#i use this tuners that show you how off is a note and as I was speaking out loud I noticed that my talking is out of tune

[afkaskus]

I was tuning my violin and I realized why I don't like my voice

When I start talking my voice is an A⁴ (the most perfect note with 440Hz), but out of tune (like 454-457Hz, it doesn't reach an A# with 466Hz), and then it goes to a less out of tune C⁵ and keeps variating in out of tune notes but always comes back at that out of tune A, and never hits a perfect note...

[honeychamomile1]

Boards And Strings

JJ Maybank x fem!Reader

Summary: Reader takes peace with JJ while she tunes her strings and he cleans his board.

Warnings: Just fluff because I’m obsessed with it.

Note: This is my first story ever with JJ on this blog because I made a second one so this is blog is fresh as a daisy. Hope you like it though! (Also I didn’t watch the show so any mistakes I make I deeply apologize but I rarely mention plot points)

First blog: @marypaol (I write for Harry Potter!)

The instrument was in her hands, gentle and delicate for her mind as she twisted the tuners on the top, once in a while plucking the strings, the note ringing out into the air.

Her opinion of it would vary, for sometimes she took satisfaction to it or she would simply shake her head, tightening or loosening based on her desires. The string would be looser or tighter in accordance with her actions. The ukulele would listen to her every word, even the most delicate change would completely alter the perspective of the note in the air, picking it up in the wind and almost forcing everyone to hear what it had to say.

She always liked music, listening or making, it didn’t matter, for whichever one was the same to her. Music was music, and notes were notes.

The dirty blonde in front of the garage didn’t take a mind to the noise, for normally it annoy an every-day person, a note ringing out before a pause is heard, not long enough until another note sprang out. He always heard her playing, and it pretty much the opposite of annoyed him. It in fact made him calm, a sense in his chest growing every time he heard her fingers touch those strings. He loved it when she played, and simply hearing the process of the instrument sounding good was something he was more than content to watch unfold.

His hands though burned, scraping the wax off the surface with great effort. The huge board was propped up on two wooden chairs he found in the garage, him sitting in his own as he leaned over it, his back starting to form a tension that wasn’t very comfortable. The hat on his head was protecting his forehead form the morning sun, yet after a while he could feel the heat seeping into the fabric and onto his hair, and he just knew he might get sunburn on his head beneath his strands if he took it off, so he dealt with the rays.

“JJ?” He heard a gentle voice, and, looking up from crumbled up wax on his board, got to see a much better view. The girl sat on a chair, bare tanned legs curled up and leaning on the table in front of her. She wore light ripped jean shorts, a nice sun shirt covering her figure. On her toned arms she wore knitted bracelets, ones she’s made herself. She had her eyebrows knitted together, confusion pouring over her features. Her nose in fact displayed the so said confusion, twitching every couple seconds so much so that it made the Maybank boy stare for a couple seconds longer than he should have.

“Yes, Princess?” He said, using the nickname he always used around her. Her lips quirked at the corners, him loving the sight before she used her fingers to pluck a string.

“Does this sound off?” She asked, uncertainly curling around her features. He listened to her play it again. He shook his head eventually, knowing how her songs sounded and the note was right as ever, his ears knowing that sound better than any other.

“Not at all, sweetness. Sounds as perfect as always.” He assured, looking down at the wax again, picking up his tool and continuing to scrape at the substance.

He didn’t hear her get up, and it wasn’t until he felt the fabric on his head being lifted up, his locks that were held together now flowing freely once they’re wasn’t any blockage that he noticed she had came over to him. His blonde strands practically glowed in the sun’s rays, and he could already feel the heat burning his head. He looked up at the disturbance, but quickly decided it wasn’t a disturbance anymore, since it was her standing over him, her hand holding his hat and transferring it to her own locks, setting it in her head swiftly.

Her eyes locked with his over the cap, the fabric on it lightly tearing from its constant use.

“What do you think you’re doing?” JJ teased gently, lips quirking up lightly.

She grinned right back at him, adjusting the cap on her head, the strings from her bracelets wagging from the movement. “What does it look like? I’m stealing your hat.”

JJ clicked his tongue and shook his head softly, mouth still slightly open as he looked at her. He then put on a fake man voice, acting like he had higher authority than her. “Well, sorry, Ma’am, but stealing is illegal.”

She grinned at his joke, instantly deciding to play along. “Really? Well I apologize, sir.”

She fluttered her eyelashes teasingly, trying to win the so-called cop over. JJ smirked.

“Beauty isn’t gonna free you, honey.” He informed, and saw her bottom lip come out, pink mouth pouting.

“Does this mean I’m arrested?” She tested, eyebrow raising in question. JJ grinned, standing up, coming closer to her.

“It means that you are going to get punished.” He answered. Her pout deepened but he saw her eyes glistening with curiosity, wondering what his next move was.

“And what exactly is my punishment?” She said, eyes more leaving his.

JJ had a smirk on his face, coming closer to her than before. It clicks in her brain at that moment, widening her eyes. She backs away slightly. “J…”

He laughs, tackling her body and digging his fingers into her sides, a squeal coming out of her mouth. She giggles as he tickles her, both their bodies slamming into the grassy ground, him on top, limbs everywhere as her lungs burned form not being able to breath without laughing. The cap loosed on her hair, the front of it covering part of her forehead.

“JJ!” She managed to exclaim, hands on his wrists as an attempt to stop his fingers from tickling her skin. She was able to get her fingers close to his, trying to pry them off when she felt the waxy substance coating his skin.

“JJ, ew your hands are gross.” She laughed, now managing to take his hands off her, and he was smirking the whole time he was wiping his hands off on the grass.

He then leaned forward, making eye contact with her, hair sprawled out on the grass and skin tanned. He reached for for the hat on her head, and for a couple seconds she thought he was gonna take it back, but instead he fixed it, gently lifting her head with his hand on the back of her neck, making sure the cap can fit better.

She smiled at him, him at her as their noses touched, brushing skin against skin as she breathed in his scent.

“I don’t think the police should be handling me like this…” she murmured and wrapping her fingers around the collar of is worn out T-shirt, smiling wider as his mouth brushed hers, being able to feel the muscles in his lips.

“I don’t think so either.” JJ whispered, breath hitting her mouth before connecting their lips, intaking a soft breath.

Her hands went to his neck, keeping him close as their mouths moved together. He tasted like fruits and beer, along with something that wouldn’t be any one else except him. He thought she tasted like honey chamomile and something else sweet.

They slowly separated for air, breathing slightly hard against each other’s mouths. JJ breathed out, digging his face into her neck, pressing his lips to the skin there, making her light out a soft sighs at the action.

“JJ…” she whispered as a form of protest but didn’t make an effort to take his head away, instead holding it there with her hands, stroking the hair strands that seemed to be getting blonder by the day.

He hummed in response, waiting to see what she had to say. She didn’t answer right away, though, sighing more frequently as he continued to kiss wherever he could get to.

“W-we shouldn’t do this right here.” She managed out, his teeth brushing the skin before backing away, gorgeous eyes meeting hers.

“Why not, Princess?” He questioned, practically whining because he had to stop. She laughed a little before replying.

“Because someone could see us.”

JJ scoffed, pecking her lips a couple times before going back to her neck, hand going under her shirt to rub her stomach. She sighed into the feeling, almost overwhelmed by his scent and body heat.

“Let them watch, they deserve to know that you’re mine.”

-Like, reblog, and comment to make me happy! 🫶🏻

[toastofthetrashfire]

Shadow Meta Series Post#3: Anurak and Old vs New Technology 

This is my third post in my Shadow meta series on technology, time, and horror. You can check out my introduction and plan for that in this post!

When watching through the first seven episodes of Shadow for the first time, Josh’s technology usage was fairly obvious. But when I watched through the episodes again with an eye on technology, I was surprised by a few characters who were also heavily surrounded by tech. One of these is brother Anurak.

In his office alone he has two clocks, three landline phones, a tape recorder, a Newton’s cradle, a lamp, a portable TV radio cassette player (thanks @raypakorn for helping to confirm this one), another radio or older music player (my best guess is an FM radio stereo but I can’t find a closer shot of this one), and candles. 

My goal here is to do a reading of Anurak’s relationship with technology and put forth a few potential theories as to what Shadow might be trying to communicate through this. Unlike other posts in the series so far, the conclusions on this one remain much more speculation as I feel we have a lot more to learn about Anurak in order to get to a deeper reading. I’ll be relying on some other theories about Anurak, particularly @wen-kexing-apologist 's theory that Anurak is the one-armed man. 

Old vs New Technology

What struck me most about Anurak in going over his technology, was the fact that he was pretty even with Josh in terms of how many different types of tech they had. However, Anurak’s tech gives the impression of being more dated. If we go with the theory that Anurak is the one-armed man, then we know his execution happened 20 years before the present day, so 1979.

My theory is that most of his technology predates 1979. It’s hard to track everything down, and we have to consider whether it’s more appropriate to go with the year a technology was invented or with the precise model. Still here’s some of what I was able to track down.

Anurak’s Tech

Three landline phones

While two of these look like the phones found elsewhere in the show, one of these is a rotary which were invented back in 1892. These models seem to have been common up through the 50s with the corded landlines used elsewhere in the show coming on the market in the 60s and 70s.

 TV Radio Cassette Player

This one was surprisingly tricky to track down. You can find models being resold online but actually figuring out when they first went on the market was a dead end. Most of the ones I found were from the 80s when they seemed to be most popular. The earliest I found was a model from Japan from 1978. This is cutting it very close but it does technically make the cut. 

Tape recorder

The model used here looks to be a Sony TC-150 portable tape recorder and player from 1977–it also makes the cut

The Newton’s Cradle

Invented in 1967

The clocks

Both are analog so safely in our window

Music player

If we go with my guess (FM radio stereo), the first FM multiplex stereo tuner came out in the US in 1961

Candles

Obviously these are pre-1979. But they’re of extra note because we also see the one-armed man associated with candles

Some of Josh’s tech

Walkman

I’m not sure the exact model, but it looks like a 90s era walkman. The 80s versions were much blockier and come the 2000s walkmans were getting into digital players and CD players. Regardless, walkmans were invented in 1979 which makes the year stand out as a split in technology in the show. 

Handheld video game console

I’m sure I could be a bit off here, but it looks like a Game Boy, which was released in 1989. The first handheld console with interchangeable cartridges was released in 1979. 

Cell phone

It's hard to tell much about Josh's phone. But given the size, it looks at home in the late 90s. We can safely say it's post 1979.

Digital camcorder

Again, not sure of the model, but the first digital camera with recording came out in 1995

Camera

I haven’t tracked down the model yet, but looking at the history of most of the big camera companies, this looks at home in the 90s, definitely post-1979 though  

Some Take-A-Ways and A Theory

I won’t pretend my methodology here is foolproof, and it’s hard to know when these were available in Thailand since tech comes to places at different paces. But I think it paints an interesting picture overall. If Josh is surrounded by more contemporary, often cutting edge tech for the time, Anurak is surrounded by the past.

This old vs new dynamic is right at home with the themes of late 90s horror, which I’ll explore in a later post to come. But here I want to think about what it might mean for Anurak to be stuck in the past. 

Throughout the first seven episodes, Anurak is consistently opposing and denying change and the supernatural. This comes to the forefront in episode 3, as Anurak is discussing the bible with Dan’s class. He tells them if they follow God, then they’ll know ghost stories are lies.

On the one hand, this could be Anurak denying the supernatural in order to stop Dan and others from finding out some hidden truth. On the other hand, this Christian framework offers a safe black and white logic between safety and risk, reality and fantasy, the abject and the normative. 

In any case, Dan jumps in to challenge Anurak. He tells him “If old beliefs don’t work, there's no harm in trying new things.” He then tells Anurak that “closing ourselves off from the world is more horrifying.” These comments show the audience the growing tension between Dan and Anurak. Anurak repeatedly denies the shadow’s reality and asks Dan to perform that same denial. Yet the scene here feels so specific in how it frames Anurak as stuck in the past and tradition. 

This is emphasized further as the scene cuts to the video of Trin performing outside of the theater. A sharp reminder of modern technology, queerness, and the supernatural mystery surrounding Trin’s death.

Now there could be a number of reasons why Anurak is stuck in the past and the one taking on this thematic role. 

Let’s assume that Anurak is the one-armed man. Then we know that he is likely queer and has gone through a number of traumatic experiences because of this. I’d argue that we could read him as someone who has come to conform and act for those with power due to trauma and a fear of change. Not dissimilar to Chadok from The Eclipse.

I recognize we only have half of his story at this point, and I may need to make another post addressing this once the second half airs. As it stands, I view this as speculation rather than a full reading of Anurak’s role viz a viz technology. Still, the pattern of him being stuck in the past is there, regardless of what the show will ultimately do with these connections. 

If Anurak is the one-armed man, has he closed himself off from the world? Is he trying to protect Dan by metaphorically making him hide his queerness by suppressing and denying the supernatural? He continually emphasizes reality, telling Dan that if he doesn’t believe in the shadow it can’t hurt him. 

A similar exchange to the one discussed above plays out at the start of episode 5, when Dan confronts Anurak about his sense that the shadow is linked to Trin. Anurak tells Dan that "We're talking about reality here, not feelings," something he also tells Dan’s mother. Denying one’s feelings and over-reliance on rationalism (see my post on surrealism vs realism here) could be interpreted as a coping mechanism, a way to survive by pushing your feelings down and conforming to violent systems. 

Perhaps this is a reason why Anurak reacts with fear over the idea that Dan might not forgive his father (and might even want to let him suffer). Of course this is also tied into cultural values around filial piety and we could read it as a fear of Dan straying from the correct path. But perhaps Anurak’s anxiety is also heightened by the fear of seeing Dan choose a path where he refuses to hide his anger and his pain.  

In the hospital Anurak tells Dan that he can’t change the way people think. In his office, Dan tells Anurak that he "should let go of [his] fixation on the teachings" since they might be blinding him from the truth. Conform or push for change. Bury your emotions to not get hurt more or use them to fuel you.  

This dynamic between Anurak and Dan is also paralleled in what we see of Anurak and Trin in the past. Trin is pushing for change, and, while kinder than the headmaster, Anurak resists, telling Trin, “But you’re trying to change a long-standing tradition.” He acknowledges Trin’s opinion in a sense but really just resists change in a nicer way. He’s not angry or using punishment, but change is still a nonstarter.

Trin pushes back asking “If the tradition was good, then why would people want to change it?” Interestingly, Anurak unlike the headmaster doesn’t defend the goodness or value of tradition. Instead he uses “logic” to point out the difficulty of making changes. Interestingly, Anurak tells the headmaster that “these things can’t be easily changed but we must respect reality,” but then turns to use such “reality” to debate Trin and make him back down.  

Reality and reason are safe to Anurak. Much more than the uncertainty of resistance or change. He may not like the status quo, it likely has done him much harm, but to resist and be hurt is far scarier to him. So he conforms, stuck in time like the butterflies on display in his office.

One final piece of technology

I talk about narrative prosthesis in this post, but lets talk real prosthetics. If we continue to assume Anurak is the one-armed man, this means that his left arm is a prosthetic. As @wen-kexing-apologist has noted here, he rarely moves it, and in certain scenes if you watch it closely you can see it reflect light or hang in a way that isn’t quite like his right arm. 

Prosthetics are technology, but they fall into a couple different categories. Some are functional  while others are cosmetic. Given that we never see Anurak use his arm and it typically remains immobile, it’s likely that the prosthetic is largely cosmetic. Meaning it’s used to make Anurak look like he has an arm, to hide his difference and help him conform. Once again connecting Anurak to both the idea of alterity and difference but also conformity. 

I want to mention one other allusion to prosthetics that comes up in Shadow. The bust in episode 7 is a replica of Lacoon and His Sons. The statue famously was missing the right arm for around 400 years before it was found in 1906. A year after it was unearthed in 1509, the pope’s architect held a contest to see who could best figure out what the arm looked like. An arm was added in 1532 that remained until the real arm was unearthed in the early 1900s. It is interesting to think about how the statue was given a prosthetic for 400 years, reflecting values about bodily wholeness. 

In one version of the Lacoon myth, he and his sons were punished by the gods after trying to warn people about the Trojan horse. Both the myth and the story of the statue’s prosthetic touch on themes of punishment and conformity tied together with technology. 

If my reading of Anurak is accurate, this ties not just to the fact that he is missing his left arm, but to his relationship with trauma and conformity which is expressed in part through his relationship with technology.   

Alright! Next time we’ll jump into cameras and horror!

[mingain]

Pull on their Heart Strings

Pairing: Milo/Sweetheart (Redacted Audio), David/Angel Characters: Milo Greer, Sweetheart, David Shaw, Angel Words: 656 CW: None Additional Notes: Harpist! Milo and Cellist! Sweetheart. Author is a cellist and it probably shows. Author also couldn’t be bothered to depict accents, Milo’s dialogue is written the same as everything else. Summary: Milo and Sweetheart practise a duet.

Available to read on AO3:

Tags: @jasontoddsneighbour, @epsi-l0n

He plucked middle c - or more accurately, what should’ve been middle c and the note was met with cackling. 

“Baby, do you need me to play you the note so you know what it should sound like or do you have a tuner?” The stealth raised their right arm slightly, positioning their bow on the A string, the index and middle fingers of their left hand already pressing down in fist position to play a C4.

He laughed before gently swatting at them, gesturing for them to play the note nonetheless. 

While Milo tuned his harp to their cello, the stealth stared at the sheet music in front of them. They should’ve looked at it before practising with Milo. God, they hated sight reading.

Once both instruments were fully in tune, Milo got his sheet music out a winced. “Sweetheart, did you have to pick out such a hard song?” At least both of them were sight reading.

“Should we just… do the first four bars and see how that goes?” They smiled at the glare he shot their way.

“Yeah, yeah, really funny there, Sweetheart. You don’t come in until bar 5.” They tried to look up at him, batting their eyes to feign innocence before breaking out into laughter.

“Look-“

“No, I don’t think I will.” He cut them off, smirking and they sighed.

“From bar five then?” They wouldn’t even get a lead up now.        

“I’ll go from bar four. Trying to come in at the same time is almost always hell.” 

——————————

The stealth leaned back in their chair, careful not to lose control of the cello resting against their legs. Their arms ached and the tips of their fingers were sore - they should probably practise more often.

“Well that turned out better than I expected. Could definitely still use some practice though.” They smiled at Milo while they spoke.

He smiled back, nodding before standing up and offering them a hand. They laid their cello on its side on the floor before taking his hand, standing up. As they stood up, Milo pulled them into him, kissing their forehead as he held them tight.

“Well hi there, Sweetheart, fancy seeing you here.” Yeah, he’s absolutely going to be the death of them.

“Do you reckon we’ll be able to get it to performance standard in time?” Their voice wavered as they spoke, but any nervousness they may have felt melted away at the nod of his head.

“I’m sure we will.”

——————————

The room around them bustled with chatting and laughter as they set up and prepared to play.

“Thank you so much. Both of you. We’re so happy you were willing to play.” A voice spoke from behind them. David Shaw. Milo turned around, smiling.

“Not a problem. We needed an excuse to play together anyway.” He looked over to his mate who was sorting out their sheet music. “We’re honoured that you wanted us to play for you on your big day.”

Angel rushed over to join them, smiling from ear to ear while Sweetheart approached from the opposite direction to handle Milo’s music while he was talking.

“What songs did you pick?” They continued to beam, waiting for him to answer.

“Well, I didn’t actually pick the songs, so if you don’t like them, don’t blame me.” There was suddenly someone leaning against him and he chuckled.

“But, if you do like them, you can thank me.” The stealth laughed along with their mate. “We’re starting with Perfect for your first dance and then Experience by Ludovico Einaudi and after that there’s gonna be some other love songs like Can’t Help Falling in Love by Elvis and Love Me Like You by Little Mix.”

The newly married couple nodded, thanking them again before heading off to talk to Asher and Babe.

Milo and Sweethearts took their seats when they were ready, beginning the song and David and Angel’s first dance.

[negasonicimagines]

Tell Me I'm Not Funny

Request: darkandmysteriousbutheartofgold!ellie and wholesomeanddoesn'tunderstandwhyelliedoesn'tlikeher!reader where they're both part of the friend group but ellie just thinks reader is straight and messing with her pls

Notes: I don’t usually write MCU!Peter, so if he comes up in any future fics (like as the reader’s stepdad 👀 I’ve loved spideypool longer than I’ve loved Negasonic) you can safely assume it’s Andrew Garfield. But, for this time, this is MCU!Peter. Everyone in the friend group is 18-20, just to be clear.

This really isn't my best work, but it's a fun little slice of life piece. A lot of my ideas are pretty cinematic, I can picture them in my head but sometimes those pictures don't really translate into words. I may revisit this one day.

Warnings: D-slur (reclaimed by Ellie in one line), allusions to prior assault (an unwanted kiss that could've been more had another character not stepped in), and that's about it. Oh, and a little swearing, but this is an imagine for a character from Deadpool. If you can't handle swearing, you're on the wrong blog.

Synopsis: You’re into Ellie, but she’s with your good friend Peter. She treats you like you don’t even exist, and in the few instances she does acknowledge you, it’s usually just to make some sarcastic remark. You’re head-over-heels, though, and decide to deal with your unrequited love by writing her a song she’ll never hear.

“Fuck, that movie was terrible,” Michelle groans. “I’m just glad it was a matinee show and we didn’t have to pay as much to see it.”

“The special effects were good, but can’t Disney just leave stuff alone?” Peter agrees.

“Next thing you know they’ll be making a live action Toy Story, as if the original wasn’t traumatizing enough. I don’t want to imagine Watermelon as a sentient being. She’s seen some shit,” you snicker.

“Who’s Watermelon?” Ellie asks with a dark chuckle, and you clam up. How had you forgotten she was here?

“Oh, uh, nobody.”

“Don’t tell me you still sleep with a stuffed animal,” she snarks. “You really do need to grow up.”

“Don’t be mean, Ellie,” Peter protests.

“Watermelon is cute, everybody likes cute things!” Yukio adds.

“I think a live-action Toy Story could be cool,” Ned says. “It’d look really good if they did stop-motion animation.”

“Oh, you’re right!” you chirp. “It’d be quite the undertaking, but it would look badass.”

“I think you’re using that term a little loosely,” Ellie grumbles, and you have to stop yourself from frowning, instead you laugh it off. Why does she always pick on you? Sure, she’s got a witty remark for everybody, but she’s way harder on you. It hurts, she really is so gorgeous and funny and mysterious and everything you want in a woman, but she acts like she can’t stand you.

Ellie and Peter head off together, Peter still hasn’t gotten around to getting his license and Ellie seems happy to give him a ride. You really don’t stand a chance.

You and the others pile up in MJ’s SUV for some late-night band practice.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” you admit to Yukio in the furthest row back.

“You can,” she insists. “You’re a way better singer than Lola, anyways.”

“I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to give her the wrong impression, I-”

“For the millionth time, Y/N, you didn’t. If she hadn’t left the band, we would’ve kicked her out. Not just for cheating on me, but for hurting you.”

“I guess,” you sigh. “Why can’t you sing instead?”

“Because I’m flat.”

“Yukio, breast size doesn’t have anything to do with singing ability, you’ve just gotta practice,” you joke.

“Shut up!” she giggles, punching you in the arm. “Plus, when you sing, the songs are being sung as they were written. We’re getting the real feelings.”

“Speaking of… I have something new I’m thinking about sharing tonight. Do you mind if I text you the demo?”

“Ooh, a first look! Hell yes!”

You text her the audio file and she puts in a wireless earbud, nodding along. Her smile gets wider and wider as she listens, and when she’s done, her assessment shocks you.

“Oh my gosh. You’re into Ellie.”

“What?!” you squeak. “No way!”

“You are! But, uh-”

“Don’t even say it. I know I don’t have a chance in hell. She only tolerates me for the sake of you and Peter.” Despite the gloominess of your tone, Yukio gets a mischievous glint in her eye, it confuses you. But, that’s just Yukio. Her thoughts are all over the place; she and Ellie balance each other out that way. They dated a couple of years ago, but it didn’t work out. They decided they were better off as friends.

“Screw that other song, we’re using this as the lead single. Everybody’s gonna love it, do you have the sheet music?”

“Yeah, uh, it’s in my bag.”

“Awesome.” Yukio’s grinning like she’s won something. Is the song that good? “We’ll have to practice this one a lot, we definitely need to have it ready by the concert this Friday.”

Right. Liz’s 19th birthday party. Apparently Peter had convinced her to let the band play, it’d be cheaper than hiring a more established artist.

“Our first paying gig? I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” you remind her. She scoffs and rolls her eyes.

“We’re mostly gonna be playing covers of Liz’s favorite songs, and she only has so many. We’ve gotta beef up the setlist with originals, and this is perfect! Has that pop-y fun vibe, it’ll fit right in.”

“Yeah, but if it’s that obvious how I feel about her after one listen-”

“Only because I already had a hunch after Daft Pretty Boys,” Yukio clarifies cheerily, and you sigh.

“Fair enough.”

The gang makes it to Michelle’s house, travelling down to the side door and going into the basement from there. MJ’s parents have encouraged her creativity from day one, and were ecstatic when the band was formed. You speculate that they’re mostly happy that she’s made friends. Writing and photography can be lonely hobbies.

“Y/N has something new for us!” Yukio chirps.

“That fast?” Ned’s surprised as you hand him the sheet music. He skims it. “Holy shit, this is a wicked solo! Thanks, Y/N!”

“Well, I’m hoping highlighting everybody else’s talent will disguise my lack thereof,” you chuckle.

“Don’t be stupid, we’ve all heard you sing backup,” MJ says. “You’re Ryan Ross, she’s Brendon Urie. I’m just glad we booted her out before she decided she was gonna be the only pangolin in The Pangolins.”

Everyone laughs at that.

“Let’s try it,” Michelle continues, and everybody agrees. After a sound check and a few runs of the song, it’s still clumsy, especially on your part. You’re not really used to playing and singing at the same time, outside of backup vocals, which require far less focus.

“I suck,” you mumble, but it happens to be into the microphone.

“You don’t!” Ned insists.

“With that attitude, we’re not going anywhere,” Yukio says. You hate it when she gets to the tough love stage of her support. You wish she’d stay in the shallow reassurances stage, it’s easier to brush off. “You wouldn’t be the lead singer if we all thought you sucked. We would’ve just put an ad in the paper. You’re awesome, get over it!”

You sigh.

“Fine. Thank you.”

“Say it,” she insists.

“I’m awesome,” you huff, it’s hard not to smile when Yukio tries to look serious.

“Damn straight,” Yukio says. “Or, I guess not, considering that was about Ellie.”

“Yukio!” you squeal.

“That’s about Ellie?!” Ned exclaims.

“Obviously,” MJ scoffs, fiddling with her tuners.

“Is it that obvious?!” You can’t help but feel embarrassed. Ellie probably knows exactly how you feel, maybe that’s why she dislikes you so much. Her boyfriend’s stupid friend has a crush.

“Wait, but at the beginning…” Ned trails off, before laughing. “Oh my gosh, I get it.”

“Get what? Oh… Y/N, have I ever told you how much I love you?” MJ asks.

“I- I love you, too?” You’re puzzled by their words, but you’ve got enough on your plate.

“Let’s go ahead and practice some of Liz’s favorites while we’re here,” Yukio suggests. “It’s a pretty big set list.”

You practice until dinner, getting a pizza and deciding to make a night of it since it was a little late for Michelle to be dropping you all off at your assorted residences.

You all sleep on a pallet in the basement, and despite your worries, you manage to get some rest.

Over the next few days, The Pangolins practice at every free moment, until it’s finally time for the party.

“So, just pictures of everything?” Oh, shit. She’s not supposed to be here. How are you supposed to sing that song with her here?

“Yeah! I know with how many people are coming, I’m probably not going to get as much time as I want with everyone, so pictures will be a good way to remember the night.”

“Why not just invite less people?” Ellie wonders.

“I want all my friends to be here,” Liz explains. “How’s the sound check going, Y/N?”

“It’s going great,” you say into the microphone, demonstrating the quality and volume with a smile. “Thanks for letting us play here tonight.”

“Well, Peter said you guys are great. Are you really gonna debut your best song so far tonight?”

“Oh, um,” you stutter, stepping away from the microphone. “Maybe not.”

“What? Oh, come on, please, it’ll make the night even more special! You’re playing covers of all my old favorites, sing me my new favorite!” Liz presses, but she’s not being demanding or bratty, she seems genuinely excited.

“If the birthday girl says so, who am I to say no?” you concede. Hopefully Ellie will be too distracted taking pictures. “You have way too much faith in me.”

“If you don’t quit with the self-deprecation, I’m gonna duct tape your mouth shut,” MJ interjects.

“But, Daddy, how will I say my safe word?” you tease, giggling at your own joke with the rest of the group. Yukio’s laugh seems the loudest. Ellie glares.

“We should practice a song!” Ned suggests.

“Ooh, a private show!” Liz seems excited.

“Any requests?” you ask her. Ellie’s resting scowl intensifies. If she’s more pissed off the more you open your mouth, you’re not sure how she’s gonna survive a night of you singing without going nuclear.

“Oh, oh, Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne, please?”

“You’ve got it,” you agree.

The song goes smoothly.

“What happened to the old singer?” Ellie asks, clearly unimpressed.

“You didn’t tell her?” you ask Yukio, grateful for the excuse to turn away from the sharp-tongued girl you adore.

“Didn’t want her to get the wrong impression,” Yukio explains. “She already makes enough rude comments towards you.” Yukio leans over her drum kit to give Ellie a pointed look.

“Oh, wait, shit, I didn’t mean it like that. You, uh, sound good, Y/N.”

You can’t help but whip your head back to look at her with a flabbergasted expression.

“What?! It’s true,” Ellie defends herself.

“Uh, yeah, but you just said something nice. About me. Liz, do you mind checking her for a fever?”

Liz obliges for the sake of going along with the joke before quickly withdrawing her hand.

“Jeez! I know you were kidding, but she’s burning up,” Liz declares.

“My internal temperature is higher due to my mutation,” Ellie quickly explains, looking a bit bashful. “Besides, I say nice shit about Y/N all the time.”

“No, you don’t,” the whole band says in unison, including you.

“Well, clearly I shouldn’t if everyone’s gonna make a big fucking deal about it,” she retorts, rolling her eyes. “I’m gonna go get some pictures of the decorations before there’s a bunch of fucking people here to block them.”

She stomps off in her heavy boots, and The Pangolins get back to work, putting on the final touches and making sure all the blocking looks right.

Soon enough, guests start flooding in, and Liz zips around to greet them, eventually meeting up with Peter and keeping him with her. He and Liz eventually pull Ellie away from her picture-taking, confident she’s done enough and needs to just relax and enjoy the party.

So much for distracting herself with work, she thinks.

They sit on the couch and eat, the dining room was monopolized by The Pangolins due to its elevation and space.

Ellie’s mesmerized by the way your fingers move until she hears Peter talking to Liz. They really are a cute couple.

“You really do need to hang out with us. Yukio told me Y/N thinks Ellie and I are a thing,” he says.

“Gross, you’re like my annoying little brother,” Ellie remarks.

“And you’re like my bitchy older sister,” Peter retorts with a shit-eating grin.

“Both of you, quiet! They’re about to play the new song. You’re in for a real treat, Ellie.”

“What does it have to do with me?”

Liz gives Peter a confused and slightly irritated look.

“I haven’t said anything to her, I didn’t know how,” Peter squeaks, blushing a little at the look in his girlfriend’s eyes.

“Explain, quickly,” Ellie demands.

But, then you start to sing again.

“Y/N-” Peter starts.

“Shut up.”

“But you asked-”

“I said, shut up,” Ellie insists.

“You know me as your boyfriend's goofy friend. I seem to have this effect on women, and your friends aren't as goofy as I am. I try my best to keep you entertained, always laughing at the jokes you are saying. I nod my head when you make a point, oh oh…

“Kiss me, kiss me with your eyes closed! Whisper that your heart shows all I want is you, yeah, you… Hold me, hold me I'm your bunny! Tell me I'm not funny, tell me I’m legit! ‘Cause I feel weak, in your hands and your feet… A precious end, I’ll never feel your touch…”

Ellie continues to listen to the song, all expression drained from her face. All the yearning in the words and your voice, all you want is…

Ellie looks at Peter, who’s looking at her with a triumphant smile.

“I told you.”

Ellie feels like she’s about to faint. She notices you’re talking to Liz— when did she leave? —your hand over your mic. Despite the knowledge that Liz is taken, Ellie gets jealous. You look so happy to be talking to Liz, to just about any girl you talk to.

She wishes you’d smile at her that way.

You nod at whatever Liz said, and the band starts packing away their instruments. Liz sets up her phone on some Bluetooth speakers, and songs that sounded so much better when you were singing them start to play.

No! Ellie internally protests. Sing for me again, please, sing that stupid song about how you think I don’t like you.

Yukio’s dragging you somewhere. Gosh, Ellie wishes it was her holding your hand.

Suddenly, though, you and Yukio are approaching her. She knows what she has to do.

“So, what’d you think of our- Eek! Finally!”

Ellie parts from the kiss to tell her to fuck off and not ruin the moment before kissing you again.

“Holy fucking shit,” you breathe. “Uh, I thought you were-“

“Dating Peter?! Seriously?! Do I need to write ‘dyke’ on my fucking forehead? I practically already have with the way I dress and act and-”

“I, uh, I try not to make assumptions,” you mumble, fingers touching your lips.

“I’m, uh, sorry for not asking.”

“No, it’s- It was good. I’ve wanted you to do that for a while. It’s just that that was the first time somebody’s kissed me, since, uh…” Your eyes dart to Yukio, who’s ruffling Ned’s hair and laughing.

“Yukio?!” Orange flickers in Ellie’s eyes for a moment, but she keeps it under control.

“No, no, of course not, uh… The old singer, Lola. She and Yukio were dating, but apparently I was the one she really had her sights on, and… She was entitled. Thought that because she wanted me, I must want her. That wasn’t really the case, I was already pining over you. Didn’t stop her from forcing a few kisses on me and trying to go further. If Yukio hadn't shown up early with cupcakes, I don’t know what would’ve happened.”

“I am such an asshole,” Ellie says softly. “Can I kiss you again? The right way.”

“I’d say what you did before was pretty right, but sure,” you consent.

Her kiss before had been rough, needy, and impatient. Just the way you like it. This, though, this is gentle, soft, and exploratory. You tangle your hands in her hair and kiss her harder. She moans into the kiss before pulling away, bewildered.

“That was…” Ellie trails off, trying to find a positive adjective that won’t sound to frilly or lovesick.

“A mistake, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, fuck, no. I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” she corrects you. “Just- Didn’t really know how. Even when you were kinda flirting with me at first, I just thought you were messing with me, so I- I am so stupid.”

“So am I,” you scoff. “I thought you were dating Peter.”

“I was spending a lot of time with him, but… I was just using him as an excuse to avoid you so I wouldn’t embarrass myself anymore. And I was asking him for advice. I figured if he could land somebody as far out of his league as Liz, maybe I stood the slightest bit of a chance with you. But I kept fucking it up. I’d just get so nervous, all of my compliments would turn into insults, all of my teasing turned into straight-up cruelty. I don’t know how you actually like me.”

“I’m a little bit of a masochist, I’ll admit,” you tell her. “I’m really glad you don’t hate me.”

“I’m really glad you don’t hate me,” Ellie replies, but she can’t help but think that what she‘s really saying is ‘I love you, too.’

She takes your hand, and you two rejoin your friends, swept up in a group hug. They wanted this to happen almost as much as you two did.

[mypoisonedvine]

Getting In Tune | Chris Evans x reader fluff

summary: taking house calls as a piano tuner doesn’t usually mean meeting hot guys… mostly just old ladies who offer you lemonade, which is great and all, but did not prepare you for an appointment to tune chris evans’ full grand.

word count: 3.7k

warnings: swearing, dirty jokes about pianos, allusions to nsfw things?? vaguely?, mostly just fluff and flirting and awkwardness

Checking that the address on your worksheet matched the one on the door in front of you, you reviewed the nature of the appointment as your boss had written out for you: 

Customer: Christopher Evans

Appointment type: Warranty tuning and check-up

Arrival time: 10 a.m. 

You checked your watch and saw that it was 9:58, but hopefully that wouldn’t bother him too much.  Leaning forward, you knocked on the door and waited.  You could hear a dog barking inside, running up to the other side of the door as someone unlocked the bolt and cracked it open, poking his head out while he held the dog back with his leg.

He seemed a little surprised to see you standing there, made even more apparent by the fact that he was obviously wearing pajamas— specifically, a baggy tank top and gingham flannel pants.  A few tattoos were visible on his arms and collarbones, though you tried not to stare at them or anything.

“Did you not know you had an appointment today?” you asked him.  When he didn’t answer, you tried to give a bit more of a prompting.  “I’m here from Boston Steinway…?”

“Right, right,” he agreed, “uh, let me put the dog out, and… put on a shirt…”

“Good idea,” you suggested, “I’ll be here!” 

He smiled at you one more time before shutting the door again, his footsteps shuffling away as you waited for his return.  Thankfully it was a nice day out so you weren’t too cold in your work uniform (yes, you felt like a total dork having to wear a polo with a nametag on it, but such is the life of a piano tuner).  When you heard the dog run into the backyard, and the sound of Chris coming back to open the door, you took a moment to straighten yourself in hopes of looking like you’d been waiting patiently.

“Come in please,” he offered as he opened the door one more time, wearing a navy sweater and jeans now (and a NASA ball cap, for whatever reason) and stepping aside to invite you in.

“I hope I didn’t scare you too much,” you smiled as you stepped past him, letting him shut the door behind you, “a lot of people forget when I’m supposed to show up, trust me.”  You shuddered as you remembered those times you caught people in a lot worse than pajamas.

“No, I knew somebody was coming today, I just… wasn’t expecting…” he trailed off.

“A girl?” you finished for him with a smirk.

“I… yeah, I guess I wasn’t expecting a girl,” he laughed, looking a little embarrassed.

"Well, piano tuning is a real boy's club," you joked.  

"Is it?" he asked sincerely.

"Um, no, not particularly."

"Oh."

After an awkward moment passed while you cringed internally at your failed joke, he finally guided you across the house to where the piano was; you set your toolbag down beside it, stepping back to admire the instrument.  “It’s gorgeous,” you told him.

“Oh, thanks,” he smiled a little.  “Yeah, she’s a beaut.”

“How long have you been playing?” you asked.  “Or are you one of those people who keeps it mostly for decoration.”

“Decoration?” he repeated incredulously.  “Do people do that?”

“Yeah,” you nodded, “more often than not I end up doing cosmetic repairs instead of internal ones because families are basically using this as the most expensive object possible to put framed family photos on.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he scoffed, “I mean, I’m sure I’m not using this thing the way it deserves, cause I’m still not very good at it but… yeah, at least I play it a few times a week.”

“Good, it deserves that,” you agreed.  “Mind if I…?”

“Oh, go ahead,” he prompted, stepping back and motioning for you to touch the piano.  You didn’t sit down, just leaning over to do a quick scale up and back down.  "Anyways, I think it's mostly fine but those higher notes are getting kinda squeaky…" he mumbled.

"Right,” you noted, messing around with the keys near the top to check what he’d said, “well, they do that, especially out here with these cold winters making the strings tighten up.  Should be fixable."

“Great,” he smiled.

“Alright, pretty girl, let’s take a look at your guts,” you grinned, groaning a bit as you lifted the heavy lid to see the strings inside.  "It's in great shape,” you observed aloud, “this can't be more than a few years old."

"Yeah, I got it pretty recently actually.  It's never been tuned before."

"Oh, this is its first time?" you smirked, leaning in to whisper to the strings: "don't worry, I'll be gentle."

He blushed a little as he laughed, making you pretty sure your joke hadn't gone too far.

“You, uh, don’t have to be around for this part,” you informed him.  “I mean, unless you want to, but it’ll just be me messing around in here for a few hours.

“No, I’ll give you some space,” he decided, “just let me know if you need anything.  Do you want, like, water or something?”

“I’m fine, but thanks,” you dismissed, “just continue as if I wasn’t here.”

“Oh, you don’t wanna see that,” he disagreed, looking like he regretted saying it as soon as he finished his sentence.  You felt your face warm and hoped he just meant that he’d be eating cheetos out of the bag in his underwear and not anything more… mature.  

As he awkwardly shuffled away, you opened your toolbox and got to work.  Your first task was to get a pitch reader so you could figure out how well-tuned each string was— you set that on the soundboard and got to work testing keys and reading the little digital display of your device.  Once that told you how much work each key needed, it was easy to just put your tuning hammer on one pin at a time, loosening or tightening until the pitch was just right.  You couldn’t just start at one side and tune all the way up to the other, oh no, there was a very specific ideal tuning order that you’d memorized by now: first the middle strings of the octaves from C3 to C5, then the one of each of the unison strings in the double bass section, then the middle strings from C5 to C8, then the lower single bass strings, then every left string of all the unisons from C3 to C8, then the rest of the double bass section, and finally all the right strings from C3 to C8.

Easy peasy, right?

It actually sort of would be, if you hadn’t gotten stuck on the unison bass string of E flat 3, your tuning hammer suddenly unable to turn even when you tried to brace yourself against the piano for some leverage.

"Um, Mr. Evans?" you called out.

"Yup!" he answered, swinging out from the entryway instantly— he must have been waiting just outside, which made you feel a little like you were being spied on.  

"Would you maybe come over here and use your manly-man strength on this?"

"My what now?" he laughed, walking towards you.

"You know," you explained by flexing your biceps and making a sort of serious face; your charades version of what a muscular man looked like, apparently.

"Oh, I see," he nodded, "my—" and he repeated the charade, except it made your face warm and your eyes all but bulge out of your head.  That was him jokingly flexing?!  What did he look like when he was actually trying to show his muscles?

You tore yourself from that train of thought as he leaned over the edge of the piano, gripping the tuning hammer you'd left on the pin there.

"This one?" he asked.

"Yeah, just give it a little nudge counter-clockwise, please."

He did it like it was no trouble at all.

"You could've at least pretended it was difficult," you rolled your eyes.

"No, you loosened it up for me," he winked.  WINKED.  Was he trying to kill you or something?  "Chris is fine," he said abruptly.

Chris is fine indeed, your brain supplied instantly.  "I'm sorry?" you choked out aloud instead.

"You can call me Chris, I mean," he explained.  "You called me Mr. Evans before."

"Oh, right," you nodded.  "Chris.  Thanks for your help with that, Chris."

"Sure thing," he smiled.

Just as the conversation began to lull, you could hear the dog whining and scratching at the back door, and you felt so guilty that he had been left outside.  “You can let the dog back in, you know,” you suggested, “I don’t mind.”

“I shouldn’t,” he shook his head, “he’ll jump all over you and stuff…”

“No, really, it’s fine, I love dogs,” you assured him.

“Alright, just prepare yourself,” he chuckled a little as he slipped over to the back door to let the dog in.  Running past his owner instantly and straight to you, you knelt down to let it lick your face as you laughed.

“Hi puppy!” you greeted.  “Oh, thank you for the kisses, it’s nice to meet you!”  He calmed down a bit when you scratched behind his ears, wiggling and putting his paws up on your knees.  “What’s his name?” you asked, turning your attention to Chris who had his arms crossed and a prideful smile on his face.

“Dodger,” he informed you with a nod.

“Aw, hi Dodger,” you cooed at the pup, “I’d sit here and pet you all day, but your dad’s not paying me to play with you— apparently.”

Chris laughed a bit as you stood up, and Dodger actually took it pretty well, dashing to curl up on the nearest couch as you got back to work on the piano.  

“I’m just about halfway done,” you informed him as you started to move on to the next string, occasionally plucking the string to test that the pitch was right.

“I’ve never heard a piano plucked before,” he observed, leaning in to watch you work.

“Yeah, probably better to just stick to hitting the keys,” you smirked.

“Psh, anybody can do that,” he scoffed, “you could invent a whole new genre of music!”

"I'll leave the musical experimentation to you," you decided, "and I'll stay on this side of the action board."

"See, I didn't even know that was a part of the piano," he admitted.

"And that's why you're on that side."

You two chatted while you worked— he asked some questions about you, you asked some questions about him, classic small talk sort of stuff.  He managed to keep it interesting, though, and keep you laughing throughout the whole conversation.  It was significantly more fun than you usually had during house calls like this, and instead of distracting you it actually seemed to help you keep your focus.  It was easier to talk to him when you could keep your eyes on the strings anyways: looking right at him was sort of overwhelming.

With the last string adjusted, you slipped the tuning hammer into your back pocket and dusted off your hands as you stepped back to admire your work.

"That's it?" he asked as he stood up from the couch, noticing the signs of completion.

"It is if it sounds good!" you smiled.  "Go ahead, take it for a spin," you suggested.  "Play something and tell me if it sounds how you want."

"Okay," he nodded, slipping around the bench and sliding onto it.  He took a breath before he placed his hands on the keys, but then suddenly stopped and set them back on his lap with a sigh as he turned to you.  "Um, it's a little weird with you watching me."

"Oh, are you not used to performance?"

"Not outside of my family and friends and stuff, no."

"I don't really have to be here for this part, as long as you're happy with it then that's fine," you shrugged, "but you know, I wanna be able to fix any issues while I'm still here—"

"No, it’s not a big deal," he shook his head quickly, "I should get over myself.  I guess it's just scary cause you've probably heard people a lot better than me play…"

"Don't worry about that," you laughed, "just play something, really, I won't judge."

He spun back to face the keys, placing his hands on them— for a second you wondered if he struggled to hit just one key at a time with those thick fingers, but you pushed that thought away quickly.

As he started to play, you found yourself focusing on the music more than the sound of the keys like you should've been.  He was good, actually, although you could hear the hesitance in the way he played.  He didn't rush as much as most people did, though; he was savoring the piece, one note at a time, and you let your eyes fall shut as he continued to play.

You broke from your trance when he suddenly stopped, repeating the phrase he'd just finished and stopping on the same note.

"Does this one sound kinda… off to you?" he asked.

"Um," you paused, "play it again?"

He poked the key with one finger a few times, and you frowned.  "I can't really tell." You stepped forward and leaned over his shoulder, caging his body in accidentally as your arms wrapped around his shoulders to fiddle with the keys in front of him.  You rested your knee on the bench beside his legs, not even realizing that it was a massive invasion of his personal space until you were already in it.

He moved his hands out of the way so you could repeat the phrase, and although you didn't hear anything wrong, you felt the key sticking.

"Oh," you mumbled to yourself, "it's the key, not the string."

"Can you fix it?" he asked looking up at you.

"Yeah, I—" you stopped in the middle of your word as you looked back at him because his face was really close, so close that his bright blue eyes were burning right through you; so close that you completely lost your train of thought.  "I can fix anything," you finished softly.

"Great," he whispered back, eyes seeming to glance down to your lips quickly before moving back up to meet your gaze.

You cleared your throat as you stepped back, giving him space again as you nervously crossed your arms.  "It's probably just something stuck under there or whatever, but I can order a replacement key if not."

"Right," he agreed with a nod, sliding to the side of the bench to give you room to fiddle with it.  You grabbed your smaller toolkit and sat beside him, starting with your flashlight to see if there was anything hiding underneath there.

Moving to peer behind the action frame, you realized it was a problem with the hammer hitting the string— or, more specifically, with the mechanism that kept the hammer balanced.  All you had to do was reach in with a long screwdriver and shift some parts around, and it seemed to be back in working order.

“Play it again?” you requested, and he slid back to the middle and started the piece over.  He grinned when he reached the part he’d stopped at before, flying through the phrase without stopping.

“Hey!  You fixed it!” he beamed.

“I’m a genius,” you shrugged, smirking a little.  He stopped playing and you found yourself a little disappointed by that, unexpectedly.  “Any other musical ailments I can magically cure for you today?”

“Unless you can make me a better sight reader, that’ll be all,” he smiled, standing up from the bench.

“Ah, if I could do that, I’d be using that power on myself.”

He shrugged; "Fair enough."

"Well, I'll leave you to it then," you announced as you put the last of your tools away and picked up your bag.  "Hope I didn't disrupt your day too much."

"You did, actually— in a good way," he grinned.  "I definitely learned a lot more than I was going to just watching TV and drinking beer."

You followed him back to the front door, which he opened for you.  "You can always give us a call if you need anything.  Um, anything piano-related, that is.  Tell the dog I said goodbye, okay?"

Chris smiled a little, softer than his normal expression.  "I'll be sure he gets the message."

As you got back in your car, you took a minute to just catch your breath for the first time since you'd gotten here.  Trying to be funny and cute and charming when all you wanna do is stutter and gawk and melt is exhausting!  As enjoyable as it was, in a certain sense, you were relieved at the idea of returning to your routine— which typically did not include super hot dudes chatting you up at work.

//

“This must be a mistake,” you shook your head as you showed the work order form to your boss, “I was at this address two weeks ago, the piano’s in perfect condition.”

“Well, he has an unlimited warranty, so either something happened since you were there last, or you fucked something up when you were there last, or he’s just determined to get his money’s worth out of us,” she explained without looking up from her computer.

You sighed and left, heading back to the same address and hoping you weren’t about to get chewed out for somehow ruining Chris’ like-new piano.

Knocking on the door, you found yourself chewing your lip as you waited for him to answer the door.  You were a little surprised when he answered in a button-up and slacks— entirely opposite to pajamas, although you sort of missed that get-up if you were being honest.

“Hey,” he greeted with a grin, stepping back to motion for you to come inside.

“Hi,” you responded awkwardly as you stepped past him.  “Is... everything alright with the piano?  I didn’t damage it, did I?”

He cleared his throat as he shut the door behind you, the size of the hallway forcing the two of you to stand slightly closer together than you would’ve personally preferred; it was hard to focus with him so close, sometimes.  “No, no, it’s not that,” he answered, “the piano’s fine, I just…” he stammered a little, starting over.  “Uh, there was something I wanted to ask you about last time, and I called the Steinway store but I couldn’t figure out how to call you specifically, so I just had to make a new tuning appointment.”

You furrowed your brow with confusion, not sure why someone else on the phone couldn’t answer whatever question he had, but decided to let him go through with his thought.  “What did you wanna ask me?”

“Uh, I just wanted to ask you… out,” he finished plainly.

You paused as you processed that.  “Out?”

“Like, I was wondering if you’d wanna… go out, with me.”

You hoped your face didn’t give away all of your shock, but at the same time, you figured it probably did.

He winced as you continued to stare at him in silence.  “I’m kind of out on a limb here,” he reminded you.

“Right, I’m sorry,” you shook your head, “um, I guess I’m just sort of surprised because you’re, like… hot, and stuff.”

“And stuff?”

“Yeah, like… nice…” you explained.

“Hot and nice?” he laughed.  “Slow down, you’ll give me an ego.”

You laughed, too, and less nervously than you expected.  Feeling the rare urge to be spontaneous, you scratched your neck as you prepared to propose an idea.  “Listen, so, this might be crazy but... I have another appointment today, at the Symphony Hall— it’s a final tune-up on the pianos and harps before this massive concerto thing and they always let me stay to watch the performance afterwards.  If you came with me, I could get you in for free.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I mean, you probably have better things to do today—”

“I don’t,” he refuted.

“And if you just wanted to, like, get lunch some time then that would be great, I just thought I might as well invite you to hear the chamber orchestra from the best seat in the house,” you shrugged.

“The best seat?” he questioned incredulously.  “And where is that?”

“The rafters,” you laughed.

And that was how you and Chris ended up sitting on the steel catwalk suspended on the ceiling of the Boston Symphony Hall, dangling your feet over the edge as the sounds of the concerto echoed out from the stage, over the silent audience and, finally, up to you two.

The music was incredible, if a little quiet from where you were listening, and so soothing that you felt compelled to close your eyes and focus on the sound.  You were partial to the piano, as always, but the violins and cellos in harmony made your chest warm unexpectedly.  Or maybe that was from the feeling of Chris’ gaze on you, as you opened your eyes to find him looking at your face rather than the performance below.  

“What are you looking at me for?” you asked him with a nervous laugh.

“For fun,” he shrugged.

“Doesn’t seem very exciting,” you scoffed, looking back to the stage.

“Oh, it’s exciting,” he mumbled his reply as he returned his gaze to the performance as well.  

Your cheeks burned when you heard that, in spite of the fact that it was actually a bit drafty in the auditorium.  Even though your nerves were buzzing with anxiety, a rush of bravery struck you and suddenly you were leaning your head onto his shoulder.  Just the warmth of him through his shirt— hell, even the smell of his cologne— somehow managed to relax you and energize you simultaneously.  His hand gingerly slipping around your waist was even better.

After this many years of tuning pianos, it felt like you were getting yourself in tune for the first time.

[hangovercurse]

The Things We Can’t Tell Pete About v

Pete and you make amends, but after a series of break ins you end up staying at his apartment when an unexpected visitor shows up.

Colson Baker x Reader

Warnings: Drug use, cursing, heated make-out session

Word Count: 3161

| i | ii | iii | iv |

You spent the next week moping around your apartment, your phone turned off. All inspiration you’d had for writing seemed to have drained out of you, causing you to cancel writing sessions.

After not answering your phone for a few days, Pete came by your apartment, finding you deep in your depression. “I’m sorry for blowing up at you.” He said, taking a seat on the couch next to you. You shrugged, eyes not leaving the TV screen in front of you.

Your brother scoffed, grabbing the remote and turning it off, leaving you with no other option but to pay attention to him. “It’s fine Pete.” You muttered, reaching over to try and grab the plastic from him.

He frowned at you, “obviously it’s not. I shouldn’t have called you selfish and I shouldn’t have made it sound like I wanted you to get your heartbroken.” He explained calmly. He’d been through enough of these episodes himself, so he knew how to navigate the sadness that ran in your blood.

You sighed but didn’t say anything. You felt guilty that he was blaming himself for your mood. In reality, your fight with him was the last thing on your mind.

Pete continued explaining himself, “I’m just trying to protect you, you know?”

You nodded, trying to find the words to respond. “I know.” You whisper, “You’re right, though. Getting involved with your friends would be a bad idea.”

His eyebrows furrowed, “did something happen that I need to know about?”

You took a deep breath, preparing the lie in your head, “no, I just have been thinking about it. You’re right, it would just end up messy and someone would get hurt.”

You could tell he was trying to hide an “I-told-you-so” smirk. “So, there’s nothing going on between you and Colson?” he asked.

You tried to cover the fact that your breath caught in your throat. You guys were pretty obviously flirting the first night, but you didn’t expect Pete to jump to that assumption. “Colson?” You prayed your lie was convincing. “Why’d you assume I was thinking about going out with him?”

Pete raised an eyebrow at you and you let out a fake laugh, “bro, no. I was talking about Douglas.” You lied through your teeth. If music didn’t work out, maybe you could be an actress.

Your brother actually laughed at you for that, “wait, seriously? Doug?” His eyes closed and he leaned back into the couch.

“Yeah, I mean Colson’s hot and everything but that British accent really does things, you know?” You giggled, trying to ignore the sinking feeling from Colson’s name rolling off your tongue.

Pete rolled his eyes, “whatever, weirdo. Trust me, you dodged a bullet. I love Doug, but he could not handle you.” He got up from the couch. “I’m out, just wanted to come check on you. Maybe answer your phone some time?”

You smiled; happy you were on better terms with one of the men in your life. “I’ll try my best.” You called to him as he moved to the door. “Oh and, uh, Pete?”

He turned towards you, the sight reminding you all too much of Saturday night. “I’m sorry for being a bitch and calling you unstable and shit. I mean, you’re an asshole, but that was uncalled for.”

Pete shrugged, “I mean, I am unstable, but thanks.” He waved, leaving your house.

 A few weeks past and things were getting back to normal. You were back writing and editing tracks, Pete and you were talking again, and you felt like yourself. Part of you was glad that things ended earlier rather than later with Colson, so you hadn’t had time to get too attached. Still, the thought of what could have been made you upset from time to time.

You were on your way to the studio one morning when you got a text from your floor group chat.

Wanted to let you guys know, there’s been a series of break-ins in the area. Keep your doors locked. So far no one has been in the apartments, so if you can try to stay somewhere else until they catch him. Be careful floor 5 fam!

Your floor was almost exclusively younger millennials, so you all got along decently. Andy, the one who had sent the text, was actually a pretty good friend of yours, despite you rarely leaving your apartment.

You had an irrational fear of people breaking into your house. You couldn’t explain it, but the thought of being attacked in your own home was one of the worst things that could ever happen to you. Because of this, you decided to text Pete.

Hey, can I stay at your place for a little while. There have been break ins near my apt and I really don’t wanna be there if it happens to me.

You knew Pete was probably rolling his eyes, but you didn’t care. There was no way you were gonna stay in your apartment until you felt safe.

Sure

You have to buy groceries though

Deal

And thus began your week-long sleepover at Pete’s house.

 On day four, Pete walked into the guest room where you had set up camp, finding you scrolling through your phone on the bed. “Hey, Colson’s gonna come over tonight and we’re gonna get high on mushrooms and watch SpongeBob. Wanna join?”

The thought of seeing the blond again made your heart race, but you hid behind a fake smile, “no thanks, I’ll probably stay in here all night and get some work done. Have fun though, don’t bother me.”

“Yeah, you look like you got a lot of work to do.” He said sarcastically but left you to your own devices. “I’m ordering Pizza, I’ll get you one.”

You thanked him, trusting he knew your pizza order by heart by now. Once he left you let out a worried sigh, trying to figure out how you were going to hide the awkwardness between you and Colson from your brother. Hopefully, he would be too high to figure out anything was up.

You were also upset that you had to turn down a night of shrooms and SpongeBob, something you would’ve loved. But you figured you could skip out on one night of fun if it meant avoiding the guy that you probably could’ve fallen in love with if he hadn’t given up on your relationship before it even started.

Okay, so maybe you weren’t as over everything as you told yourself you were, but he had put you in a shitty situation. Of course, you weren’t going to be happy about it.

Three hours later you were sitting cross-legged on your bed, laptop in lap, and headphones in. You’d been listening to one of Lea’s tracks for the past hour, scribbling some general edit notes in your notebook and cleaning up some of the notes with your virtual tuner.

You vaguely heard a knock on the front door but ignored it, focused on adjusting her vocals for the bridge. Truthfully, it wasn’t the best song you’d written with her, but she liked it and she was your boss at the moment, so you did what she asked.

But when there was a knock at your door, you paused, removing one earbud, and calling, “yeah?”

You weren’t expecting to be met with those all-too-familiar blue eyes. “Hey.” Colson said, his confidence fading as you made eye contact.

“Hey.” You replied softly, feeling like his hand was wrapped around your heart and squeezing it.

He cleared his throat, stepping further into your room with a pizza box in hand. “Here’s your pizza.” He handed you the box awkwardly. You had expected him to leave the room after you thanked him, but he lingered for a moment. “You’re not skipping out on tonight because of me, right?”

You raised your eyebrow at him, confusion on your face. “No, I have a lot of work to do tonight so…” You trailed off, lowering your gaze down to the box in your hand.

He nodded, “okay, I just- you told me how much you liked doing shit like this with Pete and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t…” He paused, letting out a breath, “if you want to join, you should. Like I don’t want you to feel like you can’t have fun just because I’m here.”

You let out a dry chuckle, “don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not not hanging out with you guys tonight because of you. I’m just doing work.”

The man nodded again, scratching the back of his neck. “O-okay. I’ll just, uh.” He turned towards the door, moving to leave before turning back to you. “If you get done and feel like it, you should come watch SpongeBob with us.”

You nodded, sucking your lips into a straight line, feeling the awkward tension in the air that you desperately wanted to avoid. “I’ll think about it.” You said and with that, the blond left your room, pulling the door behind him.

You hated to admit it, but even when he was being nervous and awkward, he still managed to be fucking attractive as hell. You let out an annoyed huff, falling back against your pillows and covering your face with your hands.

You then spent the next 45 minutes trying to finish your edits, but your mind kept wandering to the boy with the sky in his eyes and an art museum on his body. Realizing you wouldn’t be getting any work done for the rest of the night, you thought about his offer.

Shrooms did sound good right now, and as much as you hated it, so did spending time with Colson, even if it was just friendly. And now that you had gotten Pete off your back about the events that had gone down weeks ago, he wouldn’t be suspecting anything anyways, especially not if he was tripping out.

Fuck it, you figured, climbing out of your bed and grabbing the box of pizza. You shuffled out of your room and into the living room where the bright colors of the TV lit up the dark house.

“Y/N! You decided to join us!” Pete cheered as you took a seat on the edge of the couch, curling your legs under you.

You giggled at your brothers very faded state. “I got bored of working so, shrooms.” You shrugged, reaching over and grabbing the bag off the coffee table. You could feel Colson’s eyes following you but you tried to play it off.

The mushroom was chewy in your mouth and tasted like dirt, so you ate it as fast as you could, focusing your attention on the tv. You leaned back into the arm of the couch, your legs falling to your side. From the corner of your eye, you could see Colson take a long swig of the bottle in his hands. It was too dark for you to read the label, but you could tell it was some form of alcohol.

Biting your lip, you considered the idea of toying with him, remembering how awkward he was earlier. Deciding he probably would be too high to care; you leaned over and grabbed the bottle from his hand. You brought the drink up to your lips, eyes locked on his and a smirk on your face. He watched as you swallowed the burning liquid, and it was then that you processed just how glazed his eyes were.

Handing him the bottle back, you giggled. Something about Colson being completely faded yet still watching your every move made you feel giddy inside. He smiled at your actions, accepting the bottle, and taking another sip of it. This time you watched him, his Adam’s apple moving with the liquid.

So, you were definitely not over him. Not even in the slightest.

You took in a breath, turning to the screen and waiting for the drugs to kick in. They were playing the episode where SpongeBob had to get a new spatula after his broke, a classic. Every so often you reached over and drank from the bottle of what you figured out was some form of whiskey, probably Jameson knowing your brother. Colson didn’t seem to mind, moving closer to you as subtly as possible so you didn’t have to reach as far. If Pete picked up on anything he didn’t say.

Around the 20-minute mark, the shrooms definitely hit. The lights from the TV got brighter, the pictures seeming to blend together in a different way. You loved this feeling, everything seemed so much funnier and every bone in your body felt 20 pounds lighter.

Your movements felt slower, your limbs turning to jelly. Colson happened to glance over to you, seeing the smile on your lips and knowing, even in his faded state, that you were high. The image reminded him of that first night, you on the same couch passing the blunt to him. Your eyes were glossy and your smile was beautiful then and now.

As the episode ended and rolled into the next, you shifted slightly, your legs starting to fall asleep. You moved to dangle them off the couch when you felt a soft hand on your ankle. You looked over to see Colson staring at the screen, but his fingers wrapped around your right foot, pulling it onto his lap. He then reached for the other one and pulled you so both of your feet were propped in his lap, your back against the arm of the couch.

You sent him a smirk, but if he saw it, he ignored it, continuing to watch the cartoon. His hand ran up and down your leg, sending shivers through your body. You tried to pay attention to what was going on on the screen, but you felt like your entire body was on fire.

You let out a little giggle at the sensations, causing him to glance at you, bringing a finger up to his lips in a shushing motion. You pouted jokingly towards him before turning back to the TV. He continued to look at you, the drugs making every feature of yours pop.

After another episode ended you heard quiet snores coming from the other side of Colson. You looked over to find Pete passed out, head hanging off the side of the couch. You laughed quietly, grabbing Colson’s attention. You motioned towards the sight, making Colson laugh silently as well. His whole face lit up as he took in his friend’s sleeping state.

You moved your feet off his lap, scooting closer to him. Your cross-faded state made you much more confident than you normally would be, and much more reckless. “Looks like it’s just you and me now.” You whispered, looking up at the man.

He smirked down at you, blinking slowly. His eyelashes were so long and pretty, you wanted to steal them. “I guess it is.” He said, voice matching yours.

God his voice was sexy.

In a moment of brilliance, or as anyone else would call it, stupidity, you climbed onto his lap, straddling his waist. He raised an eyebrow but made no effort to move you. Your hands rested on his shoulders, a drunken grin on your lips. “I was really sad when you left.” You murmured, searching his eyes.

He took his lower lip between his teeth, taking a deep breath. “I hated leaving.” He responded, leaning his head closer to you. “Took every ounce of strength I had not to go back.”

You frowned, leaning so that your noses were touching. “I wish you had.” You whispered before closing the gap between your mouths. His lips collided with yours so familiarly, so naturally. Your hands moved to the back of his neck, fingers toying with the hair there. His found your waist, pulling your body further into his.

Every inch of your body was tingling in the best way. You felt like you were flying, adrenaline coursing in your veins. When you pulled away for air you smiled up at him. “You’re really cute.” You giggled.

He grinned, “you’re cuter.” He pecked your lips as you shook your head in disagreement, “yup.”

You both knew better. You had ended things for a reason, a reason that was passed out next to you. But in his arms, you just didn’t care. You kissed him again, deeper this time. You felt like you needed to make up for the lost time.

And Colson kissed you back, missing your intoxicating lips. Your hips started moving against his, the friction in his pants making him moan quietly against your lips.

It felt good, but he knew something wasn’t right. So, he pulled away. “Y/N.” He mumbled, earning a small whine from you. “Shhh.” He shushed you, “we can’t do this, remember?”

You pouted, moving back from him. His thumb rubbed circles into your hip, a frown on his face. “We said we weren’t gonna do this because of Pete.” He whispered.

You sighed angrily, “why does Pete get to tell us what to do?” You asked.

Colson smiled softly, “he doesn’t. But we decided that it was best if we stopped seeing each other.”

“We did!” You whisper-shouted. “Obviously, that doesn’t work.” Colson chuckled at your small outburst, knowing you were right. “Doesn’t this feel right to you?” You asked, pressing your forehead to his.

He wanted to kiss you so bad, but instead he just said, “we can’t do this.”

You pushed yourself off of his lap, a frustrated expression covering your face as you stood up. “You’re both assholes.” You said, making Colson’s eyes go wide at your volume.

He stood up, hand going to cover your mouth so you wouldn’t wake up Pete. “Y/N please.” You glared at him but made no attempt to continue. “You’re right, even if we avoid each other it doesn’t work, so let’s scratch that idea.” He paused and you nodded, agreeing with him. You didn’t care what happened, you just wanted him back in your life. “Let’s be friends. Just friends. We can hang out together and have fun, but we don’t get involved with each other. That way, we won’t be tempted to do this every time we see each other.”

You hated the idea, but you knew it was better than the alternative. So, you let out a small “okay” against his palm. He smiled, removing his hand from your mouth. “I’m gonna go to bed, friend.” You said, backing away from him.

He nodded, a small smile on his face. “Wait.” He whispered, pulling you in for a short, sweet kiss. “Okay, now we’re just friends.”

You let out a small giggle and rolled your eyes, pushing him back onto the couch. “Goodnight.” You whispered, walking towards your room, and trying not to stumble. Your lips held a stupid smile that refused to go away.

[star3xian]

📝 - [A-CLASS PERFORMANCE] Random Rambling 1 - 📝

Alright, time to talk about the most "loved" British tuner gang around the east coast. I really wanted to explain them a bit more since they are a big part of the lore and how the story will progress, after all, I have a big interest in tunning and the general Tuner scene.

-

Note nothing in this rambling should make sense, modding or tunning steam engines is kinda silly but I adore the idea.

-

Anyway, what is it with the rail racer's, and why are they doing this in particular? It is all about expression and how spirits present themselves, some want to look aggressive and no it is not limited to A4's only, any engine can actually mod? Just the A-CLASS PERFORMANCE is specialized in Gresley engines or anything the LNER put out there haha.

But basically, the team started out without Tuner and it was originally created by Merlin the deviant A4 that wanted to show off his skills in the past, after all, he was talented, and changing up the base code of an engine was something Merlin was invested in but the reality was that he was often suspended from work and couldn't come back like he wanted to, the LNER was on his tail and wanted him to stop doing whatever he was doing with the original engine.

The Silver's also was after the guy and they kinda wanted him to stop? After all, Silver king saw no use in making an A4 go faster as it already is in fear that Merlin would try to break the speed record which Mallard has set up but thanks or sadly? It is hard to say how modder's felt about this news, duo to the modder's, modding to accomplish something, like breaking a record or setting milestones.

so a random guy at the LNER and general railway safety declared that modding engines were excluded from any records or general public shows as they are seen as disrespectful, this statement was something many critics in the community.

"our engine our rights! It is up to us on how we present!"

-Merlin

Sadly these complaints were ignored and to make matters worse the LNER decided that every A4 had to be in a uniform that represents the dress code making it even harder to find loopholes, but Merlin's old partner Andrew tried to find reasons to mod and to make it legal again but in the end, it involved them moving to the underground which was regarded as a safety hazard as nobody controlled nor regulated anything there.

What is the underground you ask? It is the darkest area of the Doncaster sheds mostly those that were abandoned after world war 1 as they were unstable and too expensive to repair. But that didn't stop the modder's to occupy them and use them as a shelter to protect themselves from the feds and create new mods to cause chaos on the tracks.

Merlin and Andrew brought one of the old sheds and it was quite large, but had a lot of problems with the support and one wrong move could make the roof come crash down, the two took the chance to repair it a bit to make it safe and stable to work in it and thanks to these efforts they owned one of the best garages around the area, but envy didn't wait and they realized that the other classes had already teams that worked in their free time. Merlin was unsure of how to feel, what if the other A4's didn't want to help? What if they were going to report him! He had a lot of doubts and that caused him to push back work even more but Andrew was sure that some of the A4's were in the same headspace.

So Andrew went on to ask others and saw that a few had an interest in something like that.

The first few engines to join the team were

-KingFisher

-Sir Charles Newton

-Sir Murrough Wilson

-Seagull

They were the first four A4's that saw a lot of use in working with the two other A4's as they knew that this could bring a new age of steam but as fast as they started working a Razzia happened at the lower sheds and they had to abandon the garage for a long time to hide down from the feds, they all didn't need stress like that but the LNER still didn't listen to them and just wanted the engines to behave in the way they should.

However not long after that Razzia the first few modding engines went out to riot and even cause delays of an hour or even two at longest, they protested against the strict rules, Merlin at the time was not aware of these but when KingFisher told him the team went out to also protest but realized that the Railway has set up a new task force to step these "Troublemakers" (What they were called at the time).

They used heavy engines to stop the steam engines that were mostly in the light category, it was reported that a few engines were even arrested but that is a claim made by unknown sources.

Anyway years later the war happened and modding stopped in favor of helping in war and most people called it that death of modding but after the war it resurfaced but many teams either vanished due to the engines being lost in war or just showing no interest in it anymore but Merlin kept going and the team even became bigger.

However the diesel engines started raising up and modding was needed more than ever, the steam engines realized that the LNER didn't exist as it used to be before the war but little did they know that the BR was set up to even use Diesel engines to stop them and since Diesel engines could accelerate a bit faster the modder's had to become smarter and use performance mods.

And with the modernization, the first performance mod from the "Boiler Crackers" (What the A-CLASS PERFORMANCE Was originally called), came to be and everyone looked up! Wow, how amazing! These Class A4's would always try to break new records and this is where the arms race for even better mods came to be and everyone wanted to be on top.

But sadly the fall came and many of the steam engines were scrapped without any mercy while some who were involved sometimes got preserved and stopped modding entirely, some called them a sell-out but those came short as well.

So what happened in all of these years?

Well to your surprise some still modded even in preservation, but it was forbidden as preservation was to keep the original spirit intact, so laws were placed that made it risky to mod, so the scene somewhat died out, while some kept on trying to trick the scanners and workers to think they work on the real deal, but that became even harder with the ever-growing technology of humans and modding was now common amongst Diesel and electric engines that wanted to keep the spirit alive of their ancestors.

So how did we end up with the A-CLASS PERFORMANCE? Easy the A4's returned from the limbo and were not in the protection of preservation which made it even easier for them to gang up and start modding again, but to their own surprise the scene changed and now Rail races and all those terms were coined, Merlin had a hard time to even get used to the fact that he was in the year 2013. So it took a few years for him to understand the new basics but since the team grew larger with most of the A4's wanting to help him out, the "Boiler Cracker's" was back in business but had to understand the great fundamentals of the current railways which weren't that easy.

So rail races weren't their go-to point and they kept on experimenting with engines, but still, nothing changed that much for those years and they waited for a while.

That is where Tuner came in.

-

Anyway enough rambling, thanks for reading

[johns-prince]

Genderbend AU: John Lennon and Paula McCartney [McLennon]

“If Paul would have been a woman, John would have been in love with her”  – Yoko Ono (John was in love with Paul, thing is it only would’ve made their love much easier to act on and be public with if, Paul had been a woman)

“Oi, John!” 

John looked up from trying to re-tune his guitar after fixing the busted string, squinting up at Ivan from where he sat, giving him a rather bothered look. 

“Brought a friend of mine.” 

A smaller figure stepped out from behind Ivan; at the first glance all John caught was a dainty little thing, a bird obviously. 

Oh, 

a bird. 

Feet dropping from their relaxed position on the chair opposite of him, John sat straight up, doing a double take, and this time really saw Ivan’s little friend. Well, as best as he could without his specs. 

“John, this is Paula McCartney. Paula, John Lennon,” Ivan introduced the two.

She certainly was a dainty little thing, a lovely, delicate, slender little girl, with long, long legs. Couldn’t stop his eyes from wandering even if he tried. While John didn’t care much for what a girl wore [all that mattered was if he could get it off her quick and easy] he had to admit, the dress this girl had on looked very good on her; white summer dress that hugged her, what looked like a blue ribbon wrapped about her small waist. It contrasted the dark black hair of hers, and to John’s amusement, was tied back in an obviously loose, hurried way– but it worked, very Brigitte Bardot, John thought to himself. 

Then her face, God in heaven, her face– if only he could put his glasses on to see her better. A heart shaped face, with a cute little button nose and the biggest doe-eyes John had ever seen, with the thickest, darkest lashes. Only later when he’d get the courage to put on his glasses around her, would he realize her eyes were hazel.  What put it altogether were a pair of lips that were so pouty, so full– lips that were made for kissing raw. Finally, John met the girls’ gaze, and it was like a jolt of energy had been shot right into his veins, feeling the hair on the back of his neck stand. This girl was beautiful.

John’s tongue suddenly felt thick, heavy and dry like he had a mouth full of cotton instead. Damn Ivan, not warning John what sort of ‘little friend’ he was bringing for John to meet. Trying his best to keep his cool, all John could manage was a simple, Hi Paula, before turning back to his guitar, though at this point he was just fiddling with it, couldn’t focus. Shy, a bit flustered, voice soft as she responded,  “Hullo, John.” When no other pleasantries were exchanged, Paula then turned to Ivan, and reaching out towards the guitar he’d been holding, was passed over to her, along with some small object he’d been holding in one of his pockets for her as well. As if approaching some wild animal, Paula carefully took a step closer to John, catching his attention once more, eyes darting down at the guitar she held tightly in front of her, then darting back up with a curious look now. Worrying at her bottom lip, “D’ya need some help, with that?” 

For a short moment John didn’t respond, just stared at Paula, look turning from curious to surprised, an eyebrow quirking; then, turning away from her back to his guitar, responded with a, “Sure, take a seat.” 

While she tried to hold it back, a small grin broke across her face as she watched John pull the now vacant seat besides him. John himself had to bite the inside of his cheek, hard, to keep his own smile of interest down. 

Seated, she offered her own guitar to him, and he took it as she went to work on his. John watched as her slender fingers fussed with the pegs, before curiously inspecting hers. The strings were the wrong way! “Hey,” John said, catching Paula’s attention. “What’s with your guitar?”  “Oh, I’m left handed,” with that she turned her attention back to tuning, and as she plucked at a string, brought that little object, a guitar tuner, to her lips. “There we go, I- how ‘bout I check the others, while I’m here,” Paul said, glancing over to John as if waiting for any objections, but when John simply gave a curt nod, she smiled and went on ahead. John quietly watched, most of his attention on Paula’s hands, the way she bit at her bottom lip while focused on something; and when John’s eyes would occasionally drift about, he noticed all the other lads were just as curious and watchful as he was. Something akin to jealousy made itself known, which John quickly found stupid. 

“Fancy that,” Though surprised, John found himself much more impressed by this girl. Eyeing all the boys as he went on, “She’s good, don’t know many women who can do this…” Turning to Ivan, John asked as if Paula wasn’t right there, “Can she play as good as she can tune?” Before Paula could say anything herself, Ivan, as if she was his girl to brag about, said, “Oh she can play, John.” Speaking directly to Paula, Ivan urged, “Gotta show ‘im Paulie.” A grin grew across John’s face, playful, all white teeth; “Yeah Paulie,” John drawled out the childish nickname, “Y’should play somethin’ for us.” A pause, “for me.”

With both Ivan and John staring at her now, Ivan predictably, but John… well, he certainly got her cheeks rosy with such a look. Biting the inside of her cheek, her large eyes darted from one boy to the other, before falling on John, a ghost of amusement quirking the edge of her lips. With a soft shrug of her shoulders, she gave only a soft hum as a response before going back to the guitar.

“There,” sitting up straight, a soft smile on her face as she turned to John, offering back his guitar. “Thanks Paula,” John said, gingerly taking his back. “Would’ve taken me ages to do that.” With that he handed her guitar back, which she took along with his smile of gratitude. Despite looking like a true Ted, rough and big with his quiff and sideburns and squint, Paula had to admit, he came off as genuine to her. She’d expected him to be a bit putt off by her, being a girl and all; but no, he was… cool. Since she was being honest, she’d also admit that this John fella wasn’t bad looking– quite good looking, really. Suave, was maybe another one of the many words she’d use to describe John. 

Noticing herself staring, Paula ducked her head, brushing a dark strand of hair behind her ear; turning to Ivan, she handed him the pipe-tuner back to him to hold for her. While she had looked away, Paula could feel that John hadn’t, his stare burning his skin and making her feel bothered [she reasoned why she felt hot was because of how warm it was inside this little church] 

Standing, holding her guitar besides her by the neck, the other hand nervously tugging down at her skirt before reaching up to twiddle with strands of hair; “Well,” she said, tangling her finger, wincing as she pulled it loose. John, simply gazing up at her with that damnable smile, arms resting along the side of his guitar’s body. “Yeah?” John returned, and then with a teasing tone of voice, almost goading, “What does this little bird got?” A challenge. 

John watched with fascinated bemusement as something changed in that pretty face, those eyes burning feisty, he could tell even without his clear vision; and instead of shying back, playing meek, Paula’s shoulders squared. Oh now, this girl certainly was a treat. Without explanation Paula toed out of her simple heeled shoes, and John took note this girl wasn’t wearing nylons… Some of the boys broke out in a whisper, and John looked over at Ivan, expecting him to say something, but all he got was a look like, “Just watch.” So, he did, he watched as she swung her guitar up, cradling it close, and for a moment settle herself down. 

‘What does this little bird got,’ Paula thought to herself with a huff. With one last calming breath, Paula threw herself into exactly what she got.

They watched, rather captivated by this young girl, shamelessly playing out her own renditions of ‘Twenty Flight Rock,’ and ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’; then a trio of Little Richard tunes, including ‘Tutti-Frutti’, ‘Good Golly, Miss Molly’, and ‘Long Tall Sally’. John took note she’d switched some pronouns around in some of the songs, but it worked– she worked. For such a sweet voice she certainly had some pipes on her, beautiful even, even if it wasn’t exactly expected for women to be able to even do this sorts of music. She swayed and slid with the music, moving in such ways that, for Little Richard and Eddie Cochran could pull off, but would be highly unladylike for someone like Paula. But she went for it, and John was incredibly impressed, almost blown away even, especially with how she played Twenty Flight Rock. Though, John couldn’t help but also feel a bit shown-up by this lass, even threatened. 

When Paula finished, the sound of praise from the other boys, even some of the girls who’d trickled in to chat up those boys, Ivan beaming at her… Paula let out a breathless laugh, flustered and shaking just a bit. When Paula looked to John, a sweet old smile, ruddy cheeked, eyes wide and bright and for a moment John swore he saw kaleidoscopes staring back at him. Whatever envy or insecurity he had started feeling, withered as her eyes held his, and the way she looked at him, coquettish, seemed only for him; “Were you watching?”  At that moment John wasn’t sure if it was the cheap beer that got him buzzing, or if it had been this girl. 

She certainly wasn’t conventional, but neither was John– and coming from a long line of unconventionals, how could he judge her? No, she was talented, and strange, and fascinating, and beautiful– maybe even more than Ms. Bardot herself. Bloody hell, John dug this bird.

John wanted her, and dammit all, he’d have her.

[racingtoaredlight]

The Bigsby

This colossal piece of shit you see here is the famous Bigsby tailpiece.  It’s one of the most iconic, infamous pieces of guitar hardware in the history of the instrument.  One I’m willing to bet you’ve heard somewhere...but not that many where’s...

Because, again, I cannot underscore how big of a piece of shit this thing is.  And yes, I willingly, knowingly bought a guitar with one of these monstrosities on there, despite it’s numerous flaws.

“Whammy bar” means a lot of different things to different folks.  Eddie Van Halen weaponized it.  Leo Fender refined it and brought it into the modern age.  When most people in the modern age think of the whammy bar, they think of dive bombs and big waggles and some cool shit.

At its most extreme, the Bigsby provides nothing more than a gentle shimmer.  A gentle shimmer that somehow knocks youre ENTIRE FUCKING GUITAR OUT OF GODDAMNED TUNE deep breathe spencer, deep breathe.

***

You’ll get an idea of what the Bigsby’s all about in the video above.  Played by an absolute master at his peak, on a guitar that had a Bigsby operating at it’s best.

***

CON #1 - Restringing

Most guitars with a trem system utilize Leo Fender’s design.  The strings are anchored by the ball end at the base of the trem.  It requires nothing more complicated than threading your string through the bridge...and that’s it, that’s the entirety of the steps required.

With a classic Bigsby (more on the modern ones in a second), you utilize the hollowed out section of the ball end.  The hollowed out section that every string manufacturer still uses, despite the only tailpiece that needs this are the increasily antiquated Bigsby’s.

What you do is put the ball end through the pin, wrap it around the back of the tailpiece...maybe thread it under an additional bar if it’s a more modern Bigsby (to help give the strings the proper break angle, which helps tuning stability)...and then PRAY TO GOD it doesn’t slip off the pin while wrapping the string around the tuning pegs.

If that doesn’t make any sense, don’t worry, it shouldn’t have.  It’s a solution straight out of the Russian space program.  Da, Bigsbyvich...vy not easy make hole for string in cheap bar of metal?  “Nyet.”

Unless you use tape, that ball end will fall off the pin REPEATEDLY during string changes.  Not that big of a deal if you’re at home.  But if you break a string during a gig?  OH SHIT.

***

CON #2 - Tuning

I mentioned this above...

Let me ask you a series of rhetorical questions.  a) what makes music pleasing?  It sounding good.  b) does out of tune music sound good?  No.  c) would you like to use this tailpiece that immediately knocks you out of tune?

This problem is kind of solved with modern interations of the Bigsby.  They now make a “string through” model, which makes the pin problem something of the past.  And with locking tuners...tuning pegs that have a screw to keep the string in place...that previous section is no longer much of a problem at all.

But you still get knocked out of tune because the Bigsby design is inherently unstable.  It’s really annoying, but there are workarounds.  The first workaround is tuning during every song break...something you should do anyways as a musician playing in public, but we’re in the Butt Era of music, so that shit hasn’t mattered since the early aughts.  The second is simply not use it.

***

CON #3 - Weight

Weight matters when you’re playing live.

“Oh look at you you little pussy complaining about having to carry nine pounds on your shoulder for four hours.”  Listen you little strawman...if you tried to practice like I do, you’d be tapping out after 15 minutes because your fingertips wouldn’t have any skin left on them.  So cut the macho shit.

Next show you go to, watch a guy playing a Les Paul.  Note how fresh and energetic they are at the beginning, and then take a look at the end of the show.  3-4 hours standing with an anchor strapped to you is murder on your back and the shoulder your strap rests on.

I mention this because the Bigsby adds a good chunk of weight to your guitar.  It’s gotta weigh easily over a pound.  And if you’re someone who simply doesn’t use a Bigsby, you’ve got extra weight on your guitar for no practical reason that’s readily identifiable.

So yea, there are some definite downsides...downsides that are legitimately shitty...to the Bigsby tailpiece.  You break a string during a gig?  Fucked.  Don’t have a working tuner during a gig?  Fucked.  There is one massive, massive positive.

***

CON #4 - Chinese variants

Like every major guitar part manufacturer, Bigsby realized the money wasn’t in distribution but in licensing.  The vast majority of guitars you see with a Bigsby tailpiece will be cheaply licensed variants from China.  Every single one of those previous categories’ cons are greatly magnified.

The Bigsby is art, not science.  If it were science, it’d be like Fender’s trem system.  All of the above...the variabilities are magnified.  They’re more of a pain to restring, they go out of tune faster, they’re made out of cheaper, heavier metals.

Basically any guitar with a Bigsby that’s under $2,500 has a Chinese variant on it.  This includes the model I just recently bought.  And whether you use it or not, those issues above that are magnified become even bigger pains in the ass when the tailpiece isn’t made exactingly.

***

PRO PRO PRO - The Sound

This isn’t something quantifiable like weight or tuning...wait yes it is, to a certain extent.

With a modern, Fender-style trem system, you’re chopping off basically all the string that’s not 100% essential.  You pull it through, wrap it around the peghead once, measure roughly an extra inch with your finger, and then chop the rest off.  What this does is create a wonderful string tension that allows you to really dig in...especially with Fender’s longer 25.5″ scale length.

On a Bigsby...again the strings are barely anchored to anything...you get an extra 3-3.5″ of string length that’s wobbly and loose.  The Fender twang comes from scale length, but the Gretsch twang comes from the pickups and design.

This is where the unquantifiable comes in...this looseness and silkiness adds a character to the tone that simply isn’t there with a more typical Fender or Gibson style bridge and tailpiece.  You get different harmonics and overtones.  It’s more forgiving and missed notes aren’t as audibly punished.  The other strings vibrate more (even when muted) and add even more of a character to the overall sound.

Simply put, guitars with a Bigsby...whether you use the trem system or not...sound different.  The extra string length makes all the difference, and the loose nature of the Bigsby gives you a unique character to your sound that’s quite different than what you’d find on a more modern style.

***

That last bit alone is the reason Bigsby’s still exist.  And why Bigsby models with the antiquated pin system still exist.  I do believe that pin vs. string-through models sound differently...unfortunately, not for the better in the case of the modern versions.

Locking tuners make a lof these issues less severe, including restringing.  If you can lock on one end, you’re actually in pretty good shape even with the pins.

Of my four guitars that see regular play, three of them have trem systems on there that I don’t use.  However, the trem system itself is a variable that changes the guitar’s overall tone...and in the sense of my Strat, PRS and Gretsch...these are changes that I find sonically pleasing over hard-tail peers.

Here’s *my* truth...doesn’t matter your trem system...it could be a wonky Chinese Bigsby, a Floyd Rose, a vintage Strat with Leo’s original design, a precision machined Kahler...they ALL SUCK.  They all knock you out of tune and are more of a pain to restring than a hardtail.  It’s why I “decked” my Strat and “blocked” my PRS*

*”Decking” is adding additional springs to the trem so that it’s fixed to the guitar’s body.  You can’t do this with guitars that have an arched top, in which case you “block” the trem by putting  a piece of wood in the cavity that keeps it from moving.  This way they’re essentially a fixed bridge.

But the apparatuses do alter the tone in a pleasing way.  Highs are less strident.  There are more overtones and harmonics.  And the Bigsby’s the same story.  Even though it’s a piece of shit that I hate, there’s still something there worth it.

[classical-crap]

Hey. I'm the same person that was asking about the transition from e-guitar to violin. Isn't it bad to put stickers on a violin? Because each measurement for them is different so the stickers could be even one millimeter off it could mess with your playing? That's what I've read

intonation on the violin is a gigantic can of worms.

long story short, your intonation as a beginner will not be perfect, and the tapes make playing the instrument make more sense for a lot of people (particularly people with a background in fretted instruments), and so it makes learning the instrument feel achievable, because the beginning stage is hard enough as it is.

if you want to know in detail why I recommend tapes to beginners:

let’s take the note low E as an example. it’s just a first finger on the D string. simple. if we play it with the open G string below the note, we’ll have to make the E slightly lower than our default might be so that it makes a nice major sixth. if we were to keep our first finger E in the same place and then play it with the open A string, it would sound out of tune. 

I think you have a similar situation on the guitar. you could play an open B string and then play a fretted B in the same octave on another string and it doesn’t quite match up. that’s kind of an unsolvable problem on a standard guitar, but on the violin, since we have no frets, we have to make small micro-adjustments for just about every note. if a piece starts in the key of D major and then halfway through it ends up in A major, we can’t use quite the same fingerings, otherwise it will sound a bit out of tune. 

this is a concept that’s usually explained more in depth at the university level, because students at that point are learning about modulations and scale tendency tones and pythagorean tuning. we can explain the problems of tuning more in-depth and a lot of students will be able to understand and apply it to their practice. until students get to college, their perception of playing in tune is usually just high school teachers saying “that’s sharp” or “that’s flat.” you rarely hear high school teachers say “this note is the subdominant in A major, so we’ll want to make it a bit lower so it resolves nicely to mediant.” 

this is an incredibly difficult thing to explain to beginning violinists, so teachers usually don’t. long story short: I’m on board with not confusing beginners with the idea that some thirds should be 14 cents wider and other thirds should be 16 cents narrower, and I would instead prefer to let them develop a love for playing and then delve into the details after they feel committed to the instrument. students can retrain their ears later if they put in the time, but they likely won’t want to practice if they’re spending all of their time in the beginning training their ears. 

we put the tapes on the violin to introduce beginners to the concept of whole steps and half steps without using any confusing music theory terminology. an understanding of this simple thing is usually enough to make a beginning orchestra sound less like chaos and more like music. 

how to put tapes on:

the first pieces you learn on violin will likely be in D major. in first position, that uses your open D string, then a 1st finger, high 2nd finger, 3rd finger right next to it, and then either the next open string or a 4th finger. 

you put tapes on your violin for the 1st, high 2nd, 3rd, and 4th fingers in first position (so it shows you E F# G A on the D string, which is the 2nd thickest string). to do this, you get your strings perfectly in tune, then you place your finger down on lowest string until your tuner says that it’s an in tune E. at that place, you slide a thin piece of electrical tape under the string and make sure that it’s exactly parallel to the nut of the violin before you flatten it down so that it sticks. do this for F#, G, and A.  

if the tapes are put on correctly, then the intonation for the first pieces that you’ll learn should be pretty in tune. by the time you’ve practiced those first pieces in D major enough, the electric tape on the fingerboard should be getting kind of sticky, and you take it off and clean off your violin. definitely take the tape off before it starts sliding around, because that is what will mess with your intonation. 

if you want to improve your intonation beyond relying on the tapes, listening to a lot of in tune music. type “violin sheet music classical” into the youtube search bar and watch at least one video every day to try to improve your ear. you’ll begin to get a better sense of what “in tune” sounds like. 

tldr: put the tapes on as best as you can. you won’t rely on them forever. good intonation will come with time. 

[cordytriestowrite]

Calendar Days

Steve Rogers x Reader

One Shot

Summary: a series of monthly one shots focused around one of your favs

July

It was a rare thing to be alone yet so unlike the almost constant throbbing ache of being lonely. Steve didn't feel either so much anymore but unlike those lonely aches he was prone to suffering from time to time, the moments when he was alone were to be savored, treasured even. He did a lap around the entire floor plan and then had Jarvis run a scan just to be sure. Only with confirmation it was only him on this floor did he let his shoulders relax and eyes draw to his secret obsession. 

An acoustic guitar hung off a mount set into the wall between two tall bookcases. He had never seen anyone take the instrument down let alone play it and that fact was apparent when he strummed his fingers across the strings a few weeks ago and a flat note pushed against his eardrums worse than a punch to the side of the head. He had smacked his palm against the vibrating strings, holding it solidly as he would over someone's mouth and nose. It worked to silence the offensive sound just as well. 

He didn't touch it for a long time after that, not only because slight swell of intimidation under his tongue but because the chance didn't arise. 

It didn't stop his morbid curiosity. Without practical application Steve transferred all his obsessive energy into reading about guitars. In theory he knew how to play, in theory he knew how to tune, and now was his chance to try it out. Grabbing it firmly by the neck he lifted it from the hook mount and held it tight in front of him like a live snake hissing a threat and ready to strike. Walking backwards he eased himself down onto the couch and repositioned, bringing the instrument close in his lap with arms wrapped almost reverently around the body and neck.

With a deep breath Steve willed his heartbeat to slow so he could hear the notes past the blood rushing in his ears. Thumb against the taut top string Steve pushed down and let the horrid, untuned note ring out.

"Calendar day! Calendar day! Calendar day!"

The chant was his only warning and judging by the increasing volume he had very little time to react. Still, as a super soldier with lightning fast reflexes he made an attempt to right the room in time. Everyone rounded the corner into the sitting room just as Steve's hand pulled away from the guitar now hanging in its rightful place. Wiping his hands down the front of his jeans he watched you round the corner followed closely by Sam and Bucky all clapping along to their ceaseless chant.

"Calendar day! Calendar day! Calendar day!"

Steve groaned, rolling his neck to hide the grin threatening to lift his lips.

"Is it the first already?" He asked, feeling a flush of heat up the back of his neck.

"Oh you bet your ass it is Rogers. And you know what that means!"

Sam and Bucky bracketed the calendar hung on the wall across from the slightly swaying guitar, arms held out like game show assistants displaying a shiny new car. You practically skipped up to the display and Steve could only watch your back as you flipped the page to display the July page. 

Bucky let out a high pitched wolf whistle while Sam openly giggled in a way he wouldn't admit he could ever do. 

"The birthday boy in his birthday suit." Bucky teased, throwing a wink at Steve who had half his face covered with his large palm as if he could somehow avoid the embarrassment this month would bring.

"I have never hated that shield more in my life." You joked, letting your eyes roam across the image but unable to keep from tracing the lines of Steve's Adonis belt until the muscle hit the sharp blue rim of the strategically placed Captain America shield. 

"Steve, man, I can't believe you let them set you up like this." Sam managed to say through his throaty giggles.

"It was for charity!"

"Yeah, but no one else got naked for charity." Bucky countered.

If anyone could look away from the calendar they would have seen Steve collapse onto the couch, turning his head to bury it in a throw pillow. 

Taking Steve's silence as surrender you stepped in to help out your captain.

"Buck, just wait til next month."

Throwing his arm around you he cocked his hip with catty confidence.

"Hey, I looked good and I didn't have to strip down to do it."

"Alright," Sam interjected, letting out a few more weak chuckles. "Alright let's let Cap pout by his lonesome. We got all month."

The men sauntered out, noise trailing behind them and suddenly Steve wasn't alone on this floor anymore. 

You bit your lip, holding back words in favor of just watching Steve sink further into the couch, his body twisted in a way that was both humorous and sad. You moved closer to him, wondering if he would accept a comforting pat on the back for once.

"Sorry, Steve. But you knew this was coming! Honestly, it's not that bad after the first week. Just ask Tony or Wanda or -"

"It's fine. Really." Steve half mumbled into the throw pillow before sitting up and glancing right past you to the guitar on the wall.

It didn't take your years of training to catch the look. When Steve wasn't dead-set on a mission he let his face wear every thought and desire openly. Glancing in the direction of his gaze reminded you Steve was standing closer to that wall when you had come into the room. With an eye on Steve you moved closer to the wall, waiting for any sign you had hit the source of Steve's gloomy mood. Your fingers glanced along a set of strings, barely making a sound, and Steve swallowed.

"Ah ha!" You exclaimed, yanking the guitar off the wall.

"Fess up Rogers."

You offered the guitar up when Steve extended his arm for it. He settled into the position he was in before your interruption. Striking a cord you cringed for only a second before schooling your expression. Steve fiddled with the corresponding tuning knob. You watched him work, taking a seat on the ottoman as the minutes passed.

To see Steve struggle was not new. You had been by his side practically since the man came out of the ice. He struggled to adjust to a time he was never meant to be part of. He struggled to find Bucky, to bring him back onto the side of good. He struggled to patch things up with Tony and put ego aside in the name of friendship. But to see Steve struggle with something as innocuous as a musical instrument? It made your heart swell with a feeling you couldn't quite name.

Eventually Steve found the correct tuning. A solid, clear A note resounded proud and strong, finding harmony with Steve's wide smile and bright eyes. You smiled back, chin resting in your palm thoughtfully.

"You know they make tuners for that."

Steve's eyebrows stitched together in confusion. 

"Little battery operated things that will tell you the notes. You could even get an app on your phone if you bothered to use it old man."

The joke didn't quite land judging by Steve's slight frown. He looked down at the guitar in his arms with a gravity you wish you could say didn't suit him. 

"This isn't something I want to take shortcuts on."

You didn't think before scooting closer and laying your hand just above Steve's knee. You did take a moment to think about the squeeze that followed.

"It's not a shortcut, Steve. It's a tool. The same as your shield or the team."

"You're not tools." He argued.

"Well, Tony can be a tool sometimes." You countered, earning a breathy snort.

Steve looked down at the guitar, this time donning a small smile. He let his fingertips strum across the strings, pulling a face you imagined was similar to yours as the hideous notes clashed with each other and your senses. 

"Show me this app."

-

July passed quickly and it seemed like only a few days ago the team celebrated Steve's birthday in what ended up being a weekend bash that began with a cake with the screen printed image of Steve's scandalous calendar photo and ended with a groggy re-entry into the world of the living with a splitting headache, queasy stomach, and the distant strumming of an acoustic guitar. He wouldn't let you watch him practice, wouldn't let anyone really, but it happened every day, almost constantly. No one commented on the way Steve's fingers worked chord progressions on any surface, or how the guitar that once hung in the sitting room had taken permanent residence in his bedroom. You wondered if anyone cared to take an interest in the captain's new hobby, or if there was just an unspoken rule to not talk about it. Now that the month was coming to a close you were practically itching with the need to know how Steve was progressing.

The knock on your door was so soft you almost didn't hear it over your too-loud thoughts playing keep away with sleep. You sat up, listening for the sound again, ready when it came the second time.

"Come in."

It was Steve, his acoustic guitar in front of his midsection like he held his shield for the calendar shoot. You tried not to think about the hard planes of Steve's body currently hiding underneath a white muscle shirt and grey sweatpants.

"Did I wake you?"

You shook your head. Sitting further up in bed and turning on your bedside lamp as he entered your room and shut the door softly behind him. 

"I've been working on something. O-on the guitar." The clarification wasn't necessary, but you didn't want to scare away what felt like a very delicate moment being shared.

"I'm not ready to...do this in front of everyone but you have been there for me since the beginning of this and I...can I play a song for you?"

You wanted to cheer, to clap, to do that weird flailing then you do when you're super excited that Clint would inevitably mock with his own exaggerated version but now didn't seem like the time to make a big fuss, now felt like a time to just listen.

"I'd love to, Steve."

He smiled, nerves ensuring it didn't quite reach his eyes. He sat down on the edge of the bed, half in shadow and thus partially obscured from view. You leaned onto your right side, arm supporting your head, just to see a bit more of him.

He strummed a simple progression of E Minor and G once, twice, three times. And even though you knew the song you were still surprised to hear him sing.

"I need an easy friend. I do, with an ear to lend."

That feeling you had in your chest before was back. That first day in July when you watched Steve struggle to tune the guitar you knew in his hands there would be no shortage of dedication to the cultivation of this new skill. That same guitar he now played beautifully with a flow that looked so natural you knew he had to have practiced it all month and with that time and practice he chose to learn a song that meant something to you. You closed your eyes, going back further than the start of the month to the start of your friendship, to a man who was trying to navigate the world with only a little notebook of media to give him a jumping off point.

"Star Wars without a doubt. And Nirvana." You had said with a matter-of-fact tone that promptly ended the conversation. He wrote them down and that was that.

He did eventually see Star Wars, him and Bucky, but there was no mention of Nirvana in the years that had passed. You assumed he just hadn't gotten to it.

But here he was singing About A Girl in your bedroom, mumbling through the chorus as he concentrates on the chords.

Steve strums one final note, letting it ring out instead of stamping it down like you imagine he wants to since he cannot seem to look away from the wall opposite him. You give yourself a moment, needing a beat of silence to try to release some of the pressure in your chest. Instead, your heart flips and flutters as the lamplight crossed Steve's cheek when he glances almost imperceptibly your way.

"Steve Rogers."

He faces you fully now, face open for you to see the uncertainty and anticipation and tiny waves of pride that managed to break up the endless sea of self doubt. 

"I think I love you."

It was the only thing you could think would explain the balloon in your lungs, the feeling of overwhelming adoration directed toward this one person. The fullness in your chest ached so much it squeezed a few fat tears from your eyes. You smiled as you wiped them away.

"I love you too."

You couldn't tell if he meant it in the same way you did, but you didn't think it mattered. Steve set the guitar down, leaning it against the foot of your bed before turning as much as he could towards you. Rising to your knees you shuffled into his open arms and held onto him like letting go wasn't an option. 

"I have to tell you something." He mumbled as to not break the moment. 

You didn't pull away to reply.

"What?"

"I don't think I'm a fan of Nirvana."

You pulled away, mouth open in shock and the air filling your chest to bursting finally finding an exit.

"What?! How? Steve, I don't think you understand the genius of grunge music."

He shrugged, face forming a half smile as you took a soapbox for a generation defining genre. Because he loved you.

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[desktopdust]

Scrapped Shooting Star Sonia Ideas

After over five years of work, the Shooting Star Sonia series is officially over.  Initially I had ideas for it to run a bit longer, but after experiencing some burnout while writing Red Joker I felt it would be best to wrap things up in Event Horizon.  Of course, once I get an idea I have a compulsive need to talk about it, so detailed here are my original plans for anyone who might be curious.

Event Horizon itself didn’t change all that much.  Information would still be provided about the MBN cores, though perhaps not quite everything; Sirius would have had the xarium rather than Blitzar, so there’d be no Rogue Xa yet and Solo would take the metal back at the end.  Naturally, the ending is where the biggest change occurred: originally, someone from Planet XM would express interest in continuing to have Sonia and friends test the Meteor Breaker Numbers, and give them one year to prepare before the experiments begin in earnest.  How ominous!  Everyone would realize they need to get stronger, and to facilitate that, Sonia would use the EM Compatibility Tuner to interface with the Rosetta Compiler, becoming the new Administrator of the Black Hole Server.

Next thing I wanted to do was actually a super short side story, the obligatory Boktai crossover.  More specifically Boktai DS/Lunar Knights, since that’s the one that did a crossover with SF1.  Though I never did get into Boktai proper, I always found it neat that Battle Network and Star Force had these ongoing crossovers, and I wanted to keep it going.  It was a very basic idea: Sabata ends up in the SF universe and gets possessed by an FM-ian (I believe I was thinking Vulpecula?), so Django follows and teams up with Sonia to stop him.  No one would be showing off their new powers here, it’d be too soon for that, but there’d probably be hints.

The main event would’ve been Shooting Star Sonia 4: Rosetta Orbit. (A Rosetta orbit occurs when an object is moving fast enough to not be sucked into a black hole, but not fast enough to entirely escape its pull.) A year has passed, and so Planet XM begins dispatching a series of Meteor Breaker Numbers for Sonia to fight.  I thought the major bosses all being on par with previous final bosses would be a cool way to raise the stakes, and I went with two themes when designing them: the seasons of the year, and other Mega Man series.  For instance, the first MBN to appear would have been Vernal Ronin, a skeletal samurai robot meant to evoke Mega Man Legends (it’d look Reaverbot-esque, it’d been observing the heroes from the moon for some time now) and spring (“vernal” means spring, samurai are associated with cherry blossoms which only bloom in spring).  I also wanted each MBN to be accompanied by an XM-ian who had some sort of reference to the Roll of the respective Mega Man series, though I had done less work on that. (Vernal Ronin would have been overseen by Cophin, an excitable engineer.)  The other MBNs were Estival Rampart (summer, ZX), Autumnal Specter (autumn, Zero), and Brumal Transgressor (winter, X), with a recurring boss in the form of an XM-ian named Aeim who fought by operating a separate entity named Solstice_Harbinger.XM (EXE).  Ultimately, the gang heads to Planet XM to find the newest MBN, the Equinox, which has been enhanced with all the data gathered over the course of the story and resembles the Yellow Devil from Classic.

On to transformations, Solo would obviously unveil Rogue Xa at this point, and I liked the idea of Geo working with the Sages of AM and WAZA to merge the Star Forces into a single, absurdly powerful form inspired visually by the unused concept art for an Angel Tribe On.  With Geo and Sonia no longer needing the Ace and Joker Programs, I thought it would make sense to pass them on--have Bud take the Joker Program and Luna take the Ace Program.  Sad to say I never got to the point of designing these forms, but I think it would’ve been fun.  Also, I was contemplating the idea of Zack operating Magnes similar to a Net Navi, probably also developing a way for him to enter a controlled version of his Spade Magnes form; I wanted him to be involved and this seemed like an easy way to do it.  There was also the possibility of Jack wanting to help and becoming a new iteration of Acid Ace, but I didn’t come to a decision on that.  Other than that...I think Shepar was also going to have a way to temporarily take on the form of Chalice Libra?  Everyone else was kind of on their own.

Now then, Sonia...as I said, she’d be drawing power from the Black Hole Server, which is powered by Adha. The last time she used this energy to transform was when she held the OOPArts, and I wanted to tie back into that. So, similarly to then, Sonia would draw on the Black Hole Server using the EM Compatibility Tuner, and then use the power of her Brother Bands to get it under control.  These forms, called Orbits, would change her appearance and abilities to be similar to the Wave Form of the specific Brother she’s calling on at the time, probably with some design elements from Sirius thrown in.  I wanted one for each element and was planning Luna Orbit, Bud Orbit, and Claude Orbit...but was at a loss for an Elec form. Since Gemini didn’t stick around I didn’t think giving her a Pat Orbit would be a good idea, and Couronne doesn’t have a Hunter and thus can’t make a formal Brother Band.  I could’ve ignored that restriction, or found a way to justify her Band with Zack giving her a Magnes-based form, but nothing was ever decided on. However, just like with the OOPArts, this power would have sometimes run wild, causing Sonia to enter a berserk state and forcing one of her allies to hit her with her elemental weakness to shock her out of the form.  For this reason, she would exclusively stick to forms that have elements...until the final boss.  The Equinox would adapt throughout the fight and develop ways to counter all four elements, so with no choice, Sonia would use Geo Orbit to get a form combining Mega Man’s powers with her own, defeating the Equinox and saving the day.  Then, she goes berserk.  Her friends would find a way to calm her down eventually, of course, but this would sort of make Sonia the true final boss and I thought that was kinda neat.

So, with the pinnacle of the MBN Program destroyed, the XM-ians would be kind of freaking out--here’s where we’d get the full story of the origin of the program, and how it was originally meant to protect Planet XM in case a certain angry god ever showed up.  Sonia being Sonia, she’d say that if anything happens, she’ll protect them.  The XM-ians are moved by her kindness, and decide that maybe they should stop building war machines after all.  After that, there were two more small things I wanted to do, either as two short stories (4.5 and 4.55, I think?) or as two Epilogues for RO.  Firstly, that thing Planet XM is so afraid of would show up, and what do you know, it’s Duo.EXE!  When I was planning for Red Joker I remembered how, leading up to SF3’s release, there were a bunch of theories that Meteor G had some connection to Duo, and I wanted to do something with that.  The ultimate story then (and this holds true to an extent for the final product as well) is that Duo’s violence in the name of “justice” only spread pain and fear, which led to the XM-ians developing the MBN cores to fight against him, which only led to more pain and fear through their own actions as well as through the cores ending up in others’ hands.  It’s an ongoing cycle of violence that is only broken when Sonia steps in to convince people to try a peaceful solution.  Capping it off with Sonia the idealist versus Duo the extremist, probably resulting in Sonia helping Duo to grow beyond his programming and be more productive than destructive, seemed like a fitting, fun way to go.  After that, I just wanted to have one last fight between Sonia and Solo--Geo Orbit Harp Note vs Rogue Xa in deep space to finally settle their rivalry!  I didn’t decide a result, but it definitely would’ve involved Solo properly opening up and telling Sonia he respects her and all that.

(Also a very specific joke I wanted to use in RO and couldn’t find a good place to integrate into this post: when the head of the MBN Program is explaining it to Sonia, she’d say they still have MBN-001 through 008 on display, but only have records for MBN-010 and up.  Sonia asks about MBN-009, and her guide scowls and says “We don’t talk about number 9.” You know, referencing the other Mega Man.)

(And, there is one other idea I had, a spin-off to shift to after resolving the history of the MBN cores, but it’s detached enough that I think I can turn it into a standalone story in the future so I want to hold onto it for now.  Probably best I take a break from writing Star Force for the time being, but I really like the character designs I thought up for this one, so one day, I hope to put them to use.)

Once again, I want to thank you all for your interest in Shooting Star Sonia--I hope I was able to entertain you! It was a bit rocky at times, but in the end, I’m glad I embarked on this journey, and I’m eager to get to work on a new one.  Until next time.

[argyrocratie]

The Tyranny of Words by Stuart Chase (1932)

  CHAPTER XIV: TO THE RIGHT WITH THE ECONOMISTS

(...)

I employ a skilled mechanic to mow my meadow and cultivate my garden. He used to be employed in a Connecticut mill, but a new machine was installed and he and some others lost their work. So he is keeping himself and his family alive as best he can at a fraction of his former income. He was a victim of what is termed 'technological unemployment.’ A machine took his work from him, and for a considerable period he could find no other work to do. He might have left town, but he had bought a house, his children were in school, his wife liked the neighbourhood and to take to the road was a risky venture with machinists out of work on every hand. Now what do the classical economists do with my friend Roy Thompson?

They prove by irrefutable logic that technological unemployment is impossible. I know what I am saying, for I have debated the matter in public with classical economists and can tick off the arguments with my eyes shut. The logic proceeds like this: A new machine is put into a pin factory to take the place of men. The cost of making pins is lowered. Presently competition lowers the price of pins as the machine is generally adopted. Therefore housewives spend less money for pins and have more money to spend for silk stockings. Therefore the factories making stockings employ more help and no unemployment results. On the other hand, if the first factory has a monopoly of the new machine and does not choose to lower the price of pins, the owner of the factory takes in more money. This money he either spends, let us say for a private aeroplane, or invests in a new pin factory. Workers have to build the aeroplane or the factory, giving more employment. On purely logical grounds, you cannot get round it. Employment shifts, but does not decline and the same amount of money continues in circulation. Q.E.D.

How do you get round it? You look steadily at Roy Thompson, at scores of still less fortunate Roy Thompsons. You adopt the operational approach, disregard the logic in your head and observe what is happening outside. You are careful not to generalize from one or two cases. In the world of fact, you find that men and women frequently lose their jobs to machines, to stop-watch efficiency methods, photo-electric cells, to improvements in agricultural methods. You can count them if you have the heart, leaving their benches and their tools and going out upon the street.

You can examine the curves of output per man-hour for this commodity and that and note how they have been rising for fifty years. You can halt any working man and ask him to tell you how he or his friends have lost their work from time to time because of new inventions. It is not hard to check and recheck the facts of technological unemployment. Referents for the term are very plentiful. Very good – or rather, very bad. Millions of Roys have suffered for a greater or lesser period. Do they find other work? Many of them do. Often like Roy, they learn new trades at inferior pay. But the increasing obstinacy of unemployment in the modern world indicates that many do not. Whether they do or do not, certain relevant human factors must be brought into the concept. Can Roy1, after twenty years of working at a lathe shift his skill to qualify as a linesman if men are wanted in that field? Can Roy2, after living forty years in Middletown with his roots driven deep pick up his family and move to Seattle if men are wanted on the docks? Can Roy3 now unemployed hibernate like a woodchuck and live without eating because a year hence there is to be a demand for machinists in the television industry? Can Roy4 change from man’s work in a machine shop to women’s work in a rayon factory? What kind of employment awaits him? Where does it await him? When does it await him?

It is two very different things to talk about 'technological unemployment’ as a net statistical effect and to observe Roy in his perplexity and discouragement. If new inventions speeds up, it is obvious that more men and women per thousand are in transit from a job lost to a job hopefully to be found. And what happens if the owner of the factory does not care to buy a private aeroplane or to invest in a new pin plant? Suppose he just puts his money in the bank, and the bank just lets it stay there? For the last eight years new investments in private industry have been pitifully small compared with earlier periods. What if we have as many pin factories as prospects for profitable investment warrant?

These considerations by no means exhaust the question. But perhaps I have given enough to show that knowledge about technological unemployment, or indeed any kind of employment, is not advanced by the syllogisms of classical economists. The classicists treat the term as thing-in-itself without finding the referents which give it meaning. Most characteristics are left out. Observe the brutality of the result. If one can prove by logic that there can be no such thing as technological unemployment, then any apparent idleness must he due to human cussedness – Roy must have been a slack worker, improvident and wrong-headed – and one can lean comfortably back in one’s chair with no need to do anything about it. More, one can violently object to anybody’s doing anything about it, for this would interfere with the functioning of 'economic law.’

'Unemployment’ is not a thing. You cannot prove its existence or nonexistence except as a word. The validity of the concept rests on the shoulders of millions of your fellow citizens. Are they suffering because they have no work? Are their families suffering? Are the children without shoes with which to go to school? In March, 1937, I visited WPA kitchens in Savannah, Georgia, where 4,500 schoolchildren certified as underweight from malnutrition, were being fed. Savannah is neither a large city nor a city of slums. If you cannot see through the word 'unemployrnent’ to ragged children standing patiently in line with bowl and spoon, you have no business hanging out your shingle as an economist.

Let us inspect another favorite abstraction of the economic faculty: 'The function of business is to supply the consumer with what he wants.’ Translating this to lower levels: The function of the radio business is to supply Adam1 with a serviceable radio at a price consistent with the cost of producing it. In the fall of 1936, a leading radio trade journal made the following editorial comment:

The ear of the average consumer is notoriously cauliflower when it comes to distinguishing between good radio reception and bad. Since original boorn-boom dynamic speakers superseded early high-pitched magnetics, few improvements impinging upon the auditory organs have been sufficiently obvious to nudge obsolete receivers into oblivion without the aid of vocal mesmerisms by some retail salesman. The public eye, on the other hand, appears to be readily impressed, and we predict the best year since 1929. Design for selling.

In short, do not build radios for the ear, because there have been no recent improvements to warrant new models; build them to sell an elegant Circassian walnut cabinet. Here are some assorted vocal mesmerisms:

Band-Stand Baffles Tone-Tested Resonators Violin-Shaped Cabinets Vibracoustic Floating Sound Boards Automatic Flash Tuner Overtone Amplifiers Acoustical Labyrinths Magic Voice Mystic Hand Dial-a-matic

What the radio industry does in the economic textbooks is one thing; what it actually does is another. The observation holds for most industries which can make more goods in a year than people buy in a year, or in more learned language, where capacity exceeds demand.

What a remarkable term is 'business’, especially in America! How is business? – not your business, but business-in-general. Statisticians toil over composite graphs and charts to answer this mythological question. If there is no such entity as 'business’ – and by now we know there is not – it seems a little superfluous to be constantly taking its temperature. Business says. Business speaks. Business recovers its voice. Business views with alarm. Business is jubilant when the Supreme Court votes down the NRA. Business is sick. Business is terrible. Business runs through a cycle – charming image. Business has recovered: Look at the chart – there it is, as plain as the nose on your face. Back to 1929. The curve says we are all right, therefore we must be all right. What, eight million unemployed; farmers in the Dust Bowl down and out; share-croppers reach new depths of misery? Forget it. Keep your eye on the chart.

This is pure hocus-pocus. Not only are there no dependable referents to which we can hitch the chart, but those to which it has been hitched – 'carloadings’, 'bank loans’, 'lumber production’, 'cotton-mill consumption’ – cannot he combined into any composite curve which does not violate mathematical sanity. A great mathematician, Ivar Fredholm, calls such omnibus index numbers 'hermaphrodite arithmetic monsters devoid of all sense’. At this point we note a curious perversion of the scientific attitude. Opinions as to the health of 'business’ are based on figures, rather than on hearsay and hunches. We are looking, we believe, at cold facts. We are scientific as hell. But the 'facts and figures’ we look at have been mutilated beyond meaning. Some day we must give up prostrations before a phantom 'business’, though the charts reach from Wall Street to the moon. The term 'business’ and its faithful follower 'service’, often prevent us from observing what useful or useless things businessmen are actually doing.

Many economists and statisticians believe it legitimate to argue that industrial prosperity after a slump will inevitably return, because their charts show ups and downs in the past. They point to the scientific nature of the 'proof’. But the graphs a real scientist draws describe the conditions of an experiment arranged by him. They can be used safely for drawing conclusions only if similar conditions can he arranged. The humps and hollows on the economists’ charts refer to changing conditions. There is no similar arrangement and few valid conclusions are possible. The context has changed and the result must be guesswork. 'Introducing graphs of supply and demand,’ says Hogben, 'in a fictitious free-exchange economy does not make economics an exact science.’

A business executive with whom I am associated asked me the other day, 'What will be the reaction of the public to the new laws for retail price maintenance?’ This was an important question, for as manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer of a commodity he had to decide a policy covering costs, prices, possible injunctions, court orders, notification to retailers and so on. Yet my colleague was trying to settle this critical matter with the aid of a ghost.

There is no 'public’ which is a useful concept in the premises. Calling it 'John Q. Public’ does not help. Between us, we had to break down 'public’ into a series of interested groups – New York retailers, retailers in the West, jobbing houses, customers of various kinds – before we could know what we were talking about and arrive at a valid decision. Observe that in this case no theory was involved. As businessmen, we had to determine, by the following Saturday morning, a specific course of action involving the stability and the jobs of a considerable business enterprise.

Formal economics wanders in a veritable jungle of abstract terms. Here is a sample of the flora:

land labour capital; capitalism rent wages; the iron law of wages purchasing power production; distribution interest; the long-term interest rate profit the profit system money: the gold standard credit; debt; savings; securities inflation; deflation; reflation value; wealth the law of diminishing returns the entrepreneur the economic man free competition; the free market the law of supply and demand cost; income price levels marginal utility monopoly; the trusts property individualism; business socialism; public ownership the consumer; the producer the standard of living planning

Some of these terms are useful short cuts provided one does not objectify them. But if one employs them without being conscious of abstracting, they acquire a fictitious existence. Some have no discoverable referents. 'Value’, for instance, is as elusive as 'the Omnipotent’. Some have referents very difficult to1ocate: 'capitalism’, 'individualism’, 'inflation’, 'credit’, 'money’, 'business’. Some have referents easier to locate, provided one makes the rare effort to find them.

Following Bridgman, we might prepare a list of meaningless questions in economics:

1. Does capital produce wealth? 2. Is the consumer more important than the producer? 3. What is a reasonable profit? 4. Is man by nature co-operative or competitive? 5. Is fascism a kind of capitalism? 6. What is a classless society? 7. What is the American standard of living? 8. Are capital and labour partners? 9. Are we headed for inflation? 10. Is decentralization better than centralization?

These questions are either completely meaningless, or meaningless as they stand. Given a position in time and space with further description of the terms employed, qualified answers might be found for some. For instance, Margaret Mead studied a tribe in New Guinea where habits of co-operation were very strong. A hundred miles over the mountains she studied another tribe where competition was so ferocious that it threatened survival. On the basis of these observations we might venture a qualified answer to question 4. For question 8, one can say that capital and labour are partners in the same sense that Castor and Pollux are brothers – mythological matters both.

Korzybski observes that any study to become a science must begin with the lowest abstractions available, which means descriptions of happenings on the level of sense impressions. Economic literature usually reverses this procedure, starting with high-order terms and working down. Thus you will find in Chapter I of Dr. Blank’s Principles of Economics elaborate definitions of 'land’, 'labour’, 'capital’, 'wealth’, 'profit’, 'money’, 'credit’, 'property’, 'marginal utility’. As any two economists have great difficulty in agreeing upon the precise meaning of these terms, the treatise begins with shaky assumptions. Worse follows when the shaky assumptions are woven into elaborate systems by deductive logic. The best fun which a professor of economics apparently gets out of his academic life is to demolish the theories of his confrères. The single time to my knowledge that American economists were in general agreement was when they objected to the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill in 1930, by a joint memorandum of more than a thousand signers. That was a red-letter day in the history of economic thought.

To extend agreement and make the study of economics conform to the scientific method, it is necessary to lay aside abstract definitions and apply the operational approach, What is Rufus1 doing on his farm? What is Roy1 doing at his factory bench? What is Junius1 doing in his bank? (A bank studied on the basis of what is going on inside without recourse to abstractions like 'credit’, 'liquidity’, 'soundness’, is a pretty whimsical thing.) What is Sylvia1 doing at her desk? Observe and record what a great number of men and women are actually doing in furnishing themselves and the community with food, clothing, and shelter. Then proceed to inferences. Then proceed to general rules governing economic behaviour – if any can be found. Then check the rules with more first-hand observation. Never forget Adam1 acting, the date at which he acts, the place where he acts. Fortunately some economists and sociologists are beginning to follow this programme. We find it in the studies of Middletown by the Lynds, in Ogburn’s Social Change, in Economic Behaviour and Recent Social Trends, in the studies of the National Resources Committee.

Inferences drawn by Adam Smith about the England of 1770, or by Karl Marx about the England, France and Germany of the 1850’s, are obviously worthless for the America of today. Some deductions may still he sound, but all are suspect pending operational check in modern America. To criticize American economic behaviour today, or to prescribe for its improvement because Adam Smith said thus and Marx said so, is as foolish as believing that a fly has eight legs because Aristotle said so. Both Smith and Marx used their eyes and ears more than their fellow theorists. Ricardo, for instance, might have been born blind, so pure a theorist was he.

Economic laws became in the hands of the classical school just laws in themselves. Often they were merely logical exercises. So it was that classical theory stood triumphantly symmetrical, an absolute! And so it is still too much taught. By a series of assumptions and with the use of certain chosen illustrations it can be worked up to climactically. And when the thing is complete – there you are! But the student goes away from the demonstration unsatisfied, frustrated, angry, feeling as though a logical trick had been played upon him. And why? Well, because for one thing, in the twentieth century the truth must be useful and this is not.

So says R. G. Tugwell. Meanwhile Dr. Wesley C. Mitchell observes that it is impossible to prove or disprove the classical laws.

The laws and principles were developed with the industrial revolution. The Wealth of Nations was published in the same year that Watt made a steam engine which would really work – the same year, incidentally, that the American Declaration of Independence was drafted and signed. The classicists were much influenced by notions about science, but they did not adopt the scientific method. They tried to erect economic laws like Newton’s laws of gravitation, but they did not copy Newton’s operational technique. It was like a little boy making himself a choo-choo after seeing a locomotive.

Editorial writers today are still infatuated with these 'laws’ of a make-believe science. They pull them out of their heads with pontifical finality whenever reformers or Congressmen propose a measure which editors do not like. 'Economic law cannot so cavalierly be set aside,’ they say. 'We cannot circumvent the law of supply and demand any more than we can circumvent the law of gravitation.’ 'Only crackpots would seek to outwit the immutable principles of economics.’

Classical economics not only was largely innocent of the scientific method; it also became a kind of theology selling indulgences to businessmen. As factories expanded after Watt’s steam engine, a philosophy was needed to give respectability and prestige to the rising class of manufacturers. The philosophy was first identified with the 'natural laws’ of Newton. Then it twined itself like a boa constrictor (yes, I am conscious of abstracting) around Darwin’s hypothesis of the 'survival of the fittest’. What a handout! The greatest good for the greatest number, so ran the dogma, arises from the unimpeded competitive activities of enlightened self-interest. The faster the stragglers are bankrupted and undone, the stronger the economic frame. What appears as competitive anarchy is not really anarchy at all, but a beneficent system of control by natural forces. The big fish eats the little fish, the strong businessman eats the weak. It is all very gratifying and lovely, and as remote from reality as the labours of Hercules.

In 1798, Malthus published his famous essay on population, one of the grandest examples of extrapolation on record. The essay was in part designed to answer William Godwin’s argument to the effect that mankind could achieve happiness through the use of reason. Malthus wanted to scotch the dangerous idea that happiness was in prospect for the mass of the people. (The principle of 'original sin’ again). So by study of the exceedingly unreliable statistics of the time, he laid down two postulates: first, that population tends to grow at a geometrical rate; second that the food supply tends to grow at an arithmetical rate. The population of England was then 7,000,000; in a hundred years if the curve was followed it would be, he said, 112,000,000. If food was sufficient for the 7,000,000 in 1800, by 1900 the supply would expand to feed only 35,000,000 – 'which would leave a population of 77,000,000 totally unprovided for.’

This fantastic hypothesis was then solemnly applied to the problem of poverty. As population was destined to leap ahead of food supply, restrained only by pestilence, war, and famine, it followed that measures to improve the living-standards of the mass of the people were futile. 'It is, undoubtedly, a most disheartening reflection, that the great obstacle in the way of any extraordinary improvement in society, is of a nature that we can never hope to overcome.’ That stopped the fellow Godwin in his tracks. The essay was also used for decades as conclusive proof that reform laws were pernicious. In the second edition of his essay, in 1803, Malthus relented to the point where a new element was introduced into his equations. It the poor would employ 'moral restraint’ in their procreational activities, they might possibly gain a notch or two on the food supply. It was very cheering news to the well-to-do. The poor had themselves to blame for their poverty and even if moral restraint was widely practised, poverty was largely inevitable anyhow.

Malthus’s iron law of population was paralleled by Ricardo’s iron law of wages. This great principle put poor people in another vice. Since labour is a commodity, said Ricardo, its price goes up and down with demand. When demand for labour is slack, wages will remain at the bare-subsistence level. If demand becomes brisk, wages will rise, workers will have more money. They will then produce more children and presently the addition to the population will bring the price of labour back to bare-subsistence level again. So what is the use of trying to improve the condition of the workers?

Nassau Senior 'proved’ that hours of labour could not be reduced, because the employer’s profit came out of the last hour of operation. A 68-hour week was common at the time. Eliminate that last hour, he said, and industrial profits would be eliminated and the business of the nation ruined. Thus if children in factories worked 67 hours rather than 68, panic would replace prosperity. Senior’s analysis was derived from theoretical examples where the arithmetic was correct but the assumptions untenable.

Senior’s contribution to economic theory proved that hours could not be reduced. John Stuart Mill and other classicists proved that wages could not be raised, by the famous 'wage-fund doctrine’. Workers joined unions and struck for a raise. Pure madness, said the economists. Why? Because there was a certain fund set aside out of capital for the payment of wages. There was a certain number of wage-earners. Divide the first by the second. It was all arranged by Heaven and arithmetic and trade unions could do nothing about it. The wage-fund theory was the stock answer of the manufacturer and editor to the claims of organized workmen. It had been blessed by economists and must be true.

Observe how these 'laws’ were put to tangible use, holding back improvements in working-conditions for scores of years. The philosophers produced nonsense which was at least disinterested. Many of these classical economists had an axe to grind and cruelly sharp they ground it. Not until 1876 was the wage-fund theory exploded by an American economist, Francis Walker. He argued that wages were paid not out of a fund of stored capital, but out of current earnings – a theory which came closer to the facts. It is a pleasure to note that John Stuart Mill who first popularized the wage-fund hypothesis in his Principles of Political Economy in 1848, published the following statement years later: 'The doctrine hitherto taught by most economists (including myself) which denied it to be possible that trade combinations can raise wages… is deprived of its scientific foundation, and must be thrown aside.’ A brave, fine statement. But working people in England and elsewhere for fifty years had paid a bitter price for a 'law’ that had no scientific foundation.

Orthodox economists have had a particularly bad time of it since 1929. Governments all over the world have been indulging in financial operations of a shockingly unorthodox character. As Chester T. Crowell points out in the New Republic, the learned faculty stands on the sidelines shouting: 'No! You can’t do that!’ And while they shout, it is done. The economically impossible is performed again and again. For instance:

1. Mussolini simply could not carry on his vast operations in Ethiopia with a gold reserve of only $3,000,000,000. It was unthinkable. The reserve was a mere drop in the bucket; it would be gone in a month. But Mussolini did it. Ethiopia was brought to heel, and Italy is still afloat financially.

2. If a nation has a gold coverage of less than 2 per cent, obviously it has no currency worthy of the name. Panic and chaos are inevitable. It cannot hope to carry on foreign trade; its citizens will fly from their native money standard. In terms of respectable economic theory, the German financial system today is a corpse. But the corpse does not fall down. It goes right on acting as if it were alive.

3. We were all brought up on the fundamental idea that if the British Treasury ever repudiated a government debt, it would be the end of the pound sterling and of world trade. The financial backbone of the planet would be broken. Well, the British Treasury owes the American Treasury some billions of dollars, and the latter can whistle for its money. The pound remains firm, and ships still sail the seas. Because of the repudiation, Congress passed the Johnson Act, forbidding loans to warring nations, and so giving the American people one of the sturdiest defences against being dragged into war that it was ever our good fortune to secure. England’s perfidy has been our blessing.

4. A nation, we were taught, could not go off the gold standard in fact, no matter how many proclamations its statesmen made. If it devalued, prices would shoot up, and gold would still be master. The United States went off the gold standard by proclamation and most domestic prices hardly fluttered. France, which clung nobly to gold, suffered a much more severe depression than the reprobates who abandoned it.

Yes, the orthodox economists are having difficulties on the sidelines. Is the trouble with the wicked world which pays little attention to their 'laws’, or is the trouble with the laws themselves? How valid are 'natural laws’ which can be violated right and left?

[howtolistentomusic]

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

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

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

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

"Hell yeah I do!"

"Guacha!" David says. 

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

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

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

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

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

"Illmatic is better."

"What the fuck is that?"

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

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

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

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

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

"What else are you bumping?" David asks.

"Wu-Tang. Souls of Mischief. Big L—"

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

"That's Lil B, dumbass."

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

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

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

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

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

"Hell yes!" I say.

My coworkers laugh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zayn Malick! Totally over One Direction, rhyming.

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

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

"I'm down!" 

David laughs. Carlos shakes his head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Leave it!" he says.

"Yes, daddy!"

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

Carlos slices a bag of clothes with his pocketknife.

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

"Cool story, bro."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Calm the fuck down!" I say. 

"Give me the radio."

"Come and get it.

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

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

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

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

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

Give me my damn game ball.

[caffeinated-mendes]

bel amour - a shawn mendes story (chapter 2)

masterlist

chapter one

word count: 1.7 k

a/n:  the second part to this little novella. i hope you all enjoy and have an amazing day/night! (intentionally written in lowercase)

warnings: swearing 

*if you prefer, you can read this on my wattpad or ao3

"the name mila means sweet one, or dear one. it's of slavic origin, which means you could be from belarus, the czech republic, you could be bulgarian, croatian, macedonian, montenegrin, polish, russian, serbian, slovakian, slovenian, or ukrainian." shawn strutted through the door of the music shop, hands in his pockets. it was the next day, and he was back as promised.

"you memorized all of that, in alphabetical order? i thought you said you couldn't read." mila grinned as he leaned against the counter, "why are you here?"

shawn grinned, "one; i memorized that because i never said i wasn't good at memorizing things. two, i'm here because i needed to tell you that."

mila shook her head, looking up from her book, "you're here because you had to tell me that."

"yes." he looked insistent.

"well, if you're staying here, you might as well sit back here and keep me company. grab a guitar and play anything you want, i guess." shawn shrugged and chose a dark stained guitar, with little shine on it. mila pulled out a foldable chair that leaned against the wall, and so shawn sat down with the guitar. she could now see the rest of his bottom half. he wore black boots with scuffs on the edges of the soles. when he began plucking the strings, she saw his tattoo on the back of his hand. it was a bird, a small bird that was in motion. it looked biblical to her, for some reason.

mila took her book from the table, and shawn looked at the front cover, "i thought you were reading lord of the flies," he continued to play the guitar.

"yeah, i finished it last night. my tv show got boring. now it's frankenstein." mila looked down at the book placed on her thighs and couldn't help but look at them and not at the words on the page. every time she looked down she couldn't help but feel the taste of hatred in her mouth. she focused her attention back to the page. shawn continued the song on his guitar. she got lost in the music and set her book down, knowing she wouldn't read it anyway. "how long have you been playing guitar?"

"five years," shawn replied, taking his hands off the strings, "do you play anything?"

"yeah, violin. i haven't focused on it much since high school, though. i considered majoring in violin performance but i chose a different major. you're really good for five years, though." she looked back down at the guitar, "something isn't right though. did you tune it?"

"yes, a little bit." he looked at her with a look of confusion on his face.

"hand it here," she held her hands out and he gave her the guitar. she plucked the e string. "your e string is flat just a bit." she plucked the rest and stopped on the b string, "and your b string is also a bit flat."

shawn shook his head, "don't tell me you have perfect pitch."

"i have relative pitch. almost perfect pitch. my violin teacher would test me sometimes." she tuned them back up and quickly checked with a tuner. they were perfect. "here, keep playing mendes."

shawn didn't start, just looked at her, "grab a violin. i'll play a chord progression, and you do some improv." mila shrugged, got up and went to a back closet, grabbing a violin, tuning it, and rosining the bow. they played together and mila was happy, she was happy in the abandoned shop and for once she wasn't bored out of her mind. they stopped after a while, and shawn said in exasperation, "you're so good!"

"well, i have been playing for thirteen years," mila laughed, flaunting in an ironic tone. "look, my shift ends soon, and i have to go to a lecture. this was really fun though."

shawn sat up from his chair, "wait, give me your number. we can do this again." mila agreed and so she left twenty minutes later with his contact in her phone, meeting lea at their usual spot before a lecture.

"where have you been, mila?" they started walking back to campus through the busy city of toronto.

mila smiled, "i found out who he was. why he was so familiar."

lea tilted her head, "the customer? was he actually famous?"

mila nodded, "it was shawn mendes. i'm so stupid for not realizing. everyone is obsessed with him, but he acts like a normal person."

"dude, my little sister is like obsessed with him. don't forget about me when you're famous." lea bounced in her step as they turned another corner.

"what's that supposed to mean? we're friends, i wouldn't get famous. i'm not here to exploit him." mila gripped her backpack.

lea grinned, "oh, so you're friends?"

"shut up, lea." they sat through another lecture, though mila found this one rather entertaining considering that the professor kept getting mad at the janitorial staff, who ran huge vacuums down the hall. lea pointed out through the lecture that their professor also had a hickey poking from her collar, which made mila snort.

she turned around from her board, "have i said something humorous, ms. hall?"

mila shook her head, "no, i'm sorry professor, i have allergies. it wasn't a laugh, but i do find our topic today quite interesting, thank you for teaching this." the professor said nothing but smirked and turned back around.

"ass-kisser," lea muttered. mila grinned ear to ear, glad she was annoying her friend. when they had gotten home, lea plopped onto the couch and mila moved to the fridge, making herself another coffee (she had already had one not even two hours before). she connected her phone to her speaker, and started playing shawn's newest album. "so you listen to him too? i thought you didn't like pop music, it was too basic for you."

"are you trying to bash me for trying to expand my horizons of my musical choice? plus, this isn't your basic pop trash. the instrumentals in the back are amazing, and they perfectly are in time with the tempo-"

"okay, okay, okay, lets just start studying."

"i thought you didn't like studying," mila replied, mocking her, bringing her coffee to their dining table. lea grinned, opening her binder on the table and getting their notes out. she hadn't let mila out of the house and they only stopped for food and drink breaks. she had also tried to get mila to eat a bit more, but she insisted she was full. when lea was finally passed out her bed, she pulled on her oversized hoodie and made her way back on the familiar streets, feeling a little on edge from walking by herself at 11 pm.

she unlocked the music store and walked to the back, turning on the lights and going in the recording studio. playing the instrumentals in the background to one her favorite songs by shawn, she began to sing. her voice was deep but with one switch of styles she could be a peppy broadway singer.

don't cry or do

whatever makes you comfortable

i'm tired, too

there's nothing left to say

let's call a truce, cause i don't really wanna go to bed like this, yeah

mila didn't see that a figure walked through the entryway. it had been shawn, and seeing the lights on, he thought it was still open. he knocked on the closed recording room door, and mila turned to see him in shock. mila took off her headphones. "shit, i forgot to lock the door." the hourglass figure opened the door with a smile. "hey, shawn, what are you doing here?"

"i wanted to see if you're here. i forgot to text." mila let him in the studio, and he sat in the chair. "this is a nice recording place. were you singing?"

"yeah, i only really do it by myself. it was actually one of your songs. like to be you." shawn grinned.

"well, i'm flattered. lets hear it, i want to know if you're even more talented than i already know."

mila shrugged, "i don't know, i'm not that good."

"please? i'll get a guitar and we can sing it together if it makes you feel more comfortable." mila agreed, a little scared. shawn began singing the first verse after he sat back down, and then mila joined for the chorus. his eyes widened and a huge grin broke on his face. mila nervously put a piece of hair behind her ear, singing her verse by herself.

can I kiss you or not?

cause I'm not really sure right now of what you want

are you still mad at me? i'm hopin not

cause maybe we could go to the movies

i know that always cheers us up, hey

they finished the song, and shawn laughed in astonishment, "that was incredible, mila, incredible. have you taken singing lessons?" mila shook her head, "damn. you need to record an album or some shit because the world needs to hear this." shawn took her hand and it startled her a bit, but his hand felt reassuring

"thank you, i've always liked singing. i used to belt songs in the car while my dad drove me to my violin lessons." she giggled, and her hand was still connected to shawn's, her other one playing with the rip in her jeans.

"where are you from?" he asked.

she looked into his eyes, studying his face. his pupils dilated like before. "uh, i'm from the us. i used to live in california, southern california. 'moved out here for college. i visit my family every break."

shawn nodded. "hey, do you want to get dinner tomorrow? we can drive out somewhere and eat it in the trunk. nothing fancy."

mila smiled. "i'd like that. how about six?"

shawn agreed, "do you want to sing some more?" the answer was obvious, and the two of them spent hours in the shop until morning nearly broke. mila's test scores would be paying for this, but she didn't give any fucks whatsoever. mila was happy. nothing was on her mind but shawn and the music. she felt like she was floating on a sea of clouds, and nothing else existed.