go home to bed that day, he’d made you a promise that present-day Joochan complains about not being able to fulfill.

“I know I said I’d take you to the stars,” Joochan sighs in displeasure from where he lies on your bed, right next to you, “but while your boyfriend is exceptionally talented, you do know I’m no astronaut, right?”

You hold his hand in response and look into his eyes that sparkle with mirth and deeper in, shine with a love that always gives you peace.

It may be that Joochan will never be able to keep his promise of taking you to space in a real, functioning rocket. But, as you drop a kiss on his mouth that soon widens into a brilliant smile, you can’t find it in yourself to really care.

After all, it’s hard to miss the stars when for you, they all start with Joochan and end with him.

if u liked this please consider dropping a like and reblogging with ur thoughts because feedback is!! always appreciated thank you!!!

#SCREAMS IT'S FINALLY DONE WITH I'M FINALLY FINISHED #golden child #golden child scenarios #golden child imagines #hong joochan #golden child hong joochan #golden child joochan #joochan #ju writes #gncd #golcha #im now off to go cry. or nap. both

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cassnottiel · 4 years

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a s7 freddyxdeke au? but also totally ignore this if u dont feel for the ship lol. maybe something like deke and freddy highkey fall for eachother during the first trip, things still end up the same way they did but its a bit more tragic. then deke meets old freddy and he recognizes him asap this time. and he's such a shattered and different person deke's heart is highkey broken by who he's become. maybe some hurt/comf with the whole team of emm. or the team attempting with varying results lol

"Deke, how do you do this?" Daisy smiled at herself, clad in a green very nice dress.

"I've always had great style." He said indignantly. "I still have the leather jacket from the future."

Daisy nodded and fixed her neck line, before offering her arm. "Shall we?"

Deke and Daisy, arm in arm, walked through the party of politicians and jazz music, up to the bar Mack was standing behind.

"Two of your finest Zimas, please." Deke said in his own version of suave. He would have made another joke, but someone caught his eye.

A man his age, standing behind the bar with Mack and Coulson, stocking the liquor. His hair was slicked back, like Dekes, but he wasn't wearing a tuxedo, favoring a regular white shirt with brown suspenders and tie. Deke really wanted that Zima, his mouth had gone dry.

When Mack assigned their stations, Deke made up a reason to walk around the bar area, wanting to look for that man again.

He was back behind the bar when Deke got back, and Daisy and Coulson were gone. He took a seat at the bar.

"Zima doesn't exist." Mack told him, sliding over a glass of clear liquid.

"What's this?" Deke brought the beverage up to his nose and smelled it.

"Water." Mack answered. "Basically Zima."

Deke rolled his eyes and pushed the glass away. "I'll take a martini."

Mack gave a weird look. "You don't even like beer, how would you like vodka?"

"I told you," Deke shrugged, "boot juice."

It was Mack's turn to roll his eyes. "In the normal world, we call it moonshine."

Deke sighed dramatically and slumped against the bar. Mack wasn't going to make the drink.

A glass with a tall stem and an olive was slid across the bar. Deke looked up and met eyes with the other man behind the counter, who winked and smiled.

Deke switched seats so he was sitting in front of the other bartender. "Thank you, how much is this?" He reached into his pocket.

"On the house." The man shook his head. "Because your friends are working." He added as an afterthought.

"What's your name?" Deke asked, then took a drink of the martini.

"Freddy." The bartender answered. "You?"

"D-"

"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Governor Franklin Roosevelt." The band stopped playing and the crowd applauded.

Deke turned and watched a man walk stiffly up to the microphone and started talking.

"He's really here." Mack was smiling slightly, watching the politician up on the stage.

"The governor?" Freddy started cleaning a glass. "What's the big deal?"

Mack kept talking, and Deke didn't listen until he heard the words "way ahead of his time." He whipped his head around and met Macks eyes.

"Or, will be, someday." Mack covered badly. Freddy gave him a weird look, before turning his attention back to Deke.

"So, Freddy, anyway," Deke changed the subject quickly, "how'd you fall into this shifty line of work?"

Freddy shrugged and leaned against the bar. "Well, after my dad kicked the bucket, I was hustling work in the streets. Mr. Koenig offered me some."

Deke nodded solemnly in understanding. "I lost my dad, too." Images of the Lighthouse in over one hundred years flashed through his mind, and he remembered some of the things he did to survive. "You do what you gotta do."

Freddy understood. Maybe not all of it, but he knew Deke and him were thinking along the same lines.

The party went on, FDR hadn't died yet, and conversation fizzled out. Deke drank the water when his martini was gone, stealing glances at Freddy every now and again.

"Deke." Mack nodded to the other side of the room, where Coulson and Daisy were moving. The two men at the bar left Freddy to follow.

The service hallway was empty, except for the four S.H.E.I.L.D agents. FDR wasn't the target.

"The Chronicoms are after someone else, named Freddy." Jemmas voice crackled over the radio

"Freddy?" Dark hair and sharp features flashed to the front of Dekes mind.

The four took off running down the hallways, then they heard a suppressed gunshot. Daisy quaked the robots away and went to finish them off. They rounded the corner and saw a woman bleeding on the ground and Freddy sitting against the wall.

"What is all this?" Freddy asked breathlessly, staring at the three men.

"We're saving your life." Deke answered and held his hand out. "Let's go."

Freddy looked at him for a second, then took his hand and stood up. Deke might have held on for a second longer than needed, but nobody noticed.

"We'll keep him safe. Meet back at Koenigs." Mack said, then followed Deke and Freddy down the hallway to the back exit. Their stolen truck was back there. Mack got in the drivers seat, Deke in the passengers, and Freddy in the back.

"The cops will be on us any minute," Deke turned in his seat to look out the back window.

"Any idea why they're after you, kid?" Mack glanced in the rear view mirror as he drove.

"No, none." Freddy leaned forward. "I-I'm just supposed to make a delivery tonight."

"Well, if they wanted to stop him, we better make sure they don't." Deke looked to Mack.

"Tell us where you need to go." Mack said to Freddy.

A siren flared to life behind them, the cops were chasing them.

"Faster!" Freddy yelled, looking out the back window. "They're gaining on us!"

"This boat won't go any faster!" Mack yelled back.

"We gotta give 'em the slip." Freddy told the other two.

"Yeah, and we gotta lose them, too." Deke suggested. He felt Freddys eyes on him, and the look on his face told him they had said virtually the same thing.

Mack turned off the engine and drifted into an abandoned alley. the three ducked down under the line of sight from the windows. The police car sped off down the street, and the three men sat up in their seats.

Freddy laughed. "So long, Coppers."

"Where do we go now?" Mack asked.

Freddy smiled and clapped them both on the shoulder. "Gotta deliver the goods." Then he opened the door and jumped out of the car.

Mack and Deke made eye contact, then followed. Freddy opened the bed of the truck, revealing their other clothes. "Might wanna get out of those fancy duds, you kinda stick out."

As Mack grabbed his other shirt and jacket, Deke snatched up the radio. "This is Deke." He said into it. "Hello? Is anyone there?" Nobody answered.

"What's that?" Freddy nodded to the device Deke was holding.

"It's like a, uh, telephone." Mack tried to explain. "Deke's an inventor."

"Hello? Is anyone out there? Daisy?" Deke wasn't paying attention to the others. "Jemma? Coulson?" A beat, and still no answer. "These things suck." Deke tossed the walkie down into the truck. "They have, like, zero range."

"It's gotta be plugged into something." Freddy said, like it was the most obvious thing.

"No, I know how they're supposed to work" Deke picked up his clothes. "I can fix it."

"This is the delivery?" Mack picked up a bottle. "More booze? They'd kill you over this?"

"This is the highest grade giggle juice ever made." Freddy took the bottle. "A lot of people would kill to get their paws on the formula."

Mack sighed. "If we're going to protect you, you need to be honest with us."

Then Freddy said something Deke couldn't understand even if he tried, and then they started driving again, to a train yard.

They carried the four cases of alcohol out of the car and set them on the ground.

"Who's the buyer for all this?" Mack asked as Deke looked up at the night sky and fixed his tie.

"Some guy, I dunno." Freddy shrugged.

"What's he look like?" Mack tried.

"No idea." Freddy slipped his hands into his pockets.

"When does he get here?" Deke asked.

Freddy smiled, like he just said something funny. "He doesn't. The meet-up is 500 miles away."

Deke and Mack shared a look. "That's a lot of miles, we don't have time for that."

"Why'd you have us unload this, then?" Mack sounded close to angry.

"So you can take the car and go." Freddy told them. "This is where we go our separate ways, fellas." A train whistle blew in the distance, getting closer. "That's my ride. I appreciate you saving my life," he looked right at Deke as he said that, "I owe you one."

"We're not leaving you." Deke said before he knew what he was doing. Luckily, Mack nodded.

"I don't need no body guard." Freddy shook his head, the train rumbling closer.

"The cops that are after you, they're not the type to give up." Deke said seriously. "They're gonna keep coming until they finish you off."

Freddy stared into Dekes eyes for a long, silent moment. Then he nodded wordlessly, and the three men got on the train.

Freddy was fiddling with the small radio, Mack was sitting on the floor of the box car, and Deke was looking out at the passing scenery.

"You really invented these?" Freddy asked. Deke looked back, met Macks eyes, who nodded, then back to Freddy.

"Yeah, I did." Deke took off his hat and sat next to Freddy. "It's just a prototype."

"And you can talk to someone on it?" Freddy was smiling in disbelief. "It doesn't have to be plugged in?" He met Dekes eyes. "You must be real smart."

Mack sighed, got up, and walked to the other side of the car. "I'm going to get some rest." The look he gave Deke conveyed: don't do anything stupid.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Freddy spoke.

"Deke." He said the name like it was a foreign word. "That's a funny name. Where're you from?"

"Upstate," Deke said, the answer he gave anyone who asked that same question, "near lake Ontario."

Freddy smiled. "Is that why you don't understand any slang from the city? You've never been?"

"I think the slang is horrible and I'm not even going to try to understand, but I like the accent." Deke laughed.

Freddy nodded. There was another stretch of awkward silence.

"So, uh," Freddy scratched his head, "at the party, you walked in with a real pretty lady."

Deke furrowed his brow in confusion, then realized who he was talking about. "Oh, that's just Daisy. She's a friend."

Freddy laughed quietly. "Just a friend? You mean she's not your girl?"

Deke shook his head with a smile. "No, Daisy isn't anyones girl."

"That's too bad," Freddys smile sent something through Deke, "I would've thought a handsome guy like you would have girls lined up."

Deke flushed and looked away. "You're really smooth, you know that?"

"I should hope so." Freddy leaned forward and offered the Walkie-Talkie. When Deke took it, their hands brushed. Freddy leaned farther forward and placed his hand on Dekes arm.

The next thing Deke knew, a pair of lips were on his. Something that surprised him very much. The kiss short, but it was hot.

Seconds after it started, it stopped. Freddy pulled back, looking slightly sheepish, leaving Deke red and breathless. "Sorry, I shouldn't have-"

Deke grabbed Freddy by his tie and pulled him in again, capturing his lips in his own. They almost fell back, but Freddy braced his hand on the wall of the car, bringing his other hand up to Dekes hair, still stiff from the gel. Deke hummed and opened his mouth into the kiss, screwing his eyes shut.

Freddy got off his chair and climbed into Dekes lap, straddling his hips, never breaking the kiss in the process. He leaned a little too far forward, and Dekes chain fell back. The two fell to the floor in a crash, and they laughed breathlessly as they lay on the uncomfortable wood. Deke was about to lean up for another kiss, when--

"Hey, are you--?" Mack stood up in a hurry, and stopped dead when he saw the two men on the floor. "Deke!" Freddy pushed himself up and away from Deke.

"Whaaaat?" Deke dragged out the word with a sigh and let his head fall to the floor.

"Hey, if you got a problem with--" Freddy stood up and tried to look threatening, but Mack waved him off.

"I don't care, just don't do that while I'm in the room!" Mack ran a hand down his face.

"Do you want us to jump cars?" Deke sat up shook his head, showing off his messily ruffled hair.

Mack looked away from the two. "Either that or stop."

"It's a box car, there aren't doors on the end you can just jump between." Freddy piped up, fixing his tie.

Mack shook his head and gestured vaguely to the opposite end of the car, walking back to where he dropped his coat and hat.

Deke pushed himself off the floor and offered his hand to Freddy, pulling him behind a stack of boxes that were there before they got on. They both sat on the floor, Freddy with his back to the boxes and Mack, and Deke against the wall.

"So," Freddy started awkwardly, "your friend doesn't mind all . . ." he gestured between the two.

Deke shook his head nonchalantly. "No, he's fine." He smiled jokingly. "He just thinks I'm annoying." The rumble of the train and the slight shaking of the cargo drowned out whatever noise Mack was making, so their hushed voices wouldn't reach him. At Freddys unconvinced expression, Deke gave a more serious answer. "Where we grew up, it was different. It was like a different time," he smiled softly at his own joke, "it wasn't exactly New York City."

"Greatest city in the world." Freddy smiled sadly. "My old man took a walk off a tall building after the market crashed. I'm kinda glad he never found out about this."

"I'm sorry." Deke reached out and placed his hand on Freddys knee, trying to be comforting. "My dad, he . . . he left when I was twelve. Died a few years ago."

Freddy placed his hand on top of Dekes and smiled sadly. Something crossed his face, and he shifted himself forward. "When I make this delivery, come with me."

Deke tilted his head slightly. "What?"

"It's not just whiskey." Freddy whispered excitedly. "There's something else, and when I give it to the buyer, I'm going to get back everything my family lost and more. Come with." He kissed Deke quickly. "We can--"

"Mackenzie . . ." The radio crackled to life. ". . . can you . . . information . . ."

Deke and Freddy quickly stood up and ran around the pile of boxes. Freddy stopped short, staring at his open crates of liquor.

". . . Wilfred . . ." Enochs voice fizzled out as Mack picked up the walkie.

"Enoch, I copy, do you hear me?" Mack waited for a response, but none came. Freddy slowly stepped around Deke and toward his shipment. "Enoch, do you copy? Over."

"What the hell was he doing?" Freddy pointed to the alcohol crates and spoke to Deke. He started rifling through them, making sure everything was there while Mack spoke into the radio. "Wanna tell me why you're snooping through my goods?"

Mack lowered the radio with a sigh, stepping closer to Freddy. "I need to know who and what we're dealing with. You may not think there's more to this, but I do."

Freddy turned back to Deke. "So, was that just to distract me?" His face went from suspicious to angry. "Keep me busy while your friend looks through my cargo?" The last few words grew to a yell and Deke shook his head.

"Just let me inspect the bottles." Mack said calmly.

"And get me killed?" Freddy whipped back around. "I deliver open bottles. What's that say about me? That I'm a snoop?"

"You're not curious?" Mack asked.

"Curious'll get you kill faster than trust." Freddy looked back at Deke as he said that.

"Let's just get him there and be done with it." Deke said to Mack. "It's ripples, not waves, right?"

Mack ignored Deke, instead stepping closer to Freddy. "Step aside."

The two stood in a silent challenge for a moment, then Freddy stepped aside.

"Deke, give me a hand." Mack said and picked up a bottle. Deke hesitated, looking back at Freddy, before slowly following the order.

A gun clicked. "Like I said," Freddys voice was quiet, "I can't let you do that."

"Put the gun down." Mack said evenly.

"You need to listen to Deke, here." Freddy gestured to the man in question with the gun. "Just let me do my job, and we can all go home."

There was a long, excruciating moment of silence. Finally, Freddy stepped back and pointed to two boxes. "Both of you, sit down." His voice was shaking, barely noticeable, but it was there.

Slowly, the three men all sat down. Freddy refused to look at Deke. They sat. Time passes. The sun rose over the horizon. All in silence. All with Freddy pointing that gun.

"Why don't you come clean." Freddy said suddenly, the train still rumbling along the tracks. "You ain't bootleggers, and you definitely ain't from around here."

"Okay, you're right." Deke sat up straighter. "We were sent a very, very, very long way to make sure that you don't die."

"Why?" Freddy asked, leaning forward slightly. "'Cause I'm this 'thread'? What does that even mean?"

"It's complicated," Mack looked up from his hands, "but Deke's right. Our job is to protect you. How do you know your buyer?"

"I know her, the lady who sent me to do this." Freddy gripped the revolver tighter. "She knew my father. And she's giving me a chance to be something he never could." He looked at Deke, then, a question in his eyes. A question of, would you still go with me?

Before Deke could do anything to answer, the whistle ripped through the air and the train car shook. Mack leapt forward, tackling Freddy. The gun fell from his hand, and Deke picked it up.

They brought the crates of alcohol out to the pier. As Mack started looking for whatever was hidden inside, someone spoke from the other end of the radio.

"Mack? Deke?" It was Daisy. "Are you there?"

"Hey, it's Deke." He picked it up and answered.

"Finally. We're on our way to you. You guys have to be ready to leave as soon as we arrive. We have no time. Where's Mack?"

"He's with Freddy." Deke walked a little farther away from the pair, but kept his eyes on them. Freddy spared a glance every now and then.

"Freddy is not what he seems. He is very dangerous."

"Freddy?" Deke turned around and watched the water, squinting against the sun. "Nah, he's alright. He's just in a tight spot. We kind of have a lot in common, actually." Thoughts of the previous night made themselves known in his head.

"No, you don't. Trust me." Daisy cut him off quickly. "Do not let him out of your sight."

"Okay, don't worry." Deke said nervously, looking back at the man in question, who was staring back at him. "I-I got him in my sight and my finger on the trigger."

A beat of silence. "You have a gun?"

"Yeah, it's Freddys."

Another beat. "Take the shot."

Dekes eyes widened and he stared down at the radio. "Pardon?"

"That's Wilfred Malick, future head of Hydra." Daisy said. "If you kill him now, you'll save thousands of lives in the future."

Dekes stomach dropped. He stared down at the gun, not listening to Daisy anymore. He set the radio down and approached the others.

"Mack." Deke said seriously. "They're on their way, and we have to leave as soon as possible."

Mack nodded and popped the cork of one of the bottles, and started pouring. "We'll be ready."

"One more thing." Deke looked at Freddy, then back at Mack. "Daisy says this is Wilfred Malick."

Freddy looked between them. Dekes hesitation and Macks shock. "My name, so what?"

"She told me to kill him." Deke couldn't look at Freddy, not even when he heard the sputtering questions.

Mack thought for multiple seconds, paying no mind to the vial of green liquid that falls out of the bottle in his hand. "She did?"

Deke nodded, glancing at Freddy. He was staring in horror back.

"Watch him." Mack said and walked over to where the radio was set down.

Mack started talking into the radio, and Freddy started talking to Deke.

"My guy's here in a few minutes," Freddy sounded desperate, "we can still go, get everything we want in life."

"Freddy," Deke closed his eyes, "I can't leave my team."

"They want to kill me." Freddy stepped forward and gripped the other man's arm.

"They're my family." Deke hissed. "Would you leave your family on a whim?"

Freddy gripped Dekes hand tightly. "Please, Deke."

He sighed. Then his head jerked up when he heard something. A car. A car with multiple police officers in it.

"Get down!" Deke yelled and fired Freddys gun at the Chronicoms before ducking behind the wooden boxes.

By the end of the fight, Freddy was on his way to creating Hydra, Enoch was gone, and the rest of the team was in 1955.

- - -

"Deke, I gave you an order." Daisy said over without looking up from the file she was reading. "Why didn't you follow it?"

"It was murder." He responded plainly, tossing aside his own file and picking a new one up. "You ordered me to murder a guy who hadn't done anything wrong yet."

"It was a tough call, but--"

"I couldn't do it." Deke cut her off. His cheeks seemed to go slightly pink.

Daisy scoffed. "Why not? You never used to shy away from this kind of stuff."

"Daisy, he kissed me." Deke looked at her and tossed the file down. She froze and looked up. He was definitely flustered, and he looked away as soon as she met his eyes.

"You're serious?" Daisy lowered her voice to a whisper. When his face just got more red, she laughed in disbelief. "Oh, God, you're serious. You made out with the father of the guy who sent your grandparents to a different planet."

"Don't mock me, I'm having a personal crisis!" Deke hissed and glanced at the door to the lab.

"Does Mack know?" Daisy leaned forward. If possible, his face got even more flushed. "I'm so sorry." They went back to reading the files in silence. Suddenly, Daisy spoke again; "So . . . if it was still 2019 and you met Freddy Malick, would you go out with him?"

"Daisy!" Deke pinched the bridge of his nose.

"What?" She glanced up from her file. He was glaring at her. "That's not a no."

Deke groaned and tossed his file aside. "This crisis kind of ongoing, so id you can stop making fun of me--"

"Wait, shut up." Daisy picked up his discarded file and stared at the name. "We can talk more about this later."

"What is it?" Deke leaned over to see what he missed.

"Daniel Sousa."

This man turned out to be important, and they needed to help him. So, Yo-Yo and Deke went out to retrieve a device for Coulson and Sousa.

After the only words exchanged through the otherwise silent car ride were the directions read from a map, Yo-Yo tried to start a conversation. "You're quiet." She pointed out.

Deke tried to play it off as not being an experienced driver, but she could tell he was lying.

"In the 30s, you drove fine." She leveled him with a look. "Is it what Daisy asked you to do?"

Deke sighed an closed his eyes for a second. "A little."

Elena waited. And waited. "And?"

"Promise not to laugh." Deke glanced out the window at the houses. "Daisy laughed and now I just feel worse."

"I promise." Elena glanced at the street map again.

Deke blew a long sigh out of his mouth. "In the 30s, Freddy Malick kissed me." He was met with stunned silence.

"Is that why you didn't shoot him?" Elena asked after a minute. Deke shook his head.

"Not the whole reason." He glanced out the windows again. "He was scared, asked me to go with him to start Hydra. I couldn't shoot him."

Elena sighed and studied the map again. "Is that why Mack is acting weird around you? He caught you two?" Deke nodded wordlessly. "Wow. If you need to . . . talk about it, or something, you can talk to me."

"Thanks." Deke smiled slightly. "How close are we?"

"We . . ." she dragged the word out. "We just passed it."

They split up as soon as they entered the house, searching for whatever briefcase they were supposed to get. Elena drew her gun and walked up the staircase, while Deke explored the ground level.

Deke was walking through one of the bathrooms when he heard a floorboard creak on the other side of the wall. A man stepped into view, and Deke started backing away, searching his pockets for a weapon that wasn't there without taking his eyes off the person in front of him. He should have been more worried about the man behind him.

There was a sharp pain on the back of his head, and Dekes world went sideways and dark.

He woke up to someone slapping him, and he gasped and sat up. He had been lying across the back seat of a car.

"Rise and shine, big brain." One of his assailants said. Deke was seeing starts, and not just because it was night.

He was dragged out of the car and into a large house, to a fancy looking study with a man sitting behind a desk. As soon as the door closed, Deke jerked his arm out of the grip of the men who kidnapped him.

"Here's your scientist, boss." One of them said. The man behind the desk was shrouded in darkness, so Deke couldn't make out his face.

He stood up and slowly made his way around the desk. He stared at Deke for several seconds. "Leave us," he said to the two men behind the guest, "I want to speak to him alone."

This man knew who Deke was, but Deke did not know him. The two men left the room, and now Deke was alone with this stranger.

The man reached out his hand to touch Dekes face. Deke took a step back. He wouldn't flinch, no matter how creepy this got. The man seemed slightly hurt.

"Deke." He knew his name. How did this man know his name? "Take a seat."

"I'll stand, if that's alright with you." Deke tried to sound confident, smoothing out his jacket.

"You look exactly the same." The man chuckled. When Deke didn't laugh along, he frowned. "Do you remember me?"

"Can't say I do, no." But Deke was getting a feeling in his gut that he knew the man in front of him.

"That's fine, it's been a long time." The man unbuttoned his blazer. "The name is Wilfred."

"Freddy . . ." It clicked immediately. This was Hydra.

Freddy smiled. He reached out, grabbed Dekes tie, and pulled him in. Deke did not expect to meet Malick again, and he certainly didn't expect resuming whatever they started in that train car.

The kiss was just as it had been twenty years ago (two days for Deke), hot and short. Deke had no idea what to do. He had to get back to the Zypher, back to the team. But Freddy had him by the back of his neck and was biting his bottom lip.

Freddy moved his hand up until his fingers were tangled in Dekes hair and worked to loosen his tie with the other hand. Malick had a beard now, and way more confidence. Deke tried to pull away, but Freddy just gripped his hair tighter and kissed harder.

Deke gasped from the pain on his scalp, and Freddy took that as an invitation to use tongue.

Dekes tie had been fully undone and tossed aside, and the top buttons on his shirt were next. The encounter had become sufficiently uncomfortable, seeing as he was now more than twenty years younger than the other man. Deke needed to get out before this went any further.

Deke brought his hands up to Malicks chest and pushed. "Freddy," he tried to say, "Freddy, stop." Freddy did not stop, but he slowed down. Deke could finally pull his head fully away. "I can't be here."

Malick sighed and bowed his head, catching both Dekes wrists when he tried to pull his hand away. If he felt Deke flinch, he didn't care, because he didn't let go. "So, you're a S.H.I.E.L.D scientist now?"

"Something like that." Deke said stiffly, trying to free his right hand.

"I'm guessing Agent Sousa told you about his suspicions?" Malick squeezed the other mans wrists tighter.

Deke had never met Daniel Sousa, but he had to play along to get out of this alive. "I guess this is it." He blinked and looked around the room. "Hydra?"

Malick hummed and brought Dekes right hand up to his mouth, kissing it softly. "I can make a spot for you. It's not to late." When he got no answer, he continued. "You saved my life twenty-four years ago. I want to repay you."

"Not like this, Freddy." Deke whispered. "How did your life get here?"

Malick finally let of him. "You do what you gotta do."

Deke remembered those words vividly, it felt like he said those words years ago, and not just days. "I can't be a part of this." He said. "My team--"

Malick scoffed and started rummaging around his desk. "The same team that ordered you to kill me?"

"That was just one persons order." Deke knew what he was about to say was completely stupid, but he said it anyway. "Maybe . . . maybe she knew what you would go on to do."

A gun clicked. The revolver looked so much like the one Malick pointed at Mack and Deke on that train. Deke threw his hands out in front of him, he didn't know what for, though. The gesture was useless.

"You're a smart guy. Start making smart decisions." Malicks voice didn't shake, and neither did his hand, not anymore. "I offered you multiple chances to join me. And you turned down every single one."

"Freddy, please," Deke kept his voice as steady as possible, "put that down." Malick pulled back the hammer. "What happened to wanting to repay me?"

Malick thought on that. Slowly, he lowered the gun. "Fine. Get out." Deke let a relieved smile cross his face, before turning to the door to the study and fumbling with the handle. "One thing before you go." Deke froze. "If I ever see you again, I won't be so generous."

Deke nodded slowly and opened the door.

- - -

Back on the Zypher, Deke was sitting in the lab by himself, rubbing his head where he had been hit. He groaned softly when he touched the wrong spot and his head throbbed with pain again.

Soft footsteps made their way into the dimmed lab. "Do you think you have a concussion?"

Deke squinted up at Yo-Yo and shrugged. "Maybe. He hit me pretty hard."

Elena walked over so she was sitting next to him. She placed a hat on his knee. "You left this behind."

Deke smiled slightly and picked it up. "Thanks."

They sat in silence for a minute, then, "You okay?"

Deke nodded and winced again. "Yeah, I think so."

"So, Malick again?" Elena crossed her arms and leaned against the wall.

"Yeah." Deke sighed. "I don't really want to talk about it."

"Your tie is crooked and your hair is messy." She pointed out. "What happened in there?"

"I said I don't want to talk about it." Deke tried to smooth out his hair but flinched. From the pain of the wound or the memory of Malick, he didn't know.

"Deke, did you and him--?"

"I didn't want to!" Deke said suddenly, refusing to look at her. "But he . . . he wouldn't stop."

Elena stared in shock. "He forced himself on you?"

It took a moment, but Deke nodded. "It didn't go that far, but," he sighed, "it was really uncomfortable."

Elena hesitantly brought her hand up and placed it on his. "I'm sorry." She said quietly. "That's messed up."

"At least he let me go." Deke rubbed his eyes. "He said he wouldn't be so generous next time he sees me."

"That's still not okay." Elena frowned. "You're lucky he didn't kill you."

Deke held his right wrist in his left hand, as if protecting himself. "It felt so . . . wrong." He whispered. "He wouldn't let go of me, and he grabbed right where my metric was."

Elena looked down at where hers would have been, but there was no scar. Those arms were long gone. Instead, she wrapped her new arms around Deke, her friend. They hadn't been close before, but she was willing to change that.

"You'll be okay." She told him. "What's that thing Jemma always says?"

Deke huffed out a laugh and returned the hug the best he could in their awkward position. "The steps you take don't have to be big, they just have to take you in the right direction."

#high class writing #deke shaw #elena rodriguez #daisy johnson #alphonso mack mackenzie #freke #agents of shield #asks

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ubernoxa · 4 years

Text

The Slippery Slope: An Izzy Stradlin FANFICTION

Chapter 3: An Apetite for Destruction

Story Summary: After leaving Guns N’ Roses, Izzy find himself in a rut, and decideds to visit the local zoo. While visiting the penguin exhibit, he meets a red head named Poppy. Will they manage to keep standing while on their slippery slope?

Chapter Summary: Poppy calls an old friend for advice, and Izzy runs into Poppy at a record store and hope to corrects things.

Tags: @slashscowboyboots @smokeandmirrorz

Masterlist coming soon, but Chapter 1 Chapter 2

“Ohh god I made such a fool of myself, he is never going to talk to me again. Why am I so awkward?” Poppy whined into the phone as her old college roommate, Lissa, sympathetically listened. This wasn’t the first time Poppy had been freaking out about a guy, and she knew that it wasn’t going to be the last.

“Calm down Poppy, you are probably overanalyzing it,” Lissa was trying to calm Poppy down, but it wasn’t working.. She wished that Poppy had called her right after the date instead of the morning after. It was clear to Lisa that Poppy had spent most of the night overanalyzing and imagining future scenarios that wouldn’t happen.

Poppy sighed as she plopped down on her bed, still holding the phone to her ear. She wanted to kick herself. She wished she became an engineer instead of a biologist, so she could invent a time machine and travel back in time.

“Do you want to tell me what happened? It might help,” Lissa’s voice cut through the silence.

“So it is all the stupid busboy’s fault!” Poppy shouted into her phone. Lissa playfully rolled her eyes at the very limited story she told.

“I am going to need more details hun.”

“So everything is going great. He is super sweet and really funny. He started off super quiet, and barely spoke at the beginning of dinner. Once the food came he became kinda chatty,” Poppy began telling the story while Lissa nodded her head as she listened over the phone.

“What did you wear?” Lissa interrupted earning some confusion from Poppy.

“I don’t see how that is relevant.”

“Hey, it helps paint a picture of you on your date at some fancy italian restaurant in the middle of nowhere Indiana,” Lissa rebuttled earning a groan from Poppy.

After a couple moments of silence, Poppy broke the silence, “I wore the short gold dress.”

“Thanks, now you can continue the story,” Lissa sarcastically replied earning a light chuckle from Poppy who wished her old roommate was here in Indiana, and not in the middle of nowhere Maine.

“As I was saying, everything was going great. The food was spectacular, and we were clicking. Every once and a while silence would fill the space between us, but it was a comfortable silence. It was when we were looking at the menu or eating. We even shared our dinners. Like Lissa...this is going to sound really cheesy, but he even fed me his food. You know, like in those romance movies we watch all the time?”

“Aww that is really sweet of him. If he has a twin I call dibs,” Lissa half joked.

“Anyway, we both finished our dinners and this busboy….ohh god the fucking bus boy,” Lissa froze as Poppy swore. She had known Poppy for 5 years, and she had only heard the girl swear a handful of times.

“What did the busboy do? Did he make fun of you or something like that?”

“No. So the busboy goes and asks ‘Did you enjoy your dinner Mr Stradlin?’ Then I mumble something like Stradlin is a silly last name which it is! It didn’t sound like a real name to be honest. Sounds kinda like a sex joke. Anyway the busboy turns to me and says ‘Well I guess that is one of the perks of being a rockstar…you get to choose whatever name you want. Plus it’s not the weirdest name, he has a bandmate named Duff and another named Axl’. I fucking froze when the busboy said that. The reason Izzy didn’t want to talk about his job was because he was a part of Guns N’ Roses. That is why he never mentioned his last name to me,” Lissa didn’t need to be in the same room as Poppy to know that she was most likely dramatically flapping her arm in the air like the penguins she took care of.

“Wait wait wait...you went on a date with Izzy Stradlin,” Lissa was attempting to connect the dots and understand Poppy met a rockstar.

“I guess..” Poppy mumbled back.

“What do you mean I guess. You didn’t recognize him from all of the magazines that have been littering the checkout counter at practically every grocery store ever since he left Guns N’ Roses? It was also all over the radio!” Poppy groaned at Lisa’s comment. She should have known. Izzy wasn’t a name like Mike or Mark where there are thousands of people walking around with that name. There were probably a handful of people named Izzy, if any at all. An Izzy in Indiana who is a quiet musician and has brown hair could only have been Izzy the rockstar.

“God I’m an awkward idiot…” Poppy once again mumbled. She wanted to slap herself silly.

“What else happened,” Lissa asked after a couple moments of silence.

“Well anyway, once the busboy pointed out that Izzy was a rockstar, things got awkward. The busboy left, and when the check came he didn’t even look over it. He just handed our waitress his credit card and told her to process it as soon as possible. It was clear that he wanted out,” Poopy’s heart sunk as she recalled the moment.

“How were you the awkward one?” Lissa asked, trying to follow Poppy’s questionable logic.

“I haven’t gotten to that part yet. So we start to leave the restaurant and I missed that he offered to take my hand. Then when we were outside the restaurant waiting for the valet to grab our cars, he offered for us to go and walk to a nearby gelato place that I mentioned during appetizers. The problem was that I already saw the valet driving towards us in my car, and it felt like he was doing it out of pity…so I said no. The whole drive home I was kicking myself!”

“Doesn’t sound too bad hun. Also, he might have just been trying to get out of the restaurant before everyone else recognized him. From what I’ve heard from interviews and stuff, he never was the one who wanted to be the center of attention. Poppy...getting gelato might have been because he didn’t want the date to end…” Lissa was trying to lift Poppy’s spirits by giving an alternate scenario, one that Lissa believed to be the real reason.

“You’re just stressing yourself over nothing,” Lissa added trying the break the silence once again.

“What do I do, Lissa.”

“Go to a music shop. Find his albums and buy them so you could listen to them. Worst case you case you could show up and get some music for your penguins to listen to…”

“I’m going to stand out like a sore thumb….”

“Poppy...you will not stand out in a music shop”

After 20 minutes of Lissa convincing Poppy to get dress and head to the music shop, Poppy found herself standing outside the music store. The closest one was in Lafayette which was a quick drive from her apartment. She took a deep breath before she walked in.

Poppy almost jumped when the bell on the door rang.

“Welcome to Halls Music Shop,” On the outside Poppy smiled and waved at the man who was working the register, internally she wanted to bolt out of the shop because she felt several eyes on her.

The first floor was filled with records and cassette tapes. Poppy wandered towards the section labeled rock as she was determined to find the record and quickly leave as soon as possible. She sighed as she quickly realized how large the rock section was, this wasn’t going to be as easy as she expected. She was under the assumption that there were two maybe three type of rock music; classic, punk, and heavy. There were 15, 15 type of rock.

“Hey, I’m Ryan! Are you looking for anything in particular?” A tall brunette pulled her out of her thoughts of trying to figure out which one of the types of rock Izzy’s band was.

“Yeah….umm...it’s called Guns N’ Roses,” Poppy sent Ryan a soft smile who sent it right back to her.

“Good choice! I saw them live a year ago, and it was insane. If you ever get the chance I would highly recommend seeing them live. It’s almost impossible to believe how insanely awesome their shows are,” Ryan said to Poppy remembering most of the night from the show. His ticket was worth every penny, and he was hoping they would add more tour dates soon.

“Cool, I had a friend recommend them to me. She said I’d like them,” Poppy replied trying to keep the conversation going. It wasn’t a complete lie, but it was a rehearsed one.

“You haven’t been listening to them? They’re the only thing everyone is talking about!”

Across the small store, Izzy stood on the second floor looking through their guitars for sale. Did he need one? No.

Was he looking to distract himself from his date last night? Yes.

Everything was going perfect in his book. He was playing all the moves that his old band mates had taught him. From being overly sweet like Duff to making her endlessly laugh like Steven. Then the damn busboy had to blow his cover. Granted he really didn’t have a cover, but he still hated the busboy. Once the busboy opened his stupid mouth. He knew the entire time all that was going through Poppy’s head was that Izzy was a rockstar with a rockstar lifestyle.

He shook his head before deciding to just pick up his new strings, and headed down the stairs to the checkout. He found this place within the first week of movie back, and was forever great fun for it.

As he headed down the stairs, he immediately saw the redhead. Unsure of what had taken over him, Izzy headed towards the rock section where he saw Poppy looking through cassettes.

“Hey Pops,” A smile grew on Poppy’s face as Izzy stood next to her pretending to look through some of the cassettes.

“Hey,” Poppy felt her heart rate immediately skyrocket when he got even closer to her.

‘Don’t be awkward. Just keep breathing. Maybe Lissa was right about overanalyzing this entire situation’ poppy mental told herself.

“Looking for anything in particular?” Izzy was slowly piecing the pieces to the puzzle that was Poppy’s brain.

“Well I’m obviously looking for the perfect album,” Poppy teased back as she continued to purposely search away from the Guns N’ Roses section. After a couple of seconds of perusing through, Poppy smiled when she found the perfect cassette to tease Izzy with.

“Ahh, here we go,” Poppy grabbed a Motley Crue cassette and proudly showed it to Izzy, earning a playful eye roll from the guitarist. Poppy didn’t know a lot about rock bands, but she knew about the tension between Axl Rose and Vince Neil. There was a solid month where that’s all the magazines that littered the grocery store checkout aisle talked about.

“Girls, Girls, Grils?” A smirk was present on Izzy lips when he spoke.

“Yeah! First off I’m a girl, so obviously this album is for me. Secondly, there is nothing hotter than guys on bikes. Lastly, these songs just speak to me,” Poppy said, attempting to hide her laughter.

“These songs speak to you? Ohh do tell!” Izzy asked, a smirk never leaving his lips.

“Well, the first song Wild Side...clearly as you can tell by just looking at me I have such a rambunctious side! Plus I have worked with wild animals.”

“Ohh I can see it now, you and your penguin sidekicks probably get in all sorts of trouble,” Poppy laughed at Izzy’s comment before continuing on with her explanation.

“Girls, Girls, Girls….self explanatory. The song is clearly written for me...a female,” this earned a chuckle from Izzy who knew that Poppy had clearly never listened to the song before.

Poppy felt the nerves vanish as Izzy laughed. She felt her cheeks and ears redden. She felt smaller against the tall guitarist.

“What about Dancing on Glass?” Izzy asked, breaking the silence between them.

“Well as an ex-ballerina I don’t not see the appeal to dancing on glass…”

“It is about Nikki’s, the guy who wrote the song, Heroin overdose, the shit he and his band went through to get to that point in time, and how he wouldn't go through that routine again. Like he said,"it's just like dancing on glass” Poppy nodded as Izzy briefly talked about the song.

“Did you write any songs?” A soft smile formed on Izzy’s lips as he headed over towards where the Guns N’ Roses cassettes were. Poppy put the Motley Crue cassette that she had no intention of buying back and followed him.

“One of the most popular songs I worked on with Guns was Sweet Child of mine. It was definitely one of those all hands on deck situations, but I provided most of the chords. The intro bit is 100% Slash’s warm up. Out Ta Get Me was another one I wrote. It’s a fun song to play,” Poppy quickly interrupted Izzy by teasily correcting him, “Out to get me….out ta get me isn’t proper English.”

“Well I’ll have you know I’m the only one in Guns to have a high school degree, so grammatical correctness wasn’t are highest concern,” Poppy simply giggles at his remark before he continued talking.

“Mr. Brownstone was another good one Slash and I wrote. It’s about what a day in the life of being a struggling LA band on the strip.” Poppy watched as sorrow grew on his face.

“What about Patience, that one doesn’t sound at all like a rock n roll song,” Poppy tried to distract him by bringing up another song on the cassette that she was holding. It was called G N’ R Lies, a rather odd name for a album, but she assumed they had some sound reasoning for it.

“It’s not really,” Poppy nodded her head at his comment. He then went completely silent looking at the cassettes, memories of both good times and bad flooding his head.

“Well, maybe you should play it for me sometime.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Poppy felt a soft smile across her lips as he replied.

“You have too many albums Izzy..you make it hard to choose just one,” Poppy teased, still trying to lighten his mood.

When that didn’t work, she snatched the cassette he was holding, “Hmm Appetite for Destruction sounds like the one for me.”

“Ohh so are you telling me you crave destruction?” Izzy finally spoke again, a smirk lingering on his features.

“I’m a biologist who studies dangerous animals for a living, I don’t just crave destruction. I control it,” The words were coming out faster than she could think. What she was saying felt silly, but when she looked back to Izzy who now had his arm wrapped around her wrist she didn’t regret the words one bit.

“I would trust penguins under the dangerous animals category,” Izzy smugly replied.

“What about polar bears or mountain lions?”

“Okay, those...those are dangerous,” he didn’t look at her when he responded, but a smile lingered on his face.

“Is that all for you then today?” Ryan asked as Izzy placed the guitar strings he needed to buy on the counter.

“And a cassette of Appetite,” Izzy offered his hand and Poppy placed the cassette in his hand.

“Buying your own albums now?” Ryan asked, raising an eyebrow towards the guitarist.

Izzy shrugged before handing the cashier his credit card. Once the transaction was done, Poppy immediately reached down to grab his hand, slowly stroking it with her thumb.

“Do you have any plans for the afternoon?”

Poppy shook her head no before following Izzy to his car. She was expecting some luxury sports car, but instead he drove a burnt red truck. She couldn’t explain why, but it fit him perfectly.

He put the cassette in, and drove back to his place with Poppy along for the ride. She by no means was a singer, but she was quick to pick up on the refrains.

“You know that the song ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ isn’t very welcoming. I do not feel welcome in whatever jungle y’all were in when you performed that, and I have been to many jungles...if I may add,” Poppy said once Welcome to the Jungle finished. This earned a small smile from Izzy who was surprised that listening to his old album wasn’t making him incredibly pissed off, he figured it was because of Poppy who was dancing and poorly singing next to him.

About half way through ‘It’s so Easy’ Poppy just started cracking up.

“What?”

“It’s nothing,” Poppy tried to hide her giggle as she spoke.

“Sounds like something,” Now Izzy was curious to see the red head’s opinion on the song.

“It’s so easy, when everyone is trying to please me!” Poppy jokingly sang, mocking the song. Was his band seriously that cocky?

“Mock all you want, but that song is inspired by the life we lived,” Poppy dialed back on the mocking and continued to jokingly dance in her seat, clearly earning stares from nearby cars.

By the time Nightrain came on Poppy was pretending to play guitar and drums. Izzy couldn’t help, but smile at the reaction she had to his music.

“Your place is beautiful,” Poppy said as they pulled up to what she assumed to be Izzy’s place. It wasn’t an extravagant LA mansion, but it was home. It was also was a huge fuck you to Axl, since they both talked about living in the house growing up.

“Thanks,” Izzy replied as he unlocked the door. He couldn’t have unlocked the door faster.

Once Poppy made it inside she practically felt herself slammed up against the now closed front door. She looked up to see Izzy, who wore a look that made her want to melt. Holy fuck he looked hot towering over her.

“So, is this how you welcome most guests?” Poppy asked, unable to look away from his eyes.

Even though it was no later than 3pm, the foyer in his house was dark. His face was partially hidden in the shadows, but she could still see the outline of his face and his deep hazel eyes that she swore changed color in the afternoon sun.

She expected him to taste like a mix of alcohol and cigarettes, but she was quickly proven wrong. He tasted like caramel. The type of warm Carmel that you would find in pie. It was calming, as she felt his fingers dance down her sides.

As if on reflex, Poppy intertwined her fingers in his hair. Her mind went blank, unable to focus on any single thing as she felt Izzy’s tongue in her mouth. Izzy began to slowly guide Poppy towards his couch with intentions that could only be described as those belonging to a rockstar.

#gnr fanfiction #gnr imagine #gnr fanfic #guns and roses imagine #guns and roses fanfic #guns and roses fanfiction #guns n roses fanfiction #guns n roses imagine #guns n roses fanfic #guns n’ roses fanfic #guns n’ roses imagine #guns n’ roses fanfiction #izzy stradlin fanfic #izzy stadlin fanfiction #izzy stradlin imagine

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randomvarious · 4 years

Video

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Derrick May - “Strings of Life” CMJ New Music Monthly, Volume 54: February 1998 Song released in 1987. Compilation released in 1998. Techno / House

From LA Weekly, which ranked Derrick May’s “Strings of Life” as the greatest dance track ever recorded:

What "God Save the Queen" was to punk, or "The Message" was to hip-hop, Derrick May's "Strings of Life" was to electronic dance music: not its point of origin, but a crucial early turning point that revealed the music's full potential and has remained a vital touchstone to all fans and creators in the decades since. After helping invent techno with Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson in the early to mid-'80s, May created the new sound's first anthem with "Strings of Life," a titled suggested by Chicago house DJ Frankie Knuckles.

It’s true. Before any nascent music genre gets launched out of its local scene and into the stratosphere, there’s usually a singular track (sometimes maybe an album) that changes that genre’s entire trajectory. And for techno music, that track is “Strings of Life.” It would take a long while for house and techno to make serious inroads in America after the song’s release (some might argue they still have yet to), but across the pond, Derrick May’s frenetic tune that undergirded simmering and slicing-like-a-machete strings with rich, rhythmic, rolling Chicago house keyboard riffs was driving the acid-addled warehouse commandeerers mad. They had techno’s first anthem on their hands. And they totally got it. So did the Chicagoans and Detroiters in their own tight-knit scenes, but that number paled in comparison to the UK’s own hedonists.

Derrick May hasn’t released that much music of his own in his life. He runs the indispensable Transmat label and he’s an incredible DJ, too. But he’s also responsible for techno music reaching way outside of the Motor City. Under the moniker Rhythim Is Rhythim, May started to release records in 1987, and his second record, “Strings of Life,” then proceeded to take the British revelers by storm. In ‘96, he released a compilation of his work through Sony Japan titled Innovator, and it’s on there that you can find a truncated, six-minute version of “Strings of Life,” as well as another track based off of it called “Strings of the Strings of Life,” which feels like an extended, glorious lead-in of sorts to the original. Then, in October of ‘97, the US would get its first taste of Innovator, with its release on Transmat.

Then, in February of ‘98, the College Music Journal mistakenly included “Strings of Life” on its own monthly compilation of new tunes. Primarily a resource for indie rock-college hipster types, CMJ inserted punk, metal, hip hop, and electronic dance music into their releases as well; pretty much anything that would fit a college radio format. But they meant to put “Strings of the Strings of Life” on their compilation instead, as indicated by its tracklist. So, randomly nestled within this album of newly released indie tunes for the late 90s was this eleven-year-old timeless techno treasure. Sloppy oversight, yes, but also a happy accident. It was probably the first time indie kids ever heard 80s techno.

According to Wiki, which doesn’t provide a source for its claim,

"Strings of Life" is based on a piano sequence by May's friend Michael James. He dropped in for a visit at May's house and sat down to play a piano ballad he had been working on called, "Lightning Strikes Twice". This piece went into Derrick's sequencer and was kept there until Derrick decided to listen to it all the way through. He found some portions which interested him, and he started to work with it. The song was originally at 80 BPM before May increased the tempo, chopped it up into loops, and added percussion and string samples.

The thing about techno is that, while often its greatest achievements are simply realized by metaphorically squeezing the soul out of the machine, the music’s overall worldview is represented by a sort of ironic embracing of an imminent future whose environment is that of a dystopian and cold, industrial wasteland; basically the bleakest version of Detroit that you could possibly think of. And not to go on too much of a tangent here, but that’s probably partly why techno flourished so well in Berlin. Right after the Wall had fallen, the Germans had their soundtrack for partying in the abandoned factories of the former East German side of the city. It also helped that the Detroit guys who created the music were deeply inspired by Kraftwerk, who were, of course, Germans themselves. A bit of globalized ping pong going on there.

So, if we take that above Wikipedia paragraph as fact, then it’s May who places the shrieking strings atop Michael James’ lush piano bed. The piano sounds like blissful, 80s Chicago house, but the strings, as well as all of the accompanying percussion, certify the track as definitively techno. They just add an undeniable and irresistible shade of heavy-handed darkness to all of that light. “Strings of Life” presents one of the first identifiable instances of the Detroit dance sound. It’s an awesome contrast to what Chicago was generating. And the strings on this song...don’t they sound like the shower scene from Psycho to you too? See, I’ve buried the lede all the way down here. This is actually my techno Halloween post. “Strings of Life”? More like “Strings of Death”! 👻🎃🦇 In a 1997 interview in Mixmag, Derrick May’s DJ sets were described as “a soundtrack for the rollerdisco in the sky.” “Strings of Life,” however, which is his own creation, is like if the Bates Motel was actually the Bates Rollerdisco in the sky.

One of the greatest dance tracks ever recorded, bar none; techno’s first real guidepost.

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postmodernjpg · 5 years

Text

Exclusive interview with artist Vadicore for Postmodern.jpg blog.

We had a chance to ask some questions to young and talented artist from Russia who is working in a original unique style and is known by the name of Vadicore.

Tell us briefly about yourself. How did you find your own style?

I was born in the middle of nowhere in a small Latvian town on Baltic Sea. Lived there till the age of ten until we had to run from gangsters. I started to draw just from boredom at school. I could not stand all the bullshit that they fed us there so i found myself in art. Continued at the university the same reason and do it still.

How were your first drawings born? Did you come up with all these forms on purpose or did it happen accidentaly during the search of your style?

I would say more likely it was an accident. I could not reach a decent level in realism so i had to invent a whole world of my own filled with my characters and system.

When you start composing a new drawing do you have a full picture of what's going on in your head or it's more like some sort of an automatic drawing technique?

It depends. Often i have a ready to go idea or a vision but most of the time what happens is that the drawing is telling me where to go. As to progress through the work it gives you hints where to turn. And many things just happen spontaneously. It is dope that you have no such thing as cancel or step back like on a computer or dealing with a pencil cause i always use pens and markers.

How much time do you spend daily on drawing? Do you feel your progress in technique and style?

I did not learn to draw nowhere. I like the fact that all my works are intuitive in a way. I am trying to reach a form that i would consider as beautiful. So you can tell that i have developed my own style or found it somehow if you wish. I tried to draw parallel lines on a certain distance from each other and then some circles in order to master my hand and make the lines more straight and accurate. But to study academical drawing is not my way cause i feel like i can loose my technique which is pure instincts. It may sound stupid but still. There is almost no progress only my imagination got bigger. Some things i realisied through the years with trying and failing. For example i realisied that every single liner out there has its own unique color even the same model. And you better have the work done with the same one. Also when you darken a big piece with a full black segment you can cheat using a marker. But if you stick with your more thin pen that you used already for the rest of the thing you will see that the piece is more accurate and atmospheric. I force myself to practice every day cause it happens so that your original idea can disappear when you do it slow. One A2 sized artwork is done in 10 hours. I am glad when its done in 3 sessions.

What can you tell us about contemporary art in Russia? In what state is it? Does the society support innovative artists or judge it having classical art as an example of how things should be?

I have no trace for contemporary art. Sometimes i find some artworks but they barely inspire me. I am still high on Dore and Giger. From Russia i like Rebus. Also i find very talented Joan Cornella who is more popular today, Skinner is the man, Bonethrower. I love Japanese style, retro futurism. As for the society, unfortunately we have no tradition to make prints and sell them in limited copies for the people out there as they do it abroad. I think the culture and the industry in Russia is in its birth phase. Commercial projects open new doors and make artists more popular but do we need it to be popular? In the documentary “Exit through the giftshop” there was an idea that they basically killed street-art making it more mainstream.

Is there a meaning in your drawings? What do you want to tell your viewers?

Honestly i don't even name most of the drawings. Very rarely. And something long and silly. Example - If Tom Jones be in the room he would laugh like a brewers horse. Or naming with songs that i draw to. It often affects the dynamics of the piece. For me it is more like an endless search for beauty. There are two ways to look at my works. Simply looking at them and you also can try to make your eyes stay out of focus. There used to be those albums with strange patterns and with a certain angle you would get more detailed images like a sailboat.

What does your family say about your art? Do they support you?

From the very beggining they did not took it serious at all and there was no support and understanding of what am i doing. But after more then 10 years in the game there is a lack of respect from them. Now they do understand that for me it is for real and i enjoy it.

Who or what gives you the inspiration?

Only women inspire me. Their movements and bodies.

Do you have other things you love as well as drawing?

I have a small vinyl collection i play the drums. Since 99 i skate. I used to be a rugby player and even took part in founding our own amateur rugby club with my cats.

Name your most favourite artists. With whom would you like to collaborate?

Love Dore, Giger, Skinner, Magritte. I love Edward Hoppers “Nighthawks”. Love Chinese master Minjun with his bizarre smiling men. No collaboration is desired. I have an experience of making art with my friend. We don't speak anymore.

We have an army of talented subscribers. Do you have an advice for them how to overcome the crisis in creativity?

Crisis is a start for new beginnings. It's simply impossible to make masterpieces every single time. I would say listen to yourself, what you want. Or go for a trip. Fall in love. Fight someone. I knew that i will dig in Sepultura and Marilyn Manson so i on purpose never listened to them till i turned 25. Except some hits on the radio. The idea was that eventually you will run out of good music so i wanted to keep something for better days. As a result it was mindblowing. Sure no alcohol and drug abuse. Only pure imagination.

Proposals for Cooperation: instagram.com/vadicore Интервью на русском языке / Interview in Russian

#interview #text #text post #artist #artist on tumblr #art #russian #russian artist #vadicore #postmodern #postmodernjpg

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grimelords · 5 years

Photo

There is no limit to how many good songs exist! There are just so many!

My June playlist is finished, and on time too! Please enjoy all manner of bangers from Dave Brubeck, Nelly Furtado and everyone in between.

listen here

Night And Day - Hot Chip: I’ve started a band with some friends and my friend Tiana (who has requested a special shoutout in this playlist and is currently receiving it!) suggested this as a song for us to learn and she was extremely right to do it! It’s extremely funky and probably the most i’ve ever liked Hot Chip because they’ve finally allowed themselves to be emotional and feel the most important emotion of all: horniness.

Infinity Guitars - Sleigh Bells: The other day a friend of mine said ‘hey whatever happened to Sleigh Bells?’ and guess what: they have five albums and continue to release new music as recently as last year. They seem to steadfastly refuse to advance their sound and you’ve got to give them props for that. When nobody else sounds anything like you the smartest thing you can do is double down on your own weird thing. I’ve always loved this song and am totally enamoured by whatever mixing trick it is that enables this song to start loud as fuck and somehow finish even louder no matter what volume you play it at.

Hurricane - Bob Dylan: I haven’t watched the Rolling Thunder Revue thing on Netflix yet but I’m excited to because this is a good Dylan era and I’m always down for more footage of the world’s freak Bobby D acting like a maniac. This song is a good example of how have no control over how music is consumed once you release it because this is ostensibly a serious and angry protest song about a great injustice but my greatest memory of it is for at least a month when I was in boarding school a guy in my dorm would play it every morning super loud and we would all yell the words along as we were getting dressed. Having a great time being fifteen and yelling happily about a miscarriage of justice.

Grindin' - Clipse: I started putting together a playlist of songs with super minimal or no pitched instrumentation that almost totally rely on the percussion and the vocals to carry it. Basically the Pharrell special because he did it on this and Drop It Like It’s Hot and I’m sure more songs of his I haven’t heard yet. But also songs like Lipgloss by Lil Mama, Fix Up Look Sharp by Dizzee Rascal, Tipsy By J-Kwon (almost if it didn’t have the baseline) and The Whisper Song by The Ying Yang Twins. There’s heaps more I’m sure. It was a real minimal style for a little while in the mid 2000s and I think it’s great. It gives you so much space in the mix and it’s a great lesson: if the beat is hot enough and you’ve got enough charisma to carry the vocal you don’t need anything else at all.

Rock Lobster - The B-52's: Did you know the guitar in this is tuned CFFFFF? Did you know this song is nearly 7 minutes long? Did you know The B-52s had a hit with this and then didn’t have another hit until Love Shack fully ten years later? Truly everything about this song is insane.

Johnny Irony - Bad//Dreems: I think ‘are you bleeding?’ is my favourite bit of pre-song hot mic dialogue i’ve ever heard. I love the energy of this song, and what a fun throwback it is to I guess reference Lead Belly’s ancient song about doing cocaine Take A Whiff On Me for a new modern twist on a song about doing cocaine.

Girls On Film - Duran Duran: Have you ever noticed how the bass in this song is absolutely popping off? It rocks. I listened to just the isolated bass track on youtube the other day and it’s my new favourite song. I’m having a big moment with this early eighties art-funk thing where someone figured out you could put huge funky basslines into rock music and completely changed the game.

Love - Lana Del Rey: I figured out this month that my vocal range seems to be just Lana Del Rey but an octave lower which is absolutely great news for anyone that wants to hear me sing this song in a cowboy voice in my car.

Want You In My Room - Carly Rae Jepsen: I am absolutely in love with this song and also absolutely furious at it. Absolutely in love with the way it’s written like a duet with herself, trading lines and overlapping and harmonising. The big ascending guitar line that leads into the chorus. I love how horny the lyrics are, I love the very 80s robot voice in the chorus who also wants to fuck. It’s just phenomenal, which brings me to the the think that makes me so furious: this song just fades out? After the second chorus just as the saxophone comes in? Just as it’s getting good???

Genevieve (Unfinished) - Jai Paul: It's just unbelievable how good this sounds. The bass sound. The way the whole mix seems to float around. The cuts to silence that feel like someone took a razor randomly to the master. It all culminates in this frenetic nervous energy that feels like the song could just fall apart and stop at any point. And it does! It just fades to silence and then comes back in as a totally different song near the end before fading away again.

Elephant Talk - King Crimson: King Crimson is on Spotify now and I’m comically striking them off my list of Bands I Have A Grudge Against For Not Being On Spotify. It’s always kind of surprised me that for someone who loved The Mars Volta as much as I did I never really had a big King Crimson phase. I always liked them fine, and I love this song, but I never really sat down and gave them a proper listen. Maybe now they’re on streaming that’s all about to change and my girlfriend will have to suffer accordingly.

Kids In The Dark - Bat For Lashes: Very excited for Bat For Lashes next album if this is an indication of the direction. She's always had a very hazy 80s feeling, so purposefully leaning into it is only going to be great.

CHORDS For Organ - Ellen Arkbro: My favourite lady is back with 15 minutes of rock solid chords. Something I've been thinking recently in regards to Ellen Arkbro and Holly Herndon is people who make pretentious art unpretentiously, truly believing in their process and outcomes but very aware of and fine with the fact that it's silly, useless or unlistenable to anyone who's not interested. Ellen Arkbro posted a photo of an organ on instagram the other day and wrote "turned out this was one of the biggest instruments in berlin and it was also connected up to two other organs in the same space. Despite that I ended up playing an extremely quiet version of my music. I don't really know how that happened. I will play a louder version in st giles cripple gate in london this saturday if you're around" She posts like Courtney Barnett about her experimental organ drone music, I just love it. As for the music itself I don't really know how to explain this other than if you let it it can be extremely overwhelming. It's also the closest I've come musically to Malevich's Black Square and how I feel about that, which is hard to explain properly other that to say I love it.

SWIM - Holly Herndon: I'm obsessed with this Holly Herndon album. It's just amazing though I think the marketing and a lot of the writing about it is sort of.. misleading? There's a lot of emphasis being put on the machine learning and AI aspects of it, which as undoubtedly good and cool as they are, are sort of overshadowing what's so good about this in a simple way which is that it's just choral music for the future. It feels like it reaches so far back and so far forward at the same time it's incredible.

Too Real/Television Screens - Fontaines D.C.: I really had to stop myself from putting the whole Fontaines DC album on here because quite literally every single song on this is amazing. Just when you think guitar music is well and truly dead it pulls you back in!! Also the way he says 'aaa' at the start of Too Real just absolutely kills me.

Dangerous Match Ten - Scientist: I forget where I read it but some bass player was saying she learned to play by listening to Scientist albums, and so that made me listen to Scientist for the first time and go on a long dub trail and have a very good and dangerous day where I thought “..what if I become a dub guy?”. It’s very good. I don’t know anything about dub really, we don’t really have the jamaican population here for it to have any cultural currency like it does in america and the UK so my biggest exposure is the Dub radio station from GTA III and San Andreas which I’m now learning was mostly made up of Scientist songs anyway. Anyway dub is good, please keep an eye one me and watch as this playlist evolves into me becoming an evangelical dub guy over the next few months and start calling everyone m’brethren in a racist way.

Lipitor - Longmont Potion Castle: Lipitor. This is unfortunately unavailable on Australian spotify which is a crime but if you're from anywhere else please enjoy.

A Lot’s Gonna Change/ Andromeda - Weyes Blood: I am having such a time with this Weyes Blood album. Yesterday I spent all day playing A Lot’s Gonna Change over and over and over and today I spent all day listening to Andromeda over and over and learning how to play it. I suspect this will happen to me with the entire album, it has a complete hold over me.

I’ve listened to Weyes Blood before and she’s never really grabbed me and so it took a lot of people rhapsodising about this one to get me to give it a go and I’m so glad I finally did. This album really took me by surprise, and looking back now I love the development of her sound: from her original spacy noisy thing to the bonafide soft rock of Front Row Seat To Earth to this - an expensive sounding 70s singer songwriter pop album of absolutely devastating beauty and inventiveness.

Wasting My Young Years - London Grammar: I think what's so interesting about this song is that it sounds like an acoustic cover of a trance song. I don't really know how to explain it better than that. The way the deceptively fast four on the floor drums come in, the sort of adult-contemporary The XX instrumentation, the whole structure of it, it feels like a BBC Live Lounge cover of some forgotten rave classic. I love it regardless but it's an odd song as well.

Left Hand - Beast Coast: Beast Coast is lames and I didn't make it more that halfway through the album. On the fourth song there's a verse where one of these guys is doing that rap thing of talking way to graphically about eating pussy. He says lick lick lick it's gross. Anyway this song rocks though. The beat is that perfect mix of hard as hell and a little bit spooky and I love any song where one million guys do like four lines each.

Hung Up - Madonna: In the wake of not listening to Madame X I've been reflecting on how it's been 15 years since Madonna's last true banger, Hung Up, and in my opinion she's a legend forever for this song alone. Do you remember the Madonna x Gorillaz performance at the 2006 Grammys? Where she walked BEHIND the hologram? She still has so much to teach us.

Never Fight A Man With A Perm - IDLES: I love just how purely sweaty man muscle this song is. 'concrete to leather' are you kidding me?? That's the coolest shit I've ever heard. 'You look like you're from Love Island' also quite good.

Speakers Going Hammer - Soulja Boy: I was listening to this the other day and had to keep stopping and rewinding because of how advanced the flow is when he says 'Style swift hot like it's July 10th/Fly chick in my whip with nice tits/Her boyfriend paid for it, I didn't" he's like five minutes in front of the beat and combined with the internal assonance it just sounds sick as hell.

African Woman - Ebo Taylor: Man goes ham on toy piano must see

(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone - The Monkees: My friend Tiana (who I've mentioned twice now!) came to band practice and said she saw The Monkees last night. I thought no, that's impossible. The Monkees are all long dead, forgotten legends from a forgotten age. BUT I was wrong! Michael Nesmith and Micky Dolenz, the surviving Monkees tour to this day! And she introduced me to this great song which we learned for the band! Monkees forever!

Whoo! Alright! Yeah! .. Uh Huh - The Rapture: Somehow as time goes on this song becomes more and more important to me and more and more groovy.I used to think life’s a bitter pill but it’s a grand old time. Now that’s wisdom.

World Of Stone/Loinclothing - Hunters And Collectors: I've been getting very heavily into early Hunters And Collectors over the last couple of months. I think I put Loinclothing on last months playlist as well but fuck it, it's great. It's so primal and raw it feels like the first caveman who learned to talk fronting a band of cavemen who sing songs about caveman issues and passion. I love the incredibly wide open sound the drums and bass have and the fidgety guitar combined with the unhinged vocals creates this really unique ambience of menace and power without ever getting particularly busy and losing the spaciousness. Feels like yelling about monkeys on a wide open desert plain.

Coisa No. 10 - Marcello Gonçalves and Anat Cohen: I found this song ages ago on ABC Jazz I think, and I absolutely love the intricacies of it. It twists and folds in on itself over and over and over without ever losing the groove or relaxing into anything easy. There's so much tension in it even though the melody and groove are so fun, it's a great mix. I also found out it's from an album that's a tribute to someone I'd never heard of before named Moacir Santos, so I got the great joy of discovering his music via this song as well.

Monologue/Nana - Moacir Santos: Moacis Santos, as I understand it, was one of Henry Mancini's film composition assistants and also the guy that taught all the Boss Nova geniuses like Sergio Mendes. I love this Monologue where he tells the story of a mystical vision that inspired this song, which you assume being inspired by a vision would be of mythical importance and weight and but instead sounds like the theme to a cartoon about a grandma who has superpowers.

Weird People - Little Mix: I need more info about the identity of the robot voice in this song. What is his relationship to the singer. He starts off antagonistic: “get off the wall” then commenting on what happened to her: “fell off the wall” then just echoing her: “on the other side” then becoming her “i’m living my life”. It’s complicated and hard to explain but I believe the robot voice in this song is god. Anyway this song is a masterpiece. It’s an incredibly goofy and great piece of 80s revival that imagines a glorious alternate future where Oh Yeah by Yello is the template for all pop music.

3 Legged Dog - Marisa Anderson: Marisa Anderson used to write songs with words here and there among her instrumentals but it seems that over the last couple of albums she’s decided to stick to instrumentals only which I think is a shame. She’s obviously brilliant at it but I’d hate to be missing out on beautiful little slices like this. I love how small time this song is, it feels like a song you’d sing to yourself more than a song for anyone else.

Nighttime Suite - Adam Gnade & Demetrius Francisco Antuña: Adam Gnade is a guy I’ve been following for about ten years now who seems determined to stay obscure. He self-releases all his stuff in limited editions or on cassettes, some of my favourite things he’s ever done don’t seem to be available anywhere digitally any more (if they ever were). I remember years ago he seemed hard up for cash and he ran a deal on his website called a ‘lifetime subscription’ where if you sent him I think $100 he would send you everything he’s ever done AND would continue to send you everything he made in the future for the rest of his life. It was absolutely great, I would get CD-Rs and tapes and zines and things delivered randomly to my mailbox every so often for a couple of years and they were all fantastic. I guess at some point my lifetime subscription lapsed because he’s released a bunch of stuff I haven’t heard or read but that’s ok, you shouldn’t be able to buy someone’s eternal soul for $100.

Adam Gnade has developed his own style of folk music where he just recites a sort of prose poetry over music and it’s incredible. In the hands of anyone else it could feel overly pretentious, and he pretty often rides that line. He’s reaching for a sort of poet laureate of Americana ideal but very often he actually grabs it. His writing is great and magnifies the minor details of normal life into larger symptoms of the American mindset, like depression-era songs of marginalised and exploited people individualised and updated for the modern era. Most of the time he backs himself on a lazily strummed guitar or banjo and his music sounds like sitting on the front step or laying down in the tall grass, but for this song he’s teamed up with Demetrius Francisco Antuña for some real Godspeed feeling dark soundscapes and it’s really something.

We Are The Same - Lurch And Chief: I think it's a damn shame that Lurch And Chief broke up before they even put an album out because this song is a damn classic and I have begun praying every day for the return of Lurch and/or Chief. I love a big voice and there's two distinctly huge voices in this song fighting for position.

983/Near DT, MI - Black Midi: Fucking hell I love this Black Midi album. I'm so, so glad it exists. It feels like the next generation of the Slint Hella, Tera Melos etc lineage of math rock and I simply can't get enough of it. Pump it directly into my veins I'm obsessed with it.

Take Control - Amerie: I just screamed out loud in my car hearing this song for the first time because it samples Jimmy, Renda Se by Tom Zé one of my absolute favourite songs ever. And samples it amazingly, totally transforms it into something new while keeping the spirit of the original. Do you ever feel like a song was just made for you personally? It’s a very kind thing of my vlogger wife Amerie to do for me but I guess that’s just how she is. Also, thanks to Spotify’s new feature where you can see the actual credits for songs I got to find out that Hall And Oates are credited on this because it basically interpolates the the whole verse melody from You Make My Dreams Come True which I didn’t even realise until I looked up why they were credited.

Unsquare Dance - Dave Brubeck: Dave Brubeck's brain is huge. I can't belive it's possible to make 7/4 this funky. How come nobody else ever ripped off this rhythm? It deserves to be a whole genre. I also totally love the piano solo near the end where it turns into like a funky 7/4 stride and then abruply ends with a shave and haircut like it's 1925.

Suddenly - French Vanilla: Get a load of this fucking slice of dance punk that Discover Weekly served me up. I haven't even listened ot the album yet because I just love this song so much I'm stuck on it. Singing "I like the nightlife! I'm in the spotlight!" like you're being hunted with a knife? Incredible. The impromptue glossolalia about halfway through? Incredible. Everything about the saxophone? Incredible

Maneater - Nelly Furtado: There's nothing deft or subtle about Timbaland. Everything he does is just so heavy handed and thick. The drums in this are so straightforward and they sound like garbage cans.. Nothing ever plays at he same time as anything else . It's like a gorilla learned to play and it's absolutely fucking sick. And then the whole rest of the song! His insanely thick buzzy synth lines against the big beautifully stack clean harmonies

I, The Witchfinder - Electric Wizard: I've been getting back into Skyrim because I have a little worm living in my brain and I've discovered a good trick is to turn off the game music and turn on Electric Wizard instead. It increases the ambience because it feels like if you did an x-ray of the Dragonborn's head this is all that would be in there. It's just stoner metal in there and no other thoughts.

Music Sounds Better With You - Stardust: Can you believe how lucky we are to live in a world where the greatest song ever written is finally available on spotify? You can just listen to this any time of the night or day and immediately improve your life.

Don’t Chew - Spilled Oats: Here’s a very good and underexplored idea: what if guitar music but it sounds like chopped and screwed? Absolutely dynamite.

As an extra bonus treat here the absolute best ever chopped and screwed channel I’ve found on youtube, please explore Scobed & Robed: https://www.youtube.com/user/scottalexanderburton

listen here

#playlists

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cover2covermom · 4 years

Text

Goodbye April & hello May!

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel & I’m running toward it…

April seemed to drag on despite the days flying by. Does that even make sense? Like I’ve mentioned before, my days are filled with homeschooling, home projects, mask making, and reading. I’ve been doing my best to fill my hours to ease the COVID-19 anxiety.

I received the notification that I will be returning to work next week, which was welcome news. I’m ready to get back a little bit of normalcy in my life. Thankfully, our library system is reopening in phases. Our first phase will be employees only (3-5 employees in the building at one time) and offering curb-side service to our patrons. As of now, we will not open our doors to the public until June 1st at the earliest. At that point in time, we will be limiting the number of patrons allowed in the building. It is definitely going to be a learning curve to see what my new work normal is going to entail. I’m looking forward to adapting & rising to the occasion.

» Be Not Far From Me by Mindy McGinnis

As per usual, Mindy McGinnis puts out another harrowing YA book. I love survival stories, so I enjoyed this story about a girl that has gotten lost in the woods. Be Not Far From Me was uncomfortable to read at certain points.

» Here in the Real World by Sara Pennypacker

*3.5 Stars*

This was a sweet story about two kids that form a friendship while hanging around an abandoned lot. The first half of this book didn’t grab me and moved far too slowly. I enjoyed the second half of this book a lot better than the first half.

» Keeper of Lost Cities (Keeper of the Lost Cities #1) by Shannon Messenger

An awesome MG fantasy! I cannot wait to continue on with this series. I’d recommend this to fans of Harry Potter.

» Separation Anxiety by Laura Zigman

*2.75 Stars*

I read this for one of my book clubs. I think the author was attempting to write a book that would charm readers with eccentric characters & a humorous plotline, but don’t think it delivered. Instead of being funny, the story felt odd & forced.

» A Wolf Called Wander by Rosanne Parry

I think the author did a tremendous job writing a book from a wolf’s perspective. You can tell the author did extensive research into wolves & their behaviors. While I think this animal perspective was very well done, I didn’t think the plotline was all that entertaining.

» The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz #1) by L. Frank Baum

I’ve decided to challenge myself to read more children’s classics in 2020. To kick start this challenge, I started with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. This was a delightful read! I was surprised to learn that the slippers were actually silver instead of ruby red… mind blown!

» SHOUT by Laurie Halse Anderson

This is a must read for fans of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak. While you don’t HAVE to read Speak to read SHOUT, I feel like it makes a bigger impact if you read Speak prior to this. If you didn’t know, SHOUT is Anderson’s memoir told in verse.

» Loveboat, Taipei (Loveboat, Taipei #1) by Abigail Hing Wen

*4.5 Stars*

This is a guilty pleasure type of read. Actually, it reminded me a bit of Crazy Rich Asians a bit. It is a tad racy for a YA book… So I’d probably recommend for older YA readers that are 16+

» Exile (Keeper of the Lost Cities #2) by Shannon Messenger

I am LOVING this MG fantasy series. While these books are a bit chunky, don’t let the page count deter you. I flew through the first two books in this series this month. Also, I’m happy to report that this second installment does NOT suffer from “second book syndrome.”

» Nooks & Crannies by Jessica Lawson

Nooks & Crannies is an excellent MG historical mystery. Some of the elements of this story gave me Matilda mixed with A Series of Unfortunate Events vibes. The audiobook is well narrated.

» The Penderwicks (The Penderwicks #1) by Jeanne Birdsall

This is the perfect book to pick up during the summer months. It really gave me modern Little Women crossed with The Secret Garden vibes. The ending was so heartwarming it almost brought me to tears.

Goodreads Challenge Update: 46 books!

*I know it says 47, but I finished The Last (Endling #1) on May 1st*

March 2020 Reading & Blogging Wrap-Up

April 2020 TBR

Childhood Classics 2020: TBR

Most Anticipated Books of 2020 (May – December)

Mini Book Reviews: April 2020 – Part 1

Mini Book Reviews: April 2020 – Part 2

If you were ever curious what a bookworm’s quarantine stress shopping spree looks like, here you go…

» The Guinevere Deception (Camelot Rising #1) by Kiersten White

There was nothing in the world as magical and terrifying as a girl.

Princess Guinevere has come to Camelot to wed a stranger: the charismatic King Arthur. With magic clawing at the kingdom’s borders, the great wizard Merlin conjured a solution–send in Guinevere to be Arthur’s wife . . . and his protector from those who want to see the young king’s idyllic city fail. The catch? Guinevere’s real name–and her true identity–is a secret. She is a changeling, a girl who has given up everything to protect Camelot.

To keep Arthur safe, Guinevere must navigate a court in which the old–including Arthur’s own family–demand things continue as they have been, and the new–those drawn by the dream of Camelot–fight for a better way to live. And always, in the green hearts of forests and the black depths of lakes, magic lies in wait to reclaim the land. Arthur’s knights believe they are strong enough to face any threat, but Guinevere knows it will take more than swords to keep Camelot free.

Deadly jousts, duplicitous knights, and forbidden romances are nothing compared to the greatest threat of all: the girl with the long black hair, riding on horseback through the dark woods toward Arthur. Because when your whole existence is a lie, how can you trust even yourself?

» Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly

The story of a deaf girl’s connection to a whale whose song can’t be heard by his species, and the journey she takes to help him.

From fixing the class computer to repairing old radios, twelve-year-old Iris is a tech genius. But she’s the only deaf person in her school, so people often treat her like she’s not very smart. If you’ve ever felt like no one was listening to you, then you know how hard that can be.

When she learns about Blue 55, a real whale who is unable to speak to other whales, Iris understands how he must feel. Then she has an idea: she should invent a way to “sing” to him! But he’s three thousand miles away. How will she play her song for him?

» Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father’s inability to collect his debts has left his family on the edge of poverty–until Miryem takes matters into her own hands. Hardening her heart, the young woman sets out to claim what is owed and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold.

When an ill-advised boast draws the attention of the king of the Staryk–grim fey creatures who seem more ice than flesh–Miryem’s fate, and that of two kingdoms, will be forever altered. Set an impossible challenge by the nameless king, Miryem unwittingly spins a web that draws in a peasant girl, Wanda, and the unhappy daughter of a local lord who plots to wed his child to the dashing young tsar.

But Tsar Mirnatius is not what he seems. And the secret he hides threatens to consume the lands of humans and Staryk alike. Torn between deadly choices, Miryem and her two unlikely allies embark on a desperate quest that will take them to the limits of sacrifice, power, and love.

Channeling the vibrant heart of myth and fairy tale, Spinning Silver weaves a multilayered, magical tapestry that readers will want to return to again and again.

» Girls Like Us by Randi Pink

Set in the summer of 1972, this moving YA historical novel is narrated by teen girls from different backgrounds with one thing in common: Each girl is dealing with pregnancy. Four teenage girls. Four different stories. What they all have in common is that they’re dealing with unplanned pregnancies.

In rural Georgia, Izella is wise beyond her years, but burdened with the responsibility of her older sister, Ola, who has found out she’s pregnant. Their young neighbor, Missippi, is also pregnant, but doesn’t fully understand the extent of her predicament. When her father sends her to Chicago to give birth, she meets the final narrator, Susan, who is white and the daughter of an anti-choice senator.

Randi Pink masterfully weaves four lives into a larger story – as timely as ever – about a woman’s right to choose her future.

» The Island of the Sea Women by Lisa See

Set on the Korean island of Jeju, The Island of Sea Women follows Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls from very different backgrounds, as they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective. Over many decades—through the Japanese colonialism of the 1930s and 1940s, World War II, the Korean War, and the era of cellphones and wet suits for the women divers—Mi-ja and Young-sook develop the closest of bonds. Nevertheless, their differences are impossible to ignore: Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator, forever marking her, and Young-sook was born into a long line of haenyeo and will inherit her mother’s position leading the divers. After hundreds of dives and years of friendship, forces outside their control will push their relationship to the breaking point.

This beautiful, thoughtful novel illuminates a unique and unforgettable culture, one where the women are in charge, engaging in dangerous physical work, and the men take care of the children. A classic Lisa See story—one of women’s friendships and the larger forces that shape them—The Island of Sea Women introduces readers to the fierce female divers of Jeju Island and the dramatic history that shaped their lives.

» The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf

A music-loving teen with OCD does everything she can to find her way back to her mother during the historic race riots in 1969 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in this heart-pounding literary debut.

Melati Ahmad looks like your typical moviegoing, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old. Unlike most other sixteen-year-olds though, Mel also believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother’s death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied.

But there are things that Melati can’t protect her mother from. On the evening of May 13th, 1969, racial tensions in her home city of Kuala Lumpur boil over. The Chinese and Malays are at war, and Mel and her mother become separated by a city in flames.

With a 24-hour curfew in place and all lines of communication down, it will take the help of a Chinese boy named Vincent and all of the courage and grit in Melati’s arsenal to overcome the violence on the streets, her own prejudices, and her djinn’s surging power to make it back to the one person she can’t risk losing.

» Escape from Aleppo by N.H. Senzai

Nadia’s family is forced to flee their home in Aleppo, Syria, when the Arab Spring sparks a civil war in this timely coming-of-age novel from award-winning author N.H. Senzai.

Silver and gold balloons. A birthday cake covered in pink roses. A new dress.

Nadia stands at the center of attention in her parents’ elegant dining room. This is the best day of my life, she thinks. Everyone is about to sing “Happy Birthday,” when her uncle calls from the living room, “Baba, brothers, you need to see this.” Reluctantly, she follows her family into the other room. On TV, a reporter stands near an overturned vegetable cart on a dusty street. Beside it is a mound of smoldering ashes. The reporter explains that a vegetable vendor in the city of Tunis burned himself alive, protesting corrupt government officials who have been harassing his business. Nadia frowns.

It is December 17, 2010: Nadia’s twelfth birthday and the beginning of the Arab Spring. Soon anti-government protests erupt across the Middle East and, one by one, countries are thrown into turmoil. As civil war flares in Syria and bombs fall across Nadia’s home city of Aleppo, her family decides to flee to safety. Inspired by current events, this novel sheds light on the complicated situation in Syria that has led to an international refugee crisis, and tells the story of one girl’s journey to safety.

» The Two Princesses of Bamarre (The Two Princesses of Bamarre #1) by Gail Carson Levine

Twelve-year-old Addie admires her older sister Meryl, who aspires to rid the kingdom of Bamarre of gryphons, specters, and ogres. Addie, on the other hand, is fearful even of spiders and depends on Meryl for courage and protection. Waving her sword Bloodbiter, the older girl declaims in the garden from the heroic epic of Drualt to a thrilled audience of Addie, their governess, and the young sorcerer Rhys.

But when Meryl falls ill with the dreaded Gray Death, Addie must gather her courage and set off alone on a quest to find the cure and save her beloved sister. Addie takes the seven-league boots and magic spyglass left to her by her mother and the enchanted tablecloth and cloak given to her by Rhys – along with a shy declaration of his love. She prevails in encounters with tricky specters (spiders too) and outwits a wickedly personable dragon in adventures touched with romance and a bittersweet ending.

» The Lost Kingdom of Bamarre (The Two Princesses of Bamarre 0.5) by Gail Carson Levine

In this compelling and thought-provoking fantasy set in the world of The Two Princesses of Bamarre, Newbery Honor-winning author Gail Carson Levine introduces a spirited heroine who must overcome deeply rooted prejudice—including her own—to heal her broken country.

Peregrine strives to be the Latki ideal—and to impress her parents: affectionate Lord Tove, who despises only the Bamarre, and stern Lady Klausine. Perry runs the fastest, speaks her mind, and doesn’t give much thought to the castle’s Bamarre servants, who she knows to be weak and cowardly. The Lakti always wage war, and the battlefield will give her the chance to show her valor.

But just as she’s about to join her father on the front lines, she is visited by the fairy Halina, who reveals that Perry isn’t Latki-born. She is a Bamarre. The fairy issues a daunting challenge: against the Lakti might, free her people from tyranny.

» A Crack in the Sea by H.M. Bouwman

An enchanting historical fantasy adventure perfect for fans of Thanhha Lai’s Newbery Honor-winning Inside Out and Back Again No one comes to the Second World on purpose. The doorway between worlds opens only when least expected. The Raft King is desperate to change that by finding the doorway that will finally take him and the people of Raftworld back home. To do it, he needs Pip, a young boy with an incredible gift—he can speak to fish; and the Raft King is not above kidnapping to get what he wants. Pip’s sister Kinchen, though, is determined to rescue her brother and foil the Raft King’s plans. This is but the first of three extraordinary stories that collide on the high seas of the Second World. The second story takes us back to the beginning: Venus and Swimmer are twins captured aboard a slave ship bound for Jamaica in 1781. They save themselves and others from a life of enslavement with a risky, magical plan—one that leads them from the shark-infested waters of the first world to the second. Pip and Kinchen will hear all about them before their own story is said and done. So will Thanh and his sister Sang, who we meet in 1976 on a small boat as they try to escape post-war Vietnam. But after a storm and a pirate attack, they’re not sure they’ll ever see shore again. What brings these three sets of siblings together on an adventure of a lifetime is a little magic, helpful sea monsters and that very special portal, A Crack in the Sea.

» The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

A bizarre chain of events begins when sixteen unlikely people gather for the reading of Samuel W. Westing’s will. And though no one knows why the eccentric, game-loving millionaire has chosen a virtual stranger—and a possible murderer—to inherit his vast fortune, one thing’s for sure: Sam Westing may be dead … but that won’t stop him from playing one last game!

» Ballet Shoes (Shoes #1) by Noel Streatfeild

Pauline, Petrova and Posy are orphans determined to help out their new family by joining the Children’s Academy of Dancing and Stage Training. But when they vow to make a name for themselves, they have no idea it’s going to be such hard work! They launch themselves into the world of show business, complete with working papers, the glare of the spotlight, and practice, practice, practice! Pauline is destined for the movies. Posy is a born dancer. But practical Petrova finds she’d rather pilot a plane than perform a pirouette. Each girl must find the courage to follow her dream.

» Wishtree by Katherine Applegate

Trees can’t tell jokes, but they can certainly tell stories. . . .

Red is an oak tree who is many rings old. Red is the neighborhood “wishtree”—people write their wishes on pieces of cloth and tie them to Red’s branches. Along with her crow friend Bongo and other animals who seek refuge in Red’s hollows, this “wishtree” watches over the neighborhood.

You might say Red has seen it all. Until a new family moves in. Not everyone is welcoming, and Red’s experiences as a wishtree are more important than ever.

» The Library of Ever (The Library of Ever #1) by Zeno Alexander

With her parents off traveling the globe, Lenora is bored, bored, bored–until she discovers a secret doorway in the library and becomes its newly appointed Fourth Assistant Apprentice Librarian.

In her new job, Lenora finds herself helping future civilizations figure out the date, relocates lost penguins, uncovers the city with the longest name on Earth, and more in a quest to help patrons. But there are sinister forces at work that want to destroy all knowledge. To save the library, Lenora will have to test her limits and uncover secrets hidden among its shelves.

» Chains (Seeds of America #1) by Laurie Halse Anderson

As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year-old Isabel wages her own fight…for freedom. Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, she and her sister, Ruth, in a cruel twist of fate become the property of a malicious New York City couple, the Locktons, who have no sympathy for the American Revolution and even less for Ruth and Isabel. When Isabel meets Curzon, a slave with ties to the Patriots, he encourages her to spy on her owners, who know details of British plans for invasion. She is reluctant at first, but when the unthinkable happens to Ruth, Isabel realizes her loyalty is available to the bidder who can provide her with freedom.

From acclaimed author Laurie Halse Anderson comes this compelling, impeccably researched novel that shows the lengths we can go to cast off our chains, both physical and spiritual.

» The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the forest, Xan, is kind and gentle. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster named Glerk and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon, Fyrian. Xan rescues the abandoned children and deliver them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey.

One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this enmagicked girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own. To keep young Luna safe from her own unwieldy power, Xan locks her magic deep inside her. When Luna approaches her thirteenth birthday, her magic begins to emerge on schedule–but Xan is far away. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch. Soon, it is up to Luna to protect those who have protected her–even if it means the end of the loving, safe world she’s always known.

The acclaimed author of The Witch’s Boy has created another epic coming-of-age fairy tale destined to become a modern classic.

Which books did you read in April?

Have you read any of the books I read or hauled this month? If so, what did you think?

Did you buy any books? If so, which ones?

Comment below & let me know 🙂

April 2020 Reading & Blogging Wrap-Up + Book Haul #BookBlogger #Bookworm #Bibliophile #BookHaul #Reading #Books #WrapUp Goodbye April & hello May! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel & I'm running toward it...

#Bibliophile #book blog #book blogger #Book Chat #Book Haul #Book Nerd #Book Talk #Book Worm #Bookish #Books #Bookworm #Reading #Wrap Up

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cecilspeaks · 5 years

Text

148 - The Broadcaster

Leonard Burton: The opposite of war is not peace. It is tedium. Greetings from Night Vale.

[distorted version of the theme song]

Hello, listeners. it’s your regular host Leonard Burton welcoming you to yet another beautiful day in Night Vale. There is the sun, of course. I don’t need to tell you there is a sun, you know this. You’re so confident that he sun is there. Past performance is not a predictor of future results, folks, yet sure as I say it, there is the sun. And near the sun are clouds, but they’re not near, are they? Millions of miles separate those clouds from that sun. And yet our eyes measure mere inches of the space between. What deception, this human sight.

The air is crisp and cool. A slight morning breeze touches us. We feel it like cold fingers playfully caressing our shoulders, our hair, our skin. I see no breeze, but I feel it. That which I feel, that is my only truth, listeners. Wind is a verity.

I hope you will join me in closing your eyes and walking naked through the invisible yet irrefutable air. Hold aloft your arms, widen your jaw and feel the impact of atom upon atom upon atom against your body.

This day is beautiful. This day is crisp. This day is true.

This morning I nearly died. I’m always nearly dying, proximity is subjective. This morning I nearly died in the same way I nearly die every day. After waking, I showered. After showering, I drank coffee. After coffee, I ate a grapefruit and oatmeal. After eating, I walked. After walking, I walked some more. I do not own a car and I live two miles from my work. I purchased a quart of whole milk, and then I climbed a tree. Atop a tree branch, I saw a grackle’s nest and I drank my milk. I counted four eggs, each of them blue. Each of them lifeless, abandoned for countless years. I did not finish my milk, because I cannot digest milk. I poured the remainder into the nest. Then I climbed down from the tree and walked again. I do this every day. It is, as the French say, vie sans signification.

As I approached the radio station, a cargo truck driven by a man who was not tall, barrelled down Mesa Boulevard. I stretched one foot outward from my body like so, and here I demonstrate my leg extending outward. A tentative (-) [0:05:00] as the French dancers phrase it. My head was turned away from the oncoming traffic, because I saw a municipal garbage can on fire. Gathered around the flaming bin were angels touching together their unusually long fingers and moaning. The cargo truck honked loudly, but it was not as loud as the moans from the fire-lit celestial beings, so I did not alter my attention. I stepped into the roadway like this. And then again like this, and then again like this. Then again several more times, til I had crossed the road safely. Immediately following my final step, the cargo truck roared past me. I had not died, but I had a vision of my death. No, not a vision. What do you call a vision without visuals? My vision was every other sense. I had a dreadful snap, I felt my legs (accordion) [0:05:56] beneath my neck, I tasted blood and asphalt, I smelled the pungent rubber tire against my nose. My vision halted me for what seemed like hours but was less than a second.

I should have died, Night Vale. For it was in my vision. Yet I did not. The truck honked again, and the man in the passenger seat who was not short waved his fit and cursed at me. On the back of the truck were several wooden crates emblazoned with a white labyrinth above a black square. The crates glowed from within. I do not glow from within. I am darkness from within. I crossed the street, the angels moaned, and I wet myself.

It is a beautiful day in Night Vale. How was your morning?

And now the news. There is peace in our time, Night Vale. We hold a parade today to celebrate the end of the Blood Space War. The Blood Space War ended many years in the future, and we celebrate armistice today. Time, you see, is not a line but a (-) [0:07:10], which is kind of like a donut. And we are living within the donut. If we were to look out across a hall in the middle of the donut, we would see other times that have happened both before and after us. This presumes we can see time, which we cannot. We can only describe visually the shape of things that have no shape. Here is an incomplete visual description of things that have no shape. One: death is a bottomless pool of clear water. Two: wind is a question mark. Three: morality is a thermos. Four: love is an overfull shopping bag with a broken handle. Five: fear is a cinderblock tower with a single door and no windows. I hope that makes sense to you, dearest listeners. Because it does not to me. I’m neither a scientist nor a poet. I’m a radio host. I merely repeat to you that which I have learned. And what I have learned is that time is shaped like a donut. Beyond that, I have no comprehension.

When you woke up this morning, Night Vale, did you remember a life you never had? Did you experience the faint memory of a conversation, of a smell, of a feeling that never happened? Jamais vu, I believe the French say. The French say so much. And what do they know of peace? Today, I celebrate peace, however I do it alone. I broadcast my feelings to no one. Night Vale is empty, and I am its only citizen. Yet I have a vision of a town full of people. One of those people is a man, a radio intern named Cecil Palmer, but he is not here. No one is here. No one has ever been here. Has he died? I do not know. He simply is no longer here. You do not remember his years of fine reporting on this very radio station, because you never heard those reports. I did.

I remember things that never happened, yet I have no evidence of any of it. Let me describe to you the shape of Cecil Palmer. He’s a line of leafless mesquite trees, he is a glass factory, he is a golf ball sized (hell) [0:09:37], he has a voice like distant highway traffic. He loves coffee and handshakes, he wears tight clothing, and has never once worked with modelling clay. He covers mirrors with cloth and has an irrational fear of glowing lights beneath locked doors and dark hallways. You cannot know any of this, because Cecil is my vision, not yours. He is real all the same. He is to be my replacement when I retire. But he does not exist, so I can never retire. I am your permanent host. I can still see his face. I’ve said it before and I will say it once more. What deception is human sight!

The parade for the end of the Blood Space war has begun! There is no one attending, because no one lives in Night Vale. Perhaps we’ll reach a day when no one has ever lived. An emissary has arrived in town to lead the parade. The emissary’s an astronaut, bloated white arms and a mirror for a face. The emissary walks slowly through our empty city streets. I do not know why I broadcast this to you, dear listener. For you are not even here. No one is here, except for me and the emissary, who walks like a marionette under the wobbly control of a novice puppeteer. And the angels, whose moans are songs and whose fingertips are (-) [0:11:11] rods. Also there’s the two men in the cargo truck who are driving far beyond our town. And somewhere there are the French, who are inventing phrases to describe, I don’t know what.

The parade of absent floats along empty streets (-) by a mirror faced marshmallow of a grand marshall approaches our radio station. I will enjoy getting to see the festivities up close and describing shapes out of the shapeless.

And now the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner. Kids, did you know that everyone experiences time differently? Physicist Albert Einstein once said: “There’s no business like show business. Like no business I know.” He said this while starring in “Annie Get Your Gun” in London’s West End. The performed the title role ten years before Irving Berlin even wrote the musical. This is because Albert Einstein experienced time differently, but only when it came to songwriting. He had the complete discography of both Leonard Cohen and Kendrick Lamar before either were born.

And perhaps, like you and I only hear music after it is written, we experience time differently in other was. Like say our births. Think about your birth. You don’t remember it, do you? This could be because you’ve forgotten it, but how do you forget something that so powerfully impacted you? I would argue that your birth was the important moment in your life, and you have forgotten it? I cannot believe you’re so cavalier as to allow the memory of your entry into this world to dissipate like steam from a screaming kettle! No, you do not remember your birth, because it has not happened yet. I am sure this is scientifically true. It can be the only explanation. You experience time differently. One day you will be born, and you will experience awe and pain and confusion. You will begrudge the lack of input you were given in this decision. You did not ask to be born, and yet pow, bam, squish, there you are, or were, or will be.

Earth is an (--) [0:13:32] during a flood. Memory is the chipped bark of the cedar tree. Time is a donut. This has been the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner.

The parade has ended. The street moments ago crowded with no one are once again still empty. The celebration of peace has ended, and another beautiful day comes to a close. The sun, like a shopkeeper with no customers, leaves work early. And the radio softly reminds us the shapes of the shapeless.

Oh! Oh dear, you startled me. Listeners, the emissary has appeared in my studio without warning, without even opening a door. And they’re sitting in the chair next to me and slowly rotating. Their visor is open, and I’m being forced to stare at the ineffable darkness within the emissary’s helmet. This seems like a good time For the weather.

[Subspace” by RAQIA https://raqia.bandcamp.com and https://www.instagram.com/raqiaband/]

Have you ever forgotten where you put your keys? You were certain they were on the mantle, but they were not. Have you ever missed an appointment because you were sure it was on Wednesday at noon and not Tuesday at ten? Have you ever remembered a life you did not lead? Has a carefully collated series of words ever made you uncertain, unconfident or un, just un? Un as an adjective onto itself.

The emissary arrived from the future, from space. The emissary told me changes were made, and those changes became mistakes and those mistakes became truths, and all of it would need to be undone. “Night Vale is a vibrant and full city with tens of thousands of people,” the emissary said. “Yet here you are, Leonard, the only person in Night Vale.” I nodded into the dark onyx of the emissary’s face screen. “How old are you, Leonard?” the emissary asked. I did not know. I still do not know. The emissary revealed to me a newspaper clipping. From the Night Vale Daily Journal obituary section dated November 1983. There was a photo of me and a story about my life: my childhood, my radio career, my wife, my children – my death. It was all true and yet I remembered none of it, except for the last part. I looked at my obituary photo. I read how I died. Under cargo truck wheels on Mesa Boulevard. In print, everything looks true. “What deception is human sight,” I said. The emissary lifted their trick gloved hands to their neck, unlatched the snaps and removed their helmet. I saw the face of an old woman, with sunken tearful eyes. “I am the general,” the emissary said, placing her enormous soft paw upon my hand. “I have tried to save myself, my soldiers, my town, my planet, through time travel. Every time we lose a battle, I return to before it even happened and fight it again. I fight each battle over and over, until we have won.” “You’re an excellent general,” I told her. “Of course I am,” she snapped. “In battle. But each time I interfere in the timeline, I create a widening ripple of historical changes. And now Night Vale is empty, on the verge of never having existed at all. This must be undone. Do you understand me, Leonard?” I nodded yes, to hide the fact that I did not understand. The emissary pointed to the moon. An enormous piece of the moon was missing. I did not remember that the moon was broken, but also I rarely look at the moon out of disdain. “Like the moon, time has broken,” she said. “Night Vale should be full of people, and you should have died long ago, Leonard,” she added. “Do you understand?” I shook my head no, to hide the fact that I did understand. “I’m sorry, Leonard,” she said. If Night Vale is repaired, you will return to the grave.” “But you have achieved peace,” I argued. “I have achieved peace,” she said. “And in doing so, I have made it so that no one in this city, or this world, or this universe, ever lived. I have achieved an infinitude of emptiness. Leonard, look.” She touched my shoulder with one hand, and with the other, she indicated once more the moon. When I looked, the moon was again whole. I looked back at the general and she was gone.

I hear now a voice, not my own, like distant highway traffic. I do not think I should be alive, but I do not know what else to be. Am I a ghost? Am I a god? Am I at all? Whatever it is I am, I reject my end. I embrace my existence, even in a world with no one to acknowledge it. I never wish to die, Night Vale, and still I refuse to do so. I am a broadcaster. I do not stop broadcasting simply because I do not live!

Stay through next for grackles hatching from long dormant eggs, and anything else I wish to describe, real or not. For you do not hear me anyway. And until tomorrow, See ya Night Vale, See ya.

Today’s proverb: Ask your doctor about dogs. Have a long conversation about how good dogs are. Show each other pictures of dogs.

#welcome to night vale #wtnv #welcome to night vale transcripts #episode 148 #the broadcaster

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globalpattern · 5 years

Text

Interview with From Tokyo to Honolulu

bandcamp | twitter | soundcloud

1. Hey! Tell us how the project was born, what inspired at the beginning, what inspires now?

hi! to begin with, I encountered vaporwave only in 2015. honestly, I don’t already remember how it happened, but judging by last.fm I was mostly listening to sovietwave back then and somehow, in an unknown way, I got into a vapor. after a year of listening, one day I thought, why not to try to do something myself because everything is built on samples. I was inspired at that time by t e l e p a t h, I didn’t get my hands on listening to his full discography for a long time (which I regretted later, but now I regret that listened to everything he did hundreds of times). and so, i had to start with artist name and wanted something simple and at the same time unusual (without any unnecessary symbols), so this kind of topic of air flights came to my mind and without thinking twice, I opened the map, and then the first thing happened was Tokyo - Honolulu, that's all.

the first albums were made in Audacity, I don’t know why I chose it, I probably wasn’t going to do this like professionally but just for fun, just to try it for myself. and this audacity was terrible because cutting tracks there was just hellish! perhaps it could have been easier, but I did not understand it and at that moment I just proceeded. now it's funny to think of – the first 12 (!?) “albums” were made that way. but then it got even better, I switched to FL Studio... DEMO, and for a year I did all the tracks on the go because it was impossible to save the projects :) and only at the end of 2018 managed to buy the full version and get my hands on it. honestly, now almost nothing inspires me to continue this project, because I'm tired of sampling and I'm planning (in fact, already doing) my own original music without samples.

2. So is it true that vaporwave is dead? If you abandon the samples and make original music, then will it be something else? Or is it still vapor for you?

I believe that the sampled vapor is almost dead, but the thing is how to approach this. you can’t just slow down and pitch the tracks for a long time and assume that you are doing vaporwave (though I’m still doing this (just kidding)). you can also do something unique [with samples], but I don’t really know how to do this, so, as I said above, I decided to switch to the non-sampled project. but it will still be under the tag of the vaporware anyway because even if I tried to leave it, it always overtakes me :) vaporwave has recently become an independent genre and therefore you can refuse samples and still make vapor, despite his PAST.

3. By the way, about the past - recently 100% Electronicon happened, after which there were talks about the beginning of a new era in the genre, that now it exists not only on the Internet, but also IRL, which makes vaporwave kind of “more real". What do you think, in order to be a successful artist, is it necessary to play concerts? Would you like to do your stuff live sometime?

I think the opposite is true. first you need to have at least some listeners to give a concert for, heh. and then success will come. honestly, I can’t imagine how anyone can immediately reach this — take t e l e p a t h — as far as I know, it was one of his first shows, so here is a simple example. as for myself, I would like to for sure, but so far I have nothing to play *laughs*

4. For your music, which applications do you see, if not concerts & tours? Take Fantasy Labirynth – I think it could be a nice soundtrack for a game or some adventure film! What kind of game would you like to score?

I never thought about this, but if you fly from Tokyo to Honolulu, be sure to turn on some of my music! in general, yes, I could do something like that. but given that the Fantasy Labirynth samples were taken from games, then the game must be assembled from different games, huh.

5. And which, say, three albums (no matter vapor or not) would you take with you on such a long flight? In general, what kind of music do you listen to besides what your "profession" presumes?

I'd take the entire discography of 仮想夢プラザ, it’s ideal for trips in general, I always listen and will listen to it. in fact, that would be enough! also I’ve been listening to Boards of Canada since childhood, I’m waiting and hoping that someday a new album will be released. by the way, about them – guess I can say that they invented vaporwave, as well as Aphex Twin and Autechre maybe, this is the first thing that comes to mind, probably because at the moment I'm listening to them too. in general, I can listen to anything, but I need a mood for it, and sometimes I just need to find it first :)

6. As for the mood, is it important for you in which mood you make music? Or is the music who sets the right state when you start playing?

generally I do all things only by mood. if something is wrong, I can’t do the thing and music is no exception. one day you can sit for a long time without getting anything - in such case, I immediately go outside and switch to something else - and the next day it can just go perfectly. and later, if everything goes as it should, then the music will set the subsequent mood already.

7. Since you are saying that you’re going to close the project and make original compositions, will you share some plans for the future? What is the fate of FTTH and what to expect from the new project?

FTTH lives on while cassettes are released, there are plans for several more new albums on physical media and subsequent reissues of the old albums. my goal here is to release as many albums on the cassettes as possible so that way it actually lives. I planned to close it a long time ago because the motivation was gone, there was a feeling that I was doing something for an unknown reason, not really knowing for who and why. but managed, so to speak, to "get hyped" a little. and about the new project, I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, because the idea came like today and the whole project literally changed, so we'll see :)

8. Do you collect cassettes or vinyl yourself? Do you think this is more connected with nostalgia and vapor or is it important for any genre of music to be on some non-virtual medium?

I used to have cassettes in “childhood”. I remember Gorillaz track recorded from the radio, I loved listening to it. but then they were all thrown away. recently began to collect cassettes again, but so far they are more of my own albums, but there are several which I purchased. at first, I was skeptical about this, but now they give me pleasure, listening online or on the media is a completely different experience – you can also feel it, touch it (xD), in general, it’s dope! but since I like to listen to them, and not watch and dust them off, I haven’t got any vinyl yet because got no player for it. perhaps the time will come. yes, as I said above, it is important for any music to be on such a medium, I recently saw an article that recently people began to acquire way more music on PHYSICAL MEDIA.

9. In your opinion, anonymity is an important part of vaporwave aesthetics? Or is it a matter of samples/copyright? Are you planning to keep anonymity with the new project too?

well, judging by the Electronicon, only one artist retained anonymity, which means that he wants to have such style. therefore, I do not think this is an important component. if we talk about live performances, then no, I’m not going to hide my face from anyone.

10. Do you think Russia will ever have its own vapor festival? Who would be the headliners?

I think everything is possible, but the problem is that there are just few performers, as well as the listeners, I don’t know anyone IRL, who even heard what it is, vaporwave! gather me all the russian performers and listeners in one place and then I will say. of the performers I know, just a few are doing really good stuff. so we get 5 people maximum, I don’t even know the rest. I’m sure you know better :)

11. Do you have a dream album that you would like to make? Or a project, or a global dream in general, which you'd like to achieve someday?

of course, I would like to do something that would become mainstream, but you never know how everything goes. usually, if you look into history, what is not recognized at one time, becomes something significant in the future, so I won’t know now. and the authors themselves often do not recognize something of their creations, so it seems to me that it always has been and will be that way :) in general, I am not a dreamer, I try not to abuse this so that these dreams don’t fall apart.

September 14, 2019

▼ https://globalpattern.bandcamp.com ▲

#from tokyo to honolulu #global pattern #slushwave vaporwave ambient cassette

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gossamie · 6 years

Text

real bitches get revenge.

summary — one frat party. one cheating and (soon-to-be) ex-boyfriend. one plan to get revenge.

pairing — jeon jungkook x park jimin x reader (ft. bts)

genre — fluff & humor

word count — 2,514

warnings — swearing, mentions of alcohol, and poorly made dick jokes

notes — this story has been sitting in my drafts for some time now, but i’m so glad i finally finished it! this is a lil different from what i normally write, but i wanted to push myself from my usual angsty fics and give you guys something more lighthearted. i hope you enjoy (bad humor and all)!

p.s. disclaimer: i am not implying through this story that jungkook is a cheating asshole, nor do i think that any of the other characters are exactly like the stereotype i portrayed them as. this is purely for fictional purposes.

p.p.s. thank you thank you thank you @louvresdemiel, aka luna, for reading this story and giving me advice! love you <3

“Revenge is sweet and not fattening.” — Alfred Hitchcock

Jeon Jungkook— the president-slash-poster-child of Pi Rho Omega and the spitting image of charisma, charm, and confidence. He’s the guy that everyone wants to be friends with, the guy that makes any frat party legendary, the guy you hate to love, and the guy that you’re lucky to call your loving, loyal boyfriend.

Well, soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, because he’s currently kissing another girl.

You probably would’ve still seen Jungkook shoving his tongue down that girl’s throat even if Seokjin hadn’t pointed it out to you. It was as if they were asking for an audience; they were pressed up against the kitchen island, their grimy hands moving and grabbing each others’ bodies in every direction but especially towards the parts where the sun doesn’t shine, and you could’ve sworn you saw spit flying from her mouth and drool slobbering down Jungkook’s chin like a dog— or, more appropriately, like the bitch he is.

Sure, you were sad— after all, you had spent the entirety of your senior year falling in love with Jungkook— but, more than anything, you were… angry. You were angry because he had chosen to cheat on you. He had chosen to walk away from your relationship. He had chosen to throw away a year’s worth of endless laughter and stolen kisses and hushed secrets and infinite love all for some random sorority girl he met five seconds ago.

In that moment, as you watched your loving, loyal boyfriend kiss another girl, you knew that he didn’t deserve you, not now and not ever. In that moment, you knew that you deserved better than him. In that moment, you knew that you’ll always deserve better than some cheating, two-faced prick.

Whatever there was between you and Jungkook, it was over the minute he decided you apparently weren’t as important as a drunk make-out sesh.

But he’s made his choice. Now, you’ll make yours.

And your choice?

To get sweet, sweet revenge.

“Y/N, what the hell are you planning to do?”

“What do you mean?” you reply as you batted your eyelashes at Seokjin, feigning innocence, something sickly sweet coating your tone. Earlier, you had shrugged off his attempts to comfort you, not because you didn’t appreciate them, but because you didn’t need them; they were only a distraction, anyway. There was only one thing you concentrated on as you pulled Seokjin aside from the throng of partygoers: enlisting your friend’s help in your plan for revenge.

“I know that look in your eyes. Whenever you get that look, I know you’re about to do something, and it’s not something pretty.”

“Are you trying to stop me from getting back at Jungkook?”

“Oh, hell no. I’m about to shove my foot up his ass faster than his three-inch dick can inflate.”

“Great. You and I are on the same page. So, will you please help me?”

Seokjin sighs, weighing the options in his mind. Should he maintain a semi-clean moral record, or should he take the opportunity to shove Jeon Jungkook’s shit right in his pretty little face?

But Seokjin realizes there was only one correct option out of the two and that it was definitely not the first one, so he replies, “What do you need?”

You devilishly smirk and focus your attention back to the raging party, taking care not to shift your eyes too far to the right so as not to look at the kitchen and, subsequently, (gag) him. “You know more about the fraternities than I do. I need to know who the somewhat-decent bachelors are in this room and everything you know about them.”

“So, should I start off with me?”

“Oh my gosh, you actually said something funny for once in your life!”

“Okay, listen here, I don’t appreciate the sarcasm, bit—”

“Just kidding! Now, focus. There has to be someone in here, right?”

Seokjin nods, and you follow his gaze to a head of rose gold hair and a nose buried deep in a sketchbook leaning against a wall at the back of the room. The man looked familiar to you; you remembered seeing him wandering peacefully around campus, often carrying a vintage camera or watercolors in his hands. For some reason, you couldn’t tear your eyes away from his profile, drawn in by the mysterious aura that lingered around his hunched figure and hung in his deep brown eyes.

“That,” Seokjin remarks, “is Kim Taehyung. Fine arts major. Gamma Mu Mu. I like to think of him as the school’s token art hoe.”

You scoff. “Why do you say that?”

“He fits the stereotype perfectly. He refuses to take pictures on anything other than his Polaroid, he stans Van Gogh, and he thinks he invented wearing wire-rimmed glasses. I’m pretty sure I heard him say once that Instagram was an ‘insult to modern photography’.”

“Okay, but have you seen him? He’s perfect.”

“Oh, I know. But I don’t think I would want to be seen with the guy who looks like the physical manifestation of a liberal arts college degree. Hard pass.”

You’re about to voice your disappointment when a loud burst of laughter from the other side of the room piques your interest. You find yourself staring at a small crowd of people clustered around the couch in the living room— wait— around the guy sitting on the couch in the living room. The people surrounding him are incredibly intrigued by him, judging by how close they lean in to hear him and how hard they laugh at all his jokes, and you wonder if it’s because of his wide smile or his kind eyes or his very presence or all of the above.

You deduce that it must be the last option because you’re intrigued, too.

“Who is that?” you ask, dumbfounded, wondering how the hell you’ve never seen him around the university before.

Seokjin echoes your confusion. “Jung Hoseok? He’s the nicest guy on campus! His frat calls him ‘The Sun of Omega Psi’, which is such a cute nickname. A little cheesy, but cute, nonetheless.” He shifts his attention towards said ray of light. “You can’t deny it, though, the nickname. It fits him perfectly.”

He’s right; you can’t. If Chode Jungcock is the life of the party, then Jung Hoseok is the light. Hoseok seems to radiate positivity and his effect can be seen on the smiles on people’s faces that inexplicably appear whenever he passes by. People like Hoseok aren’t supposed to exist, yet here he is: charming, friendly, witty, and to top it all off, painfully handsome.

You frown, however, and voice your thoughts aloud. “I can’t use Hoseok, though. He’s too pure for this world, and especially too pure for revenge.” You turn to Seokjin. “It’s back to the drawing board, I guess.”

Seokjin is in the midst of forming another sentence before something by the staircase makes his head cock to the side and his eyes squint. “Huh. I never thought I’d see the day when he’d be outside his dorm.”

It’s your turn to squint your eyes towards the something— someone— that has caught Seokjin’s attention. What you find is a man bundled in a black hoodie and huddled at the bottom of the staircase, idly petting Holly, the small brown poodle that Pi Rho Omega adopted as their live-in pet. Though his head is turned downwards, you can see the curve of an upturned nose and the soft pout of his lips through his bangs and you conclude that there is a handsome face hiding underneath that hood. “And he is…?”

“Min Yoongi. I think he’s a music production major, and I think he’s in Zeta Theta Psi, but I don’t know for sure. I’ve only ever heard bits and pieces of information about him because he interacts with people once a year, he’s that introverted. I honestly don’t even know why he’s at this party, let alone why he joined a fraternity in the first place.”

That explains why you didn’t recognize him, because you have truly never seen him on campus before. “So, what do you know about him?”

“I know that he’s the host of the university’s radio station and that he’s normally holed up in his dorm producing songs with lyrics pulled straight from aesthetic text posts on Tumblr.”

“I take that as a no.”

“Mhm. I definitely peg him as someone who sends passive-aggressive mixtapes to all the boys he’s ever touched before. Hell, he’d probably write a song about you and blast it to the whole school. It’s too risky.”

You can’t help but nod in agreement because he does seem like that type of guy. But you choke on the chuckle that’s about to leave your throat, however, when your eyes catch sight of a man standing in a nearby hallway. The pounding music drowns out the conversation he’s having with the two other people standing by, but from the way his eyebrows furrow over his glasses, you can tell that his focus lies on the conversation and nothing else. Everything about him— how he leans into others as he talks, how his attentive gaze never falters, how his lips curl up into a warm smile— screams the definition of intelligence, or, maybe, the definition of perfection.

Seokjin catches himself staring before you do. “That’s Kim Namjoon,” he sputters, pulling himself out of his own reverie. “President of Lambda Kappa Pi, computer science major, future valedictorian of our class. I had statistics with him freshman year and whenever I talked to him, I felt like my IQ went up by ten points.”

“So, from an IQ of 20 to 30?”

“Fuck you.”

“Love you, too.”

Seokjin closes his eyes and releases a sigh, needing a moment of inner peace before continuing. “I would tell you to go for it, but Namjoon’s been so focused on his studies that he thinks that getting involved with anyone would ruin his 4.5 GPA. Also, that being said, my ass will have his name written all over it by the end of the semester and I am not letting you ruin my chances of that happening.”

Well, this is just great.

“This isn’t going to work, Seokjin! I’m never going to find anyone,” you suddenly exclaim, feeling defeated as you plop down onto the nearest chair. You’re beginning to accept that this plan for revenge is only going to backfire on you, that Jungkook is finally and definitely going to win.

And then your eyes find their way back to Hoseok— not to look at him, but rather, at the man standing beside him. He’s currently laughing at one of Hoseok’s many jokes— it’s such a bright, beautiful laugh— and his endearing smile makes his eyes crinkle at the edges. Seokjin opens his mouth, about to say the stranger’s name, but he stops, because the look in your eyes tells him that you already know it.

Park Jimin— the vice president of Pi Rho Omega and Jeon Jungkook’s best friend. He’s the most sought-after guy on campus— that is, next to Jungkook, of course— because he is, quite literally, the perfect guy. Jimin is ambitious, intelligent, caring, and, though you never brought yourself to admit it, everything that your boyfriend isn’t.

Being Jungkook’s girlfriend brought about a mutual friendship with Jimin, but you would be lying to yourself if you said that you had never looked at him as anything more than a friend. You had noticed Jimin’s sidelong glances and stares that always lasted a few seconds too long and, sometimes, when Jungkook was distracted and Jimin shifted his attention elsewhere, you returned them. But you were a loyal girlfriend and you never acted upon your fleeting feelings even though you knew that Jimin was so much better than Jungkook because— because…

Because Jimin wasn’t Jungkook.

What you were about to do to Jimin was wrong and you knew it, but even as the logical part of your brain screamed at you to stop whatever you’re doing this is so wrong, the irrational part of your brain blinded you from any good sense of moral judgement, so hell-bent on getting back at Jungkook that nothing and no one else mattered. Your anger clouded your vision until all you could see was your feet and how they were getting closer and closer to Jimin as he walked towards the kitchen, until all you could think was how you were getting closer and closer to fulfilling your desire for revenge.

Your footsteps stopped right in front of Jimin, who was just about to get another beer from the cooler sitting on the kitchen floor. You were painfully aware of your surroundings and everything occurring within them: how your heartbeat was thundering in your ears, how Jimin was so wide-eyed and so blissfully unaware of the situation at hand, and, out of the corner of your eye, how Jungkook was staring at you and all that was about to happen.

You’d been planning for this moment all night, but now that it was here, you weren’t sure if you could follow through. You gulped, hesitated, felt something in your stomach lurch and oh God I’m going to be sick if I don’t grow a pair of balls right now.

In one moment, Jimin was saying, “Hey, Y/N— are you okay?”

In the next moment, you were kissing Jimin in front of your boyfriend.

Eight seconds— the kiss lasted only eight seconds and every second felt wrong wrong this is so wrong but you couldn’t shake the feeling that this is so, so right. You liked the way his lips felt on yours. You liked the way his fingers weaved their way into your hair, gently cupping the back of your head. You liked the way he sighed onto your lips, a small sigh that silently whispered how he had waited a year for this moment, how he had waited a year for you.

Eight seconds— it took you eight seconds to decide that you wanted to spend much more time with Jimin. The rest of your life, maybe.

Suddenly, it didn’t matter that you couldn’t hear the music over the crowd’s whispers, it didn’t matter that Seokjin’s jaw was hitting the floor from across the room, and it definitely didn’t matter that Jungkook was angrily storming out of the frat house, shrugging off the girl he was kissing moments ago. All that mattered was you and Jimin and how you now felt breathless in his presence and how his eyes now lit up when he looked at you and were his eyes always this brilliant?

Jimin pulled away from the kiss all too soon. He was silent for a moment. You braced yourself for rejection, for the inevitable and irrevocable feeling of despair that would hit you when he walked away.

But all he said was, “Kiss me again.”

So you did, and sparks flew.

Park Jimin— he wasn’t Jeon Jungkook, no, but if every moment with him felt like this, then that was a very, very good thing.

#btsguild #kpopwritingnet #bts #bts fic #bts au #bts fluff #bts humor #jungkook fic #jungkook fluff #jimin fic #jimin humor #jungkook fanfic #jungkook au #jimin fanfic #jimin au

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affairesasuivre · 5 years

Video

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Royksopp - Poor Leno (Sander Kleinenberg Edit)

Superstar Dutch DJ and producer Sander Kleinenberg has built his international reputation on an ability to create different atmospheres, for myriad crowds, at venues all over the world.

Kleinenberg is not only an artist who declines to stick to a single, easily defined sound, he also utilizes more than one medium to create a night out. Long at the forefront of integrating video imagery and other visuals in his DVJ sets, Sander includes Pioneer among his sponsors for these innovative performances. The manufacturer has been involved with outfitting select clubs around the world with the SVM-1000 audio-visual mixer (which Kleinenberg helped develop), DVJ players, plasma televisions, and other custom video installations exclusively for his performances. Integrating music and images single-handedly requires sharpened skills and on-the-fly invention. "Now, in the process of DJing, I am in control of another dimensions. The thought processes are not just about music; there is a visual element as well." Which allows his to shape his identity, and stimulate crowds, in a host of fresh ways. "This is a whole new way of looking at what you do creatively. In the end, that is very challenging. It makes you more versatile as well. I love keeping on my toes." Sander will continue to show off his aesthetic flexibility at residencies around the world during the course of the year, including Pacha in Ibiza, Avalon in Los Angeles, Discoteque in Moscow, and Melkweg in Amsterdam. Each of these gigs affords him unique creative opportunities; the exclusivity and luxury of Pacha elicits different impulses from him than the storied, historic Avalon, pristine sound quality of Discoteque, or the iconic pop temple status of Melkweg for example. Which is how he likes it. "Residencies are like laboratories: You can go in and experiment. As you get to know the sound system and the clientele, and become comfortable, you have more faith in each potential change of direction." The year 2011 will be the year of the release of Sander Kleinenberg's debut album '5K'. This is what Sander has to say himself about the album: ''I’m sure the listener will find the ambivalence between the DJ in me trying to make a soundtrack for Saturday night and the writer in me trying to write a substantial song with more depth to it.” Sander explains, “The internal battle bothered me for a long time and it’s obvious that I’ve been struggling to chose sides. As a matter of fact I’m still not sure but simply had to move forward. I noticeably tried to marry the two on this album and in my humble opinion succeeded, which resulted in this exciting ‘5K’ studio album on which I’ve been working for the past year and a half. It’s been great working with such a variety of extremely talented people in order to make this happen.'' Those “extremely talented people” include British jazz singer/songwriter Jamie Cullum, an artist whose involvement in Sander’s album may well turn some heads. In fact, it represents exactly what Sander wanted to achieve with his LP and in-turn Jamie admits “I’ve watched Sander for many years from the dancefloor as a fan, so it was an absolute dream come true to work with him! He’s an amazing producer to work with.” Across 5K you not only get a true account of all the sounds that are currently exciting Sander, but you get all the experience and wisdom that a 20-year DJ career has brought, This really Is Sander Kleinenberg. Starting with a nod towards his first love of De La Soul, Jungle Brothers and A Tribe Called Quest, ‘This Love’ featuring Ace Reign opens the album in style with a high-energy rap of the highest quality. Flowing smoothly into ‘Remember When’ (the Jamie Cullem single) and then into ‘Follow Me’, Sander quickly sets his stool out that this is not an album consisting of 10 instrumental dancefloor bangers, in fact, despite it’s very danceable sound it’s quite the opposite, packed full of character and radio-appeal. Another point worth noting is the flow that Sander’s achieved on 5K, deliberately choosing not to use gaps between each track, the album (although not seamlessly beat matched) builds in a way not too dissimilar to a DJ set. With the opening three tracks sucking you in, Sander then drops ‘The Healer’ – a straight up four to the floor banger – into ‘The Journey’ featuring Kraak & Smaak and Ursula Rucker – a classic Moroder-like analogue-synth journey – and then the huge summer club anthem ‘M.A.N.I.A.C.’ – the biggest dancefloor-focused track on the album. From there Sander diversifies again, drawing on his love of epic rock, ‘Closer’ featuring Neil Ormandy could easily be mistaken for U2 or The Killers. Followed by Sander’s “attempt at being French”, the 80’s-inspired vocodered ‘R.Y.A.N.L.’ (Rock you all night long) and then into ‘Disko Riot’ ft Jon Fugler, which is, in Sander’s own words “a techno protest song written strongly to stand up against what the world of money has done to us all – how bankers obsessed with wealth have fucked us all over… and still do.” ‘Chemically’ featuring Ryan Starr is strongly influenced by The Prodigy, with rave breaks providing the backdrop to Ryan’s perfectly suited vocals – a real standout on the album. With the brilliant Nathan ‘Flutebox’ Lee, providing his services for an almost dubstep reprise with ‘This Love’, the album then draws to a close with ‘Wish I Said’ featuring Miss Montreal – a deeply personally song dedicated to Sander’s mother and all the things he wanted to say to her before she passed away. It’s an emotional end to a very personal album. An album that’s been developed and worked on for a lot longer than most, we only hope that the follow up is not too far in the future. You already knew Sander Kleinenberg the DJ, you now know Sander Kleinenbergthe artist.

#sander kleinenberg #poor leno #royksopp #house #remix #resident advisor #2012 #affaires a suivre #affairesasuivre

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syftkogtech · 5 years

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Slinger Francisco ORTT CMT OBE, better known as Mighty Sparrow, is a Trinidadian calypso vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist.

The Interview ...

Mighty Sparrow: the king of calypso on freedom, Windrush and oral sex

He inspired Bob Marley’s political awakening, survived a coma, and has sung about everything from sex workers to Khrushchev. And at 83, the calypso great still wants to turn the news into song

~ Vivien Goldman

https://youtu.be/PhxQmzR0Yzc

Can you put on the TV news?” asks Slinger Francisco, AKA Mighty Sparrow. While the photographer sets up in my living room in Queens, New York City, the 83-year-old calypso originator scrutinises the screen, where the US midterm elections offer gold to this instinctive satirist.

Watching Sparrow watch the news, eyes narrowed in concentration, is a reminder of the decades of conflict he has processed into poetry – from the impact of US naval withdrawal on Trinidad sex workers, on the infectious 1956 song Jean and Dinah, to the space age and cold war on 1963’s Kennedy and Khrushchev. More recently, he has hymned a pre-presidential Barack Obama, and railed against Russian oligarchs on

. “If you have time to look at the news,” Sparrow observes, “you see where most of those songs’ inspiration comes from. There’s no question about it.” The concept of fake news is anathema to him. “Certain people are telling the audience: ‘Don’t believe what you see, don’t believe what you hear or what you read.’ But I do believe.”

Rather like today’s verbal argy-bargies between rappers such as Drake and Pusha T, early 20th-century calypsonians also elevated barbed banter into a showbiz art called

, and locals would gleefully look forward to calypsonians’ response to every scandal and row. The rivalry between Sparrow, Lord Kitchener and Lord Melody, for example, gripped the calypso fans known as Bad Johns and Saga Girls, edgy dressers who danced the reel and quadrille in the carnival tents and were Sparrow’s constituents. “We used to put on a show!” he chuckles.

According to the Trinidadian writer and broadcaster Isaac Fergusson, “Even politicians were afraid of Sparrow and what he would reveal about them in a song. Until he came along, most calypsonians were semi-professional. People paid them with rum and food – a treat, rather than a salary. They survived on the gratitude of the people. Sparrow changed all that. He wore a suit like a businessman and insisted on being paid. He could be demanding, but musicians loved to play with him, because he treated them the best.”

Despite conflicts with the establishment behind Trinidad’s fabled carnival (

1957’s Carnival Boycott

documented his strike for fairer pay for male calypsonians), Sparrow is nevertheless an eight-time winner of each of the carnival’s Road March and Calypso Monarch awards, and is often dubbed Calypso King of the World.

The lyrical sting of calypso and the instrument associated with it, the steel pan, may be pop’s most embedded form of resistance. Starting in 1740, the legal banning of the African-style drum (made of wood and animal skin) under slavery and colonialism encouraged the invention of the steel pan. Hammering industrial metal into tempered scales, steel pans were made out of oil drums from the island’s chief export; this was music made by any means necessary, to defy those who benefited most from the island’s resources. Calypso’s lyrics, too, became a forum for thrashing out the issues of the day, reporting on anything from industrial disputes to sexual peccadilloes.

Colonial-era education and studies of the English poets remain foundational for Sparrow. “We always wanted to belong to the English side of things, because that’s all we knew,” he says. “As we grew up, America became a second part of us. But going to England felt like going home.” Throughout our conversation, Sparrow sings to make a point. “Remember this?” he asks, before breaking into Rule Britannia: “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.”

When his mother Clarisse brought the 18-month-old Slinger and his elder brother on a small boat from their native Grenada to Trinidad, they were moving from one UK colony to another. Though both islands like to claim him, his ancestors were involuntary immigrants. Sparrow’s gripping track

, from the 1964 album True Life Stories of People, Passion and Politics, set a template for how Caribbean music could interpret its bloody history. Fergusson recalls his friend Bob Marley confiding: “When I heard the Mighty Sparrow sing The Slave, I knew what I wanted to do with my music.” Over a propulsive afro-cuban jazz rhythm, Sparrow’s pointed enunciation and swelling attack on the chorus build a narrative that presages Marley’s Redemption Song. “I got to make a brilliant escape / But every time I think about the whip and dem dogs / My body starts to shake.” As Sparrow soars into the line, “Lord, I wanna be free”, the track stops so abruptly that it feels as if the listener is leaping from a cliff into the ocean to escape the slave-catcher’s dogs at their heels.

Sparrow’s life since has reinforced these creative imaginings. Few people have survived a coma to perform again; in 2013, he hovered between worlds for two weeks. Even fewer have teased those writing them off, as evidenced by 1970’s

. And not many descendants of stolen Africans have managed to make the return journey, but Sparrow did. Inspired by a visit to Nigeria in the 1970s, he has recorded in Yoruba, as well as Creole French, Spanish and Dutch. Despite the military regime, Sparrow found Lagos a paradise. “I never thought I’d reach there – it was like the garden of Eden. They basically did everything like we do in Trinidad.” Sparrow met the firebrand Afrobeat creator, Fela Kuti, and was honoured with a title, Chief Omo Wale of Ikoyi.

But he had already toured Africa in song, taking a fantasy trip on one of his most beloved numbers, 1964’s hilarious "Congo Man "

. Opening with a lusty chuckle, it finds Sparrow revealing his envy of a cannibal who has enjoyed eating two white American girls, one cooked and one raw. Despite the song’s popularity, it was banned from local radio till 1989. In my lounge, Sparrow sings the familiar verses and even enacts a typical audience reaction: “I never eat white meat yet, except” – a beat, eyes twinkling – “all right, just one time in Canada!” Cue the audience, corpsing. Well-versed in calypsonian double entendres, they understood that he was skewering not so much racism or cannibalism, but another taboo: oral sex.

The reason for today’s interview, however, is more serious. Sparrow has been called to England to perform at the

London jazz festival

Windrush

celebration, curated by Anglo-Trinidadian poet and teacher Anthony Joseph, and featuring Calypso Rose, Cleveland Watkiss, Gaika and others. It is a strategic reminder, after the recent scandal in which some of those Caribbean immigrants were redefined as illegal by the Home Office, of the defining contribution that Afro-Caribbean artists have been making to British culture ever since Sparrow’s frenemy Lord Kitchener walked off the Windrush in 1948 and sang “London is the place for me” into a Pathé News microphone – a catchy line that heralded the arrival of multicultural Britain.

Contemplating Brexit, Sparrow mutters: “I wonder why that happened?” He has confronted such divisions and dashed dreams of solidarity before, in 1959’s Federation, his comment on the crash of the post-colonial ideal of a united Caribbean. “We were trying to benefit [from independence] and we wanted to get all these islands together, create a federation where we could bargain better and benefit by all being together,” he says. “But once individual prime ministers in the

had tasted power, nobody wanted to give it up. Suddenly, before you could really get together, it’s all broken up. What do you do? It was terrible.

“In a way, it was similar to the scandal around the Windrush,” he continues. “Suddenly you are told you are a non-person, not to be treated with any respect. They say they don’t want you.”

Sparrow has succeeded in translating his witty island authenticity to the world, in a one-man demonstration of the role that culture plays in uniting humankind. Having seen and heard so much and compressed it into so many searing songs, as he anticipates performing to symbolise the beleaguered, resistant Windrush generation, how does Sparrow think we should approach the future?

“What would I like to see? People get together and get involved with fixing things instead of just having everything severed,” he replies. “We have to just hope that the younger ones step in and get involved as early as they can, to make things better. You know, singularity is not a thing that we want too much. We don’t want to be singular, as time goes on. We want to be together.”

Windrush: A Celebration

, at the Barbican, London, tomorrow, as part of the EFG London Jazz festival

~The Guardian

Dec. 2018

#mighty Sparrow #calypso #westindian #trinidad #calypsoking #tentoone

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