#i have my sister's old acoustic but its not enough i need more

[wekillitwithfire]

an electric guitar is not a want but need at this point

[thorxthunder]

Cardinal Copia SFW Alphabet <3

Hi hi! I’m Demeter! I’m primarily active in the Marvel community but I’ve shifted myself over to ghost! I still write for both and my inbox is always open for suggestions!! So PLEASE SEND ME SOME GHOST REQUEST!! I WRITE FOR EVERYONE!! Anyways, here we go!

A = Affection:

Cardinal Copia is naturally affectionate, often expressing his care through warm embraces and gentle touches. He shows affection by surprising loved ones with thoughtful gestures, such as leaving small gifts or writing heartfelt notes. He loves surprising you with things like your favorite treat or your own personal acoustic concert of new/old songs.

B = Best friend:

As a best friend, Cardinal Copia is loyal and supportive. The friendship with him would likely start through a shared interest or a chance encounter. I like to imagine that you probably met him as a sister of sin and soon became his secretary. I know it’s cliché but I eat that shit up EVERY TIME!! I ,also, like to imagine that you are a vet/ pet care worker and he brings a rat when he gets sick. He, then, starts to make excuses to come see you because you don’t judge him for his pet choice. He would be the type of friend who listens attentively, offers advice, and is always there to lend a helping hand.

C = Cuddles:

Cardinal Copia enjoys cuddling, finding comfort in physical closeness. His cuddles are warm and reassuring, often accompanied by soft whispers or soothing strokes. He cherishes the intimate moments shared with his partner. He loves any position as long as he’s basically squeezed into you. You’re his true and only love and he’s not gonna lose it.

D = Domestic:

While Copia has a busy life, he appreciates the idea of settling down. He might not be the most skilled at cooking and cleaning, but he's willing to learn and contribute. His enthusiasm in creating a cozy and welcoming home would make up for any domestic shortcomings. I love to think he’s shit at cooking. Eggs? Burnt. Toast? Burnt? Cereal? Somehow, also burnt. But those aren’t things he really ate since he grew up in Italian culture. But, he can make killer Italian food and pastry. (Oh God, am I gonna have to write a domestic Copia fic?)

E = Ending:

If Copia had to break up with his partner, he would approach it with honesty and compassion. He would ensure that the conversation takes place in a private and comfortable setting. He would make sure that you understood why it was happening But God, it would it break his heart to do it. He would probably break up with you because he felt like he wasn’t giving you enough time on tour. Or that when he became papa, he’s so involved in paperwork that he doesn’t have enough time with you. He wants to fulfill his duty as leader but, he wants to keep you as happy as possible.

F = Fiancé(e):

Copia is open to commitment and values the bond of marriage. However, he believes in taking the time to build a strong foundation before rushing into such a significant step. Since marriage really wouldn’t be a option while he’s a papa, he would probably not think about this. He would be happy just knowing you were his forever. If you were serious for a while after he became papa, he would probably make you prime mover. But he treat you with a lot more respect than just a sexual partner.

G = Gentle:

Cardinal Copia is naturally gentle, both physically and emotionally. He handles delicate situations with care and approaches relationships with a soft touch. He takes great pride in treating others with kindness and tenderness. That’s one of the reasons why Nihil didn’t like that thought of him being Papa. As Cardinal, he was kind. He never raised his voice and would always be compassionate. He would always give a hand to anyone who needed it. Nihil didn’t believe that Copia would be capable of being a strong and serious leader.

H = Hugs:

Copia enjoys hugs and believes in its power to convey warmth and affection. He is generous with his hugs, freely giving them to express comfort, support, and love. He appreciates the comforting embrace of others as well. But his hugs… are exquisite. His hugs come from gentle arms but it tell you that they are with you. I can imagine after a long day of hard work. Both of you are having a bad day so you just sit and the couch and cuddle forever. I imagine he wears a very strong woodsy cologne.

I = I love you:

here’s the thing, we all know our mans is clumsy. I would think that Copia would try to takes his time before saying the L-word. He would want to be certain of his feelings and ensure that the connection is deep and meaningful. Despite that, he probably would say it in the most random times. You could be having a bad day and crying and he would come over and comfort you and tell you that he loves you. Or he accidentally bumped into you and tell you then. It’s probably not in the most fairytale way but it’s genuine.

J = Jealousy:

Copia prone to intense jealousy…. Especially if it deals with his brothers. He trusts you and believes in open communication to address any concerns. He’ll probably seek reassurance but he’ll never become possessive or controlling. Now, if you’re at a ritual and someone comes up and starts flirting with you, you better believe that he is on you. Holding you as tight as you can the entire night. Everyone in the ministry knows not to mess with you but once you get out and about, there’s no telling what could happen. And don’t even get me started about how he acts with his brothers and you. One time, before you were together, he saw you and Primo talking and laughing in the garden. He thought that you were flirting with each other so he ran to his room to cry for three solid days. When he joked about this later on, you told him that you actually remember that. You were actually in the garden talking about what flowers were Copia’s favorite and Primo was making fun of you (jokingly) for being in love with his brother.

K = Kisses:

His kisses are passionate and tender. He enjoys exploring different areas of intimacy and finds pleasure in sharing gentle kisses on the lips, as well as on the forehead, cheek, and hands. He appreciates both giving and receiving kisses on the neck, finding it particularly intimate. His first kiss with you one of two things: After a rather successful ritual and he ran backstage and kissed you. He was so caught up in emotions that he kinda forgot it was his first kiss but everything went perfect. Or, he could’ve been trying to confess his feelings. I imagine him stuttering and getting all jittery trying to explain how he feels and you cut him off by kissing him to let him know you feel the same.

L = Little ones:

Cardinal Copia is kind and nurturing around children. He’s a bit awkward at first, especially with babies, but after seeing how you interact with them, his tension would start to melt away and he relaxed around them. As they get older, Copia enjoys their innocent enthusiasm and loves to entertain them with his rats or his musical skills. He somehow has a natural ability to connect with kids, providing them a sense of security and understanding.

M = Morning:

Mornings with Cardinal Copia are often filled with laughter and warmth. He enjoys cozy breakfasts together, sharing light-hearted conversations and affectionate gestures. He might surprise his partner with a fresh cup of coffee or breakfast in bed. Especially if he makes that breakfast. It will consist of some thing that his brothers taught him when he was younger.

N = Night:

Nights with Copia are a time for intimacy and deep connection. He enjoys cuddling in bed, exchanging whispers and soft kisses. He cherishes the quiet moments shared, where he can truly be present with his partner. At night, he likes to read some sort of book. His makeup is off, his hair messy, glasses on. Hell, he’s probably playing something like Candy Crush or something.

O = Open:

Copia starts revealing things about himself gradually, allowing trust and familiarity to develop. Being friends for a long time meant that you two were already very comfortable telling each other things. When you start dating, he was slow to tell you even more secrets, until he knew you were the one. He believes in the importance of maintaining a balance between sharing personal details and respecting his own boundaries.

P = Patience:

Copia possesses a patient demeanor. He doesn't get easily angered and prefers to approach conflicts or frustrations with calmness and understanding. He believes in working through challenges together, fostering growth and harmony within the relationship. Now if you guys got angry with each other, he would feel like it was all his fault and he would try to make it up to you only for you to apologize too and remind him that it wasn’t all his fault. Overall, you very rarely fight, and he intends to keep it that way.

Q = Quizzes:

Copia has a remarkable memory and pays attention to the details. He remembers significant moments and appreciates the little things that his partner mentions in passing. His ability to recall and cherish these details adds a personal touch to their relationship. He would pretend not to remember things about you and ask you. It never annoyed you though. He loved hearing you talk about yourself and all of the things you can do. He’s absolutely smitten by you. Those conversations would reminded of how special you are.

R = Remember:

Copia's favorite moment in the relationship would be the first time his partner truly understood and embraced his dual nature, both the light and the darkness within him. It symbolizes acceptance and genuine connection, bringing immense joy and satisfaction. It would probably be after a particularly long tour. He just needed time to sit and think. You were right there beside him and constantly reassured him that he did a great job. He also really enjoys when you confessed to each other. Remember, you’re his first love. This is not something he’s ever experienced before. Thinking about all of those things you said about him and why you love him truly makes him smile every time he thinks about it.

S = Security:

Copia is protective of you and takes your safety seriously. He would do everything in his power to shield you from harm, whether it's physical or emotional. He would even ask Sister Imperator to teach you defensive and offensive spell you can so you can never be hurt. He appreciates a sense of security in his own life and you can offer him support and protection when needed.

T = Try:

Copia puts a great deal of effort into creating memorable experiences for you. He plans thoughtfully curated dates, celebrates anniversaries with heartfelt gestures, and surprises them with meaningful gifts. He believes in continuously nurturing the relationship and showing love through everyday tasks and acts of kindness. He always wants you to know how much he loves you. He would go to the ends of the earth for you and wants you to know it.

U = Ugly:

One of Copia's bad habits would be his jealousy. Like I said before, he’s very possessive and sometimes this causes the two of you to fight from time to time. He wants you to be with him, but you need him to respect your boundaries. Eventually, the two of you would make up and find a happy middle where you both were happy.

V = Vanity:

On the outside, it seems that Copia takes pride in his appearance and pays attention to his looks. He does believes in presenting himself well and maintains a certain level of vanity. However, he very self conscious in his looks.

For his partner, he values substance over superficiality and appreciates genuine connections beyond mere physical attraction. He’s not concerned about your looks at all and you amaze him even in your pajamas or in your clergy wear. You’re beautiful because of who you are. But, it’s an absolute bonus that he finds you smoking hot.

W = Whole:

Copia feels complete and fulfilled when he's in a loving relationship. He thrives on the emotional bond and shared experiences with you. While he's an individual with his own identity, he believes that love enhances and enriches his life. Once he gets with you, however, he is truly terrified of losing you. He knows that he would never be whole again if he lost you. You are his world and he couldn’t even bear the thought of a life without you.

X = Xtra:

Do I think that he’s nervous and clumsy? Yes, but he hides it very well. When he first met you, he treated you with such elegant and poise. But on the inside he was a mess. He felt like his heart was beating out of his chest and that he could fall dead on the floor any minute.

I also feel like if he kept rats, he would love them but would be terrified of seeing one out and about. Just imagine that the cage breaks and all of a sudden there’s a rat running around the ministry. Someone will scream “there is a rat “and immediately he will turn his head and scream. He would totally forget that he actually has pet rats. Y’all know that one audio on TikTok that goes “It’s Shredder” and he goes “WHERE”… it’d be like that

Y = Yuck:

Copia dislikes dishonesty and lack of integrity in both himself and others. He values transparency and expects his partner to be honest and genuine. He also dislikes arrogance and selfishness, as these traits go against his core values.

Z = Zzz:

God, let’s not talk about his schedule. Copia’s sleep habits are hella irregular due to his busy schedule. However, when he does find the time to rest, he enjoys sleeping in a comfortable and cozy environment. That 100% means his bed, cuddled next to you or your guys matching plague doctor plushies. When he has the chance, he will always nap with you. He love those naps when it rains. The bad weather makes him want to stay in and relax with you. He loves feeling your body cuddled up against yours and when it rains, he brings you up to your bedroom and cuddles you until you both fall asleep.

[ronmanmob]

Continued from (x) with @tarnishedhalo​

The prompt and question earned Ron one of those exceedingly rare full and unguarded smiles that both emphasized that Beth wasn't the only one of the Rileys who was fangy, and that brought to life his own deep dimples. The way he turns his head causes the bar lamps to cast him in golden light, tarnishing his dark hair with its natural blonde highlights. The tip of his tongue rolls against the back of his teeth.

"Yeah, okay, Rawnie," the New York Irish drawl of his friend's name is nothing he can help, but it's still a intimate step-up from the the whole 'Kray' part. As if he's never known anyone to have a given name. Of course Riley keeps a list in his head of qualities both good and bad. Each of them slivers beneath the usually pristine veneer he wears though his hair's getting a touch long, and he's not been too careful with the razor.

"The pro is...I know like hundreds of different love songs, any genre or era you like, an' not just American ones." He spreads his hands on the table-top, gives them a flex. "Acoustic, electric...can play any guitar.  Can play the piano, drums ~including the bodhran. Violin. Harmonica. And everyone loves a music man, right? Plus I'm hell in the kitchen, and I'm house-broken." He doesn't elaborate on what that last means but delivers it with a chuckle.

"The Con? I'm old-fashioned. I don't really do one night stands, and I'm very careful who I let in my inner circle. Introducing someone into the family can be hard, what with my sister, and because it takes me a while to get used to someone new. Especially after havin' danced with the Devil and the mess she made when we divorced. Also...I'm told I'm bossy as fuck, take with a grain of salt or three." There's a split second where he's unguarded and there's something fairly young and vulnerable resting against the back of his eyes that shades the rest of his mien. It gets shrugged off with a lift of his whiskey, and a snake-like strike at the next card in the pile. "Hypothetically speaking, if you could ask your future self one question, what would it be, and why?"

Ever the attentive listener, Ron followed the eddies and swells of his pal’s answer with obvious interest - flicker-smiles and little half nods in all the right spots through the narrative. He’d heard enough about the man’s dance with what he called the Devil not to need to ask and ruin the mood. Note of her earned a scowl’s implication, but it died away before it or she could sour the mood. The rest - the pros and the con - were all sunshine and even numbers and known of by the publican too. He and Riley went back a little ways now. He’d met the music man and the master chef, and the bossy fucker too, by ‘n by. And for all there were times they’d butt heads, he did like him. 

Ron watched Riley’s hands as he reached for the next card; sipped his drink - G&T with ice and cucumber - as the question on it was put to him. A grinning response came instantly-

“This week’s lot’ry numbahs, aye?”

-and was spoke through as snigger as Ron leaned in a companionable couple of inches, as if he was sharing a sneaky little secret between just them two. That snigger kicked up for a couple’a beats, then eased away as Ron waved the comment off with his free hand. He had no real use for those numbers now, much as the penniless lad he still was at his core would’ve done things unspeakable once upon a time for a sudden lift out of poverty for himself and his family. Now-Ron though, present day Ron-- His wants and needs meandered down different paths and so, because of this, did his curiosities.

“--I fink” he said, the relative slowness of how he shared what he went on to indicative of the depth at which he felt it within himself. “Onest ‘n true ‘n not jokin’ no more...I’d ask if I was ‘appy...Money, yeah?...It don’t bring yah ‘appiness. It...smooves th’way t’makin’ a life tha’ll make yah ‘appy, bu’ it don’t bring it in i’self.” A slight, consideratory pause came on. It bought on a moment’s silence that ended with a fractional nod, Ron’s commentary picking up from where it’d broken off more seamlessly than it often did. “I know tha’ now, where I didn’t b’fore...So I’d wanna know if I made it in a way tha’ mattahs, as well as in a way tha’ don’t mattah so much, grand scheme.” 

A sip from his G&T was the period on that thought, Mr Flippant Sniggers coming right on back to the fore as glass met table and Ron went for the next card on the pile between ‘em.

“Right-” A glance at the card over his glasses so he could dictate its query. “-Name one’a your ‘eroes ‘n tell us why they’re one.”

[melisa-may-taylor72]

QUEEN BEFORE QUEEN

THE 1960s RECORDINGS

➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖

PART 4:

THE OPPOSITION

JOHN DEACON WAS THE QUIETEST MEMBER OF A MIDLAND-BASED FIVE-PIECE WHOSE GREATEST AMBITION WAS TO PLAY ANOTHER GIG.

Initial research John S. Stuart. Additional research and text: Andy Davis.

John Deacon was the fourth and final member to join Queen. He became part of that regal household 25 years ago this month, enrolling as the band’s permanent bassist in February 1971. His acceptance marked the culmination of a six-year ‘career’ in music, much of which he spent in an amateur, Leicestershire covers band called the Opposition.

From 1965 until 1969, Deacon and his schoolmates ploughed a humble, local furrow in and around their Midlands hometown, reflecting the decade’s mercurial moodswing with a series of names, images and styles of music. The most remarkable fact about the Opposition was just how unremarkable the group actually was.

Collectively, they were an unambitious crew: undertaking precisely no trips down to London to woo A&R men; winning only one notable support slot for the army of chart bands who visited Leicester in the ‘60s (opening for Reperata & the Delrons in Melton Mowbray in 1968); and managing even to miss out on the option of sending a demo tape to any of the nation’s record labels. The band’s saving grace is its solé recorded legacy: a three-track acetate — although even this was done for purely private consumption, and has rarely been aired outside the confines of their inner circle.

It is perhaps indicative of the Opposition’s modest outlook that their most promising bid for stardom, a beat contest, was called off before they had the chance to play in the finals. For John Deacon and friends, it seems, merely being in a band was reward enough.

Considering of all of this, it’s easy to imagine the response to the following story, related in the ‘60s to one of the Opposition’s guitarists, Ronald Chester:...[ ]

...[ ] “There was a teacher who worked at Beauchamp School, which John attended, who told fortunes. They went to see her one Saturday and were told, ‘John Deacon is going to be world famous and very, very rich. Of course, they all fell about laughing. She was determined that this was going to happen. But they all thought it was a joke."

What particularly amused Deacon’s colleagues was the unlikeliness of this scenario, given the plain facts of his demeanour. John was born in Leicester in 1951, the product of affluent, middle-class, middle England. As a youngster, he was known to his friends as ‘Deaks’ and grew up to be quiet and reserved, what Mark Hodkinson referred to in ‘Queen — ‘The Early Years’ as “a ghost of a boy".

“He is basically shy,” confirms Richard Young, the Opposition’s first guitarist/vocalist, and later keyboardist. “I suppose he was quieter than the rest of us — but he was fairly static with Queen if you look at him on stage.”

Ron Chester agrees: “John was quiet by nature. His sister, Julie, was the same. Once he got going, though, he wasn’t any different from anybody else. But on first approach, you really had to coax him out of his shell. We’d have to pick him up. He couldn’t walk down the road to meet us."

CONFIDENT

Despite any lack of personal dynamics, Deacon was a capable teenager: “He was very confident," recalls another of the band’s guitarists, David Williams. “But in a laidback sort of way. He didn’t have a problem with anything. ‘Yeah, I can do that’, he’d say. We used to call him ‘Easy Deacon’, not because of any sexual preferences, but because he’d say something was easy without it sounding big-headed. I remember saying to him once, I’m going to have to knock off the gigs a bit to revise for my ‘A’ levels. What about you?’ ‘No’, he said, ‘I don’t need to. I’ve never failed an exam yet, and I’ve never revised for one’. Ultimately, he was just confident, with a phenomenally logical mind. If he couldn’t remember something, he could work it out. And, of course, he got stunning results.”

John’s earliest interest was electronics, which he studied into adulthood. He also went fishing, trainspotting even, with his father. Then music took over. After dispensing with a ‘Tommy Steele’ toy guitar, John used the proceeds from his paper round to buy his first proper instrument, an acoustic, when he was about twelve. An early musical collaborator was a school mate called Roger Ogden, who like Roger Taylor down in Cornwall, was nicknamed ‘Splodge’. But his best friend was the Opposition’s future drummer, Nigel Bullen.

“I’d first got to know John at Langmore Junior School in Oadby, just outside Leicester, in either 1957 or 1958,’' recalls Nigel. “We were both the quiet ones. We started playing music together at Gartree High School, when we were about thirteen. We were inspired by the Beatles — they made everybody want to be in a group. John was originally going to be the band’s electrician, as he called it. He used to build his own radios, before we had any amps, and he fathomed a way of plugging his guitar into his reel-to-reel tape recorder. He was always the electrical boffin."

The prime mover in the formation of the group was another Oadby boy they met on nearby Uplands Park, Richard Young. “Richard was at boarding school," recalls Nigel Bullen. “He was always the kid with the expensive bike. He played guitar, and what’s more had a proper electric, with an amplifier. He instigated getting the band together. Initially, we rehearsed in my garage, and then anywhere we could. John played rhythm to begin with. He was a chord man, the John Lennon of the group, if you like."

SWITCH

Despite his later switch to the bass, Deacon’s technique on the guitar also developed, as Dave Williams reveals: “Later on, I remember he could play ‘Classical Gas’ on an acoustic, which was a finger-picking execise and no mean feat. It’s a bit like ‘McArthur Park’, a fantastic piece of music, and when I heard it, I thought, ‘Bloody hell. You dark horse!’ Because he never showed off."

The Opposition’s first bassist was another school friend of John’s called Clive Castledine. In fact, the group made its debut at a party at Castledine’s ouse on 25th September, 1965 (their first public performance took place the...[ ]

...[ ] following month at Gartree’s school hall). Clive looked good and appreciated the kudos of being in a group, but he wasn’t up to even the Opposition’s schoolboy standards. “I was the least proficient, to put it mildly,” he admitted to Mark Hodkinson.“His enthusiasm was 100%,” adds Richard Young, “but his actual playing ability was null, so we had a meeting and got rid of him.” Deacon took over, initially playing on his regu­lar guitar, using the bottom strings. “John was good,” Young continues. “It was no problem for him to switch to bass. He hit the right notes at the beginning of the bar, and we were a better band for it. Whereas Clive made us sound woolly, as anyone who just plonked away on any old note would, John was solid.”

DIARY

Young turned out to be the Opposition’s archivist, keeping a diary of each gig played, the equipment used, and the amounts of money earned (as indeed did John Deacon). Richard’s diary documented the day Deacon — now, of course, bassist in one of the world’s most famous groups — first picked up his chosen instrument. “In an entry for 2nd April, 1966,” says Young, “it reads, ‘We threw Clive out on the Saturday afternoon. Had a practice in Deaks’ kitchen, and Deaks went on bass. Played much better.’ John didn’t have a bass, so we went down to Cox’s music shop in King Street in Leicester, and bought him an EKO bass for £60. I paid for it, but I think he paid me back eventually.”

“John’s bass style with the Opposition was the same as with Queen,” reckons Nigel Bullen. “He never used to play with a plectrum, which was unusual, but with his fingers, which meant that his right hand is drooped over the top of the guitar. Also, he plays in an upward fashion, which I’d never seen before, certainly when we were in Leices­ter. Over the years, I’ve watched many bass players adopt that style. I’d say he has been copied a lot. I’ve mentioned this to him, but he doesn’t agree.”

Clive Castledine wasn’t the last member of the band to be dismissed. “The vocal and lead guitar side of the Opposition was changing all the while,” recalls Nigel. “Myself, John, and Richard Young were always there — as were Dave Williams and Ron Chester later on — but we had a succession of other musicians who I can hardly remember now. There was a guy called Richard Frew in the very early days, and a young lad called Carl, but he didn’t fit in. After we began playing proper gigs, Richard decided he wasn’t happy with his singing and wanted to move onto keyboards, so we brought in Pete Bart (formerly with another local band, the Rapids Rave) as a guitarist and vocalist. He was good, but again, didn’t last long.”

“Bart was a bit of a rocker, while we were all mods,” remarks Dave Williams. “We were impressed by mod bands like the Small Faces and the original Who. Bart seemed to come from a different era altogether.”

“Deaks had the Parka with the fur collar,” remembers Ron Chester. “And short hair, a crew cut. Mirrors on his scooter.” Richard Young agrees: “John was more of a mod than us. But you couldn’t really pigeonhole the band, because our music went right across the board”.

”Buying Deacon his bass was no one-off, and Richard Young is remembered as the group’s benefactor. Being older than the others, he had a steady job working for his father’s electronics company in Leicester, which brought him a regular, and by all accounts, generous wage. He rarely thought twice before splashing out on equipment for the other members.

RECEIPTS

“Richard bought me a P.A.,” recalls David Williams. “But he didn’t ask, he used to think that the group needed it. He’d buy it and then say, ‘You owe me this’. My mum used to get really annoyed. She’d was at that going- through-my-pockets stage, probably looking for contraceptives. She once found a receipt from Moore and Stanworth’s, a local music shop. It was for a Beyer microphone, which cost about £30. I was still at school, getting pocket money, and my mum said, ‘What on earth is this?!’ Receipts on the Sunday dinner table, that sort of thing. It was good, though. The group needed it.”

“I was dead serious about the band,” claims Young, who switched to organ with the arrival of Williams in July 1966. “Perhaps more so than anybody else. I could see it going nowhere if money wasn’t pumped into it.”

“Dick Young was an accomplished organ player,” adds Dave, “and he improved the group quite a lot. He always had plenty of dosh, and a car. But he was totally mad, a crazy bloke. He’d come round with an organ one week, then next week, he’d have a better one. He ended up with a Farfisa, with one keyboard on it, then one with two keyboards — one above the other. Then he had a Hammond, an L 100. which was really heavy. Then he had a ‘B’ series one. The ‘L’ was top-of-the-range and he sawed it in half to make it easier to carry!”

Dave Williams helped to improve the group as well. “He was at school with us,” says Nigel Bullen, “but in another band, who we always looked up to.” That band was the Leeds-based Outer Limits (who went on to issue several singles — without Dave — in the late ‘60s). “I joined the Opposition after they asked me to watch them and tell them what I thought,” recounts Dave. “The Outer Limits were older lads, all mods, but I was after something a bit more easy going, and the Opposition were my own age. They were okay, but I first saw them at John’s house, when they were still practising in bedrooms, and they were absolutely awful. I said, ‘Have you thought of tuning up?’ They said they had. But it sounded like they were playing in different keys — totally horrendous. It was so funny. They were so conscientious, they’d all learned their bits, but hadn't tuned up to each other. That was my first tip.”

“Our first proper gig was supporting a local band, the Rapids Rave, at Enderby Coop Hall,” recalls Nigel Bullen. “They used to play at this village hall every week. and then we ended up doing it every week for quite some time.” Richard’s diary records the Opposition’s debut taking place on 4th December 1965, and that the band’s fee was £2. Thereafter, they began to offer their Services in the local ‘Oadby & Wigston Advertiser’, which led to bookings in youth clubs and village halls in local hot-spots like Kibworth, Houghton-on- the-Hill, Thurlaston and Great Glen.

SCHOOL WORK

By spring 1966, the Opposition were playing every weekend, school work permitting. The peaks and troughs of their career are illustrated by the following memorable gigs: one at St. George’s Ballroom, Hinckley, on 23rd June 1967, when just two people turned up and the band went home after a couple of numbers; and a September appearance in a series of shows at U.S. Airforce Bases in the Midlands, at which they were required to play for four-and-half hours with just two twenty-minute breaks. It was nothing if not diverse.

“It didn’t seem to matter what you played,” says Dave. “People would clap simply because you were making music. They never said, ‘Do you do Motown, or soul stuff?’ ” The band’s repertoire initially consisted of chart sounds and the poppier end of the R&B spectrum. “Although we were inspired by the Beatles, we never did any of their songs,” claims Nigel. “But we covered the Kinks, the Yardbirds, and things like Them’s ‘Gloria’, and the Zombies’ ‘She’s Not There’.

They also altered their name slightly to the New Opposition, which they unveiled at the Enderby Coop Hall. “The name-change was decided overnight, when John moved from rhythm to bass guitar,” recounts Richard, whose diary records the date of the transition as 29th April 1966. Interestingly, though, it makes no mention of another local group also called the Opposition, long thought to have been the reason for Deacon’s crew adopting the ‘New’. The change did act as an impetus for further development, however, instigated by Dave Williams, who soon took over as the group’s lead vocalist.

“When I joined they were doing all Beach Boys stuff,” he recalls, “and I think I may have brought in a little credibility. In the Outer Limits, I’d been playing John Mayall, the Yardbirds, that sort of thing, plus that group was into really good soul like the Impressions, and fantastic vocal bands from the States. So I had a broad musical knowledge by then, whereas the Opposition had been a bit poppy.” Appropriately, the words “Tamla” and “Soul” were now added to the Opposition’s ads and calling cards.

Towards the end of 1966, the New Opposition were enhanced further by the arrival of Ron Chester, who’d previously played with Dave Williams in the Outer Limits, as well as in an earlier band, the Deerstalkers. “Ron Chester was a bit eccentric,” claims Richard Young. “He never used to go anywhere without his deerstalker. He was a really good guitarist (“stunning”, adds Dave Williams). We were probably at our best when Ron was in the band.”

On 23rd October 1966, the New Opposition entered the local Midland Beat Contest. They won their heat, landing themselves a place in the semifinals on 29th January 1967. They won this, too, and steeled themselves for the finals, which were due to be held on 3rd March 1967, when they were to be pitched against...[ ]

...[ ] an act called Keny. The stars of the show would have been the nearest the Opposition came to having a rival: an outfit called Legay. (A year later, incidentally, this band issued a now collectable single, “No One” (Fontana TF 904,£80J.) Unfortunately, for all concerned, however, the contest never took place. “That was a fiasco,'' laughs Ron. “Somehow we won those heats, but in fact, I don’t remember seeing anybody else playing. I don’t know whether we won by default or not. After that, they pulled the plug on the competition — probably because they knew we’d be playing again!”.

CASINO

“The heats took place in a club in Leicester called the Casino, which was the place to play,” adds Nigel. “The guy who ran the competition was an agent for the club. His company was called Penguin (or P.S) Promotions and he walked like a penguin too, with his feet sticking out. The final was going to be held in the De Montford Hall, which is still the main venue in Leicester. We thought, ‘Crumbs, this is it, perhaps we might make the big time.’ But the guy did a runner with all the money — people had to pay to come to the heats. So the final was called off.”

David Williams wasn’t too fussed, as he scored another prize that night: “I remember taking a girl back to Dick’s car on the strength of us winning our heat. I said, ‘Can I borrow your keys, Dick? He said, ‘What for? You can’t drive!’ “

Were the New Opposition — or the Opposi­tion, as they dropped the ‘New’ again in early 1967 — left in limbo by the cancellation of the Beat Contest? Having achieved the most public recognition of their talents so far, were they disappointed with the loss of the chance to prove themselves further?

“No. It was almost insignificant,” reckons Ron. “We didn’t really look upon it as a stairway to stardom.” And what would John Deacon have thought? “Nothing really,” suggests Chester. “ ‘It’s cancelled. What are we doing next, then?’ That would have been about the depth of it. We were a village band, all gathering at the church hall to try and improve our abilities. The financial aspect of it wasn’t in the forefront of our minds. We were more concerned with our music, and if we could get a booking doing it as well, to pay off some of the equipment, then that was a real bonus. Three bookings a week was enough for us while we were working or still at school.” Despite any dodgy dealings, history does have the Penguin promoter to thank for the only professionally-taken photograph of the Opposition. (“We didn’t go much on photos in the band,” remembers Dave Williams.) On Tuesday, 31st January 1967, two days after winning the semi-finals, the ‘Leicester Mercury’ dispatched a staff photographer over to Richard Young’s parents’ house in Oadby. Here, the group lined-up in the front room, looking more like refugees from 1964, rather than 1967. The only indications of the actual date are perhaps Ron Chester’s deerstalker hat and the ridiculous length of David Williams’ shirt collars — seven inches, no less, from neck to nipple.

“Dave was very extrovert,” recalls Nigel. “But we all had those silk shirts with the great long collars made by our mums and grandmas for our stage gear.” Dave admits: “Our clothes were all a bit mixed up. We had silk shirts with tweed jackets — which were fashionable for a while — and bell-bottoms. Musically, we were pretty good, better than...[ ]

...[ ] most of the local bands around that time, but we had this squeaky-clean, schoolboy image which let us down. I used to get frustrated when we were billed with other bands, and they’d all play with so many wrong chords but had a better image and still the punters applauded. Were they stupid? We were still at school — we didn’t leave until we were eighteen — and weren’t allowed to grow our hair long”.

“After the mod thing,” he continues, “long hair became really important. Bands were growing their hair right down their backs. I remember getting to one gig with John and Nigel a year or so later, and the other group were already on. And when they saw us they turned round and said, ‘Look! They’ve got no hair!’. We were quite upset about that”.

“We also went through the flower-power look,” Dave adds. “And then we got into those little jumpers without any sleeves that Paul McCartney used to wear, the ones so small that half your stomach showed. And then it was grandad shirts without the collars and flares.” Ron Chester: “The flowery shirts and flared trousers were everywhere. We looked like a right shower of poofters. But so did everybody else. You stood out if you didn’t wear them.”

1967 also heralded the arrival of an additional attraction to the Opposition’s stage show: two go-go dancers. At least, it did if the existing literature on the subject is to be believed. “I vaguely remember it,” admits Richard, “but speaking to Nig, neither of us can recal who those dancers were”.

Dave Williams throws some light on the subject: “They were the jet-set girls of the sixth form, they came from the big houses. They came to a couple of gigs and just started dancing. Somebody who booked us for the following week actually advertised us ‘with go-go girls’. But they were never really part of the show.”

ART

On 16th March, 1968 for a gig at Gartree School, the Opposition changed their name once again. “We called ourselves Art,” reveals Nigel, “because Dave was arty, that is, he was training as an artist. It was as simple as that.” Dave agrees: “It was my idea, because I’d been doing art at school.” Nigel Bullen was aware of another band using that name around the same time (the pre-Spooky Tooth outfit), but assuming them to be American, reckoned they’d be no confusion. As the Leicester-based Art never made it to London, there wasn’t.

Despite wording like “A time to touch and feel, to taste and experience, to hear and understand” appearing on the group’s tickets, Richard maintains that Art was “just the same band” as before. “Nothing changed."

“It was mutton dressed up as lamb, really,” admits Ron Chester. “We thought if we were called something different, people might come because they were curious. But it didn’t make a lot of difference. The audiences were captive at the places we played anyway. There was nowhere else to go on a Friday or Saturday night. Everyone used to roll up to see whoever was on, whether they’d heard of them or not.”

1968 was the year psychedelia caught up with many provincial British bands. The Art were no different, but their acknowledgement of what had been last year’s scene in London was via sight rather than sound. Their light shows seem to have been particularly memo­rable, as Dave Williams explains: “They were brilliant. We used the projectors from school, filled medicine bottles with water and oil, and projected through them to get this lovely golden, amber backdrop. As the image came out upside down, when we poured in some Fairy Liquid, it dropped straight through in a blob, but came out on the wall like a giant green mushroom cloud. It was amazing, and we had about four of them at the back, projecting over the band.”

John Deacon was party to another of Dave’s exploits. “One day,” recalls Williams, “John and I bought a 100-watt P.A. — which was pretty big for those days — and took it into the lecture theatre full of kids at Beauchamp School (which Deacon had attended since September 1966) for our version of Arthur Brown’s ‘Fire’. We cranked it up as loud as we could, put the light show on, and let off these smoke bombs, which were DDT pellets we’d got from the chemist. All the kids started choking, and then the headmaster walked in...[ ]

...[ ] with a load of governors. You could see the fury in his face. One of the governors asked what we were doing. ‘It’s a demonstration in sound and light, sir,’ I said. ‘We’re using these ink bottles turned upside down, but we’re a bit worried about these DDT pellets so we might knock the smoke on the head, but we’re still experimenting.’ And he fell for it!”.

INFLUENTIAL

Towards the end of 1968, a crop of new groups began to have a profound effect on the maturing schoolboys: Jethro Tull, the Nice, Taste, and in particular Deep Purple. Ron: “We used to buy Purple records and learn to play them. We’d seen John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and the Downliners’ Sect in Leicester, the Nice, King Crimson. These sort of groups. We learned a lot from just watching them. They were influential. There was always a big discussion in the band as to whether we should do a particular song. Once we’d decided that, there’d be another big discussion as to how we should do it. Everybody had their say.”

Hair, too, had finally began to grow: “John grew his quite long,” recalls Ron. “We all had longish hair, but not shoulder length. We couldn’t look too unkempt for the normal side of life, but we didn’t want to be too prissy for the other end of the spectrum. That was when we started playing universities, and we went a bit heavier. The audiences were far more serious minded about music and more enthusiastic. In some of the youth clubs we’d been playing, the audience would be moving around on roller skates, or peeling bananas all over the place, things like that”.

“We felt we were making an impression towards the last year or two of the band,” he continues. But it went no further: “We were at school, some of us had jobs, and there was an element of common sense overriding what we would have liked to have done. None of us wanted to chuck in our apprenticeships or courses. If we’d had a flair for writing our own material, we might have taken off. But we just played what was popular, nothing different from most other groups. That wasn’t a basis on which to launch ourselves. So it never happened."

“We didn’t think that far ahead,” admits Richard Young. “I just thought of playing and getting repeat bookings. John was probably the least ambitious of all of us, to be honest. I think he felt that there was no mileage in what we were doing, although it was good fun. I think he had the impression that this was a hobby, a phase he was going through.”

Sometime in the Sixties, possibly 1969, but maybe earlier, Art recorded an acetate. Whatever the date, the crucial point is that John Deacon was present at the session. “We weren't asked to do it,” recalls Nigel. “We just wanted to make a disc. I think it cost us about five shillings.”

The venue was Beck’s studio, thirty miles south east of Oadby in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. “I’d never been in a studio before and it seemed awesome, really,” recalls Dave Williams. “It was a fairly decent-sized room for acoustics. It was all nicely low-lit, with lots of screens. The guy knew what he was doing.” Richard Young was less impressed, though: I’ve been in studios all my life,” he says. “That was just another session. Nothing about it stood out.”

The “guy” Dave remembered was engineer Derek Tomkins, who informed the group that they could record three tracks in the time allotted. “We’d only gone in there with two, ‘Sunny’ and ‘Vehicle’,” says Nigel, “and we didn’t want to waste the opportunity, so Richard knocked up a little instrumental called Transit 3’ — named after our new van, the third one — right there in the studio. Although we were purely a covers band, everybody had a bash at writing, but we never did anything of our own on stage. The exception was Transit 3’, which was incorporated into the set after this session.”

“ Transit 3’ was about about the only track we ever wrote," reckons Richard Young (“Heart Full Of Soul”, as reported in ‘As It Began’, is in fact a Graham Gouldman nurnber). “I initially had the idea, but I can’t really remember anything about it. It’s very basic. It wouldn’t take a great deal of effort to write something like that.” To the objective observer, “Transit 3”, taped in mono but well recorded, is a fairly uncomplicated, organ-led scale- hopper, reminiscent of Booker T & the MGs.

 “Everybody was listening to ‘Green Onions’,” confirms Nigel, “so Booker T would have been an influence there.” But for all that, it’s well- played, with memorable lead and twangy, wah-wah guitar passages courtesy of Dave Williams. And, crucially, John Deacon’s thumping bass is plainly audible throughout. On this evidence, the Opposition were clearly a tight, confident outfit. “Transit 3” could have been incorporated into any swinging ‘60s film soundtrack, and no one would have jumped up shouting, “Amateurs”!.

UNFAMILIAR

The other two tracks, covers of Bobby Hebb’s ‘Sunny' and the more obscure, soul- tinged ‘Vehicle’ (later a hit for the Ides of March), featured a vocalist, but an unfamiliar one: another of the Opposition’s fleeting frontmen. “We had a singer for a while called Alan Brown,” recalls Nigel. “He came and went fairly quickly. He was good, really good. Too good for us, I think. That wasn’t him saying that. We just knew it.”

On both songs, Brown is in deep, soulful voice, sounding not unlike a cross between Tom Jones and the early Van Morrison — if such an amalgam can be imagined. The Art’s reading of “Vehicle” is edgy and robust, dominated by Richard Young’s distinctive keyboards and Nigel Bullen’s bustling drum work. Dave Williams is again in fine form, delivering more sparkling wah-wah guitar, while on the cassette copy taped from Nigel Bullen’s acetate, at least, John’s bass is very prominent, over-recorded in fact, booming in the mix.

“Sunny” goes one better, breaking into jazzy 3/4 time halfway through, before slotting back into the more traditional 4/4. It’s an imaginative arrangement, with alternate soloing from both Dave and Richard, while the whole track is underpinned by swirls of Hammond organ and John Deacon’s pounding bass.

“We did ‘Sunny’ as part of our stage set,” says Nigel, “but I don’t recall us ever going into the jazzy bit. That’s quite interesting. We might have talked about that before we went into the studio, but I think it was just for this session. Dave had two guitars, a six-string and a twelve-string, or it could even have been twin-necked. I still quite like the wah-wah he played on that track. By this time Richard would have been onto his second or third organ — he was heavily into Hammonds and Leslies."

Operating as they did in a fairly ambition- free zone, and having prepared the listener for a mundane set of recordings with their trademark laid-back approach, Art’s acetate comes as something of a revelation. Let any bunch of today’s schoolboys loose in a studio for an afternoon and defy them to come up with something half as good!

Just two copies of the Art disc are known to have survived. John Deacon’s mother is believed to own one and Nigel Bullen has the other. “I’d forgotten all about this record,” admits Nigel. “We know that one copy was converted to an ashtray!. We stubbed out cigarettes on Richards at rehearsal one night.” Although treated with anything but respect at the time, the importance of the disc is now apparent to Nigel Bullen: “This is probably John Deacon’s first recording, apart from tracks he did in his bedroom on his reel-to-...[ ]

...[ ] reel, which are probably long gone. Although, knowing John, they’re probably not!”

The beginning of the end for Art came in June 1969, when John Deacon left Beauchamp. With a college course lined up in London, his days with the band were obviously numbered. He played his final gig with the group on 29th August at a familiar venue, Great Glen Youth and Sports Centre Club. By October, he’d moved to London to study electronics at Chelsea College of Technology, part of the University of London.

Another blow was dealt in November, when the band's lynchpin, Richard Young, left to join popular local musician Steve Fearn in Fearn’s Brass Foundry.

“They were a Blood, Sweat and Tears-type of group,” recalls Richard, “and paid better money than I’d been used to. I was out five nights a week, on about £3 per night, against an average of about £10 between us.” The previous year, Richard had played session keyboards on the Foundry’s two Decca singles: “Don’t Change It” (F 12721, January 1968, £10) and “Now I Taste The Tears” (F 12835. September 1968, £8).

SAVAGE

Ron Chester departed shortly afterwards, and gave up music: “I left in the early 70s, after John Deacon moved to London. John was replaced by a bass player was called John Savage, who unsettled me. He had different tastes and drove us a bit hard. His approach was totally different from Deaks's, and he was much more interested in the financial side of things. We’d all been mates before, we didn't just knock about for the band. It just wasn’t the same.”

Nigel, Richard and Dave pushed on into 1970 with the new bassist, changing the band’s name again, this time to Silky Way. They returned to Beck’s studio to record a cover of Free’s “Loosen Up” with another vocalist, Bill Gardener, but that was the band’s last effort. Dave left after falling into Nigel’s drumkit, drunk on stage at a private party one Christmas. “I waited for them to pick me up the next day,” he recalls sheepishly, “but they never carne.”

Richard and Nigel moved into a dinner- dance type outfit called the Lady Jane Trio — “Corny, or what!”, laughs Bullen — but Nigel left music altogether soon afterwards to con­centrate on his college work. Richard turned professional, moving into cabaret with the Steve Fearn-less Brass Foundry, before forming a trio called Rio, finding regular work on the holiday camp and overseas cruise circuit. In the late ‘70s, he joined a touring version of the Love Affair.

Down in London, John Deacon caught a glimpse of his future world-beating musical partners as early as October 1970, when he saw the newly-formed Queen perform at College of Estate Management in Kensington. “They were all dressed in black, and the lights were very dim too,” he told Jim Jenkins and Jacky Gunn in ‘As It Began’, “All I could really see were four shadowy figures. They didn’t make a lasting impression on me at the time.”

While renting rooms in Queensgate, John formed a loose R&B quartet with a flatmate, guitarist Peter Stoddart, one Don Cater on drums and another guitarist remembered only as Albert. The new band was hardlv a great leap forward from Art: they wrote no originals, and when asked to perform their only gig at Chelsea College on 21st November 1970, supporting Hardin & York and the Idle Race, they hastily billed themselves — in a rare fit of self-publicity for the quiet Oadby boy — as Deacon.

A few months later in early 1971, John was introduced to Brian May and Roger Taylor by a mutual friend, Christine Farnell, at a disco at Maria Assumpta Teacher Training College. They were looking for a bassist. John auditioned at Imperial College shortly after­wards. Roger Taylor recalled Queen’s initial reaction to Deacon in ‘As It Began’: “We thought he was great. We were so used to each other, and so over the top, we thought that because he was quiet he would fit in with us without too much upheaval. He was a great bass player, too — and the fact that he was a wizard with electronics was definitely a deciding factor!”

How did the members of the Art/Opposition back in Leicester, view John’s success with Queen? “It wasn’t sudden”, says Ron Chester. “First we heard he’d got into another group. We couldn’t believe that — were they deaf? There were all these sort of jokes going along. Then we heard he’d got a recording contract and the next thing he had a record out. It was a gradual progression. No one dreamed he would end up the way he did.”

“I don’t think we expected success for any of us" admits Nigel Bullen. “Richard maybe. He was the first one to go professional. But when John left for London to go to college, he left all his kit here. I thought that was the end of it for him. He had absolutely no intention of continuing. His college course was No.1. It was only after he kept seeing adverts for bass players in the ‘Melody Maker’ that he became interested again.”

He also seemed to lose some of that ‘Easy Deacon’ touch which so impressed Dave Williams in the ‘60s. “He’d ring up these bands,” continues Nigel, “but when he found they were a name act, he bottle out. When he went to auditions for anonymous bands, where he would queue up with about thirty other bass players, he had a bit of confidence. He just wanted to play in a decent band. Once I heard what Queen had recorded at De Lane Lea, and John played me the demo of their first album, I thought they were well set.”

CABARET

By early 1973, Dave Williams had forsaken a career in animation to join Highly Likely, a cabaret outfit put together by Mike Hugg and producer Dave Hadfield on the back of their minor hit, “Whatever Happened To You (The Likely Lads Theme)”. While Dave was in the band, they recorded a follow-up single which wasn’t released, before evolving into a glam rock outfit, Razzle, which later become the Ritz, who issued a few singles. “During Queen’s early days, before they’d had any real success, John came to see us once,” recalls Dave, “and said, ‘I wish I was in a band like this which could actually play some gigs’.” Dave concludes: “I remember John coming round once around that time, saying I’ve got a demo’. ‘So have I!’, I said. So we put his on first, and the first track was ‘Keep Yourself Alive’. My mouth dropped wide open and I thought. ‘Bloody hell! What a great track’. I remember saying that the guitarist was as good as Ritchie Blackmore — who was still our hero then — and thinking ‘They’re serious about this. This is the real thing’.”

RECORD COLLECTOR Nº 198 FEBRUARY 1996

⬅PREVIOUS: SMILE

https://melisa-may-taylor72.tumblr.com/post/639672109315014656/queen-before-queen-the-1960s-recordings

➡NEXT: IBEX, WRECKAGE & SOUR MILK SEA

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[extremelyblackandwhite]

innocence - 04

PAIRING: bodyguard!bucky barnes x innocent actress!reader

WARNINGS: age gap, sexual harassment (please don’t read this chapter if it triggers/makes you uncomfortable, your safety comes first)

A/N:  i do realise i’m on a roll posting every day but uni starts early and idk why i keep writing like i’m running out of time😂 hope you enjoy this chapter. much love xx

* additionally, there is a light sexual harassment scene in this chapter and if anyone is uncomfortable or triggered by it i would skip it. your mental health and safety come first. *

NEXT CHAPTER

One day I’ll fly away...

She remembered the very first role she got to play as a lead. She was the standby for Glinda in Wicked. She could still feel her hand shaking as the backstage technicians secured her to the bubble. She could still hear the bubble machine engine rumble as the bubble raised up in the ceiling and for a moment she was above everything - above the audience, above the cast, above the stage itself. It felt like flying, soaring through the gasping of the crowd. She remembered feeling like this was her height, this was her flight but as things went, as she got more roles and as she progressed to the screen as she always wanted, the feeling of flying just seemed to soar, turning her into a creature of air.

Flying for Bucky was something he couldn’t remember, he remembered crashing. Remembered falling from the train waiting for the peaceful slumber of death to come but it never did, remembered the cold snow melting through his jacket reaching his skin. It’s cold. Remembered diving in after Steve, lungs filled with water, heavy suit. It’s cold, it’s quiet. Soaring was only something he could dream of while frozen or when they put him on a cell with a small window. Crashing was more like something he could remember, drowning, pushed to the bottom by his arm, wishing death came to greet him

More powerful than crashing was sound. The theatre was always filled with whistling from men getting a peak at ladies’ legs, women giggling and security trying to keep out children and teens away. You could hear the laughter reverberating from any material, it was electrifying. Her voice however seemed to melt over distorted past sounds, a melancholy while held hands with the old telling it never of its former glory but of what it can be. Bucky knew now why her agency kept her so locked up, all people with a voice eventually fly away. 

     - Don’t just stare at me. - she bite her lip, looking the other way. Did she sound that bad? She thought she sounded just fine in the shower that morning, maybe her bathroom had better acoustics. - Should we go back home? Before it gets dark?

     - Sure. - he got up from his seat, extending his hand towards her so she could jump off the set. She put her hand in his, another hand coming to rest upon his shoulder as her elevated her up into the air before bringing her down onto the worn out floor. 

The walk back to the subway was quiet. People were starting to crowd Coney Island for night time dates. Bucky remembered bringing girls to dates in Coney Island, even remembered bringing Steve along, he just didn’t remember the girls’ names anymore. There were some flashes of what they were wearing but surely those memories were replaced with that of Y/N staring at the ferris wheel as they walked back to the subway.

Once there, her child like wonder of the city that never slept and the city which she now lived in didn’t seem to leave her eyes, sparkling brighter than the billboards in Times Square. The walk back to the apartment was once again quiet, with their footsteps being the only thing echoing in the halls. Soon enough they reached her door, still looking as intact as they left it.

     - Thank you so much for showing me Coney Island. - she handed him the teddy he had won. - Thank you gift. 

     - I won it for you, Y/N. Besides, I think I’m a bit past stuffed animals. 

     - Well, I’ve had my fair share of stuffed animals to last a life time and I insist you keep this one. - she stuffed the teddy between his arms, finding it incredibly adorable how the little toy looked smaller in the middle of his arms than in hers. - Little Coney Island memento. 

     - I should get going. - he changed the subject, gesturing with his hands as he looked at the time on his watch. - It’s been a great day, Y/N.

     - The pleasure’s been all mine, Bucky. - she smiled as she held the edge of the door. She stood by the slightly opened door watching as he turned the corner which led to the lift. Once he was out of sight, Y/N walked into her apartment, closing the door behind her but still holding the knob with a silly smile on her face. 

Bucky reached the headquarters around 11 PM. Despite going the long way home, expecting Steve to be asleep when he returned. Steve had a very mundane routine when it came to sleeping, he could still sleep but he would wait until everyone was asleep for him to go to his bedroom. Bucky didn’t want to have to dance the first day in the job waltz. He knew he cared, he knew Steve wanted him to be alright. There was only one small thing; Steve wanted Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, his Bucky, and he just wasn’t that man anymore. He didn’t like being asked who he was, he doesn’t know who he is.

Opening the door to the living room, he found Captain America himself sat on the big lounge chair, skimming through his list of modern day TV shows and movies. His blue eyes moved from the bright lights of the television to him.

      - How was the first day? - he questioned, regular optimism present in his voice. Steve had remained the same, maybe it was that which made him believe the spectre of the boy Bucky was could be revived. He seemed to forget dead people can’t be revived. 

      - It was good, went to Coney Island.

      - Coney Island? - Steve muted the TV, contorted face expression settling into his youthful features. - I thought you were going to guard her door.

      - She wanted to see Coney Island. Couldn’t let her go alone?

      - Didn’t her personal assistant tell you she couldn’t leave? - he had been noisey, he had looked into Bucky’s contract. He told himself it was just in case, just in case Bucky needed his help. - You don’t want to get in any trouble, specially with agencies. They’re the devil.

      - I’ll take it into consideration. - his skin tightened as he smiled a tight straight line. 

      - Do you wanna stay for a while? I’m watching a series Sam recommended. 

      - I think I’m gonna just go to sleep.

Steve nodded allowing Bucky to return to his bedroom. There wasn’t much in the bedroom, a bed, side table and wardrobe, nothing else. No mirrors and no windows, silence, grey and black bedding, no decoration rather than a postcard his sister had sent him during the war framed in a plastic frame. No glass, Steve wanted nothing around he could harm himself with. It was almost like living in an insane asylum. 

He looked at the little teddy bear in his hands before placing it on the side table, a little smile on his face. A Coney Island memento indeed. 

The morning came rushing like the rain which fell against Y/N’s bedroom glass window. She turned around in her bedding, pushing her knitted quilt up to her nose, the scent of fresh crisp cotton invading her senses. The mood would’ve remained the same comfortable, early morning type had it not been for her comforter being yanked off her without any warning. Through the fogginess of morning sight, she could make out Ms. Olson in her traditional black suit co-ord. She thought it fitting, considering her morning was now ruined.

     - Get up. We have much to do. - she barked like an infuriating dog.

     - But I thought I had the weekend off.- Y/N rubbed the sleep of her eyes, sitting up, quilt covering her body. 

     - You have last mine commitment. Now run along and change into something more ... - he analysed her before gazing her face, tight expression settling in. - Enchanting. 

She left Y/N in the bedroom, clenching her bedding as she looked around the place she’d rather be. Nevertheless, she rose from her bed and walked up to her wardrobe grabbing the first dress she could find and a pair of heels. Her routine during work was different, she normally showered, got her makeup done, dressed and then out of the door. Mechanic, controlled, with Ms. Olson asking her to hurry up. In a split second she returned to the living room, bag held on her shoulder, sunglasses in hand as she prepared to walk out with Miss Olson.

    - You should’ve put some product on your hair. The ends look dry. - Miss Olson commented as they walked outside. She looked around hoping Bucky would be around but it was just her and Miss Olson. 

    - Is Mr. Barnes not coming? 

    - It’s a dress rehearsal. - Y/N froze in her mind. Dress rehearsals were supposed to be better than fittings but after her last experience she really wasn’t in the mood for another experience with the director.

Time seemed to stop, freeze in spot as she stepped inside the car. No noise, no sound, even colour seemed to fade as the car drove faster and faster. She wondered what she could do, open the door, roll over, maybe do it like what she had seen in Lady Bird but the driver always kept the door fully locked and Miss Olson always had her eye on her like Sauron’s Eye.

She looked at her phone in her lap, fingers loomed over Bucky’s name. He was employed by her, maybe she could ask him to come over. Maybe if he was there it would be easier. She sent the message hopeful he would reply, but the text bounced back. Looking at the network, she was lacking all the bars on her phone. Sighing, she leaned against the car seat, looking off the window, dark clouds on the blue sky mocking her. 

As the car came to a halt on the same building as before, she almost had to be pulled out the car by Miss Olson. Once inside, Y/N could see him, she could smell his patchouli fragrance as he wrapped his arm around her. She stood once again in front of the camera lights, muffled cries in her head as she was squeezed into a corset and a then a body con dress. Her eyes were blinded by the lights, behind those lights Miss Olson and Mister Powell gazing at her. Her hand slide down her collarbones to her lap, feeling the fabric as the cameras kept flashing, locking her in a case of lights. 

Once the lights dimmed, she could see them looking down at her, almost five feet tall, mumbling she couldn’t hear as one of the costume designers helped her out.

     - Costumes are looking fantastic. - the director walked up to her, hand wrapping itself around her waist, raising up to lay just below her breast. - Maybe you should try and cut some weight. You would look a bit better.

     - We’ve already started a diet plan. - Miss Olson added. - Not to worry, Mr. Powell. Y/N is fully invested in this movie.

She remained caged in the conversation, being moved by someone back onto the car and dropped at home. She looked around her hallway, wondering if it had always been this cold. As she opened the door to her home, she noticed the jar of flowers the director had sent her on her kitchen balcony. White carnations in a crystal clear jar. She stormed to the kitchen, ripping the tag of the carnations. To my perfect leading lady. The handwriting wasn’t his, probably his assistant. 

When had it all gone so wrong? Why did it felt wrong? Why did the flight felt like a burning crash? When did it all get so screwed up? 

She wrapped her hands around the glass jar, hands trembling, the sound of her ring hitting against the glass being the only thing she heard before a shattering sound filled her mind. It was fast, too fast but she threw the jar against the wall, watching as the glass shattered into a thousand pieces, falling into the ground like small diamonds. She thought it would make her feel better but instead she feel to the ground, trying to gather the pieces together as guilt embraced her. 

    - Y/N?

taglist: @disasterbii @lookiamtrying @buckysteveloki-me @nsfwsebbie @americasass81 @jamesbarnesappreciationclub @lostinthebeans @mariahthelioness29 @buckyandsebastian @peaches-roses-sins @theadorasabditory @sipsteacasually @tonystankschild @saiyanprincessswanie @booktease21 @noiralei @learisa @everythingisoverrated @uglipotata72829 @naturalthrone22 @husherstan @mandiiblanche @vicmc624 @newyorkgoddess @itsallyscorner @chipilerendi​ @emzd34​

[aurora-daily]

AURORA’s Reddit Q&A (July 13th 2021)

Kmilalv: Hello aurora we love you, I'm @ aurora.s_love on instagram ✨✨🥰🥰🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️ Aurora: oh hellooo!!!! Exportmusic: Meep Aurora: meep < 3 Lisxnne: WELL HELLO AND THANKS FOR YOUR NEW SONG! 🙏🌟💕 Aurora: HELLO!! and thank you for being open to it 24681357900: Thank u for making music Aurora: thank you for inviting it into your heart Emergency-Club-7529: This is have some upper case , it's the real Aurora Aurora: yes!!! Helloooooo brunamombach: hello ✨🃏🧚🏻‍♂️🤘🍇🍄🧚🏻‍♀��� when are you coming do Brazil? so glad to see you here!!! Aurora: I think I will be coming to Brazil next year  I love being in Brazil because I feel like it awakens my heart and soul to be there !! Brunamombach: if you were going to an souless island, what book would you bring with you? 🧚🏻‍♂️🍇🍄🧚🏻‍♀️🤘🃏 kisses from Brazil Aurora: I would either take: "The name of the wind" and "a Wise mans fear" or the LOTR trilogy. Or the "Mistborn" trilogy. or "warbreaker" or "the good omens" or "the ocean at the end of the lane" or "Anne of Green gables" or "The alchemist" or just all the books in the world oh no I cant decide

all DanParis: Hey have some karma you cool bean 🤌🏼 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Aurora: thank you < 3 Ok-Estimate8468: Tell us something you can tell us about the second track on the Cure For Me vinyl, “Potion For Love”. I'm very curious...

Aurora: its the song I decided for the B-side of the vinyl, and I will probably release it digitally one day too. Its the sister song to "exist for love" but from the other perspective. where love does not fill you up, but love has left a big hole within you < / 3 Ok-Estimate8468: Did you get a lot of unfollows and hate from bad people due to Cure For Me? Aurora: I got a little hate from homophobes, and also abelist, and racist comments from people claiming there was nothing wrong with their mindset. BUT it does not bother me. and I will never stop speaking up about the things I find important. because.. what else would our meaning on this earth be? if that makes sense. Some people have attacked me personally, but sadly mostly its people defending their own hateful ways of being. I cant even imagine how it really is to be a victim of racism or violent homophobia, so I feel like the least I can do is to try the best I can to show support. and speak up. and be an ally.

So a bit more short - yes, and I really dont mind!!!! unfollow me if you find speaking about equality and the right to live, and love and be loved unsettling <3 thank you for this question! Ok-Estimate8468: How was the process of creating the studio version of Cure For Me? I heard your first acoustic performance and saw that it's much smoother than the studio, so I was curious to see how you managed to create another even more amazing version. Aurora: Me and Magnus just played around, and we really tried to go with our emotions, and to be playful and to not think too much about what was "AURORA" or what was even...pretty! we just laughed! and danced! and did what felt lovely to us.

I think this is why the making of this song is one of my favourite memories, and also I think that is why it sounds so playful! because it is!! it was like playing a game. and I did also play alot around with symbolics in both the lyrics and the way this song is produced. it all has a meaning you see... but of course I will let you figure that out yourself!!

Pingouiin_: What's your favourite mountain around bergen ? Aurora: mine is Løvstakken!! and Magnus loves Ullrikken!! but important to NEVER stop a Norwegian person walking on the mountain. just say. a quick hello and wander off your own mind. become at one with nature Whoamiandallthat: Thank you for existing, I love your art and you inspire me so much 💙 You are one of my favorite artists 😊 And just the other day I found out that you are just two years older than me, and so successful... I'm wondering how it was for you to become so popular, did you feel like people thought you needed a cure? I'm also in the sphere of arts - filmmaking; but I feel like my films are not good enough... I have a YouTube channel with some videos - if you ever see this comment I would like for you to check it out 😊 Aurora: Ive felt through my life like something was a little off, ive never resonated that much with the people or the "system" around me! it didn't bother me so much even though I. was teased a lot for it ( so again I was very lucky) but I never felt like I understood the world and my place in it. or how I. could fit in, in this worlds society and with other people ! and becoming "famous" which I dont really feel that I am, but I guess that I am a little "known" (meep) was very strange, and very hard to handle at first. as impressions affect me a lot, and noises and people etc. but with time I got better at handling all these impressions, and avoid getting a.. sensory overload! and I am so happy now, that I can look directly at strangers and actually listen to them, and understand them, and even love them I guess what I am trying to say, that ive now understood that this is the very thing that connected me to all of you. and now I see my place here on this earth. and I see all of you, and you give my life so much meaning!! Lets_Fight_Dragons: Firstly I wanted to say I recently discovered your music and I love everything about it. I have two questions, I hope that’s ok 1. How do you start writing songs because I’m trying to get into songwriting and I’m not sure how you write such amazing songs 2. What’s your favourite song you’ve released? Aurora: 1. well I dont really know. ( I am sorry!!) but I feel like it started really natural for me.. I. kind of just sat down with my piano.. and then I started playing around with the Keyes, and I figured out I could make an endless amount of melodies by simply pressing the keys in a different order!! remember finding this extremely magical (I was around 6 years old then) and after a while I started adding lyrics, and I just spent time looking into myself, trying to figure out. - what do I want to say? what do. I need to hear in a song? what do the world need to hear in a song? and etc. I always think about songwriting as storytelling. and I always start out by figuring out what story I want to tell, what matter I want to dress, or what pleases me, or annoys me with the world, or what emotion I need help dealing with!! and then I write a song!!! and if you feel like its difficult to come up with melodies, I would recommend finding a song you like, and learn the chords of it (or find an instrumental version. online) and then you make your own melodies on top of that! many of the songs of the world share the same chords, and often the melodies on top is the thing separating them. music belongs to all of us, and its clear that every song in the world comes from the same magical source. 2. I think its the seed. or couples creatures!! or infections of a different kind!! tiffnoir: Our dear AURORA, your b-side A Potion For Love is helping me a lot (broken heart since a few days ago). I wanted to ask (if I can haha) if would it be included at the upcoming album, or maybe a relaxing, vintage video for it? Thanks for helping all of us with your music ^_^ Aurora: thank you som much for letting this song into your heart  after writing exist for love, I figured that I should also make a sister-song that could belong for the ones with a broken heart as well  it will not be on the album, but for you I will try to put it on the deluxe version FedahpWithThisWurld: Hello, Aurora! I'm a neurodivergent person and I have always felt a lot of shame over being the way I am, like I'm not good enough. Your music makes me feel better and it makes me feel that being me is okay. Thank you for that.  I want to know how you manage to be so confident? Do you ever get nervous before a show? Aurora: hello!!!! I have had a lot of similar experiences with myself in this world too.. so I am very sad to hear you've lived your life with this feeling I think after a while I understood what makes me different also makes me special. and special is good. and if you think about it, special isn't even that different, because in one way or another we are all... unique. but of course, some people have had to fight their. way through life more than others.. making it less easy to learn how to love yourself. and accept yourself. I guess, now I've surrounded myself with good people who understand my quirks and sensitivities, people who give me time. and space to be me. I have also been lucky, because I have a family that have always encouraged me to be myself. and to love myself. and I guess that is why I am trying to convey to all of you now, because now we are like al little family. where being who you are - is cool. and you're cool. and were all cool. and I get nervous all the time, of all sorts of things! but I just accept that feeling as a part of being human. its uncomfortable yes, but I know at least it won't kill me! 3charmplease: What was it like recording for Frozen? Aurora: it was magical  and also slightly scary. but it felt safe and good calling at the mountains. and I feel warm thinking about it. especially now. cause my father just walked over to me with five little strawberries in his hand. he gave them all to me. and they were so small, and sweet. im currently sitting in my childhood home, right next to the very piano where I wrote "runaway" and so many other songs. Tiny-Sink-2397: Boom shake shake shake the room Aurora: that was actually during the recording process of Cure For Me! Tiny-Sink-2397: I thought it was!! Seemed like an epic party Aurora: YES Joelynxyzs: what's your favorite movie ? Aurora: Practical magic BUT ALSO THESE: The LOTR triology ALL GHIBLI MOVIES avatar once upon a time in Hollywood Hannah the perfume fantastic MR. fox Star Wars: a new hope rouge one isle of dogs the hunchback of Notre dame! the arrival stypop: If you were to get the chance to work on a sequel to another Disney movie, which one would you want it to be? Aurora: since Disney owns Lucas films I would love to be a part of the Star Wars universe  or to play either a magical fairy, witch mermaid, forest nymph, or a scary beast!! WE WO brisot: The masks in CFM remind me of theater plays, do you ever watch any and how much of an influence for you is the art of acting? Aurora: this era of my life is very influenced by the ancient times where theatre was all they had. no CGI or special effects etc. and I really wanted all these videos to feel very authentic, and down to earth! The shell in "exist for love" was handmade by someone, and I painted all the masks in "cure for me" myself! so I like it when it feels... human Clear-Champion-1833: i love you Aurora:

<3

Jicuhrabbitkim: How do you like your fried eggs cook!! I like it when its very crispy!! Aurora: as long as its from a local farm that has free healthy chickens that walk about freely and eat good food I like my eggs crispy too. GhostReaper3: Hi I have a question as well: How do you keep positive? Many people including myself find this difficult sometimes so it would be good to hear your technique or way of keeping upbeat and positive! Also, thank you for sharing your music with us! Aurora: I know what you mean, i've struggled with it myself at times. but I guess I tried separating in my mind what I can do something about, and what I cant? if that makes sense?? we are all just here on this planet. and though we all seem to be going though the same things we still feel so alone, in our thoughts and in our minds. And I've been very aware that with music, and with this fandom we can all finally connect, and see each other, and know that we are not alone! and if there is one thing I love, it is to dance a little after I've cried. I think its important to. shake these emotions out of our body. like animals do! and then I made CURE FOR ME. because I thought about all the warriors out there feeling. a little crazy... after isolation! or after being depressed! and being l rocked in with their families that might not accept them for who they are.. and I thought I needed to make a song for us all, that felt a little uplifting. and uniting. just so we know where not alone, and just so we know that we are worthy.. of everything! and that we are worthy of celebrating ourselves!! ALWAYS! aniri003: Were the dancers freestyling in the last part of the video Aurora: YES! I told them to put their freak game on. And they were amazing. L_pls_use_revive: Hei Aurora! Apart from inspiring me with your music for emotional people, I also dicovered my love for Norway and the Norwegian language through you - now studying it in my second year at university. Tusen, tusen takk! I want to visit soon when traveling is safe - So which place should I not miss out on? Have a great life! Aurora: I think the whole of Norway is worth visiting! there are so many beautiful places. and beautiful people! I would ofc. recommend Bergen! (haha!) but also places like Tromsø, Trondheim, Stavanger, lofted and The Geirangerfjord and the Northwest!!! HAHA KakSetoKaiba: How's the progress of the album that you've been preparing which will be released after your death? Aurora: its going well, I take one song for every chapter and I put it on my death album instead of the album I'm making  its going well. and im excited about it! maria_fernandez_: This is not a question but I just wanted to tell you that discovering you and your music has been the best thing that ever happened to me. What your music makes me feel cannot be described in words. I love you so much. Greetings from Spain!! Aurora: thank you!!! applepieaurora: Whats your favorite pie? 🐉 Aurora: apple pie  and blueberry pie!! Ok-Potato7244: Thanks for sharing your time ... a warrior here to welcome you...Have some tea...And i don't need a cure for disliking keeping animals in cages...Especially birds...💚... Aurora: thank you pekaraseva: what do you feel when you perform Ioadk or Adkoh for people? Aurora: I feel so full of emotion and love and despair I could almost explode  and its wonderful. I also feel insanely connected to the audience when I sing these songs.. I. think. its because they are such important pieces of my soul targaryenblood02: omg what do you think cure for me would smell like? 🐛 Aurora: like something Brazilian! like Asai! or caipirinha! or Brigadeiro!

sproutingephemeral: Hello Aurora, Thanks for your new song, I've gotten quite addicted to it😊 I have a question that might be a bit difficult to answer. I am a Warrior from the U.S. currently without a clue of where I should be and what I should be doing. I'm done with school, and in the process of moving to a new town with my parents. I'm applying for jobs, but I feel like I can't find my reason for being in a smaller area with not many people my age. I feel like my parents are trying to mold me into a certain person, which doesn't feel authentic to me. I probably should be making more of my own decisions at my age, but I'm a bit scared and confused, if what I think is deemed too unrealistic or out of line with their expectations for me (like a childhood dream?). I tried talking to them about it, to little success. Is there something inherently wrong with me? Or am I just being spoiled or lazy? I read about how you were initially opposed to starting your career until your mother convinced you to change your mind. How do you know whether or not to trust in your parents' plans for you? On a lighter note, do you prefer cookies that are more soft (chewy) or hard (crumbly)? I don't need a cure for...my autism, and tendency to talk regularly to my deceased cat at his grave (??)😿👼 Looking forward to seeing you in New York! Take care❤❤ Aurora: you should ALWAYS. only do what feels right for you. this world is very absurd, and people tend to think they know what is meaningful and what is important. but we all know, money and success isn't important beyond what you need to simply survive. this one life is yours. and you should be just who you want. and do what feels right for you. because its yours. its only yours. drink tea. work hard. be lazy. dance. be shy. laugh, cry. drink wine and eat good bread. be good. fight for something you care about. and either live for your work, or work a little and then just... live. get a garden, grow tomatoes, get a cat. or a dog. or a parrot. life can be so random, and it can be both so little, and so large at the same time. some days were meant to TAKE chances, and live. and sometimes were just meant to exist. and do nothing. you should never feel guilty for not "being enough" because you are enough. just who you are. just how you are. is enough. good luck on your strange journey my warrior, maybe our paths crosses and maybe they dont. but know, when you walk out of your door, that anything can happen! and the whole world is yours. Hippolyte_gray: is the name of the next album hidden in your previous songs ? Aurora: mayyyyyybeeeeeeeee rashadalt: what do you think about your fans who are racist/homophobic etc.? Aurora: I feel sorry for them. because I know I cant be easy l living a life so full of hate. and even spending your precious. time on this world bringing other people down. and I know how easy it is for people to be driven by fear, and how difficult. it can be to have an original meaning and stand up for what you really mean. so I dont judge them, or hate them,

but I do feel sorry for them. and I am also very disappointed in them. because its such a. waste of human potential to live your life in the paths of hatred.

but as long as we face hate with love, we will eventually win. when we show them. we are not the enemy, just people trying to make a better world, I think, and I hope that eventually we can all agree that being able to live, and being able to love is a human right. Brivera726: I noticed you said you would bring LOTR trilogy with you to an island- I’m reading them for the fourth time right now  I feel like if Galadriel sing songs it would sound like you! Anyway I really like your art so yah just keep doing u- love from PFC Rivera, USMC Aurora: this is then est thing ive ever read thank you Aurora: I am. sorry people, but my time here (for tonight) is up </3 but I will probably be back looking at your questions and thoughts because I did really. enjoy this. and I. love you all so. much.

[link]

[ofcowardiceandkings]

I think you mentioned listening to podcasts? Do you have any favorites to reccommend? I've run out of content :(

that i do !

im not entirely sure what kind of podcast you'd be interested in but i'll throw out a few of the goodies in my huge library of stuff , i'll miss out a few of the HUGE podcasts that have been all over tumblr though

a LOT of it is true crime or human interest stuff , or history because im nerd ,, and a few of these dont have nearly enough attention so [shrug] i'll try to keep this short i guess lol this isnt EVERYTHING ive got in my library or listened series' by any measure

i AM gonna pop a shout to both Stuff You Missed in History Class and Stuff You Should Know from iHeartRadio because their HUGE archives have kept me from losing my mind many times over , and they cover a wide range of both important and wacky topics

BomBARDed (ongoing) this is the only fiction podcast i have happening right now really but its DAMN GOOD ONE .... it's an actual-play D&D 5E podcast in the DMs own musically-inspired world, focussed on a group of multiclass bards going to music school !! and all players (+DM) are members of the Texas band Lindby !! and they actually use and play music in the show with one original song an episode !! Kyle's worldbuilding and storycraft are truly incredible, and (Nick) Goodrich, (also Nick) Spurrier, and Ali's characters are in depth and interesting as well as an absolute powerhouse :') i actually made a piece for its first fanzine, Bardic Dreaming, which published earlier this year and is free to view now, all the players and the community are super wholesome its just very good overall 💙

History & Humans;

Fall of Civilisations (ongoing) legit one of my favourite podcast finds, im so glad my youtube autoplayed one of these ... it took me like 2 hours to realise it was 1) not the same as what was playing before and 2) had been on for 2 hours and wasnt near finished lmao. anyway, this is a series by historical fiction writer Paul Cooper, and is honest to all thats good one of the best documentary series ive encountered in years - and ive consumed a LOT of documentaries. it covered the downfall of various civilisations through history, and the episodes run from an hour to FOUR hours depending on the topic. its so chill to listen to and just get done, but over the pandemic all of the episodes have been given full movie-quality video versions too on youtube if youre more of a visual person.

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast (on series break) yeah that says that lol ... its a SUPER niche topic but its very interesting and treated very well despite being kind of comical at times, the hosts are just naturally funny lol ... it delves around from the history of cannibalism in whole regions to specific incidents as recently as the 1970s, and of course the first episode is about the Donner Party, and it covers things ive never heard of despite being kind of important ?? anyway Alix and Carmella are good eggs

Sawbones (ongoing) i probably dont need to mention much here other than say that Justin and Sydnee saved me from being SO BORED sooo often, the history of medicine is wacky as hell and its what most of my history GCSE was on so [shrugs]

Cautionary Tales (on series break) this was a wild-card find lol ... it's by Tim Harford "the undercover economist" who writes for the Financial Times, and its topics kind of weave modern topics and science with how to learn from historical errors ... its a bit weird but well worth a go, also each series has a few celebrity guest voice actors which is pretty awesome

Ephemeral (ongoing) this is a very strange but thought provoking series about sounds and other things just barely saved. topics include the last castrato, the hello girls, hand-stamped records, the spread of kīkā kila music, and acoustic fossils of wild places.

Neat! The Boozecast (ongoing) history and bartending whats not to like lol ... hosted by Teylor Smirl and now their dad Tommy, they're just digging around in how important booze is to human culture

True Crime (white collar and weirdness);

Swindled (ongoing) this is an amazing show full stop. A Concerned Citizen details some of the most impactful and unruly things to happen in white collar and corporate crime. very factually accurate but given the sheer bullshit of the topics the deadpan snarking is [chefs kiss] absolutely warranted ..

American Scandal (on series break) this one is a series within a series type, and spends a few episodes at a time poking holes in some of America's biggest scandals, from a dramatised but fact-based point of view. such as what the hell was going on with Enron, how big tobacco was forced to own up to covering its own ass, how Iran-Contra happened, etc. it also now has a sister show called British Scandal, which does the same thing for British cases but with a slightly different format.

Missing in Alaska (finished) this was a fascinating series, a deep dive into what happened to two US government officials who disappeared on a small chartered flight in Alaska in 1972. it goes some really strange places, but it actually turned up a lot of previously unknown information through the audience. John Walczak's new series in a new feed is Missing on 9/11 which looks into what happened to Dr Sneha Philip.

Pretend (ongoing) Host Javier Leiva holds interviews with anyone living a lie, or who have been touched by them. con artists, snake oil salesmen, former cult members, catfishing victims, anyone and everyone.

Power: The Maxwells (finished) hosted by journalist Tara Palmeri, the story of media tycoon Robert Maxwell from nothing to empire to mysterious death and the scandals uncovered after he was gone.

Lets Talk About Sects (ongoing) Sarah Steele covering cults from around the world, in particular those in Australia - where she is from. She often has former members on the show to share their stories, and share knowledge of how they left. each story has the relevant content warnings at the start of each episode.

Brainwashed (finished) investigation of the CIA's covert mind control experiments, centred on the experiments performed at a hospital in Montreal, and its cultural impact.

Dr Death (2 series finished) two series investigating huge cases of fraud and medical malpractice, and how they were brought to a stop. series 1 covers Dr Duntsch and his horribly butchered neurosurgery, series 2 covers Dr Fata and his fraudulent cancer clinic

The Immaculate Deception (finished) untangling the weird and disturbing fertility fraud of Dr Jan Karbaat, who fathered children himself through his fertility clinic, and the impact of his deception. later episodes also touch on other similar cases.

True Crime (Violent/General);

The Casual Criminalist (ongoing) Simon Whistler of-the-many-youtube-channels cold reads a script about the case of the day, with some of his daft commentary thrown in.

Southern Fried True Crime (ongoing) Crimes from the American South hosted by Erica Kelley, she puts all the facts out there but refreshingly for true crime she doesnt hesitate to tell you if she thinks someone is human garbage lol

They Walk Among Us (ongoing) probably one of the most popular UK crime podcasts, very measured and well put together, not weird or annoying about it either.

All Crime No Cattle (ongoing, feed slowed down for now) specifically about crimes from Texas, hosted by Erin and Shay, they're very sensitive hosts and a lot of the cases they cover shed light on why the Texas criminal system is how it is or show an impact at a national level

Canadian True Crime (ongoing) Canadian crime from an Aussie who's lived there for a decade, Kristi is again a sensitive and measured host covering some important topics

True Crime (Violent/Deep Dive);

Hitman (finished) journalist Jasmyn Morris digs around in the sticky tangle around a book published by fringe publisher Paladin Press, and its apparent use as a blueprint in the killing of a mother, her friend and her 8 year old boy for financial gain.

Camp Hell: Anneewakee (ongoing) this series is exploring how a wilderness camp "correctional facility" was endorsed by the Georgia care and juvenile reform system, despite widespread abuses and shady practices the whole time. warning for csa and child cruelty throughout.

True Crime Bullshit (on series break) this one is a huge huge rabbithole but a very interesting one where the host Josh Hallmark has spent years digging into the life and potential crimes of Israel Keyes. Keyes is often mentioned as a serial killer with no pattern, but in picking it apart thats not quite true, and has sparked some re-evaluations of missing persons cases and stumbling upon information the FBI has redacted organically. there's also a series in the middle looking into the crimes of Kelly Cochran

Forgotten: Women of Juárez (finished) this series looks into the huge numbers of missing women of Ciudad Juárez, the strange circumstances surrounding them, and the potential cover-ups and corruptions on both sides of the border, trying to give a voice to all of the forgotten women and girls and their families without answers. the series itself is finished, but a spanish language edition is being released every week now.

aaaaaand i'll call it there before i list everything lol, i hope you find something to plug your boredom hole with !!

[thecat-inthehat]

1. Foster

Did you know that Lightning Returns has an acoustic version of Eternal Wind with lyrics? I sure as fuck didn’t!

(1230 words) [Masterpost]

---

“--will assist you in learning what you need. Now go.” The old man, Conrad, said, giving them both a smile. “There’s a great many things I need to attend to, and introducing two new recruits is not one of them.” 

“Thank you, ser,” Papalymo said, giving a bow to the man. He tugged on Lyse’s shirt hem and turned them both around, marching away from the main tent. 

Lyse jolted slightly, and was thankful for the mask that hid her eyes. She’d been staring at all the architecture and the tents surrounding them, instead of at the man himself while they’d been talking to him. It was more than a little bit strange to feel at ease here, despite never having been here before. Her memories of her hometown were hazy at best, but something about the way the buildings stood, or the thundering of the falls in the background… It made her heart ache. 

“You know, you could shed your mask here. No one would be the wiser.” Papalymo said quietly as they walked, heading east to the entrance of the Reach. 

“The group is called the Masks, Lymo,” Lyse laughed softly, if only to cover up how her stomach flipped at the suggestion. “Taking mine off might not be the best idea.”

The man’s mouth twisted into a frown, and Lyse could see some of the wrinkles along his face setting in from performing the motion so much. He sighed softly, and shook his head, glancing at the lake next to them. “I worry, my dear. You’ve not gone without it in some time.”

“I--” Lyse frowned, and crossed her arms over her chest. What could she say to that…? She knew it was the worst coping mechanism known to the Twelve, but it was just so much easier to hide from the world behind Yda’s mask. To pretend that she, the little kid sister with no accomplishments or marks to her name, was back home in Sharlayan. The Scions were more Yda’s family than hers, but she had ached every time, and wanted to be part of them somehow, be their equal and not just the little girl that hung around. 

She still felt that way, one way or another. Spending weeks and months without removing Yda’s mask didn’t change that. Maybe if she just pretended hard enough…

Papalymo watched her for a moment. He was always able to tell her moods just from the set of her lips, and it unnerved her slightly. But he merely shook his head and ducked to the other side of her, placing her between himself and the spray of the waterfall. “Dreadful place. Do they want me to drown?” 

Lyse chuckled a laugh that she didn’t really feel, and obligingly lengthened her stride to give him a better cover from the mist. “So where did Conrad say to go to meet our sponsor? A … Blazing Comet woman?” 

“Shining Comet,” Papalymo corrected tersely, back to his old self. “Really, Yda, you should learn to listen. But she should be in the infirmary, helping the healers. I believe Conrad said she was singing, and easy enough to find.” 

Lyse cocked her head to the side, casting her senses out. She could feel a rhythmic pluck of aether to the north, inside the cliff face where the infirmary must be. It was odd, she hadn’t felt aether move like that often, save for the occasional time that Thancred wove magic into his music… 

“Is she a Bard?” Lyse asked, trying to suss out where exactly the aether was moving thickest. If she squinted her eyes and focused, she could almost see it with her mind’s eye -- a current that swept through out from its center and moved through the entire northern half of the Reach. As they approached they could start to feel the effects, and to Lyse’s trained nose, it felt like a variation on a Mantra spell to encourage healing. 

That was when the music reached them. A lute, maybe, being strummed in an energetic but soft nature, and a strong voice carried over the sound of the waterfall. 

Feel the wind eternal Sweepin' 'cross the land Over sea and desert Stirrin' waves and sand

It didn’t take long to find the source. A roegadyn woman with long red hair sat in a chair, her fingers expertly plucking at the strings of her instrument as she sang. She spotted them easily enough, and gave them a nod of acknowledgement, and continued to sing. 

Lost within the darkness, I am blinded by light A radiance that breaks endless night Now a secret beckons, let it show us the way Together we will find the break of day

“Thank you, Shining, I think that will be enough for now,” a woman’s voice said, and a highlander in a white coat with a thick braid nodded to her. “The patient is through the worst of it. I’ll let you know if that changes.” 

“Of course, Orella,” Shining murmured, stilling her fingers. The music still lingered in the air, fading out slowly. Another repetition of the song started up again, but quieter. She was stunning, Lyse thought, feeling herself stare. A high brow and cheek, full lips sculpted by rouge, and thick lashes that hid ember-orange eyes. 

Had… had she seen this woman somewhere before? On a street, or … maybe in a crowd… The thought filled Lyse with unease for some reason. A pretty woman shouldn’t make the hairs prickle on the back of her neck. 

Shining turned to face them, and Lyse almost let out a yelp of shock. From her crown to her neck, down to her bare arms, her lovely reddish skin was covered in scar tissue. Thick and knotted, dense enough to leave Lyse wondering how she even still had her eye. 

“Well met,” Shining said to them, smiling slightly as she rose up off of her chair and stretched. “Conrad sent you to me then?”

“Yes, that is correct,” Papalymo said, seemingly perfectly at ease. Lyse knew him well enough to know that he was unsettled, but for what she had no idea. “I believe his intention was for you to foster us in the ways of the Masks?” 

“Something like that,” she laughed, and the sound was impossibly musical. Like bells, almost. “My name is Shining Comet -- I’m from Aridia, up north. I’ve been with the Masks for a while now, but I’m more of a contractor than a formal member. I come and go as I please.” 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Lyse said, finally finding her voice. She was still unsettled, slightly on edge. She was sure she had seen this woman before, or … or had she? 

Shining smiled pleasantly--it pulled at the scars on her face, and bared too white teeth. “Likewise. We can use all the help we can get. Come, let me show you around.” 

She waved her hand, and the song that had faded out came to full again, the voice seemingly coming from the aether itself. The last verse started to sing, even as Shining began explaining the various rooms in the Barber, and introducing the healers there. It was eerie, but … beautiful. 

Just like the woman herself.

Beneath the fiery sky Where the rain runs dry Let my song be lifted By the wind on high…

[feminaexlux]

Dragon, Viper, Tiger

Tossing my hat back in the ring for @lovebugs-and-snakecharmers AU sprint challenge!. I went with the Thief/Heist AU since I’d been kicking this idea around for a while.

I gave myself an arbitrary editing deadline of 6pm so I hope it both makes sense and reads alright, but shrugs

Hope you enjoy! Find on AO3 here :)

⁂

Viper was sometimes glad he had a longer running gait than the woman on his tail only a few meters behind. He put his long legs to use and leapt up onto a couple of filing cabinets, scrambled up to the bare industrial support beams of the so called modern office building he’d broken into, and jumped over the dividing wall via the exposed ceiling.

Post-Modern styled offices just lent themselves so well to the good old B&E.

The wiring crisscrossing through the exposed ceiling allowed him to occasionally cut the telecommunication lines in his hasty exit, which was great in trying to prevent any of the security cameras from tracking him. If he also took out the internet lines that was just an added bonus, since that’d probably slow down anyone trying to access the proprietary blueprint he pilfered. He just needed to buy some time.

He probably could have gotten out a few minutes ago since he already had the memcube in his pocket, but this was really the only opportunity he had to see Officer MDC in action. Oh, nice, there she was, waiting for him in her combat stance at his specified exit point. Even at 5 foot nothing she’d landed him on his ass waaaay too many times, but honestly he loved the challenge of facing her. She always had new tricks up her sleeve.

But so did he, with some of the info that Tiger kept leaving him. Like, for instance, even if MDC had gotten the EMP disruption lace installed in her gloves, it could easily be counteracted and redirected by the additional aluminum alloy mesh Dragon had added as the inner lining to his wetware, so the memcube wouldn’t be completely fried if MDC did manage to land a hit (and she usually did). The only problem was trying to find where to ground the pulse… But the priority order was, as ever, keeping his identity safe, then getting the payload, then trying to escape unscathed. Paris PD’s Special Circumstances wasn’t ever going to figure out his identity (unless he died), nor would they get to know that the same general producer for their own tech was his boss (unless he died).

Viper didn’t relish the idea of dying, so he’d been doing his best at avoiding that particular outcome. He’d done well so far, even if he did come out of MDC encounters with more bruises and scars than when he went in. He had landed in front of Marinette and smiled. She rolled her eyes at him. And before he knew it, she had launched herself at him with her classic opener: a roundhouse kick to his solar plexus.

⁂

Viper slid underneath the food truck and unlatched a hidden panel, hauling himself through the opening feet first as quietly as he could. He toed the hatch closed behind him but caught it with his fingers before it made impact. He couldn’t give up the game now by being loud, that’d be so, so lame. He heard the gravel get scraped below his temporary entombment and he knew it was Marinette. She felt at the truck’s undercarriage and probed for any particular weaknesses or different materials and he heard her muffled voice as she worked with her TIKKI AI to scan any infrared signals and find any potential structural modifications done to the vehicle.

Here’s to hoping that Markov did its job correctly, he thought. Otherwise they’d be out of a job… and a food truck.

A few minutes later he heard her curse and slam an open palm against the undercarriage in frustration. “I know you’re in here, Viper!” she yelled.

“Ma'am?” He heard another voice chime in. “Why are you under our truck?”

⁂

A very cramped 3 hours later after a thorough inspection and nearly complete teardown of the food truck, Viper finally popped the floor panel and took in some fresh air. Well, relatively fresh, it smelled like greasy food all around him. The truck was already on the highway, having been released from the PD’s temporary impounding for being present at the scene and potentially housing a wanted criminal. The scans came up with nothing, the truck’s workers came up clean through the ID system, the truck’s visit and movements were tracked and scheduled and above board.

The actual food truck owners were unaware of his presence, which was just the way he liked it. He stretched his legs out a bit after being folded up into such a tiny space for so long. It was the sole disadvantage of having long legs, but he was the best in class at his job for all the contortion required. Plus he wasn’t claustrophobic like Tiger was. Speaking of… he checked his watch.

ur late, asshole

cg again? u simp

special 4u 0xdeadbeef

Oooof course. He could always count on his sister for ribbing on his infatuation with Cafe Girl, their codename for Marinette. He took one last relatively fresh breath of air and went back into hiding, sealing the latch shut. He listened for the engine knock signature: 4, 5, 1, 4, 2, 5, 5, 6, opened the bottom panel, dropped onto the street with his camouflage on, and kicked the panel closed before the truck took off. A bus drove over him and he hitched a ride, holding on underneath for 4 blocks, then rolled into the gutter drain.

⁂

It was a pretty quiet evening at Cafe Orriko, a cozy little cafe that had some steadfast regulars. One of Luka’s favorite hangouts due to the owners letting him lounge around and play his acoustic without complaint. There’d been another reason Luka loved this particular cafe, though.

Nathaniel heard the door chime and looked up, smiling at the newcomer. “Hey welcome to–oh hey Mar–oh shit MARC WE HAVE A CODE PINK!” There was a hastily tossed pillow from Marc that Nathaniel covered with a tea towel and passed to Marinette. She pulled up the pillow to her face and screamed into it for a good 20 seconds. Nath grimaced. “Bad day?”

She lowered the pillow. “Stupid fucking Viper I swear I will rip him in half and tear him to fucking shreds once I finally get my hands on him!”

Luka chuckled, having stopped playing his guitar when he noticed that Marinette had come in. “Careful, sounds like he might like that,” he winked.

“Uuuuugh,” Marinette groaned. “Thank you, Nath. Just… just gimme my usual, please.” She looked pretty dejected this time, handing back the pillow and tea towel, walking to Luka’s couch, and plopping down next to him. “Please, Luka, could you play me something soothing?”

“Anything for you,” he said, starting up an easy tune. “I know you can’t talk a lot about your work, but… what went wrong today?”

“Nnng, just… just I knew where he was and we still didn’t get him. He’s like a fucking ghost, he just… disappears! Poof!” She usually discussed what was already covered on the nightly news broadcasts, just to be safe.

“Then he’s pretty good,” Luka said neutrally enough, but hid a smirk behind a cough when Marinette gave him the stink eye.

“He only needs to fail once,” Marinette huffed. “He can’t always have luck on his side.” Marc came by with her salted caramel hot chocolate. “Thanks, Marc,” she sighed, relaxing a little bit as she took a sip of the steaming hot drink.

Luka set a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “You’ll get him one day, I know it.”

“I’d still have my work cut out for me. I have to find the Dragon after him,” Marinette groaned again. “And Adrien’s still obsessed with that stupid Fencer lady so he’s no help.” Marinette shut her eyes tight and shook her head. “But enough about that. How are you, Luka? I’m glad I was able to run into you today.”

Luka wasn’t going to mention that she’d already run into him earlier as the one and only Viper. “It was going alright, but it’s better now that you’re here,” he smiled. Marinette blushed a little and smiled back, nudging his shoulder with hers. “Sorry about your rough day though,” he added quickly.

Marinette shrugged. “It’s work. It’s… it’s so weird what the Syndicate goes for, it’s not even like… anything really valuable? I swear they’re doing it just to mess with us and wreak havoc.”

“You haven’t figured out a pattern?” Luka asked. Marinette made a zipping motion across her mouth. “Oh, right. Sorry.”

She shrugged again. “No more talk about work, please. I’d just… like to hear you play, if that’s alright?”

“Yeah, no problem,” he chuckled.

She closed her eyes as he started playing the guitar again, something soft and pleasant that reminded him of her. She leaned her head against his shoulder while he played and he felt his heart beating faster.

One day, when the jig was up, he’d love to take her out for dinner. Assuming, of course, that he hadn’t been torn to pieces by her hands.

[flames-tstuff]

About Me

Here's a bit about me, probably more than you'll ever want or need to know! Feel free to send asks with questions; I generally don't mind talking about my personal life.

Updated: June 27, 2023.

Art

I started drawing when I was 11, when I first picked up an interest in reading (the seed that started my fan art journey!) but I wasn't super serious about it. I wanted to be good of course, but at the time I really wasn't willing to work for it.

I would draw casually throughout middle and high school but it wasn't until late high school and into college that I started to really work for it. The summer after my freshman year of college I picked up digital art for the first time, and boy have I come a long way since then!

Music

I play the cello, some piano, and ukulele (I'm waaay out of practice with all of these, though). I also did 10 semesters of voice lessons during my time in college, just for fun

Education & Future Goals

As far as my listening tastes go, my main genre would probably be best classified as indie-pop. I'm also a sucker for string music or orchestration of any kind, including filmscores and video game soundtracks. I also love soft, stripped back acoustic sounds with a lot of emphasis on vocals.

Current favorite recording artists to listen to include dodie, Sleeping At Last, Billie Eilish, AJR, and Cavetown

I went to the same arts school for 13 years (K-12) where I grew up with music, dance, theater, and of course visual arts. Art and music have been an enormous part of my life, though I enjoy the other two as well.

I recently graduated with a BA in Digital Media with a concentration in Video & Film and Storytelling. Someday I want to work on a film set or in an animation team, fleshing out characters, building storylines, editing, or any other job in the field of entertainment and storytelling.

Misc./Other

I’m aroace! I've toyed with a lot of micro labels, but my sexuality seems to be fluid enough that's its easier to just use an umbrella term like asexual and aromantic. If you want to know how I feel about my micro labels currently, I tend to stick with gray-asexual and demi-romantic.

I have a INTJ-T personality. I also recently learned I'm a 5w4 on the enneagram!

I have an older sister (who's also here on tumblr 👀) and a younger brother, both of who I love very much! My family also has two kitties, Thor and Loki.

I'm fascinated by the world of character design. Like many others, a character's unique design is often what pulls me into a piece of media. I would love to bring back some of my old OCs or work on creating new ones in the future.

I want to get into cosplay! I've dreamt about it for years, but now that I'm older, have a little more money, freedom, and confidence, I'm hoping to get going on that soon. :)

[alpaca-writes]

Mystics, Chapter 25

When Arch becomes hired on at Mystics by the strange shopkeeper Lyrem Nomadus, everything seems to be going well- in fact, their life nearly becomes perfection. Soon enough, however, Arch realizes that perhaps not everything is as perfect as it seems….

Read Chapters 1-24 and more HERE

Taglist: @myst-in-the-mirror, @livingforthewhump

CW: Crying baby and darkness, drug mention and grief. That is all.

It’s Labyrinth time! We catch up with Charlotte and Arthur as they make a very startling and disturbing revelation.

-------------------------------------

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: POOR THING

         “I wandered for… Oh… I don’t even know how long. Wishing I could be home again- feeling so guilty for how I treated Arch… Thinking about you as well- I mean, I forgot you, Arty! How does a sister forget her little brother overnight- and for months!?”

        “It’s not your fault, really.” Arthur said, “besides, with the way we left things, I wouldn’t blame you for wanting me gone.”

        There was an island countertop dividing them that Charlotte stared up at him from. An amount of betrayal crossed her browbone.

        “How could you think that? I still care about you. I always have! But what I did, I did for Arch. It wasn’t safe for them to be around you when…”

        “When I was high? Or when I was dealing?” Arthur finished, admittedly. “Well, I guess that’s one gift that came from this terrifying place. There’s no coke in hell. It forced me to get clean and gave me a clear head… I suppose I should have thanked Lyrem before…”

        He sighed, “not that it matters much now.”

        There was a bout of silence.

        “There’s a baby here,” he continued, shooting his sister a look to indicate that she ought to elaborate for him.

        “Yes. Rosanna, I think is her name. At some point during my aimless wandering, I came upon the house, and the light, and… her.” She pointed her eyes to the ceiling. “She was all alone, and crying. Poor thing. I have no idea how long she’s been here.”

        “You have everything you need,” Arthur commented, sitting up from the stool and winced as his leg still ached. “There is nothing else in the labyrinth- I was lucky to come across a door to Hades and Persephone. That was the only reason I was able to get out and back to Earth.”

        “I’m sorry, who?”

        “You heard me right the first time,” Arthur spoke directly. He fiddled with the pictures sitting upon baby grand piano.  The images were blurry, like vague reconstructions of photographs without any identifiable subjects… except one. He picked up the photo in its faux oak frame and furrowed his brows.

        “I’ve seen her before.”

        Charlotte followed him to the parlour, noting the photo in his hand.

        “It’s the only clear one in this place. It’s… like I’ve been stuck in a dollhouse. Everything is fake, or a simple vague memory of what this place once was. I don’t understand it. I wish I did.”

        Arthur’s head spun with theories. The pink elephant onesie, the blue starred baby blanket, the soother he found at the bottom of the bins…

        “This could be her house… I saw a photo- not this one, but a photo with the same woman, standing over a birthday cake in the back room of Mystics. She was about the same age, I think.”

        “In Mystics?” her mind burned with the sudden reminder of the grotesque shop owner and hissed. “Arch told me about Lyrem… How he used to have a wife that worked with him. That’s why they were hired. She was gone. I wonder if she’s here somewhere, lost or… dead?”

         “Did Lyrem ever mention having children?” Arthur asked.

        Charlotte shook her head. “I’ve only spoken to him a couple of times, but he never talked about family.”

        Arthur looked to the phone hanging off the kitchen wall with the long beige winding cord attached to it. The appliances weren’t new by any means and the style of the house, with its hardwood, and updated linoleum areas caused his mind to stir.

        “Mom’s house,” he said. “In Knoxville… It was brand new when she moved in. Do you remember the year?”

        “’85, I think,” she confirmed. “Why?”

        “She had the same stereo system, brand new too,” he mentioned, pointing off to the opposite wall where the unit sat beneath a Panasonic television set.

        “You’re right, she did, didn’t she?” Charlotte agreed, “I’ve already tried to play it- it only repeats A Spoonful of Sugar from Mary Poppins… Hold on…

        Let’s say the earliest Rosanna could have been born was 1985, that means”-

        “Well, it’s more than reasonable to assume that”-

        Rosanna started crying over their heads. Both Charlotte and Arthur were thinking the same thing. Lyrem had thrown his own daughter into the Labyrinth as a baby, and never once thought of her again.

        Charlotte broke herself off from the chilling realization and pulled a bottle of milk from the island counter that wasn’t there before. Arthur stared at her oddly.

        “It just keeps refilling,” she explained, shaking it up in her hands. “It’s like everything just resets once she wakes up… And she never stops crying.”

        Arthur followed his sister back up the stairs again. This time, to investigate the rooms. The nursery was quaint and painted in a calming lilac. A sunflower was painted on the ceiling around the light fixture. The small inconsistencies in the shape of the petals caused Arthur to assume it was done without a stencil. Probably by someone who was very excited to welcome their child into the world. A slim acoustic guitar sat in the corner, and a small wicker chair right next to it.

        He wrinkled his nose as he moved around the room. The scent of a baby’s bottom made him gag. Charlotte didn’t seem to care.

        “Lightweight,” she taunted after him.

        Arthur proceeded to the master bedroom across the hall. It was stark. Everything was placed in an orderly fashion throughout which was not a cohesive pattern for the rest of the house. The sheets were perfectly tucked, the pillows, untouched and undented. To the left side, there was a set of glasses and a yellow book. There was a scribble on the front of it, as though it was meant to be English, but it wasn’t convincing to a literate person.

        A lamp on either side of their bed, a window, off to the right that overlooked the front yard and a trembling aspen whose branches swayed in the breeze also gave the impression that this was a house that only belonged in someone’s dream. It was perfect.

        He opened the dresser drawers only to find nothing inside. He found the closet door next, that was set into the wall. There were shirts, all the same color of cream button ups with flared collars, and a few dark pants hung neatly beside them. This had to be Lyrem’s. But where were his wife’s things? Where were his photos?

        Why did Rosanna only remember bits and pieces of the house? And more than that, how the hell did she create all of this? She was only a baby. She couldn’t have been more than a year old.

        These were questions that needed answering one day. But for now, Arthur had to remember that he was still in the middle of his task. He needed to bring Charlotte back to Earth and he needed to find Arch.

        He glanced to the empty doorway. Charlotte was humming a song from their childhood. A sweet and mournful tune as she fed them from the bottle in the room over, he could hear her whisper the melody’s words-

“Goodnight, goodnight sweet child,

Why don't you dream with the angels,

To forget for awhile.

To forget of the life,

That's been handed to you

Where everything's real,

Yet nothing is true”-

        Arthur wondered how easily Rosanna would be able to travel. He didn’t have much experience with young children, but he knew that even in the best circumstances they could be a challenge to bring along anywhere- especially if one wanted to remain quiet.

        He turned his back on them, and raised his hand. Hades had given him the Abysmal Flame to help him kill Lyrem, and it had come in handy when faced with Paimon.

        Maybe it would help them find a way out of here.

        Thinking back to that moment- where that power rushed through his head and into his hands and lit up his bowie knife with blue flames- he could feel it again.

        “Come on,” Arthur started. Encouraging himself to feel the same rage, to feel the same force as before that had lit Paimon up blue. He almost had it… In front of him, in the closet, a pool of darkness formed. He watched it closely become larger and larger until it was about the size of a basketball.

        “Come on, come on, come on…”

        “Arthur?”

        His concentration broke, and he turned, the void closed instantly. Charlotte’s face was red with panic, sheer terror, but not about him or what he had done.

        Rosanna was gone. The baby blanket laid in Charlotte’s elbows with nothing else inside. Though, now, Arthur could see the faint yellow embroidery of her name on the outside edge.

        “W-what happened to her?” Charlotte shook.

        Arthur put himself in front of her, and looked around, like he expected to find Rosanna simply lying on the ground or hiding beside a banister.

        “I- I don’t know. Has she ever vanished before?”

        Charlotte shook her head tearfully and shook out the blanket. Maybe she’d just hiding in one of the wrinkles. Charlotte placed a hand over her mouth and cried out. Her back fell into the door jam as she crouched into a ball on the floor.

        “No. No! I-I can’t do it again! I can’t lose my baby again!”

        Seeing her this way was crushing. He bent down, and placed an arm around her shoulders.

        “You haven’t lost your baby…” he spoke calmly. “Arch is still out there and they are waiting for you. They’re waiting for us to find them… For now, we need to keep it together, for their sake. We need to bring them home- together.”

        Charlotte continued to weep. The thought of facing more heartbreak was unbearable, but Arthur was right. She needed to find her child. Her real child. While she took her time recovering, Arthur removed himself from her side. He was able to create an opening. Leading to where, he didn’t know, but it worked, and to him that was a success.

        The room darkened, like a rain cloud passed in front of the sun. The tweeting birds fell silent. He looked outside, only to find the darkness of the labyrinth closing in on them very quickly. Without Rosanna here, there was nothing left to be remembered.

        “Char! Grab hold of me!” He rushed to her side. “The Labyrinth is erasing the house. Hold onto me and don’t let go!”

        Charlotte did as he said and soon enough, they were both consumed by the deep and dreadful darkness.

-

-

 -

  -

   -

    -

     -

      -

        A blue flame, small but visible, sat in the center of Arthur’s palm. Charlotte clinged to his other arm as he concentrated. He could feel his created void grow larger and larger around them until he saw a very familiar and spritely looking face staring down at them from above and nothing else.

        “Persephone,” Arthur greeted her with a relieved and exasperated smile. “Long time, no see.”

[hennyjolzen]

Smell Your Way Home A razzle of citrus. Cut grass. Spike of bergamot crushed between dogteeth. Star-scent. Shiver-musk. Your antennae quiver with sparkling electrons. You hum and skim through oak trees, singing with your whole body until you reach it: the hollowed out oak trunk. The place your brothers and sister have been covering with a perfume called 'home'.   "Swarming bees locate a new hive and attract the rest of the colony through the use of a pheromone called Nasanov that includes such familiar terpenoids as geraniol, nerolic acid, and citral acid. Produced by glands placed parenthetically around a worker bee’s stinger, beekeepers have noted that the Nasanov pheromone can be detected by a naked human nose and smells of lemongrass. This is a fact that beekeepers take advantage of when they use lemongrass essential oil to trap bees or introduce them to a new 'hive'. In fact, bees' lives are intimately orchestrated by smells. The smells of flowers and, most importantly, the pheromones secreted by their queen. The queen coordinates behavior, hive-building, defensive techniques, and nectar-collecting strategies via her pheromones. Interestingly enough, if you remove a queen and wait for her 'smell' to blow away, you insert in another queen and drastically alter the collective behavior of the hive. The bees live in the Queen’s smell, her atmospheric aroma, like we live inside culture, unwittingly letting it orchestrate and organize our tasks and lives. Beekeepers have observed that when dealing with an aggressive hive, if you remove the queen and let her pheromones fade before adding in a 'gentle' queen substitute, you can create the conditions for a 'calm' colony.   "Smell is vital across species. Dogs are the most popular example, smelling oncoming seizures in human owners, unearthing Iron Age corpses, and locating prized truffles blooming darkly below the duff. In Texas, cadaver compound was injected into oil pipes, and the pipes were observed for vulture activity to locate where the pipes had sprung a leak. The vultures honed in on the smell of corpse emanating from the broken pipes. Elephants choose the most nutritious, highest sugar-content fruit, by way of a scent evaluation. Recent studies at Oxford University’s Department of Zoology demonstrated that Scopoli shearwater birds navigate great distances across water by way of 'olfactory maps'. The study shows that many other birds find their way home by smell. The ocean is an odoriferous landscape. It is a series of perfumed songlines. "The idea of songlines might not be that much of a stretch. The Vibration Theory of Smell posits that just as smell is, in a manner, touch – an interaction between scent molecules 'touching' into the olfactory cleft of our nose and setting off a domino-chain of electrons – so smell might also be sound. First formulated by Malcom Dyson in 1928, it suggests that a molecule’s smell is due to its vibration frequency. The theory has received pushback from the 'shape' theory, which posits that molecular shape is more important than vibration, but as a poet, I am drawn to the lyrical nature of smell as song. Perhaps that’s why, faced by impoverished smell vocabulary, we rely on phrases like 'chord' or 'note' or 'symphony' when describing perfumes and complex aromas.   "Humans, although we live in a culture biased towards visual and auditory stimuli, receive a remarkable amount of information via smell. Recent research has upended the myth that humans are smell deficient. The human nose is capable of distinguishing over a trillion distinct odors. A Scottish woman named Joy Milne can accurately make a diagnosis of Parkinson with her nose. In fact, her nose is a finer diagnostic tool than any technology, picking up the disease years before it even registers on traditional tests. It may be that this skill isn’t just her superpower. We are all making subconscious decisions based on smell all the time, like the worker bees inside the pheromonal ocean of the queen’s influence. In a famous study nicknamed the 'sweaty T-shirt' experiment, a Swiss scientist Claus Wedekind showed that people exposed to T-shirts soaked in different people’s body odor, unknowingly and consistently picked the T-shirt from the person with the histocompatibility gene (MHC) that was most different from their own. The MHC gene is responsible for the growth of a healthy immune system and it has been shown that mates that represent a diverse combination of MHC genes produce healthier, more immunologically robust children. Studies aside, most people have had the experience, at least once in their life, of smelling a lover’s body odor and knowing deeply, somatically, that there is chemistry. What if we didn’t date via visual cues, but dated via smell? Would we make better partner choices?   "We smell events before they happen. Cut grass blows downwind. Bad smells shepherd us away from fire, from pollutants, from eating rotten food. We smell events that have happened. And memory is intimately entangled with smell. A perfect blend of lily and gardenia summons my grandmother with such vivacity that the rest of her easily materializes: I see her powder blue dress, her dove broach, her mischievous eyes. Long dead, I open her old perfume jar and suddenly I can touch her again, speak to her. Smell is often the doorway into other sensory experiences. The Song of Songs, one of the most popular parts of the Jewish Bible, is a glossary of erotic smells. The smell of spikenard and aloes and myrrh leads us through the Gospels. Jesus is constantly anointed, washed, articulated by smell. As a writer, I have observed in the writing I love and the writing that I create, that smell is one of the most effective ways to build an embodied world. We know that most of taste is really smell. The first mouthful of wine on a summer night. The dark cherry of black coffee sipped as the sun spills into your living room.   "The artist Kate McLean, interested in biosemiotics defined as the exchange of sensory signals between animals and their environments, has created a project called Sensory Maps. She gets people to 'map' their cities by smell and creates complex 'smellscape' maps with the aggregate information she receives from participants. Mostly focusing on urban environments, McLean has suggested these maps can be utilized by Urban planners and developments. Where should smells be preserved? Where should we not develop, due to a bad odor? Diving into her work, I was immediately reminded of Bernie Krause and his Acoustic Niche Hypothesis in relationship to Soundscape Ecology. The theory is that animals in a shared ecosystem develop different tones and rhythms that collaborate like an orchestra. Each sound finds its perfect channel so that it doesn’t 'interrupt' anyone else’s song. "Poetically thinking with the Vibration theory of smell as being related to sound, I wonder what an Aroma Niche Hypothesis would look like? Do ecosystems evolve complex symphonies of smell – fungal, vegetal, animal, elemental – that all cooperate and combine into a polyphony? And if this is true, what of anthropogenic smell? What about smell pollution that is so pervasive it almost, especially in the smell maps of Kate Mclean, overwhelms any other biological, environmentally excreted perfumes? What if birds can’t find their song/smell lines across the ocean? What if we are wearing so much synthetic perfume that we can’t make a correct olfactory assessment of a potential mate? "I’m not trying to answer any questions. I’m trying to smell them. I’ve always had a problematically sensitive nose. I can smell when someone is sick before they know it. There are certain mycelium I know by a taste as I walk over their hidden underground bodies, not their visible fruiting mushrooms. I have often thought I will know I have found my partner when my nose tells me. My nose will know, better than my mind ever will. In fact, I harbor a deep, mushy belief that my nose is my most direct connection to my heart.   "What if, taking our inspiration from Kate McLean, and bringing it out of human-dominated environments, we tried to retrain our noses to detect subtle cues. What if you mapped your neighborhood? A nearby trail? Keep a notebook of smell observations. Don’t worry about using smell words. Make something up. Use a color. A sound. A feeling. The English language needs to be composted. It needs neologisms and kennings that properly reflect our ability to detect over a trillion different 'smell songs'.  Smell is haptic. It reflects our intimacy with the world every time we breathe in volatile molecules and let them cascade into our brain chemistry. Smell is song, vibrating with melodic messages about behavior and mates and environmental hazards. And smell is deeply erotic. It connects us with our deep somatic appetites. Maybe it even guides us toward our ecological olfactory niche. Just like the bees follow the lemongrass pheromone to their new hive, maybe smell can show us how to get 'home': home, for me, being a state of mind. A state of mind where I realize everything is alive. Everything is funky. Musty. Lusting. Loving. Everything, even without a voice, without a sound, is talking.

Sophie Strand

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 7, Number 2

Bitchin’ Bajas

The whole country is snowed in and Texas is starting to look a lot like the Terrordome, and we can see how people might not be laser focused on music right now, especially if they’re cold or sick or out of food. But music continues to pour in, in great quantities and beguiling diversity, and a fair amount of it is very, very good. So, while we encourage you to take care of your brothers and sisters first (by donating to organizations like Austin Mutual Aid, Community Care — Mutual Aid Houston, Feed the People Dallas or the Austin Disaster Relief Network), we also present another collection of short, mostly positive reviews of new-ish records that have caught our attention. Writers this time around include Ray Garraty, Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Justin Cober-Lake, Eric McDowell, Bryon Hayes, Jonathan Shaw, Tim Clarke and Mason Jones.  

Babyface Ray — Unfuckwitable (Wavy Gang)

On his new 7 song EP Unfuckwitable, thanks to his technical skills, Babyface Ray grinds through a great variety of trendy topics under a great variety of beats: from “not rap” rap to “bad bitch” rap to “we got it off the mud” rap. It’s all very professionally done, as you expect from a professional rapper, despite Ray’s claims that he’s not one. But midway through it, behind the misty fog of bouncy production and some lines catching the ear, you can clearly see at least two problems, with the EP and Babyface Ray. First, he doesn’t have anything to say (unlike some hip hop artists who ran out of things to say, he never had any in the first place). Second, he either doesn’t rhyme or goes for a lazy rhyming. The standout here is “Like Daisy Lane”, a catchy little song, with absolutely no substance behind it.

Ray Garraty

 Bananagun — The True Story of Bananagun (Full Time Hobby)

The True Story of Bananagun by Bananagun

Ooh look, it’s tropicalia from Australia! The five-piece Bananagun hails geographically from Melbourne, but metaphysically from 1960s Sao Paulo or swinging London. Their first album swaggers like a long-haired hipster in wide-flared hip huggers, fingers snapping, funk bass slapping, keyboards and flutes gamboling in hot melodic pursuit. Multiple band members got their start in similarly 1960s-aligned Frowning Clouds, so the psych garage freakbeat elements are, perhaps, to be expected. But Bananagun runs hotter, wilder and considerably less Anglo. “People Talk Too Much” rattles the foundations with scorching funk percussion, big flares of brass and a vintage Afro-beat call and response chorus. “Mushroom Bomb” likewise heats up psychedelic apocalyptica with seething syncopations of bass and drums. Most of these tracks are a bit overstuffed, with a pawn shop’s worth of instruments enlisted in happy, dippy, everyone-get-in-the-jam exuberance, but am I going to complain about too much joy? I am not. Bring on the Bananagun.

Jennifer Kelly 

 Andrew Barker / Jon Irabagon — Anemone (Radical Documents)

Anemone by Andrew Barker + Jon Irabagon Duo

Some names tell you exactly where you stand, and others raise questions. Take the name of this record, for example; did drummer Andrew Barker (Gold Sparkle Band, Little Huey Orchestra) and tenor saxophonist Jon Irabagon (Mostly Other People Do The Killing, I Don’t Hear Nothin’ But The Blues) have the aquatic or land-lubber variety in mind? To get specific, is this record a buttercup, or a bottom-dwelling, plant-lookalike life form that waits for other aquatic species to come close enough for it to lance them, paralyze them with venom and chow down on their still-living bodies?

“Learnings,” the first of the album’s four tracks, is true to its name, being a distillation of instrumental tones and free jazz attacks that might remind you of moments from various Coltrane and Pharoah records. It feels familiar, but invigorating. The title tune comes next, and it’s a slower, more laconic performance, attractive enough to be either the sea or land variety. Then comes “Book of Knots,” which suspends an intricate percussive construction over slow-bubbling pops and barks. The record closes with “Branded Contempt,” a juxtaposition of pathos-rich blowing and restless brushwork. One can listen most of the way through this record without guessing whether it owes allegiance to Poseidon or Persephone, but the coarse intensity of Irabagon’s playing in the last minutes is the tell; this record packs a sting.

Bill Meyer

BBsitters Club — BBsitters Club & Party (Hausu Mountain)

BBsitters Club & Party by BBsitters Club

Label Hausu Mountain specializes in weird experimental electronics. Its release of a rare rock record might raise a few eyebrows. BBsitters Club, with the label's founders making up half the quartet, pulls off a tricky feat in becoming an arch rock band. BBsitters Club & Party has enough old-fashioned blues and psych-based rock to suggest a group taking itself seriously. Naming the opening track “Crazy Horse” immediately calls attention to its meta status, even if the track sounds more like Pink Floyd than Neil Young's collaborators (and there's a touch of hair metal in there, too). No group with songs called “Joel,” “Joel Reprise,” and “Joel Reprise Reprise” can take itself too seriously, and that kind of playfulness runs throughout the disc. At the same time, BBsitters Club does take its musicianship seriously. They avoid conventional forms, working in complicated structures full of surprising twists. The group can get a little proggy, but then twist it toward an Allman Brothers-style jam. If it starts to settle into the Woodstock era (see the clear nods to Hendrix and Cream), it jumps to the 1980s with an unlikely easiness. The band goes wherever they feel like rocking, with everyone invited to the party.

Justin Cober-Lake 

 Bitchin Bajas — live ateliers claus (les albums claus)

Bitchin Bajas - live ateliers claus by Bitchin Bajas

If we can all agree the pandemic has dealt musicians some dizzying blows, that’s hardly to say they had it easy before. Squeezed between tech platforms and spurned by a hostile federal government (speaking for the US, anyway), even on tour they had to contend with iffy financials, physical neglect and — because why not say it louder for those in the back? — literal theft. So Cooper Crain, Rob Frye and Dan Quinlivan found themselves over 4,000 miles from home in May 2018, playing Brussels’s les ateliers claus on borrowed equipment after having their gear stolen (twice) on a European tour in support of Bajas Fresh. “Um, we’re, ah, Bitchin Bajas, from Chicago ... Illinois,” one of the trio says over the set’s first tentative tones. “And thanks ... for coming. This is gonna be great, I think. Or, we’ll see.”

Perhaps it’s not a question of either/or but both/and, the cosmic “we’ll see” of COVID-19 only amplifying how truly great it is to receive this music in the unimaginable future of three years later. As ever with the Bitchin Bajas, there is pleasure in the subtleties, whether that’s an excited concert-goer whooping as “Jammu” picks up momentum or the way each turn of the musical kaleidoscope seems to bring out new hues. That the recording doesn’t represent any dramatic departure from what we hear on the studio album or during other sets on other tours is part of its appeal and part of its power as a balm. We don’t need any more startling revelations right now. In this sense, the whole live ateliers claus series is a reminder that this venue and these artists — from Michael Chapman (vol. 1) up through Will Guthrie (vol. 12) — are still here today. If we can help repay what’s been stolen from them, they’ll be here tomorrow, too.

Eric McDowell  

 Loren Connors & Oren Ambarchi — Leone (Family Vineyard) 

Leone by Loren Connors & Oren Ambarchi

This is the first time that Loren Connors and Oren Ambarchi have collaborated, despite the myriad ties that bind the two guitarists across the global exploratory music scene. Leone offers a trio of pieces arranged like overlapping globs of paint on a painter’s palette: the two artists each perform solo with a collaborative piece in between. “Lorn” is a side-long Connors piece with the guitarist in an experimental mood, hammering the reverb-drenched strings to create a glorious cacophony. Ambarchi’s “Nor” recasts the guitar first as a church organ and then as a subaquatic communications device. When the two pair up for “Ronnel,” it is a symbiotic meeting. Connors picks out notes around which Ambarchi weaves contrails of tone. It is a mesmerizing piece, and, we hope, just the first of many joint efforts from these two.    

Bryon Hayes

Buck Curran — WFMU 'The Frow Show' Live Session (Feat. Jodi Pedrali) (Obsolete Recordings)

Buck Curran: WFMU 'The Frow Show' Live Session (Feat. Jodi Pedrali) by Obsolete Recordings

When we last caught up with Buck Curran, he was hunkered down at then ground zero for the COVID epidemic, socially isolating in Bergamo, Italy while recording the lovely acoustic-guitar-and-voice album, No Love Is Sorrow. Half a year later, still deep in the grip of a worldwide pandemic, he made this record, a duet with Italian keyboard player Jodi Pederali, revisiting one song from the previous album and adding three others. The tracks with Pederali fuse Curran’s electric blues with the bright, meditative melodies of Pederali’s piano. The two players interact and overlap in intoxicating dialogue. “Deep in the Lovin’ Arms of My Babe,” reprises the finger-picked folk of Curran’s earlier album, adding a glittering sprinkle of piano to its mournful, wistful melody. The set was recorded for Jess Jarnow’s show on WFMU and released on Bandcamp, and while not as long or as weighty as No Love Is Sorrow, it’s well worth hearing.

Jennifer Kelly  

 Jürg Frey — l’air, l’instant - deux pianos (Elsewhere)

l'air, l'instant - deux pianos by Jürg Frey

When you put two pianos together, there must surely be a temptation to see how much sound you can get out of them.  Swiss composer Jürg Frey does the opposite on the two compositions that make up this CD. Each is so sparse that an inattentive listener might think they are hearing one patient pianist, when in fact they are hearing a pair of deeply skilled interpreters.  The task assigned to Reinier van Houdt and Dante Boon is to place their notes in such precise relation to each other that they can influence each other’s pitches without interfering with them. Each musician is, as the title “toucher l’air (deux pianos)” (2019) suggests, inducing a slight disturbance in the atmosphere, lightly pressing transitory shapes into the silence that absorbs each note. “Entre les deux l’instant” (2017/2018) allows the two pianists to decide how closely they will match paces as they trade the roles of melodist and accentuator. Immune to gauche temptation, Frey seems drawn instead to see how much attention and how little sound it takes to accentuate the beauty of silence.

Bill Meyer

 Chris Garneau — The Kind (The Orchard)

THE KIND by Chris Garneau

Chris Garneau’s lush, stunning art-pop swoops and whirls and flutters in wild arcs of drama. In this fifth album, the New York City songwriter works in a restrained palette of guitar, piano, electronics and drums, but colors way outside the box with his vibrant, emotional-laden voice, which flies up into a falsetto register with an ease not heard since Jeff Buckley passed. “I know you loved me truly, but we don’t love one way, do we?” he croons on the gorgeous “Telephone,” lofting up into whistle range without losing the purity or the trueness of his tone. Cuts like the title song and “Now On” are prayerfully simple, just framing piano chords and Garneau’s highly charged delivery. But others like “Not the Child” are more intricately constructed with a lattice of picked strings, an antic syncopated beat and staccato vocal counterpoints that dance around the main line. The Kind’s songs are deeply personal and rooted in Garneau’s experiences as gay man, but they’ll resonate with anyone who’s ever loved or longed or regretted.

Jennifer Kelly

Gaunt Emperor — Femur (Self-released)

Femur by Gaunt Emperor

Some would-be emperors may no longer have clothes (looking at you, Trump), but Gaunt Emperor is unabashed about wearing its influences on its sleeve. Femur is the first LP by this California project, and Sunn 0))) and the first few records released by Earth are large presences, looming hugely just behind the sounds Gaunt Emperor generates. If you’re familiar with those other bands, you get the essential idea: deep (really deep) notes and long (really long) sustain from loud (really loud) guitars, and not much else. That said, Gaunt Emperor has an aesthetic vision that seems to be attempting to survey its own territory. While compositions like “Slow Submersion” and “The Birth of Obsidian” work from the playbook established by O’Malley and Anderson, the textures of Gaunt Emperor’s guitar tone have their own sort-of-subtle qualities. They’re pretty good. “Conception,” the second track on Femur, expresses a similar inclination towards melody that Earth began to demonstrate on The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull (2008), but Gaunt Emperor retains an unrestrained relation to volume; you can feel the heat inexorably building in the overdriven amplifier stack. In any case, this is suitable music for pondering massive, ongoing phenomena, like the calving of icebergs off Antarctica’s coast or the steady disappearance of the Amazonian rainforest — not that Femur will make you feel any better about that stuff.

Jonathan Shaw

 Luka Kuplowsky — Stardust (Mama Bird)

Stardust by Luka Kuplowsky

Soft jazzy reveries coalesce around this Toronto songwriter’s offhand, semi-spoken melodies. Little accents of acoustic bass, slide guitar, hushed harmonies dart in and out of focus, but the songs themselves come up on you obliquely, filtering in from the vents in evocatively scented clouds. Rhythms sway in undulant, bossa nova syncopations, while chords slide into resolution from slightly off center. A half-remembered jazz flute lick lick lofts through the window. At the center of it all is Luka himself, posing, but not insisting on koan-like observations. “Perfection is a noose,” he confides amid the muted wreck and roll of massed jazz sounds in “City by the Window,” but he seems unbothered by it. Perfection is an accident, and if you look at it too hard, it disappears.

Jennifer Kelly

 José Lencastre / Hernâni Faustino / Vasco Furtado — Vento (Phonogram Unit)

Vento by José Lencastre / Hernâni Faustino / Vasco Furtado

Vento is the Portuguese word for wind, and the name conveys that combination of purposeful and chance operations that converged to make this record happen. The trio of alto saxophonist José Lencastre, double bassist Hernâni Faustino and drummer Vasco Furtado didn’t book a studio with the intent to record; they just wanted a place to play for a couple hours. But the engineers had just obtained some microphones and wanted to try out their new toys. Likewise, this improvisational trio did not bring an tunes to the session, but they play with a purposefulness born of shared aesthetic values. Whether are sailing a brisk clip, as on the title track, or gradually unwinding the music at low volume and velocity, as on “Ruínas,” they operate as a real time compositional cooperative, developing their music in linear fashion. While they share a direction, they also value contrast. For example, Lencastre’s breathy tone during the latter tune’s early moments balances Faustino’s pointed twang. Since remorseless microoganisms and anti-cultural politicians are each doing their best to keep live music down, records like this serve a necessary function in reminding us of the life force that motivates improvised music.

Bill Meyer

Lilys — A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns (Frontier)

A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns by Lilys

Kurt Heasley’s Lilys made some of the most ebullient and inventive guitar music of the 1990s. The best Lilys songs sound as though they’re flying apart and being put back together as they hurtle along, killer hooks tossed aside as quickly as they start to drag you in. Though they’re perhaps best known for their Kinks-indebted breakthrough Better Can’t Make Your Life Better, this was actually a sharp turn away from the dense shoegazey atmospherics of their first couple of records. Thus far, Frontier Records has reissued their first two albums, In the Presence of Nothing and Eccsame the Photon Band, both of which are superb. The A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns EP was originally released in 1994, a transitional period when Heasley was still exploring the textural joys of distorted guitars while starting to throw down pop hooks with aplomb. Opener “Ginger” hits similar pleasure centers as Weezer’s debut, released the same year, while on “Dandy,” Heasley’s vocal sounds uncannily like Stephen Malkmus. The previously unreleased “G. Cobalt Franklin” foregrounds searing guitar tones and bulbous bass, the bulk of the melodic layers sounding like they’re bleeding through from the next room, peppered with swirling flange and voice recordings. The second half of this expanded edition comprises songs originally demoed for Eccsame the Photon Band, and later released in 2000 on a split EP with Aspera Ad Astra. They’re decent enough, though feel like they’re missing the spark of the best Lilys creations. So, while this amounts to a far-from-essential Lilys release, it’s fascinating to hear Heasley in transition, working out how to reconcile his love for melody with his immersion in guitar noise.

Tim Clarke

 Fred Lonberg-Holm — Lisbon Solo (Notice)

Lisbon Solo by Fred Lonberg-Holm

As befits a guy who has also recorded a “solo” record in the company of a Florida swamp full of frogs, Fred Lonberg-Holm picks his recording locations strategically, and location has a lot to do with how this album turned out. It was done at an old and well-appointed studio in Lisbon, Portugal, where he could be sure that the microphones would catch every creak, groan and polyphonic wail he might draw out of his main instrument. But he also knew, from prior visits, that he would have access to some seriously over-the-hill pianos. While most of the album is devoted to savagely bowed attacks, the odd digressions into detuned, radiant chimes deliver just enough respite to keep you off balance and on the edge of your seat.

Bill Meyer 

 Dan Melchior — Odes (Cudighi Records)  

'Odes' by Dan Melchior

Dan Melchior is likely a recognizable name to Dusted readers; he has made quite a string of releases over the years. This cassette/digital release, recorded in 2016, is a subdued affair, nine songs for the most part following the same blueprint: a track of strummed or lightly picked acoustic guitar with a fuzzy electric lead layered on top. The foundational guitar tracks establish a calm, repetitive cycle, giving some of these songs an almost raga-like feel, in some cases through a hazy reverb: "Tybee" feels like you're sitting in the next room listening to him play through a closed door.  

Calling the overdubs "guitar leads" implies the wrong feel. While played through fuzz or distortion, the mood is a woozy one, more opiated than energetic, but in a drifting, pleasant way. There's an over-arching melancholy throughout these songs, one person alone playing to satisfy a need. Knowing Melchior was facing the recent loss of his wife Letha certainly colors it, but even a listener ignorant of that back-story would feel the emotional resonance.  

These nine ramshackle, loose instrumental pieces are personal, incomplete, and like having someone entrust you with private stories in song form.  

Mason Jones

Mint Field — Sentimiento Mundial (Felte)

Sentimiento Mundial by Mint Field

Mint Field, from Mexico City, filters the feedback and noise of shoegaze guitars through a pensive screen, finding an aura of nostalgia in between and among blinding walls of scree. Estrella del Sol Sánchez contributes two of the band’s signature sounds, the dreamy, delicate vocals and the swirling masses of altered guitar. She is supported by Sebastian Neyra on bass and Callum Brown on drums. The volume level varies song to song, but it’s all mesmerizing and good. “Delicadeza” breezes in on the tenderest sort of sigh, the softest, most lyrical strummed accompaniment, but “Contingencia” digs in and pounds, drums cranking, bass thudding and guitars winging out in wild arabesques of distorted sound. The easiest comparison might be the similarly hauntingly voiced Lush, but there’s something special here in the soft, keening soprano calm at the center of even the most agitated cuts.  

Jennifer Kelly

 Roy Montgomery — Island of Lost Souls (Grapefruit)

Roy Montgomery 40th Anniversary 2021 LP Series by Roy Montgomery

In 2021, guitarist Roy Montgomery celebrates 40 years of music-making with the release of four new LPs, beginning with Island of Lost Souls. Though 2018’s fantastic Suffuse included vocals from artists such as Haley Fohr (Circuit Des Yeux), Julianna Barwick and Liz Harris (Grouper), Island of Lost Souls is entirely instrumental, comprising four pieces, each dedicated to a late artist (actor Sam Shepard, and musicians Adrian Borland, Peter Principle and Florian Fricke). Though wordless, Montgomery’s guitar speaks volumes, flickering and flowing with the liquid grace of a player intimately familiar with both his fretboard and the effects pedals at his feet, sending waves of tone cascading with delay and reverb. Plus, on the side-long, climactic “The Electric Children of Hildegard von Bingen,” Montgomery pitch-shifts his guitar so it really ascends to the heavens, where it takes up residence for 22 minutes. Fans of Windy & Carl, Flying Saucer Attack and The Durutti Column, take note.

Tim Clarke

 Jon Mueller — Family Secret (American Dreams)

Family Secret by Jon Mueller

A family secret is usually a multigenerational skeleton in the closet that is either sorrowful or sinister. For percussionist and Volcano Choir member Jon Mueller, it is the former: a series of familial rifts that became the unlikely muse for this collection of reverberating drones. Mueller employs instruments that produce multiple resonant tones, such as singing bowls and gongs, to create rich pools of complex sound. Metallic hues brighten subterranean rumblings while enigmatic dapples of condensed steam coalesce into liquid shapes. The drummer conjures ghastly creatures through extending the vocabulary of his drum kit. Cymbal scrapes become banshee wails and scoured skins emanate uncanny whispers. With Family Secret, Mueller manifests his personal demons as phantom signals. He transmogrifies emotional strife into physical actions which then become ethereal. Ironically, the resulting sounds are actually soothing. Pain has never sounded so sweet.  

Bryon Hayes 

 Primitive Motion — Descendants of Air (Kindling)

Primitive Motion is the Brisbane-based duo of Sandra Selig and Leighton Craig, and Descendants of Air is their seventh album, previously only available as a CD given away at live shows. You can immediately imagine what the album sounds like based on the artist name and album title alone: rustic yet cosmic, full of space and open to spontaneity. Recorded on the banks of the Enoggera Reservoir, these eight meandering pieces prominently feature the sounds of wind and leaves, plus the calls of raucous Australian birds, while Selig and Craig insinuate suggestions of melodies and chords on nylon-string guitar, woodwinds, and battery-powered keyboards, and gently massage the air with percussive patters. Though part of the appeal of the recording is its deliberate vagueness, the most affecting piece, and the shortest, is “True Orbit,” where a strident theme built around melodica, keyboard and voice seems to emerge fully formed from the aether.

Tim Clarke

 Socioclast — S/T (Carbonized Records)

Socioclast by Socioclast

In heavy music’s current moment of endless genre-hopping and hybridization, it’s nice to hear a record that understands exactly what it wants to be. Socioclast is a grindcore record. Like Assück’s grindcore’s records. A lot like Assück’s grindcore records. You get all the high-velocity chugging crunch and guttural grunting — vocals so deep in the gullet that it’s pretty hard to pick up any lyrics. The song titles, however, suggest the ideological dispositions you might expect: “Surveillance, Normalization, Examination,” “Specter Signal,” “Psychodrone,” “Propaganda Algorithm.” There can be a fine line between paying tribute and being derivative, but Socioclast creates an homage rather than an outright imitation. This is 21st-century music. It sounds a lot clearer and slicker than anything Assück or the early Slap A Ham bands committed to vinyl. Like Slap A Ham, Socioclast is a California-based musical phenomenon, featuring dudes who have played in bands like Deadpressure and Mortuous; Colin Tarvin’s death-metal grooves are especially prominent on some of the record’s best tracks, including “Eden’s Tongue” and “Omega.” But this is assertively a grindcore record. Given that version of traditionalism (and yes, events have come to such a pass that grindcore has a tradition), it turns out that Socioclast isn’t all that socioclastic. So goes the strangeness of semantics. But the music is good.

Jonathan Shaw

 Space Quartet — Under the Sun (Noise Precision Library)

Under the Sun by Space Quartet

Space is a persistent and multi-faceted theme in the music of the Portuguese electronic musician, Rafael Toral. And while his name is not appended to the Space Quartet’s, make no mistake, this is his band, playing his music. But it is a music derived from ideas that can’t be realized without the right people. So, while Toral has delved repeatedly into the sounds that people imagine they might make and that they actually find in outer space, and he has explored empty and variously filled spaces as starting points for his music, the point of the Space Quartet is to find the right people, and give them enough space to realize a new kind of jazz. Under the Sun is the combo’s second recording, made with a substantially different line-up than the iteration that recorded the self-titled debut for Clean Feed Records. Toral has sacrificed the all-electronic front line and switched drummers, but in doing so he may have found the right crew to take him where he needs to go. Across the album’s two 21-minute-long tracks, there are usually several ongoing dialogues taking place between the players, which manifest intriguing degrees of mutual challenge and support. But the way that Toral’s elongated feedback lines and Nuno Torres’ stuttering alto saxophone phrases flow around Hugo Antunes’ stark, elastic double bass figures and percussionist Nuno Morão’s lightly deployed, carefully modulated streams of textures and beats that extends a lineage anchored in the language that Cecil Taylor’s trio first released into the air at the Café Montmartre back in 1962.

Bill Meyer 

 Stinkhole — Mold Encrusted Egg (Mangel Records)

MOLD ENCRUSTED EGG by STINKHOLE

The name sort of says it all, but to clarify anyways: Stinkhole languishes in a slimy musical ditch, bottoming out somewhere between the No Wave skronk of Mars and the transgressive caterwauling of Suckdog. As was the case with both of those acts, the dissonance and the gross-out antics can obscure some interesting ideas. Clawing your way through the dense layers of yuck (or, depending on how you’re wired, enjoying it) is integral to the challenge posed by the experience. All the gagging vocalizations, primitivist drumming and semi-tuned bass whomps on Mold Encrusted Egg occupy prominent positions on the surface of songs like “Orange Juice.” But listen to Mold Encrusted Egg a little more closely: there are some rabid grooves, feral guitar breaks and a lot of impenetrably weird environments of sampled sounds, tape manipulations and unidentifiable scree. Is it fun? Does it sound good? Fuck no. The band’s name is Stinkhole. They write songs with titles like “Slippin’ on Slug Slime” and “Emancipated by Hair.” They roll with the whacko punk and noise bands that have congregated around the Berlin-based Flennen digital music zine and its accompanying label. Dig the stink. Rock has rarely been so richly rotten.

Jonathan Shaw

 Styrofoam Winos — S-T (Sophomore Lounge)

STYROFOAM WINOS "S/T" by Styrofoam Winos

Stryofoam Winos brings together three old friends to swap songs in Nashville. You might recognize Lou Turner from her solo album, Songs for John Venn, a sly and subversion of the songwriter’s wholesome alt-country charm. Joe Kenkel is a kindred spirit, a folk rock singer with respect but not reverence for the certitudes of Southern life. Says Nashville Scene of his solo Dream Creator, “Kenkel, a sophisticated folk-rock songwriter, documents Music City’s idiosyncrasies on his debut LP, with acutely observant lyrics.”  And Trevor Nikrant completes this anonymous all-star line-up; his 2017 debut caught the ear of Aquarium Drunkard’s J. Steel who called it “Oddball baroque psychedelia broadcasted from a basement on the east side.” The three kicked things off with a lo-fi and charming debut, Winos at Home, in 2017, but this self-titled LP takes things up a notch with songs that balance craft with eccentricity. “Stuck in a Museum” jangles and rambles in an antic, neurotically intelligent way, as the narrator finds himself entrapped amid the exhibits, staring fixedly at a teapot from the Tang Dynasty. “Roy G. Biv” turns contemplative—and twangy—as Turner sings plaintively about rainbows and colors, the way things change and how hard it can be to keep up. “Maybe More” glints with mandolin, but remains pared back, as a down-trodden singer (one of the guys, not sure which) sings about a life stuck in neutral, same book, same coat, same jokes, but beautiful. The disc has the feel of a warm, casual gathering, with friends jumping in on harmonies or picking up the bass. The songs are sharp and lovely without a lot of fuss.

Jennifer Kelly

[ridiculousyoungicarus]

i wanna hide the truth, i wanna shelter you

a love letter to luxor’s zander driskell

I want to start off with a disclaimer that there’s a bunch more pre-Luxor content on this one compared to the girls’, but with Zander it felt extremely important to explore that aspect. There’s a note on the section where I’m finally playing him in the roleplay due to that, but anything before that point is before I started playing him in the group. Anyway, I’m proud to present a 3 hour Zander playlist, come help me judge him for the amount of references to his dad and Ches throughout this entire playlist.

Yet again I’d like to thank Lex for help throughout this process, and warn everyone that the usual Zander trigger warnings are all over this playlist (mental health, violence, abuse / child abuse, etc etc). Anything additional is noted on the sections.

‘cause i had a fire, passion and desire. now all i require are circuits and wires | pre-luxor:

zander before attending luxor additional tws: potential self harm (breathe me)

iRobot (Jon Bellion) [ I was a human, before you killed me and ripped my heart out. ] // Breathe Me - Acoustic (Jonathan Roy) [ I think that I might break and lost myself again and I feel so unsafe. ] // Tell Me Why (Taylor Swift) [ Why do you have to make me feel small so you can feel whole inside? Why do you have to put down my dreams so you're the only thing on my mind? ] // Weight Of Living, Pt. II (Bastille) [ All that you desired when you were a child was to be old. Now that you are here, suddenly you fear you've lost control. ]

happiness is beautiful to see, won't you box it up for me? | sophomore year:

zander’s sophomore year at luxor, and the introduction to one ches elswood. additional tws: bleed out can be extremely uncomfortable to listen to with the whole, bleeding out theme. please skip that song if you feel you need to

Cop Car (Keith Urban) [ You were thinking that running for it would make a good story; I was thinking you were crazy as hell. ] // Don't Trust Me (Phillip Phillips) [ So when I say I'm okay, don't trust me. ] // Burn Out (Imagine Dragons) [ Oh, give me strength, and give me peace. Does anyone out there want to hear me? ] // Crawling (Linkin Park) [ This lack of self-control I fear is never-ending. Controlling, I can't seem. ] // Bleed Out (Blue October) [ Will I bleed out? I gave it all, but you can't stop taking from me. And way down, I know you know where to cut me with your eyes closed. ] // Don't Sing the Blues (Bohnes) [ I was ridiculous, young Icarus. I flew too close to the sun. ]

do you remember all the plans we made? | helena:

a section dedicated to zander’s relationship with helena additional tws: sex (carry your throne), alcohol (tonight I wanna cry)

Carry Your Throne (Jon Bellion) [ If you're lost in this darkness I'll carry your throne. No, I won't let it swallow you whole. ] // Snake Eyes (Mumford & Sons) [ It's in the eyes. I can tell, you will always be danger. ] // Halfway Gone (Lifehouse) [ You were always hard to hold, so letting go ain't easy. I'm hanging on but growing cold. ] // The Promise (Andy Black) [ Tell me what ever happened to the love we gave, the promise that we both betrayed. ] // Tonight I Wanna Cry (Keith Urban) [ And I thought that bein' strong meant never losin' your self-control, but I'm just drunk enough to let go of my pain. To hell with my pride, let it fall like rain from my eyes, tonight I want to cry. ]

i say one day the valley is gonna swallow me whole, i feel like a photo that's been overexposed | junior year (‘18-‘19):

junior year of high school, fairly self explanatory additional tws: smoking (antisocial)

Flaws (Bastille) [ You have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve and I have always buried them deep beneath the ground. Dig them up. Let's finish what we've started. ] // Battle Cry (Imagine Dragons) [ Just one more time before I go, I'll let you know that all this time I've been afraid, wouldn't let it show. Nobody can save me now, no. ] // 12 Rounds (Bohnes) [ I'm coming home, I've got some things to say. My gloves are on and my shoes are almost laced. ] // Novocaine (Fall Out Boy) [ Don’t mind me, I’m just the son of a gun. So don’t stop, don't stop 'till your heart goes numb. Now I’m just numb, I don’t feel a thing for you. ] // Machine (Imagine Dragons) [ 'Cause I've been wondering when you gonna see I'm not for sale. I've been questioning when you gonna see I'm not a part of your machine. ] // Antisocial (Ed Sheeran feat. Travis Scott) [ So antisocial, but I don't care. Don't give a damn, I'm gonna smoke here. ] // Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea (Fall Out Boy) [ Seems like the whole damn world went and lost its mind and all my childhood heroes have fallen off or died. ] // Never Going Back (The Score) [ I'm never gonna follow just because they say so. ]

consign me not to darkness | summer 2019:

the summer after the merge, where zander is stuck at home working for lance additional tws:  alcohol (if you’re going through hell)

Two Evils (Bastille) [ I'm the lesser of two evils or am I tricking myself nice? ] // Man or a Monster (Sam Tinnesz feat. Zayde Wølf) [ When you look at yourself, are you a man or a monster? ] // DNA (Lia Marie Johnson) [ Are the pieces of you in the pieces of me? I'm just so scared you're who I'll be. When I erupt just like you do, they look at me like I look at you. ] // Broken Crown (Mumford & Sons) [ So crawl on my belly 'til the sun goes down I'll never wear your broken crown. I can take the road and I can fuck it all away, but in this twilight, our choices seal our fate. ] // If You're Going Through Hell {Before The Devil Even Knows} (Rodney Atkins) [ I've been deep down in that darkness, I've been down to my last match. Felt a hundred different demons breathin' fire down my back. ] // Mud On the Tires (Brad Paisley) [ 'Cause it's a good night to be out there soakin' up the moonlight. ] // Pray For You (Jaron And The Long Road To Love) [ I pray your brakes go out runnin' down a hill, I pray a flower pot falls from a window sill and knocks you in the head like I'd like to. ]

but all the scars they prove that i fought my way through so, i always keep 'em showing | senior year of hs (‘19-‘20)

finally, the point in the timeline where zander is actually getting roleplayed by me. includes summer camp fun too

The Silence (Bastille) [ Tell me a piece of your history that you've never said out loud. Pull the rug beneath my feet, and shake me to the ground. ] // Stand Up (The Cab) [ Yeah, all of my demons are kicking and screaming but I'll never leave them behind. Yeah, maybe I'm crazy but don't try to save me, 'cause I've never felt so alive. ] // Only One (The Score) [ Tell me how it feels to know I'm not a puppet under control. I cut the strings a long time ago. ]

running from the devil, but the devil takes hold | fall & winter 2020:

a new school year, increased disdain for his father, a certain set of posters, and the start of realizing there may be something wrong with him.

Gold (Imagine Dragons) [ But now you can't tell the false from the real. Who can you trust? When everything you touch turns to gold. ] // Just Like You (Three Days Grace) [ You thought you were standing beside me, you were only in my way. You're wrong if you think that I'll be just like you. ] // Bad Blood (Bastille) [ All this bad blood here, won't you let it dry? It's been cold for years, won't you let it lie? ] // Middle Finger (Bohnes) [ But I refuse to let you make me feel like I can't fly. Not only will I soar again, I'll own the fucking sky. ] // American Beauty/American Psycho (Fall Out Boy) [ You take the full, full truth, then you pour some out, and you can kill me, kill me or let God sort 'em out. ] // Homecoming King (Andy Black) [ You're standing there with the homecoming king; turn the silver spoon into a diamond ring. Can he make you disappear without anyone noticing? Yeah, fuck the homecoming king ] // Monster (Imagine Dragons) [ I'm only a man with a candle to guide me, I'm taking a stand to escape what's inside me. A monster, a monster, I've turned into a monster. ] // Animal I Have Become (Three Days Grace) [ Somebody help me through this nightmare I can't control myself. Somebody wake me from this nightmare, I can't escape this hell. ] // Gallows (The Score feat. Jamie N Commons) [ Been turning my back on the sun these days, trying to walk the line but I'm losing my way. ]

i'm sifting through the sand, looking for pieces of broken hourglass trying to get it all back but it back together | spring 2021:

continuing to take a good look at his mental health, a desire to improve, and an appreciation for his support circle. additional tws: sex/masturbation mention (All Time Low)

All Time Low (Jon Bellion) [ I've been trying to fix my pride but that shit's broken, that shit's broken. ] // Bishops Knife Trick (Fall Out Boy) [ These are the last blues we're ever gonna have, let's see how deep we get. The glow of the cities below lead us back to the places that we never should have left. ] // Demons (Imagine Dragons) [ They say it's what you make, I say it's up to fate; it's woven in my soul, I need to let you go. Your eyes, they shine so bright, I wanna save that light, I can't escape this now, unless you show me how. ] // I'll Be Good (Jaymes Young) [ I never meant to start a fire, I never meant to make you bleed. I'll be a better man today. ] // The Anchor (Bastille) [ You were the light that is blinding me. You're the anchor that I tie to my brain. 'Cause when it feels when I'm lost at sea, you're the song that I sing again and again. ] // Ungrateful Eyes (Jon Bellion) [ Still lost, still feel depressed like I'm try to find a way in. I'm trying to figure this out, but my God I'm so human. And so I turned to my sister and smiled and asked this question, “all we wanna know is where the stars came from, but do we ever stop to watch them shine?” ] // Rise Up (Imagine Dragons) [ The darkness right in front of me, oh, it's calling out, and I won't walk away. ] // Bless The Broken Road (Rascal Flatts) [ Every long lost dream led me to where you are, others who broke my heart, they were like Northern stars, pointing me on my way into your loving arms. This much I know is true, that God blessed the broken road that led me straight to you. ]

[chappedandfadedvds]

Nov 19th, Thursday 17:13

„Lucas is here!!“

„Alright sweety, I think everyone on the street has heard that now.“ His mother assured her loudly as she herself got up to follow her daughter to the door. Jens was only half listening, he was thinking. About Tuesday. About yesterday. About every day to come.

„It’s good to see you again, Lucas. How are you?“

„Really great actually, thank you, hope you too?“ There was some rustling of clothes and shuffling of feet coming from the entrance, Jens couldn’t see from where he sat in the corner or the living room.

„Bit suffering under the weather, but that’s alright.“ His mother replied, the front door fell shut.

„Understandable.“ The three, his mother, Lotte and his boyfriend, almost had made it back into the livingroom. „Oh, I actually bought cake on my way over. We can have it for dessert. Or before for tea.“

„That’s so kind. But I already like you, no need for bribes.“ His mother joked, chuckling even as she took something from Lucas that sounded like paper? Plastic? Jens didn’t look up yet, he was busy staring down on the keys and his hands.

„Well, I’ll probably do something stupid at one point, better keep stacking up some plus points.“ Both of them sounded pleased. And Lotte said something, he didn’t catch, before the chairs scratched over the floor.

„Wow, I didn’t know you played. I thought this was a recording.“

He stopped, his fingers lingering on top of the keys of the old wooden upright piano. Lucas squeezing himself next to Jens on the little black bench shouldn’t have startled him as much. He obviously had heard him come over. He still needed a second to catch up. So he pulled his hands away, to let them sink into his lap, turning his head towards Lucas. 

How long hadn’t they seen each other? Merely a couple of days. 

He had missed this pretty face. The world appeared a bit brighter now.

„I’m not nearly good enough, as I super rarely play, but thanks, I guess.“ Jens told him, smiling lightly at the boy, who went to rest his hand on Jens’s tigh. Close enough that their fingers touched.

„Lucas, first of all he is lying, he is really good. He is just a dumb teenage boy who thought one day that piano lessons are for loosers. And second of all, if you want to keep collecting brownie points, get him to do anything but play Schubert again. He has been playing the same piece for two hours. It has to stop.“

„Yes, Lucas, please!“

Lotte strong heartedly supported their mother’s complaints, as they both turned their heads to plead with Lucas, who was very much amused in return. Nodding strongly.

„I was playing more than one piece, and you two know it.“ Jens was lying, he had played a couple of pieces first, until Minuet in A Major let him think clearly and then he basically had looped it until now. Problem was, the piece was only three minutes long, so he could see their point.

„Then play something else for me.“ Lucas suggested so cheery that Jens obviously couldn’t refuse. 

„Okay. What do you want?“

„Mhm, what can you play? Anything comes to mind, looking at my beautiful face.“

Jens’s eyes darted over to his mother and his sister sitting at the dining table, englufed in Lotte’s homework. If they had heard Lucas, they didn’t commented about it.

„Schumann?“ He said, letting his gaze fall back to Lucas’s eyes not having lost an ounce of his excitment.

„I have zero clues about classical music, dude, so play away.“

That’s what he did, raising his hands again to fall into place. Muscle memory so much stronger then he would like to admit. He didn’t had to think long about the right notes and rythym. He wasn’t sure why it had come to mind, but he hoped the boy would enjoy it enough to sit through the next couple of minutes.

Jens really hadn’t need to worry about that, as when he finished and turned his head, he found his boyfriend watching him mesmerised. He could have probably fucked the whole piece up and still managed to make Lucas happy. Jens would be lying if he wouldn’t acknowledge that he was blushing faintly.

„What is it called?“ Lucas whispered. Why he did, Jens couldn’t figure out.

„Eh, Widmung, opus 25, number 1.“ Thank god, as he was glad to have remembered it correctly. His mother or Lotte would definitely have corrected him there. And wouldn’t that have been awkward?

„Yea this doesn’t help at all, but I liked it a lot.“ Lucas grinned, now speaking louder again, never taking his eyes off Jens, as he went on. „Perhaps I’m a bit biased though. Still thank you.“

„Anytime.“ Jens smirked, feeling a little proud to have been able to impress his boyfriend.

„So what kind of music do you actually listen too, I doubt it’s just classical music all day.”

„How do you know I don’t?“ Jens replied feighing shock at Lucas’s absolute correct assumption.

„Oh, I don’t know, you just don’t look like a posh piano lover to me.“ His boyfriend’s expression was way to comfortable in his teasing.

„Aha.“ Jens felt already better, now that he was back into familiar banter with Lucas, after long days of dull sadness drowning him.

„Mhm.“ Lucas doubled down, without much words, but it made Jens to actually answer him.

„Well, I listen to a lot of r&b, you know, hiphop, rab kinda genres. Kendrik Lamar, Childish Gambino, Logic. To list some better known artists.”

„Of course you do, my youtuber skater boy.“

„Stop.“ Jens laughed as he watched the grin widen on Lucas’s face. „If I’m such a cliche, what are you listening to then, huh?“

„Ehm, a lot of indie music, acoustic versions, I’d say. I don’t think you would know them.“

„Much pretentious, aren’t we.“ Jens replied, getting nudged by Lucas, causing him almost to fall off the bench, that still was barely large enough to fit them both.

„What? Not at all.“ Lucas defended himself using the second of Jens readjusting himself on the bench, to link his arm lightly with Jens’s. 

Apparently Lucas didn’t mind being seen and obviously it was just his mother and his sister, so why was Jens not more casual about it? He really should stop worrying about it.

„You tell yourself that.“ He smirked instead, yanking Lucas lightly were they were now linked by the elbow. 

„And what else? Like what is something that comforts you, or is it really just r&b all day, every day?“ Lucas’s questions just kept coming.

„No, I enjoy classical music, immensly. Going to concerts and such. But something else would be nordic folk. Folk in general.“

„And you call me pretentious?” Lucas asked accusatory, leaning back from Jens in wonder, as the slight smile didn’t leave his lips, his mouth open. „The audacity.“

„Guilty. What about you then?“ 

„Ah lot’s of disco and funk. Some pop. 70s, 80s, you know. The good stuff.“

„Jesus.“ 

This was taking turns Jens hadn’t expected. Not that he would mind listening to whatever Lucas would put on. He’d probably be able to enjoy it nonetheless. But they barely had anything in common, other than maybe folk and indie, did they? This surely would be fun to figure out on long car rides.

„It’s great music. Sander and me are very much on the same page there, give or take some artists, we can’t agree on. Robbe was so close to throw us out that saturday I stayed over.“

„I can imagine.“ Jens completely was with his best friend there. Lucas and Sander passionately arguing over 70s music. No thank you. „I have to ask, how old are you, again?“

„Shut up. Third question.“ Lucas replied, shaking his head.

„More?“ Jens was pretty sure they had covered everything. He was wrong though.

„Third question. What is something you listen to, when you are one hundred percent sure, no one you know is around to see you vibing to it.“

Jens laughed. Loud and absolutely done with his boyfriend and his little interview. 

„Tell me.“ Lucas pleaded, pursing his lips, as he leaned in closer. Fuck.

„I love Doja Cat. And Ashnikko“ Jens tried so hard to stay confident in his answer, because not even Robbe had seen Jens put it on. He only ever safely lipsynched parts of her songs at parties, where alcohol was involved. Or all in its entirety alone in his room.

„I have no clue who that is.“ Lucas said, clearly a bit more somber now that he couldn’t make fun of Jens, as he didn’t know the artist that well. Thank god.

„I’m sure you have heard some songs of them. But yea they are some powerful woman. I know practically every word to their songs, and if you tell anyone else I’ll kill you.“

„Well, now I need to see you sing them.“ Lucas was back in his element of making Jens’s live harder, as the smirk returned on his lips.

„Nope.“ Jens cut off any further demands, before it was too late. „Who do you secretly listen to?“

„This is embarrasing but I was and still am a One Direction fan.“ Oh yes, this was good. Jens would never let Lucas forget that he had told him this. „I also may or may not have had, and still have, a crush on Harry Styles. So sorry, but you are out, the second I get a chance.“

„Wow, thank you.“ Jens laughed, pecking a kiss on the pouting lips of Lucas. Who tried his hardest to keep himself from falling into giggling with Jens.

He had actually forgotten that the weren’t alone when his mother’s voice came from the other side of the big space inside his house. Loud enough to stare at Lucas in shock. 

The boy next to him just shrugged his shoulders amused.

„How about you put some of these songs on, that you so dearly love apperently. And Lotte and me can find out who actually has some taste in music.“

__ __ __

tagged: @odi-et-amo85, @tayspots

I thought long about the type of music they would listen too. We obviously hadn’t had a season to find out, other than the song Lucas and Kes danced to in S1. I hope that you wouldn’t be too bothered by my choices here. I just always need songs to get into my character’s heads and these are the directions it went in. thank you for continuing to read my story! i love all of you!

[abbeyroadie]

I know others have gotten that stupid question when someone finds out that you like The Beatles they ask, “Oh yeah? Name five Beatles songs that weren’t big hits.” The other day I told someone that my favorite Beatle is Paul McCartney and they said, “Ok, name five songs from McCartney’s solo career.” Laaaaaawd I have nothing to prove to anyone, but it always grinds my gears when people assume I’m only wearing a Beatles t-shirt for aesthetics, or I only love Paul for his looks. Bitch please.

So I compiled this list of songs that I first tried to narrow down to ten and quickly realized I couldn’t even narrow it down to twenty, lol. My favorite Paul McCartney songs post Beatles era are listed below with links to YouTube to hear each song. I left out anything he did as a collaboration just because this list is hella long already. Please feel free to add your favs as well!

~

36. Calico Skies

- I love the simplicity of this song. Paul’s finger picking on the guitar vaguely reminds me of the style of Blackbird.

 35. Put It There

- This song has a soft, sweet melody that always gets stuck in my head.

 34. The World Tonight

- “I go back so far, I’m in front of me.” Sometimes Paul’s lyrics are awesomesauce, lol.

 33. Call Me Back Again

- I love how this song kinda goes back to his roots. Very oldies, very bluesy. Lots of wailing Paul and great guitar licks.

 32. This One

- Might be a song for John if you squint sideways and upside down. Another one that’s a definite earworm.

 30./31. Venus and Mars/Rock Show

- I’m sort of cheating but these two songs def go together. Venus and Mars is very melodic and draws you in, jumping right into the rocker that is aptly named Rock Show. A great way to kick off the V&M album.

 29. C Moon

- This tune is very sentimental to my sister and me. As kids we’d run around the house singing it at the top of our lungs. Also, the beginning when Paul misses the intro and just keeps the gaff in the song makes it that much better, lol.

 28. Somedays

- A quiet song, Paul’s more thoughtful, reflective side. The dueling acoustic guitars and harp are especially lovely.

 27. Big Barn Bed

- I used to skip over this song because I thought it made no sense. Then one day it hit me how much fun it is. And now I wanna keep on sleeping in a big barn bed too, haha.

 26. With a Little Luck

- One of those uplifting, positive tracks that Paul is so freaking good at creating.

 25. Young Boy

- Just the way Paul sings “looooooong” and “strooooong” at the end of a couple of the lyrics. And the guitar solo kicks ass too.

 24. Goodnight Tonight

- Ooh boy, where to start with this song? First and foremost, that BASSLINE. Perhaps it’s a disco-ish dance number that meets electronica? I don’t even know. John said he didn’t like this song but he loved Paul’s bass playing on it, so there you go, lol.

 23. Nineteen-Hundred and Eighty-Five

- This one is very upbeat, but the slowed down intermission with the “ooohs” is what makes it interesting to me. It also includes some amazing piano playing.

 22. Hi, Hi, Hi

- I prefer the live version of this song, but it’s tons of fun no matter what.

 21. Junk

- A very soft tune that would have fit perfectly on The White Album. Very stripped back and almost sad.

 20. Off the Ground

- Paul at his very best at creating melodies that are catchy and fun and don’t delve too deep. “I need lovin’, you need lovin’ too.” And you can’t forget the hand claps and la la las! Good luck getting this song out of your head.

 19. Live and Let Die

- I’d be surprised if you haven’t heard this song sometime in your life. It’s one of those songs where you hear it and go, “Wait, I know this song. This is Paul McCartney?!” He be James Bond like that, heehee.

 18. Dear Boy

- I’ve heard this song is about Linda’s ex. Some think it’s about John. Either way, it’s a catchy little tune.

 17. Take It Away

- This is a great song even before you realize how amazeballs Paul’s bass playing is on it.

 16. Monkberry Moon Delight

- Y’all, WHAT EVEN IS THIS SONG?! I don’t know, but it’s so freaking FUN! Paul’s poor voice though. I feel like he probably couldn’t talk for a week after laying down the vocal track, lol.

 15. Too Much Rain

- Ugh, this song is so beautiful and so sad at the same time. Paul trying to be optimistic as always.

 14. Dear Friend

- Is this a song about John too? Maybe. Probably. A haunting melody with a solitary piano for most of it, with a heavy feeling of regret, at least imo.

 13. Band on the Run

- Here you get three songs in one, not unlike the Abbey Road medley but completely different as well. Paul knows how to kick off an album, that’s for sure!

 12. Maybe I’m Amazed

- I prefer the live version of this song too, but it kicks you in the gut no matter what. Paul loved Linda so much, and he lets everyone know it.

 11. Tug of War

- Ok, I don’t know if this song is about John. It could be. It sounds like Paul’s talking about something…more. “In another world we could stand on top of the mountain with our flag unfurled.” “We will be dancing to the beat played on a different drum.” What is Paul trying to say exactly? Many have debated the lyrics to no end. You decide.

 10. Too Many People

- This is FOR SURE about John, and the breakup of the Beatles. And it started a song war between John and Paul that would go on for years. But it’s also a bop, lol.

 9. Here Today

- This is Paul speaking to John after John’s death. And it’s completely heartbreaking. I have to be in a certain mindset to listen to this one.

 8. Hope of Deliverance

- If this song doesn’t get your foot tapping and your head bopping, idk you might want to check your pulse.

 7. Silly Love Songs

- DAT BASS THO. For real, this song is built around Paul’s bassline and it’s amazing! Also, this was Paul basically giving John the finger for making fun of his “granny shit” and “silly love songs.”

 6. Jet

- This is one that I crank up in my car and it may or may not make me drive a little faster, lol. I love it so much.

 5. Little Lamb Dragonfly

- A two for one! Both songs are lovely, but I particularly love the dragonfly lyrics and melody. (Yes, this song is possibly about John as well (“how did two rights make a wrong?”), but it’s debatable.) Listening to it once usually isn’t enough for me.

4. Little Willow

- Whew, this one makes me emotional. The guitar, the lyrics, the piano, Paul’s voice – all so soothing and unbelievably soft and achy. It breaks my heart in the sweetest way.

 3. Mull Of Kintyre

- Arguably the biggest hit of Paul’s solo career, it’s like the Hey Jude of its own time. And it has freaking BAGPIPES, lol. This is one of those songs that you’ve heard before, but you don’t know where and you don’t know how, you just have. It will stick with you for a long time.

 2. Let Me Roll It

- This song. THIS SONG. Ughhhhhhhh. So sexy I can’t even begin to explain. You just have to listen and let it take you there. Another one where the bassline makes you want to weep. Tingles. Tingles everywhere.

 1. Wanderlust

- This will forever be my favorite solo Paul McCartney song. Completely underrated and simply magical. George Martin has said that this is Paul’s greatest vocal performance and I wholly agree. His voice is so pure and melodic, I sometimes get emotional listening to it. The song as a whole just checks all the boxes of what I most love about a Paul McCartney song – beautiful, melodious and timeless. There’s that old jokey saying, “If this ain’t played at my funeral, I ain’t going.” Yeah, this is that song for me.