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missizzy · 2 months ago

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A Game Novice's Baldur's Gate Log, 148 Hours In: Two fights I ultimately couldn't avoid, and also two more

Masterpost

(Note: this will definitely contain spoilers for all I've played through, and probably quite of a bit of the later stuff I've also seen.)

I have been very aware this week that not everyone who plays through this game is in much of a hurry to rescue whichever of their companions ends up needing it. And that's very understandable. There was more than one moment during the week that I thought maybe I really should've gotten the party up to level 12 first.

But sometimes when you create a character, she will inevitably take the story over. Sara had now been in agony for days over not going immediately. She wanted Lae'zel back, and she wanted the cultists that were killing her neighbors in the park at least mostly dead, and it just felt impossibly wrong to delay her doing it much longer.

It also felt kind of wrong, honestly, when she initially tried not to fight Sarevok, given that a century ago, she was one of the ordinary inhabitants of the city he terrorized. But she needed to get the location of the Bhaal temple out of him. During my first go at that scene, she more or less let Minsc provoke a fight, I discovered just how hard he was to hit while dealing too much damage, and I ended up exiting without saving and deciding I'd do that scene with Karlach instead.

But really, I should've known it wasn't going to be as easy as that. That even if her companions allowed Sara to claim herself as wanting in and having killed the people whose hands we'd looted off Dolor, she was never going to pass the deception check necessary to convince him. So I found myself with that fighting happening for the second time, wondering if I'd just made it worse for myself with two barbarians who were both struggling to hit Sarevok.

But once it became clear that damaging Sarevok wasn't going to be easy for my casters either, I decided to once again try a little more spell variety, and had Shadowheart break out the bless for the first time. It was the perfect situation to do it, too, since he seemed oddly fixated on killing Sara and didn't attack the others, so with his minions downed quickly enough concentration wasn't a problem. He still wasn't the easiest thing to hit, but we did it enough to win.

Even more to my relief, he had the map to the temple on him. Except then I very quickly realized it was pointing us straight to the scary fight with the delayed Power Word Kill I'd reloaded out of earlier. Still, having had time to think about said fight, I found myself coming up with about 12% of a plan for it, and thought it might now be doable. After a long rest.

So, after a meeting with Dammon, which was nice but a little sad because he still couldn't fix Karlach, I decided to honor Minsc's request to deal with the Zhentarim he'd set on the Guildhall. With him rotated back in, we went there, listened to Roah Moonglow's spiel, and since Sara didn't really like either side she left the decision of what to do to Minsc. When he declared he was siding with the Guild for this one, we duly fought her and her allies with the Guild's help, which was probably worth it just for being able to loot a whopping 10,000 gold off of her afterwards. Money for more arrows, healing potions, and other useful things may not be a problem for a little while.

Of course, then I had to keep Minsc from then going after Nine-Fingers Keene, too, since we were by now in no shape to fight everyone left in the Guildhall. Fortunately I just made that check, Minsc confused everyone, himself very much included, by even speaking about working with her in the future, and we got out of there with no further harm save his having an existential crisis.

We went back to the tavern after that. Sara did her best to talk Minsc through said crisis, though she certainly isn't the best person for that. Since my plan for dealing with the Farslayer included Astarion, I had him feed off her that night. I took him, Minsc and Shadowheart to just before where the fight would trigger. I ended up pausing there, and spent the next day writing a little piece featuring Sara and Gale that took place on that night before.

My plan was to speed Astarion to wherever the Farslayer was located, and use either his sussar dagger or one of his arrows of arcane interference to break the Power Word Kill. And on all of my attempts at that fight that lasted long enough, this plan actually worked. But I hadn't quite realized just how many minions he had on hand, and just how much damage they could do while not being in the best locations for hitting.

After my second attempt failed, I swapped out Shadowheart and Minsc for the druids and their AOE spells. Which resulted in another rant about the city from Halsin; Sara might actually be losing her patience with him over that. I also decided to first go back up to the streets and see if I could buy more elixirs of fire resistance, since I couldn't even find the one I knew we had. (Much later, I eventually spotted in Jaheira's inventory.) I couldn't find any, but we went back to Jaheira's family's house, since I now knew how to get to her underground hideout, got her things, equipped Halsin with the staff, and even bought him some new armor and a couple more healing potions before returning to the Undercity.

The AOE spells actually didn't help as much as I had hoped. But I did, at long last, figure out how to make good use of their wildshapes. That cave bear really can do a crazy amount of damage, and I got Jaheira across the bridge alive largely because she was being an invisible panther. Though by the time the whole party was across, we were all in bad enough shape that with one of the ladders up where the Farslayer had been and the invisible minions still were destroyed, I took everyone under the structure just to give them cover. When the Farslayer was also hiding there, it was ultimately quick work to kill him.

At which point everyone else poofed, and the fight was suddenly over. Rather disoriented, and thinking they might still be hiding nearby, I short rested, had Halsin heal Jaheira further before swapping him out and Shadowheart back in, and then went looking for either Orin or more trouble. I crept through the adjoining building continually expecting to run into more trouble, and didn't. I did the same to the environs outside the temple entrance, when I found them. Then, when I discovered I couldn't lockpick through that door, I went around again to see if there was another way in. Finding nothing, I looked it up, and read about needing an amulet. Fortunately we'd looted it off Sarevok.

I had also read beforehand that there would be a difficult check to keep Lae'zel alive, but we could avoid it by provoking a fight before the cut scene played. I got us to partly down the stairs, and then was left to decide who would shoot at Orin first. There, my shipper heart ended up prevailing, and indeed, all four times I provoked the fight, I did so by Shadowheart throwing a guiding bolt at her. It actually hit on the last successful attempt, too.

The first two attempts went south pretty quickly, as on realizing I really had to stop the sculpture from restoring Orin, I made an attempt each time to destroy it, both of which came to nothing. Ultimately I would have to look that up, and read a suggestion from someone to thunderwave all the sancturied cultists off the platform to shut it down. I tried this on my third attempt, but didn't take that many out before I had two people down and was looking very bad, and so reloaded again.

I then decided to see if I could get the party closer, to at least give Shadowheart a better chance to hit at the start. I got too close, and triggered the cut scene. I actually tried to get Sara to intimidate Orin not to kill Lae'zel immediately, a check it wasn't impossible for her to make. But when I rolled at 8 on it, I reloaded without even waiting for the guidance die to roll. It was only an hour later I remembered the existence of inspiration. If I had in the moment, I might have tried using it.

But by the time I remembered, I'd won the fight anyway. It wasn't easy to keep Jaheira up long enough to knock everyone off, though Astarion at one point used the two thunderwaves he had available to take two minions out of the fight. Once the sculpture stopped restoring Orin, it was a simpler matter all of us just hitting her until she croaked. Sara actually went down literally right before Astarion was able to run over and deliver the final blow, which was definitely the kind of dramatic moment that would've done quite well in an action movie.

Fortunately Jaheira then quickly got Sara up before either of the remaining two skeletons could kill her, and we killed them quickly enough. I left off last night having just gathered Orin's netherstone and short rested. I haven't even woken Lae'zel up yet. There will definitely be more fic about that next week.

#baldur's gate 3 #barbarian tav

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iheartdaisies · 7 months ago

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God Lives in my Earliest Memories.

It’s a pacifying black in the room. Soft moonglow seeps through the window and billowing curtains, enough to see faint outlines of furniture and walls. Every night before bed, I’d have to kneel down on the floor, elbows on the bed, hands pressed together and say my prayers. A lot of them were prescribed by my parents; pray for family, pray for good health, pray for blessings, obligatory Amen. Sometimes they’d ask me what I wanted to pray for. All I remember thinking was why am I doing this? It seemed sort of pointless. Bad things didn’t happen to me or my family. I’d see and hear awful things on TV and think, I’m so glad that would never happen to me. I developed a fascination with dark subjects as a child, I could interact with them from another plane and never have to confront anything in my real life. I still prayed anyway though, at my parent’s insistence. But it made no difference whether I prayed or not. Despite my confliction, I never said it out loud, it just lingered in the air. Somewhere I’d either created or been born with an illusion of invulnerability. I couldn’t even imagine dying, and I thought about it a lot. At night I’d lay in bed and try to imagine death, I couldn’t comprehend the nothingness. But I’d just keep doing it and thinking if I tried hard enough I could comprend what it means to not be a living thing anymore. The only thing that really came of it was that I made myself cry every time. It scared me that one day I would be nothing, think nothing, feel nothing, just the remnants of a soul and grainy overexposed 2000s film in a scrapbook my mom made.

I feel like a lot of people, especially those raised religiously form some sort of concept of god in their heads, we heard so much about him it only made sense to put a face to a name, like when you read a novel and picture the characters in your head. For some reason, god was in an outrageously oversized tan-coloured T-shirt. He was almost bald, like he’d shaved his head and then let it grow for a few weeks just enough to have the roots poking out again. He was young too, or at least he looked young but had all of the otherworldly sacred knowledge. He had a face in my mind but I never really believed in him until it mattered, and I needed something. I’d try and get out of church, make my prayers short, pretend I actually read the Bibles I was given. Nothing scared me more than when my mom was angry. Always a loose cannon, I’d never know when it was coming. The swearing, the screaming, the belt, it would just get to me. In tears and staggered breath, I would kneel, open my window and pray to god to make it better. I used to think that if I cried hard enough, pressed my hands together and squeezed my eyes closed tight enough, he’d hear me.

I remember watching a baptism, vaguely. I was maybe 4, maybe younger. I couldn’t really understand what was happening, or why there were stairs leading down to a shallow white pool in the floor, or why someone walked in fully clothed, throwing their hands in the air once they emerged, white clothes drenched and clinging to their skin. Everything about church was bizarre. I found pictures of my own baptism in a photo album, I’m in an outrageously puffy white ruffled dress and a matching white headband. My mom is next to the priest, and I’m in her arms, visibly throwing a fit. I laugh a little when I think about it. Now thinking about it, my family was pretty tame compared to other religious families. One day when I was in middle school, my mom took me over to a Mormon family’s house. My mom sat in the living room, talking with the husband and wife while I played in the next room with their kids. We were playing with dolls or something like that and I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about but at one point I think I said “Oh my god”, and suddenly they stopped, staring at me blankly. Just thinking about the tension in that room is sobering. It was silent for way too long. “We don’t say that.” One of them said, burning a hole through my head with her weird Mormon eyes.

When I got older and into my teens, naturally I sat upon my high horse and passed silent judgement where I saw fit. Rolling my eyes at mentions of god, heaven, hell, the afterlife, etc. To me, it was now a fairy tale for people who didn’t want to bother with science and evolution. There was resentment too, towards the people who blocked basic human rights bills because they thought an old book meant more than universal freedoms. How could you look at everything science has explained and think there’s a man up in space or that drinking caffeine is a sin. It was really cultish and scary to me. Religion was created by the same people who thought the earth was a flat disc, so what real credibility does it have? I got a little older, around 18 or 19 when things started feeling really empty and distant. I’d be laughing with my friends in the car, but I wasn’t really there. When we went our separate ways for university, and school was mostly remote, I had a lot of extra time on my hands. Extra time to feel things I didn’t want to feel and think about things I wanted to shove down deep inside. I won’t specify what, but some other bad things happened too. I was depressed and aimless, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life and still don’t. I was so angry I don’t really even have the words to explain what it felt like other than a mind numbing rage and crushing grief. I thought a lot about what it meant to even be here, frustrated and in need of a sign, anything to tell me that there is a reason to stay and that I have a future I was meant for. It took me an embarrassingly long time up until those years of my life to understand that need a purpose to persevere or to just not feel so alone, and for some people, that is religion. If there is no greater purpose or higher power, then what is the purpose of being alive? What does it mean to exist? A possible answer is that it means nothing. And that’s a tough pill to swallow. I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to face the harrowing possibility that all of this has no explanation other than random chance and that we truly are just a collection of materials, bred to eat, sleep, and die. I still don’t like people who use their religion as an excuse to ostracize minorities. But I don’t see a blind cult following so much anymore. I often see people that find meaning in life, whatever that might look like. I see people that have found a purpose, a reason to live, a reason to keep going, because they’re just people.

And it really doesn’t matter. Life has whatever meaning you give it.

I found Ethel Cain’s music by chance one day. PD was the first album I’d found that explored religious themes in the way that it does, and the obscure relationships that come with growing up in the south and baptist culture. Coming to terms with faith, while still holding reservations, nostalgia, and judgements about it all. Though that’s not what the album is entirely about, those themes are still present. In Sun Bleached Flies, there’s a lyric in the first half:

What I wouldn’t give to be in church this Sunday

Listening to the choir so heartfelt, all singing

God loves you, but not enough to save you

In its sweet irony the song itself is part of the Ethel Cain story, while its a reference Ethel’s unfortunate circumstances and goodbye to her family and past, I think it could be interpreted in a lot of different ways, specifically the underlying themes of religious guilt and bizarre nostalgia that arises for environments that brought so much pain and confusion. There’s a general feeling of being let down by God, a feeling of unworthiness. Why does god bless and save others but not me? Why do my prayers go unanswered? I’m a good person, why is this happening to me? But there’s also a feeling of longing for those simpler times, being in church, talking to neighbours and joining them in prayer and song. Clapping in unison after the preacher gave his sermon, and shaking hands as you leave. A wanting to belong and reminiscing for the things you used to think were so boring and awful. It’s rare that I find and feel connected to music and lyrics, to songs that put subconscious feelings into words, or at least ones that inspire reflection.

At 21 now, I have a complicated relationship with religion. If I did have to classify myself, I’d say I’m probably Agnostic. Christianity still resides in a part of me, not in faith but more like a place I came from, left behind and occasionally wax nostalgic for. I still don’t pray, if I read bible verses it’s to analyze from a non-religious lens, and I don’t go to Sunday service. When my Grandmother preaches to me about how God made no mistakes and loves us the way we are, I just smile and take her weathered hand in mine. When I’m in a church, it's to hear my grandfather sing Willie Nelson and see the smile on his face when he looks up from his old bones and guitar strings, to see his wife, sons, and grandchildren nodding along. I have a cross that I wear around my neck and it's my lucky charm. It was given to me by my grandparents, to me it's not a religious symbol, it's them. I live for my family and friends, not any god. Sometimes though, I find myself on the floor in the dark. In the shower with the lights off. In my bed trying to sleep so I can't be awake to feel anymore. When I’ve been alone with my thoughts too long, when I start to feel like I might not be here much longer, when the compartmentalized truths seep back into my consciousness and I’m left with the reality of things that have happened in the past, after I finally cry deeply enough and so silently my chest aches, I pray, and I hope that someone hears me.

#ethel cain #religious trauma

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kellyvela · 3 years ago

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Do you think the seasons of my love song corresponds to Jon's love interests?

Autumn: Ygritte

Winter: Daenerys

Summer: Val

Spring: maybe Sansa

Maybe its kind of a bait and switch Sansa is linked to flowers a lot, so maybe shes representative of the spring maid. I thought also maybe they represent sort of the stages of Jon's story and life.

Ygritte is like the autumn of Jon's childhood, she signifies the end of his ignorance.

Val is like the summer of Jon's life where he could get everything hes wanted and perfectly, but of course it never happens in his case.

Dany is like his winter because shes beautiful but deadly and tied to destruction.

Leaving Sansa to be like the spring in his life.

Idk. Thoughts?

To be honest, I don't associate the song with Jon. I know is a popular theory because Ygritte, Val and Dany's hair. But Jon only knows the first two girls, not Dany, at least not yet. And I really don't consider Ygritte, Val and Dany as Jon's "love interests."

Ygritte was an abuser, someone too violent, a scorned lover that physically hurt Jon. Val is dubious, she is still asking Jon if he killed her ex lover Jarl and she thinks Shireen must be killed because of her greyscale, and finally Dany who is in route to become the bad boy of the story. I don't want any of that for Jon.

Out of the three, only Ygritte was Jon's lover, but their relationship was abusive, he was her captive, she was older, more experienced and she blackmailed him to have sex. So there is some kind of Stockholm Syndrome there.

Jon thinks Val is beautiful, but that doesn't mean he has feelings or desire for her. Sansa also said that Renly "was the handsomest man Sansa had ever set eyes upon" (A Game of Thrones - Sansa I), and she wasn't head over feet for him.... Acknowledging someone's beauty doesn't mean having a love interest in that person. Will Jon and Val hook up? I don't know and I don't think so, but I could also be wrong....

And aunt Dany is still in another continent, they don't know each other and I can't imagine the kind of things Jon will hear about his aunty and her campaign in Essos before meeting her.... Will Jon and aunty hook up? So far the so called romance of the story it's just a theory....

OK, back to The Seasons of My Love now. The song's lyrics mostly appears in Tyrion's chapters, and once in Catelyn's, but never in Jon's.

Thanks to Tyrion we know most of the lyrics, the verses about Summer (linked with Tysha and later with Shae, both dark haired, and even with Cersei, a famous blonde), and Winter (linked with Shae while wearing a silvery robe):

He resumed his whistling. "Do you know this song?" he asked. "You hear it here and there, in inns and whorehouses." "Myrish. 'The Seasons of My Love.' Sweet and sad, if you understand the words. The first girl I ever bedded used to sing it, and I've never been able to put it out of my head." —A Game of Thrones - Tyrion VI

Through the door came the soft sound of the high harp, mingled with a trilling of pipes. The singer's voice was muffled by the thick walls, yet Tyrion knew the verse. I loved a maid as fair as summer, he remembered, with sunlight in her hair . . . —A Clash of Kings - Tyrion VI

Is this the Cersei that Jaime sees? When she smiled, you saw how beautiful she was, truly. I loved a maid as fair as summer, with sunlight in her hair. He almost felt sorry for poisoning her. —A Clash of Kings - Tyrion VI

Shae stood in the door behind him, dressed in the silvery robe he'd given her. I loved a maid as white as winter, with moonglow in her hair. —A Clash of Kings - Tyrion X

They would kiss for hours, and spend whole days doing no more than lolling in bed, listening to the waves, and touching each other. Her body was a wonder to him, and she seemed to find delight in his. Sometimes she would sing to him. I loved a maid as fair as summer, with sunlight in her hair. "I love you, Tyrion," she would whisper before they went to sleep at night. "I love your lips. I love your voice, and the words you say to me, and how you treat me gentle. I love your face." —A Clash of Kings - Tyrion XV

I had my own love once, and we had a song as well." I loved a maid as fair as summer, with sunlight in her hair. He bid Ser Loras a good evening and went on his way. —A Storm of Swords - Tyrion II

Moon, moonlight, pale and silvery are words associated with Val and Dany's hair, but Tyrion thinks about the Winter verses when seeing a dark haired Shae wearing a silvery robe.

Tysha and Shae are both dark haired but when Tyrion thinks of them he remembers the Summer/Sunlight hair verses.

Until now, the hair color of the girls Tyrion supposedly loved did not match the verses of the song. The only time the girl's hair color matches the verses is when Lancel sings the Summer/Sunlight verses to Cersei, during one of Tyrion's chapters.

Now, thanks to Catelyn we know the verses about Autumn:

After a time the candle guttered and went out. Moonlight slanted between the slats of the shutters, laying pale silvery bars across her father's face. She could hear the soft whisper of his labored breathing, the endless rush of waters, the faint chords of some love song drifting up from the yard, so sad and sweet. "I loved a maid as red as autumn," Rymund sang, "with sunset in her hair." —A Clash of Kings - Catelyn VII

Although the words "moonlight," "pale," and "silvery" appears in the same paragraph, Catelyn didn't remember the Winter verses, like Tyrion did with Shae and her silvery robe. Catelyn remember the Autumn verses and I suspect it is because her own auburn hair. So we could say that Auburn hair is the one associated with Autumn, they even sound very similar.

Catelyn and Sansa are also linked with Tyrion, who expressed sexual desire for both of them and he even married Sansa. Now that I think about it, Tyrion even expressed his wish to rape Cersei, so all these girls and women (Tysha, Shae, Cersei, Catelyn and Sansa) are somehow associated with this song and Tyrion's sexual desires....

From that group of women, Jon knows blonde Queen Cersei and auburn haired Catelyn and Sansa.

And about Sansa, she has a lighter shade of auburn hair, so maybe she could be associated with Dawn, in contrast to the Sunset, the same way Summer/Sunlight is in contrast to Winter/Moonlight. And this reminds me of something Renly said about Margaery (brown haired):

The Knight of Flowers, they call him. Now there's a son any man would be proud to own to. Last tourney, he dumped the Kingslayer on his golden rump, you ought to have seen the look on Cersei's face. I laughed till my sides hurt. Renly says he has this sister, a maid of fourteen, lovely as a dawn …" —A Game of Thrones - Eddard VII

Uhmmm.... A maid of fourteen, lovely as dawn... This is very interesting.

Sansa is not only associated with flowers (Spring/Persephone), but also with Dawn. And there will be a second Battle for the Dawn to put an end to the Long Night (Winter), and Spring comes after Winter. So Dawn and Spring are also linked here.... This is very interesting indeed, despite that I don't associate the song with Jon.

Sorry if this is not the answer you were waiting for, but it's an honest one.

#anon asks #sansa stark #jon snow #tyrion lannister #the seasons of my love

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dipshit-pig · 4 years ago

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(full patreon description under cut)

When I used to work those early morning shifts (and later night time ones) it would be completely dark unless I turned on the lights. I remember the small monkey exhibit (which I had to clean) was very dim until the sun started coming up. It bathed the entire place in this pale light that reflected whatever color the sunset was. It was both horrific and beautiful to be isolated like that. Sometimes I felt so lonely it was my skin wanted to crawl off of my own body so at least there was another vaguely human shape around. But then the sunrise would turn everything pink and orange as dawn barely peaked over the eastern horizon. I thought a lot since my job as janitor didn't require full cognitive focus. I'd listen to a lot of surfer rock, or alternative hip-hop which was very low energy. Sometimes I felt like I was drifting into space, as if my body was performing the motions of cleaning but my brain was a thousand miles away looking down at my tiny life in this equally infinitesimal zoo. Songs like Potsu's Moonglow or STRFKR's Beach Monster felt like soundtracks to my meandering, aimless life. When I first started work as a janitor, I didn't really have a life plan or know I was trans. I was just working to survive and buy weed so I could remove myself from reality for a little bit.

I had these vacuous day dreams so vivid sometimes I wondered if I was hallucinating about being lost in outer space. Cut off from everyone. I would open my mouth to speak but no sound could be produced. I'd wonder if maybe that's what death felt like... This utter lack of presence or tangible influence on my surroundings. I had memories of cleaning the glass for 5 years straight, and after a while they all blurred together to the point that if I didn't do everything in a set routine every day, I couldn't be sure if I'd already done something or not. Time blurred together like one continuous dream, or maybe a nightmare. I don't know... It's perhaps a little too hazy to say for certain.

Having so much time alone to think did bring me to greater truths about my identity and place in the world. At the same time, being stuck inside myself for such a prolonged time was equally terrifying. Sometimes I'd just stare into the dark corridor of that little monkey exhibit, perceiving absolutely nothing, and wondering if that was peace.

It's been two very long years since then. I've got a new job, new place, new me. My fascination with day dreaming about space stays in tact, although I've got a lot less time to meditate on much since life is a lot more demanding. Since I live alone now, the sensation of feeling adrift has been kicking in again. I'm in this weird place where I've accomplished so many goals. I got top surgery. I got a promotion, I got my own apartment, insurance, money, etc... I've done all these things I thought were impossibilities. I thought having a career would have been impossible for a high school drop out but here we are. Some how I'm the most financially stable and independent person in my immediate family despite being sort of the known 'failure' for all 26 years of my life.

And... Here I am, feeling aimless again. Life is on cruise control.

With more free time to myself these past few weeks (since I've been free of coms and the OT seems to have capped out last week), I think I recognize in myself this constant need for some kind of chase.

The biggest thing being a janitor taught me was how to love a process and not worry about the permanence of my work. It was destroyed every day by tens of thousands of people, after all. And I'm at this point now where I've achieved permanence for things I really care about and it feels somewhat hallow because now.... I've got nothing to pursue with all my being.

I feel like a dick saying that because when I was struggling, if someone said that to me, I probably would have been pissed. And it's not like I'm unhappy or depressed like I was before... It just feels like I'm adrift...

Anyway, that's the vibe I wanted to capture with this. I know that's like A FUCK LOAD OF context. But I just felt like I had to get it out of my brain. Feeling like I'm over the funk now that I've wallowed in it for a while. I've got personal goals again with my art and that's like... Really exciting to me. Despite losing a few people on here, I'm not really that upset by it. This painting is the most emotionally gratifying thing I've done in a really long time. So I hope you like it!

Thanks again for sticking around if you're still here. I appreciate you.

#personal art #space #painting #music #vibe #King #King of Beasts #fursona

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project-ohagi · 4 years ago

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Hitoshi Shinsou x Reader

Buy me a coffee!! <3

He held the foremost authority over your heart.

He occupied each higher and lesser position in its pantheon.

Acceptance of and respect for every scintilla of difference between you and the society in which you inhabited, propositioned no consequence. Heroics suited him well - experience protecting you from the ever-anticipated onslaught of comments and confrontations had significantly developed his character. Though, it was hardly a reason to gloat. The fact of the matter remained that, in spite of your position at UA, circumventing such horror was a tricky endeavour. But love's transcendent strength granted Hitoshi both the means and the motive.

And upon drawing the curtain, he always shared that one jumper, ridiculously-comfortable and oversized. It was akin to an invitation into his embrace, but of course that too could be requested. He couldn't profess to be....yours, without first conceding to something so simple, so rewarding.

He appreciated each individual piece of your soul - even the misshapen ones. He understood himself as the binding-glue, holding them all together. Still, the intricacies of your relationship were often ignored in favour of relishing in the moment...in a type of wedlock bliss. It was strange, without the labels of 'lover' or 'partner'. You established neither boundary nor creed, yet somehow...somehow he always knew. Could he read your mind, or were your wishes twinkling like a thousand constellations amid your eyes? Either way, you presumed such fortune undeserved. Would he ever grasp the true extent of your gratitude? Could your heart's rhythm reach his? Could he feel it when he humoured your silent demands for snuggles?

Well...those demands were his lifeline.

And while he danced with his memories, a melody so raw and unrehearsed clambered on to your tongue with an elephant's grace.

"Hey...Hitoshi?"

What am I doing? I know I can ask him anything, but...how do I ask him this? Am I just supposed to say 'Are you really okay with me...with my Asexuality, with my reluctance to date, with...my non-conformity?' And what answer am I supposed to expect? 'Absolutely not, and now that you've asked all the questions I thought you'd never ask, I feel that now's the right time to leave you...to break your heart.'

"Yeah, (Y/n)?" Breaking him from the chains of fantasy had only ever failed once - in all fairness, the involvement of cats and Mr Aizawa played a key role.

'Eraserhead supremacy', as Hitoshi always joked. He lived (and would surely die) by that doctrine. "Um, do you really not care about my...orientations? That sounds dumb, uh...what I mean is...I won't ever feel comfortable with that level of intimacy. Is that really...okay with you? Don't most people take that kinda stuff as a given? It's holding hands, kissing, then...further, right? But I...I don't wanna do that stuff. I don't need to. I never will. You...you're different. You're normal. I've been thinking, and it...it just isn't fair to tie you down like that..."

"That really how you feel?" Hitoshi's eyes maintained their heavenward gaze, missing the tears that began to pool within your own. "I'm no more normal than you. We're the same amount of weird, same amount of crazy...we'd have to be, or this wouldn't have worked for so long. That stuff doesn't interest me, but if it did, I'd push it aside for you. I'd push everything aside, to put you first. Thought you'd know that. Guess not, huh? Sorry for making you worry."

"Huh? What are you apologising for? I'm the one who got all worked up over...over nothing. Well, it's not nothing, but...I guess I just...assumed." Guilt laced your voice.

Hitoshi turned, hand outstretched to caress away your crystalline sorrow. "I'm apologising because you were nervous to talk to me. You shouldn't ever feel different. Not around me, not around anyone. No-one has the right to say anything, unless you give it to them. And it's fine...we've only ever held hands anyway."

In the pale moonglow, his humanity seemed to slip...as if it were a mask, from which a god would spring forth. The wind caught his soft, indigo tresses, pulling them in every direction. You might have laughed, if not for the lingering tone of austerity. As you nuzzled into his hand, you remembered the carollers, in all their merriment, who only hours prior, had recited a flurry of songs from 'Jingle Bells' to 'All I want for Christmas is You'. During the latter, Hitoshi's propinquity and warmth had kindled something deep within your heart. The word had evaded you, until now.

Love.

Before, its infinitesimal spark reflected the stars above - bright, yet...so very distant.

Now, it had blossomed. It was here...it was real.

"What are we, Hitoshi?" You dared to whisper, trembling not from the frigid weather, but the fear of his response.

"Whatever you want us to be." He whispered back, paying no heed to the canvas of glitter and twilight.

I want us to be...so much more than we already are. I want those labels everyone else has. I want to be with you, forever and ever, though that sounds so childish. I want you to stay by my side, keep protecting me, keep giving me your jumpers when it gets cold, keep sneaking out at night, to watch the stars with me. I want to hug you, to hold your hand in public...I want to kiss you. I want to tell you exactly how much you mean to me. But I can't say any of that. You know I can't.

Both life and love echoed ephemerality, but it was a sentiment you staunchly refused. The labyrinthine nature of this love couldn't pry your lips apart - the instant they connected, the butterflies fluttering in your stomach exploded into fireworks so dangerous and charming.

It was a kiss imbued with feelings finally realised.

It was a kiss...your very first.

[Word Count: 971]

#bnha x asexual reader #they/them #shinsou hitoshi #bnha shinsou #hitoshi shinsou x reader #my hero academia x reader #bnha #my hero academia imagines #hitoshi shinsou x asexual reader #gender questioning #it's nearly christmas #you bet your butts i'm writing about it

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shreddedparchment · 5 years ago

Text

Pseudo Princess Pt.07

Slip of the Tongue

Pairing: King!Steve x Reader Word Count: 4,796

Warnings: smut, angst, feels, Bucky Sam and Steve in poofy white shirts

A/N: This one is a little shorter than my usuals because I needed to set up the next two chapters and what comes next but a lot does happen! I hope you like it and if you happen to reblog, thanks so much for helping me spread my work! xoxo Let me know what you think!

Pain fades.

The darkness of your wedding night fades with it. The fear doesn’t.

You wake up a few times in the middle of the night, sweating cold and heart in fluttering palpitations.

No one is there for you. You make it that way.

The first night, after you’d woken up whimpering loud enough to have Peter send for Nat, you wake yourself up before the worse of it starts.

You don’t want to be like this. It terrifies you. You’re so tired all the time.

You know that Ste-his Majesty is sorry. You know that he regrets it because whatever face Nat makes when you tell her that his remorse and tears were genuine and for you alone, the look in his eyes…she didn’t see that.

There was torment there. Not grief. It was like watching someone relive the worst mistake of their lives over and over.

It’s why he stared at you with nothing to say, that same torment clear in his storm blues as he watched you when he rode away.

Fleeing is his way of getting control once more. He needs the distance to reclaim himself. In the deepest parts of your soul, you know it.

So when you sit up trembling, clutching your blanket close as your heart settles, you hope that wherever Ste-his Majesty is that he can come to terms with what happened that night and that when he comes back, the two of you can start fresh.

~~~~~~~~~~

“What are you thinking, Steve?” Samuel probes, his voice gentle but knowing as he stares at his king from across the crackling fire.

Soft golden shadows dance across Steve’s already golden face, hair gilded into tarnished gold with the lack of moonglow.

Steve sighs, staring at the heart of the fire and the way the flames lick at the wood at its center. It devours it, tearing it to ashen splinters.

He can relate.

Bucky and Samuel exchange a look of concern.

“Steve?” Bucky checks, reaching over to push against his knee.

Bucky’s laying on his side, relaxed with his leather vest thrown open, loose billowy white top with the drawstring at the base of his neck left undone to expose a solid chest with soft tendrils of dark hair. He’s got one leg propped up while he tosses smaller pieces of stick into the fire and listens to it speak.

Steve and Samuel look almost the same. Both have removed their tunics to leave them in simple white shirts only Steve’s is nicer, softer, more breathable. The soft tuft of his sand colored chest hair peeking through the split of the neck’s open V.

With Bucky’s push, Steve snaps out of his reverie and looks to his friend.

“What?” He asks, startled. He meets Samuel’s eyes too who stares at him with a small frown. “I’m sorry, I-I didn’t hear you.”

“Yes, we can see you’re preoccupied. What are you thinking about so hard that you’ve got that sorrowful look on your face?” Samuel asks, reaching for a small twig by his foot to follow Bucky’s example.

“I think I can guess.” Bucky says, knowing.

Steve looks at them in turn then shakes his head once.

“I hurt her.” He frowns.

“This again?” Samuel asks.

Bucky looks at Samuel and then turns back to Steve.

Steve can understand Samuel’s frustration. But he’s never been the one to do it. He’s never taken like that from anyone. Forcefully. He can never understand.

“You said you apologized.” Bucky sighs, knowing that an apology cannot have been enough. For you to forgive Steve for what he did to you, you’d have to be a saint. “Did she reject it?”

Samuel listens this time, more open to having this conversation. Maybe he and Bucky can finally get some answers?

Steve has been moping all week but kept it all to himself. Is he ready to open up about what happened?

He is. “No.”

Looking to Bucky, Steve can see the slight surprise.

“She should have.” He shakes his head, looking down at his hands where he begins to fidget with his nails.

“She…forgave you?” Bucky asks, shocked.

Steve nods.

“Are you really sorry?” Bucky checks, eyes narrowed on his king and best friend.

Steve meets his gaze with slight anger, fire in the center of his blues. “Of course, I am.”

His voice is a deep growl, irritated.

“I’m not a monster.” Steve points out, but after what he did to you…what must you really think of him? How can he explain to you that marrying you…fucking you…hell, just touching your hand during the wedding had felt like a betrayal? “I think.”

He feels wrong in his emotions. He shouldn’t care that you’re hurt. He shouldn’t care that you kept staring at him with all that hope in your pretty eyes.

Fuck. He growls internally, running a hand through his hair in frustration as he realizes that he just thought your eyes were pretty.

The clench in his chest hurts, another set of pretty eyes fill his mind, and these look sad for his slip. How could he have thought another woman’s eyes pretty? Only hers were pretty. Only Margaret’s.

“You’re doing that thing again.” Samuel interrupts his self-hatred. “That thing you do when you think about her.”

Bucky’s frowning.

“I can’t help it.” Steve admits, tired.

“Margaret’s dead, Steve.” Bucky chastises him ruthlessly. “She has been for two years. You’re allowed to move on.”

“I know that.” Steve grumbles, looking back down at his hands.

“She would have wanted you to move on.” Bucky insists.

Steve isn’t as sure about that…but Maggie would have wanted what was best for him. “I know that.”

“So, then what’s the problem? Your new wife doesn’t inspire you?” Samuel asks, though he doubts that’s a problem. He’s seen you up close and you’re a cutie.

Hell, if he could have chosen anyone to take home and make love to…well, okay, maybe he’d start with a few other girls but you’re no slouch. He likes the way your body curves and your smile had been sweet and real.

There’s a lack of snobbery to you, too. As if you weren’t raised like those other girls that come to court.

You’re a catch. And as Samuel watches his king, he can see that for him as well, you are perfection. Well…for Steve…you’d have to be Margaret to be perfection.

“No, it’s not that.” He sighs. “She’s…she’s not Maggie.”

“And she never will be.” Bucky’s seriously angry now. “But she’s your wife now. Accept it, Steve. The sooner you let go of Margaret the easier this will be on you and her Majesty.”

Steve opens his mouth to speak, to protest, but Bucky cuts him off. He pushes himself up to sit, tense now.

“You’re going to have to sleep with her again, Steve. Every night until you get her pregnant. Part of the deal was to marry within a year. After that you have another year to produce an heir. Rather than take your time you chose Y/N. You had your chance to-”

“You’ve said all of this already, Buck.” Steve nearly growls.

“Well, I’m saying it again, because you haven’t been listening. You could have taken your time, gotten used to the idea first and then married someone but you chose to marry Y/N within a week of the council setting its ultimatum.”

“I wanted it over with.” Steve sighs defeated and saddened again.

“Well, it’s over with…now you have a new wife, a sweet one at that, and you have only a year to do what you could have given yourself two years to do. She needs to give you an heir and you don’t have time to waste unless you want the Kingdom to go to Pierce.” Bucky reminds him. “He’ll tear it apart, Steve.”

“What if I can’t do it?” Steve worries, swallowing hard.

“You have to.” Bucky insists.

Steve’s face contorts into a grimace, disappointment in himself. “Have you seen the way she looks at me? She’s…”

“She’s already in love with you.” Bucky nods.

“Big surprise there. Everyone falls in love with him.” Samuel chimes in. “I mean, look at him.”

“It’s more than that.” Bucky argues.

“She sees through me.” Steve says so quietly that both Bucky and Samuel go completely silent so that all they can hear is the quiet rustle of breeze through leaves and the soft crackle of the fire. “She can see the broken man I am inside.”

“You’re not going to write her a poem, are you?” Samuel teases.

“Sam…” Bucky sighs.

“Do you think that would work?” Steve suddenly asks.

The two guys watch him.

“Should I write her a poem? Will that make her forgive me?” He checks, looking up at them in turn.

“I thought you didn’t want her to love you.” Sam checks.

“I don’t…I…I don’t know.” Steve admits. “It feels wrong to have her in the castle, sleeping in what should have been Margaret’s room if she hadn’t insisted on sleeping with me in mine.”

“She’s Queen now, Steve. Would you have her live out of the castle?” Bucky wonders and for a scary moment, the world is silent.

Bucky couldn’t stand it if he had to take Steve back home and then have to tell Nat what happened if he decided to send you away.

Not only would that mean Nat would be away from him which he really doesn’t think he can go through again, but she'd be so upset for you. And Bucky can’t blame her. He’s feeling more and more angry with Steve for you two.

Steve thinks hard, his chest aching painfully as he pictures you beneath him, squirming as you try and get away.

He shuts his eyes tight, hating the memory.

You’d begged him to be easy on you and he’d ignored it. He hurt you and it surprises him how terribly he feels about it. More so than just a decent man hating making a grave mistake.

He hates that he hurt you. Why? Why does he have to care about you? He doesn’t want to.

“I will have her keep her distance during the day.” Steve nods as the plan begins to work itself out. “And then I will come to her at night.”

Bucky relaxes a little. This is progress. Torture for you of a different kind probably, but it’s progress for Steve.

“I can’t love her, Buck.” Steve admits.

“You don’t have to.” Bucky assures his best friend. “But you do need to care about her at least as a friend. She’s your queen, Steve. Until the day she dies.”

Yeah…and it’s not like Steve has lost any other queens lately. Oh, wait…

“We should go back.” He finally says, “If I’m going to make any progress with an heir I’ll need to get started.”

“Steve…” Samuel begins, and when Steve meets his eyes he sees fear in those dark browns. Fear for you.

Steve looks at Bucky and he sees the same fear in his eyes too.

“What, Sam?” He urges him.

“…you’ll do it gently? She may not let you right away after what happened.” Sam points out.

Bucky nods. “You can’t force it again.”

“I know that. And I won’t. But I’m only going in there to get the job done. Once I have my heir, I’ll never have to touch her again.”

Steve can hardly wait.

The locket rests heavy against your breast. You lay on your back then shift onto your left side, moving slowly towards the center of your bed.

Luxurious aqua tinted silk slides along your freshly washed, peony and lavender scented skin. You’re struggling to sleep, as you have been since your marriage night.

You toss and turn, feeling the ache of your husband despite the pain having receded.

Fisting your sheets, you groan and then gasp as a large hand closes around your ankle.

Startled, you push yourself up slightly, just enough to look down at your feet and you watch as his Majesty’s large body moves closer towards you.

His hand, rough with a bit of callous, traces the length of your leg before it stops on your hip. His other hand traces your side but you’re shaking, scared.

He stops as he hovers over you, still not completely on top of you, and he looks deep into your eyes as you lay yourself back on your pillow, hands hovering between your bodies in tight painful fists.

His face darkens, saddens, there’s an upset there and you aren’t sure if he’s upset with you or himself, but he can see the terror in your eyes and in the way your body responds to him.

With a frustrated sigh, he shifts off of you towards your right to sit at the edge of your bed.

He smells like pine and chestnuts and the slightest hints of campfire smoke.

In the dim light of your room where the only source is your dwindling fire, you see the tense set of his shoulders.

You sit up slowly, but as you do, he slides further along the edge and makes to get up.

To leave you?

“No.” You say, louder than you normally would having just woken up. Your voice is clear and strong if only slightly confused. “Don’t go.”

You reach out for him and wrap your hand around his right wrist.

“Please…” You beg, wanting to see him. You release his hand and place it gently on the bed near him. “When did you get back?”

He’s quiet for so long—or it feels like a long time—that you’re not sure he’s going to answer you.

“Bucky sent word that we’d be back today.” He speaks, voice deep and soft. Disappointment saturating his tone. “Maggie would have met me at the gate.”

Those words are softer, almost like a lamentation and you realize that he was expecting you to wait for him. To be there when he got back.

You swallow hard, hating yourself for missing the opportunity and feeling a pang of painful disappointment in yourself for not exceeding the expectations that Margaret had set.

“His letter said that you would be back tomorrow morning.” You explain, hoping for his forgiveness. “I asked Nat to wake me up at first light. I’m sorry.”

He says nothing, just stares down at his hands in his lap. Thinking.

“How was your journey?” You wonder, hoping to maybe connect with him.

“I need an heir, Y/N. I need one quickly. You must be pregnant within the year or I must forfeit my crown to a man who will split the kingdom. Tear it apart for his own gain.” His Majesty explains. “I can’t let that happen.”

He sits taller and you process this information as quickly as you can.

So…he did really just marry you because he needed to. You’re not sure why that hurts when you already knew, but to hear him say it…you reach up to trace your necklace, lingering on the star before you reach out to touch his back.

You slide your hand up along the center, stroking the taut muscle and relishing in the soft white fabric of his shirt.

He reaches back and catches your wrist, pulling your hand away from its caress.

“Then I’ll give you an heir.”

He scoffs. “I can’t even touch you without you trembling.”

He’s angry at you for that?

“Not that I blame you.” He sighs. “I-…I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to. What happened before, I made a mistake. I need you to understand that Margaret was the love of my life and she wasn’t supposed to die. We were supposed to have a lifetime together…but she did die and I-”

“You love her.” You nod, your own shoulders slouching at the agony that this truth rips through you.

“I don’t mean to hurt you.” His Majesty says and you look up to see him watching you, brow furrowed as he takes in your pain.

You force a smile and shake your head. “No-I…I already knew that you loved her still. Everyone told me before I married you that you did.”

An idea suddenly strikes you and you lean towards him, sliding closer as he continues to hold your wrist.

“If you…I know that it might be a little…” There’s no easy way to say this so, maybe just saying it will be better? “If you need to pretend that I’m her, then you can. If it’ll help-?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He suddenly spits, looking uncomfortable and shocked.

There’s a frantic shift in his eyes however as he considers your words.

“If you know that I couldn’t love you, then why did you marry me?” He suddenly demands, still sounding upset.

“Father asked me to. For the good of our Kingdom…my old Kingdom. For the good of the family. Morgana is too young.” Does he understand? “It’s my duty.”

He turns to stare at you, watching your face for the crack that he expects to come you guess. Does he think you don’t mean it?

“And I…I’ve heard good things about you, your Majesty. That you are a good man. A kind man.” You sound unsure with that last bit and it doesn’t miss his notice.

He looks away again, frowning at the memory of your wedding night.

“I will give you an heir.” You promise him, shifting closer again. “I will help you save this Kingdom, your Majesty.”

He turns to look at you, considering your promise and you suppose that he believes you because he gets up, watching you the whole time as he turns to face you, unbuckles his pants, and pushes them down to expose himself.

Peach-pink cock fully erect again, scaring you a little but only because of what happened.

You shift away from him as he moves to crawl onto the bed, and he freezes.

He’s waiting for you, giving you time to reject him. To tell him to go away.

You won’t.

Willingly, you lay back, hand on your locket as you relax against your pillows as best you can. He watches your hand cling to the metal then pulls your blanket away to leave you in your nightdress. Plain white with puffed sleeves tied at the elbow and wrist with pink ribbon, and a square neckline.

He spares it only a glance as his eyes roam down along your body, looking for the hem which he finds.

Moving between your legs which he spreads with gentle hands, he pushes the gown up until it’s bunched around your waist.

He moves closer, his own knees and thighs working to spread your own legs wider as he lines himself up and this time, he waits for you to stop breathing so heavily before he pushes in just a little.

Eyes shut; you struggle to adjust to the sensation. The pressure.

“Keep going.” You tell him, breathless.

He pushes in further, sliding in more smoothly than the first time the he stops. He frowns.

“What is it?” You ask him, your voice hitching at the end as your core burns just a little.

“Nothing.” He says, sighing. He reaches up with one hand and licks his fingers, coating them in a slippery layer of spit.

He takes that hand and reaches between your legs where the two of you are joined and you gasp as he coats you with it. For a fleeting moment as he touches you, your body feels lighter. You feel an embarrassing rush of moisture where he’s already buried halfway inside you and he stops his touching when he’s able to push in further.

Leaning over you, he braces himself on the bed, hands on either side of your shoulders as he buries himself to the hilt with a groan.

He lays himself on top of you, squashing your covered breasts against his own as his hips begin to move. He slides out and back in, stretching you uncomfortably.

It’s not as painful. The steady rhythm he find is gentle and you’re able to adjust to it. Still, it doesn’t feel good and you find yourself shifting beneath him, trying to make room for him.

You spread your legs wider and he takes the opportunity to move a bit faster. No pain, but that pressure of being stretched makes you groan.

The noise seems to spur him on, and he leans back to look at you.

What must he see?

Your lips are parted, eyes unfocused, breathing heavy. For a quick moment it almost feels like he’s leaning towards you.

Your heart stutters as his lips inch over yours but then he swerves his head to the right and he buries his face into the side of your neck as he grips you tighter and pounds into you faster.

“Mmmm.” You whine, wanting this to be over.

It doesn’t feel bad but it’s not like what the girls described. There is no passion in this. It’s almost routine. As if this is how it should happen, so it does. There is no frenzy. There is no love.

“Mmph.” His Majesty responds, sounding much more pleased than you feel. A hot and wet something slides along the side of your neck and you realize that he’s licking you, his beard scratching at the skin.

His hips stutter, his teeth graze the side of your neck before he pulls back. As he rams himself into you one final time, he calls out a name…

“Maggie…” He grunts, breathing labored as his hot sticky release coats your insides.

You know that it was your idea. You offered it to him. You told him that if it helped then he could pretend you were her and you hadn’t been expecting it to hurt this much.

Your chest caves in, heart aching with jealousy because he clearly wishes you were his Margaret. Why had you given him the stupid idea?

You whimper, this time a sob, and he realizes this as he pulls back fast, staring down at your body beneath his.

“Did I hurt you?” He asks, looking you over repeatedly.

You shake your head and then turn away from him because if you look at him, it’ll be there. The jealousy. The pain. The love you feel for him even though you know you shouldn’t.

He doesn’t let you get away with it. “Look at me.”

It’s an order from your King, so you obey. You look at him. And he sees it. He sees the betrayal that you shouldn’t be feeling because you’re the one he isn’t in love with.

You told him he could pretend…but you hadn’t been expecting him to call her name.

Tears trickle down onto your pillow, leaving salty trails between your eyes and temples.

“Did I hurt you?” He repeats, reaching up to wipe a tear.

You shake your head again, but he’s not going to let this go, not after what happened before, so you’ll have to be honest.

“Y-You called me, M-Maggie.” You stutter, voice shaking with sorrow

His Majesty’s face pales, and he pushes off you a bit more before he slips out of you and moves to pull his clothes back on.

“I’m sorry.” He tells you, fastening his pants. “It slipped out.”

You turn away from him, curling yourself into as small a ball as you can while you pull your nightdress down to cover yourself again.

“Of c-course, your M-Majesty. It’s alr-right.” You lie, struggling to contain your sobs.

He sighs heavily, reaching over to pull your blanket back over you.

“I’ll be back tomorrow night.” He says, and with that, he leaves you.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Can I have a bath this morning?” You as Nat, as you watch her place your breakfast onto your table.

Surprised by the request, Nat turns to you with a furrowed brow.

She’s a goddess today in deep plum. Her red hair is a shock of fire around her shoulders. No, red like blood.

“Another one? You had one last night. I thought we would wait until midday for another bath.” She explains.

“I need a bath.” You insist.

That’s when she notices the tunic on the chair by the fire. The mussed sheets. The slightly heady scent that your food had masked when it had been right under her nose but now, she can smell the sex in the air.

“Are you okay?” She hurries to your side, placing her hand on your elbow as he begins to look you over.

“I’m fine.” You tell her, a small chuckle breaking through. “Not even sore this time.”

“When did he-?”

“Last night. Haven’t you seen Bucky? It was late but I thought he would have come to find you.” Getting up you move towards your food and stare down at the eggs and sausage. The potatoes and herbs smell good, but your stomach churns and you know you can’t eat.

Still too upset.

Nat moves to pull on the cord to call for a maid.

“The coward is probably hiding from me to avoid a scolding for not telling me he was leaving.” She’s smirking playfully despite her words.

The maid comes in.

“Her Majesty would like a bath.” Nat tells her and she curtsies then disappears as Nat makes her way back to you. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m not hungry.” You tell her, looking at her with sorrowful eyes. A broken heart hidden carefully behind a determined gaze.

“Eat something. Just a little. Did he hurt you again?” She checks, watching as the large tub is carried in and then slowly the maids begin to fill it with water.

They must have a ready supply of hot water for when baths are needed.

You scoff, a small smile stretching your chapped lips. You need water.

“Not the way he did last time.” You assure her. When she doesn’t stop staring, you chuckle and reach out to caress her arm. “I’m fine, Nat. Just tired. I wasn’t able to go to sleep after he left.”

She doesn’t believe you. “If he did anything, you’d tell me right?”

“Yes.” You nod, release her hand and move to the tub as the maids finish with the last pail.

Removing your nightgown, you let it fall to the ground and step into your bath. Nat hurries to apply your soaps and oils. No petals this morning. Too short notice probably.

The heat of the water helps you relax. You lay back, head resting against the taller back as your hands trace the surface of the water.

“Was his Majesty’s marriage with Queen Margaret passionate, Nat?” You ask her, staring at the crackling fire to your left.

“Yes.” She nods, moving to lather up a rag to scrub you.

You don’t protest when she starts to clean you up.

“Did he kiss her every day?” You wonder.

“In the morning and every chance he got.” She nods again.

“And hugs? Did he hug her?” You ask.

“All the time. Y/N, what’s this about?” She asks, frowning at you as you continue to stare at the fire.

“I wish I was Margaret.” You sigh, turning to Nat with a small worn out smile. “I’m so tired today. Can I sleep some more?”

Nat thinks about it then looks at your food before she look back down at you.

“You don’t have any obligations until next week. You can do what you like with your time until then. But will you do me a favor?” She checks, reaching to lather up your hair.

“What?”

“Eat your breakfast, and then you can sleep as much as you want.” She pleads, and because you know she only wants you to be healthy and happy, you nod with a genuine smile.

“Okay.” You turn back to the fire and watch as it dances. “Will he look for me today, do you think?”

“I’m sure he will, Y/N.” Nat tries to assuage your fears, but you can see right through her.

You look at her, a knowing smile on your peeling and dry lips. “He won’t even ask about me.”

You’re certain.

“I wish I’d listened to all of you and guarded my heart a little better. I guess I just wanted this to all work out as it should. Like some fairytale instead of a business arrangement.” You admit. “But at least I have a nice home and I am well taken care of. We can’t have everything, right? No matter. All I need to do is give his Majesty an heir and then I can love my son and my son only. He will be my world, Nat. And the King can cherish the memory of his precious Margaret all on his own.”

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bisexualklausmikaelson · 5 years ago

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it scares me to think you could love someone the way i love you

a/n: au after season 4 - or Catra and Glimmer are imprisoned together and learn to cope...through sex (glitra, mentions of glimmadora and catradora). 1.6k words, slight-smut warning and slight-angst.

She sleeps next to Catra but she dreams of Adora.

Of gold-spun hair, of starry blue eyes, of a smile that cuts sharper than a knife.

(Adora is poetry in motion - a girl in the shape of a warrior and a voice that sings into Glimmer’s ears as she slumbers away. When her nights are the loneliest, she thinks of her friend. Things here, in this imprisonment are rough and torturous but at least she has Adora.

She will always have Adora).

The mornings are the most painful - the sun drips down, honey-suckle yellow and filters through the cracks of their stone-hard confinement box. And suddenly Glimmer realizes once again, that she’s trapped inside a nightmare. There is a slight breeze in the daylight, it makes her wonder about the pastel sky and what it’s like right now, outside these four walls.

“You’re awake,�� Catra sleeps in the bed across from her, giving her a wide-eyed stare.

“Unfortunately,” Glimmer mumbles, turning to her side to face the cat-girl. “Sleep well?” she asks, in such a mundane fashion but, talking to her once-sworn-enemy every single day is normal in this world.

Because she really has no one else.

“I didn’t,” Catra softly says, yawning, “fall asleep, that is,” she adds on which immediately sends a warm red blush to Glimmer’s cheeks.

This means she probably heard her whispering Adora’s name throughout the night.

However, Catra doesn’t mention that - doesn’t mention the fact that she envies that at least the girl across form her has friends to dream about. Meanwhile, all Catra ever dreams about is fire.

“Oh,” Glimmer sighs. “I’m sorry,” she sadly says.

Catra takes in a sharp breath and exhales out ash. “It’s fine,” she offers. “I can try again anytime - after all, who knows how long we will be stuck in here,” Catra reminds her and it makes her even sadder.

Glimmer feels something tighten at the back of her throat and she swallows, hard. “About that,” she gulps. “How long do you think it been, since we first got thrown in here, I mean, ” she questions Catra.

“Hard to say,” she replies. “Days, maybe weeks?” Catra goes on to say.

A darkness closes in around Glimmer - she looks at Catra, really looks at her. She starts picturing her fingernails tracing the line of her jaw, down her neck. She pictures her hands around her, and she’s gagging, chocking down like there’s hair in her throat, crawling all the way down her larynx.

(She feels like she’s going mad - maybe she is or maybe, she’s just been here too long).

“Funny,” Glimmer tells her instead. “Feels like it’s been much longer,” she offers, trying her best to push her insane thoughts away.

Sometimes, it’s like falling down a rabbit hole.

Glimmer has nothing else to do - so her gaze lingers over towards Catra for much longer than she would like. Actually, she’d prefer if she didn’t look at her at all, she’s supposed to hate her. And the girl is evil, absolute malice from corner to corner, cheek to cheek.

But sometimes, she’s like a trail of light.

In this horrid cell where Glimmer has no one else, the cat-girl becomes her moonglow. She can can feel her fingers stroking along her arms and through her hair. It sends cold chills that last and all she can think of is fire - searing images into her mind like like bones sticking out the ground.

“You’re going to leave a mark,” Glimmer moans between kisses, between the fire that is Catra’s touch.

Her bites leave only a spark, but a spark is all she needs. It consumes her, eats everything in its path as she feels the girl clench and unclench around her bony knuckles - her other hand has her dress, pushing it up and revealing the creaminess of Glimmer’s thighs.

Catra looks up, with a raised brow. “Is that a problem?” she wonders, as she meets her gaze, unsteadily, eyes burning.

“Yes,” Glimmer gasps, still not accustomed to the fact that she had her greatest enemy down on her knees for her.

It could be poetic, in a sense - a sparkling princess and her fiery devil - only it isn’t.

Because it’s Catra and she knows exactly how to hurt her the most.

“Are you afraid Adora might see it?” she asks, shoving her fingers deeper inside, making the royal girl moan even louder.

“What?” she releases, unable to think straight, in this moment.

Catra passes her hot touch over the bite-mark she left on Glimmer’s thighs, if she looks close enough, it looks like a heart.

“You still think she’s coming to get you?” she asks, with a hand caressing the princess’s cheek.

Glimmer feels herself melting into Catra’s body.

“Of course she is,” she reluctantly answer, half-believing it, half-disbelieving it.

Her heart belongs to Adora, always and forever.

But her body is elsewhere.

Tip-toed feet make their way to her bed - when Glimmer is not crying into the night, she is begging for Catra’s carress, not with words but with her actions. With the extra space she leaves on her mattress for her, with the way she turns her head slightly over her shoulder, with the way she looks at her.

(Catra complies, crawling into bed beside the other girl and wrapping an arm around her waist. She goes to her princess without much dismay).

“What happens when we get back?” Glimmer looks at her as if she’s crescent-fallen. As if she’s crumbled into herself and dug her nails into the palms of her hands. Her heart swelling and thinking about reaching for the other girl, but she doesn’t.

“What do you mean?” Catra questions, tucking Glimmer’s cotton-candy soft hair behind her ear, fingers clumsy and slow and so un-Catra-like in every way.

“How do we explain this?” The princess asks. “Explain us?” she specifies.

The old Catra would want to scream - all passion and pent-up anger , scream for the girl who’s had her heart broken over and over again. Scream for wanting this moment to lasts longer. Scream for being a killer, a woman, a seventeen-year-old mess.

But instead, all she says is: “I haven’t thought about that, to be honest.”

Glimmer is silent for what seemed to be a very long time. She had to remind herself of who she was with but she just couldn’t remember anymore. “That’s all I ever think about,”she sighs, looking sad.

“We’re going to be okay,” the monster in her bed whispers to her, electric-eyed and full of lust and desire. “You and I,” she, unexpectedly, offers her a smile.

Glimmer’s fingers are caught in the mess that is the wild cat’s hair, all tangled together and twisted - pulling her closer towards her, almost as if she wanted to fuse together with her.

“You’re so different here,” she murmurs, tucking her head under Catra’s chin. “It’s nice,” she murmured again, closing her eyes and inhaling her scent.

Sometimes, Glimmer thinks she doesn’t want to go back

Catra steals kisses from her.

She leans back into her - wraps a palm around the back of her neck, eyes closed. There’s a sudden flash of light that blinds her even through closed lids. It feels like there’s a long line of heat at her back, skin sticking to skin, sweat dripping down as she breathes hard and fast.

Glimmer hates her for it, for making her so wild-eyed and hungry and desperately wanting to grind her face against her dripping wet -

“I’m almost there,” Glimmer exhales, as Catra’s fingers draws sinful circles around her clit.

“C’mon Sparkles,” she breathes in to her ear, “come for me,” she orders and it makes the princess finish so fast she almost cries out.

She can’t stand how the other girl so easily gets under her skin.

(Catra can make her come, can make her cry, can make her beg for the most unholy things - but, in the night, it is still Adora’s name that she whispers in her sleep).

They’re being transported to another cell.

Catra kicks and screams while she’s being dragged away and another guard holds Glimmer back - they couldn’t do this to her - they couldn’t take her too. Not after every thing, not after losing her mother, all her friends, her kingdom -

She coudln’t lose Catra too.

Glimmer’s new cell is much smaller. She doesn’t know if isolation is this place’s latest torture method for her, but whatever it is, it’s working. She realizes that she had once been human and beautiful - full of light and life. She had once loved a monster too - a monster so feared and who made her feel so alive. She couldn’t explain it - she would laugh, if the world were not so very cruel.

(In the distance, there is a hero and a heroine making their way towards them. Heavy feet and loud steps, a brightness so blinding it’s almost self-destructive in its nature.

“Glimmer, are you in there?” Adora whispers, golden locks hanging down the wide open crack of her cell.

“We’re here to save you,” Bow says, to the empty air.

And suddenly, out of the rumble and destruction, crawls out this girl covered in dust.

“Hey Adora,” Catra sings in the same way she always does, making the blonde realize just how great of a mistake she had made).

#spop #glitra #catradora #glimmadora #glimmatradora #glimmer #catra #adora #she ra #glimmer x catra #glimmer x adora #adora x catra #munea writes

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serendipitioussurvival · 5 years ago

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Be Still Their Hearts

It was very likely that she was not conventionally ‘sane’, or so Peter Hale - an investigator for the California Supernatural Investigation Unit - surmised. He’d seen a lot of ‘insane’ suspects in his years but never one quite like this. She was small, almost pixie-like - though they had checked and rechecked the DNA pulled from her and found no traces of Fae or Supernatural DNA - and got along easily enough with the other detectives and scientists on his team.

That, truly, had been the first clue that she wasn’t exactly sane. She seemed put together, too put together for someone they found knee-high in a literal silo of human corpses.

‘Dad was a Sheriff,’ she explained with an enticing gleam to her whiskey amber eyes, ‘kind of got used to death when I was too young to form any other opinion on it.’ he guessed she was talking about the death of her mother, another case that was sitting on his desk back at the office. It reeked of Supernatural interference and a hasty cover-up, and if this clever girl - and oh, she was clever, there was no mistaking that - had figured that much out too it would make sense to have been the final, driving chip into her splintering sanity.

No one started out as ‘insane’, he sure hadn’t, despite his sisters - Talia Hale, current Director of the California Branch of the SI - firm beliefs of the opposite. Still, she’d been completely honest and compliant throughout the majority of the process, another indication that she was either uncaring of the outcome or firmly sound in her decisions that she didn’t think she’d be caught. Peter never once questioned if she had killed those people, a tally of which he’d yet to receive on just how many had been killed, despite the wavering doubts of some of his team.

“Hale,” he answered his phone before sliding his Bluetooth in.

“It’s Erica, sir.” ah, his favorite science nerd turned to muscle. “We’ve gotten the official tally on the body count, as well as the background check we ran on our suspect.” she never beat around the bush and dropped potential suspects with her Kanima venom quicker than they could fire a gun or shift. He never regretted turning her, despite her questionable fight with her inner traumas, and because he hadn’t - because that bond was pure enough - she existed on a very rare, very fine line between Kanima and Werewolf, a hybrid with brains as well as brawn. She was easily his favorite.

“Go ahead,” she always waited to see if he were in a position to hear the specific information too, something he greatly appreciated. Most of the others on his team rarely took a second to care if he were in the company of others and would blurt out details over the phone.

“Twenty four have been identified as various missing persons through California, all different ethnicities, ages, and genders. The only thing they have in common is that they used to be Emissaries for various packs that are no longer active.” so she was killing emissaries? Why, and how come their departments hadn’t been made aware that many emissaries were missing?

“You said used to,” he mused, pulling into the parking lot. “I assume you mean that as before their deaths, and not after.”

“Yes, sir. We’re still looking into the packs but so far eight out of the twenty-four never existed. Two of the associated addresses were county Police departments, one was a Walmart, and another belonged to the home of a Druid with protection wards that made my skin itch.” ouch indeed.

“I enjoy a good bet so I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the two that registered the police station as the Pack Center were mutilated heavily.” it would be an emotional reaction, after all, a crime of passion, and yet another link connected her to the case.

“Yes sir, we had to run dentals on both. We’re suspecting that the four other bodies that were strung up on the sides of the Silo were also using police headquarters as a pack center, it would give us a pattern.”

“Any insight on why our perp decided to make a pond of carcasses?” a thoughtful hum on her end and a loud PA for Boyd - her fiance and the other muscle on his team.

“We thought Preta at first, they’re more East Asia oriented though.”

“Why Preta and why did cast it aside?” his shoulders dropped just slightly once he started down the familiar hall to his office.

“Preta’s are beings of insatiable hunger,” she began, “mainly for something humiliating and/or unconventional. Cadavers, Feces, infection, you name it. It would’ve explained the body pile up and the literal pond of bodily fluids but no remaining tissue was found in her stomach or in her teeth. Most of the bodies were too decomposed to see if any organs had been taken out or for a legitimate cause of death to be ruled. Some were mutilated, some had their eyes and hearts gauged out, others had their heads twisted all the way around until they were decapitated.” and that required a strength that their current suspect didn’t seem to have.

“Any word back on her DNA check?” another sigh, this one just a tad more honest than the last. Erica, despite her being his favorite, didn’t suspect the young woman any more than the rest of his team did - though Whittemore was on his side, strangely enough.

“Yes, very faint traces of witch DNA, too few to grant her access to magic but just enough that she can see the resulting aura’s of the supernatural.” not uncommon in this day and age either, almost everyone had some traces of supernatural DNA, if they didn’t they were either part of the old Hunter clans or the Purists families. “Her background check confirmed her story as well. Mother died when she was six, Father was KIA when she was fourteen. Stanford graduate with a Bachelor's in Physiology, then a Major in Mythology and Supernatural societies from Berkley.”

“What information have you gathered about the father?” a slight pause on her end followed by shuffling papers. It gave him enough time to get his keys in the door before she absolutely floored him with her next words.

“Jeorek Stilinski, former Sheriff of Beacon County. They caught his murderer but the name was stricken from the records.” a few clever taps onto her keyboard - no doubt overriding the clearance by using his - and then sucked in a sharp breath. “His murderer was Theo Raeken.”

He broke his key off in his office door and stared at it for a solid minute. Theo Raeken was a notorious serial killer with a body count in the upper fifties, he had been six at the time of his first murder - his sister, she had been pushed, spine broken and-

And her heart had been gauged out.

“Erica, pull up the file on Theo Raeken.” Theo Raeken who had been found strung up, split in two, with his eyes and heart gouged out. He barely heard her faint ‘got it’ before he twisted his doorknob and broke the lock, forcibly opening the damned thing. “Are there any schools listed under any of his aliases, I want colleges - community or otherwise.”

“He had a year of being an undecided major at Beacon Hills community under his alias Theodore Cander,” a pause followed by a muttered curse, “two months before his death he attended the Supernatural societies course at Berkeley.” that connection, the one class they shared and the fact that he had killed her father was what had him in front of her cell not even seven hours later.

“You look tired, Detective,” he rose a perfect brow at her otherwise well-rested appearance. No conscience and no worry for her current predicament - even more boxes checked against her innocence. “Though I’m not opposed to the eye candy you are in a tux and your confidence in it I’ve gotta ask, what brings you to visit me?” she batted her eyelashes and put her palm flat against her chin, posing. “Have I caught your heart?”

“You killed Theo Raeken,” he expected her to trip up, freeze, or even show some hint that he was right in her gaze, her scent, her heartbeat.

“I did? Wish I could’ve cherished it, he killed my dad after all.” she shrugged and plopped down on the floor of her cell, staring expectantly at him through the glass wall separating them. “How’d you draw that conclusion.”

“Quite a few of your victims had their hearts and eyes gauged out, the same way Theo Raeken was killed.” he really shouldn’t find a suspect so intriguing and yet he did. She put herself literally below him - something that either indicated she didn’t see him or the situation as a threat - she was complacent and honest - to a point, certainly - but didn’t seem remorseful of the deaths she caused. She didn’t seem righteous or angry either, so that particular complex was thrown out the window.

“I like your gut instincts,” she praised, moonglow skin looking particularly ethereal under the fluorescent glow of the overhead lights. “So you think, what, that I killed Theo Raeken, got a taste for it, went on a murder spree, and -?” she motioned with both palms up at her situation, “lead you to the bodies so you could catch me?” he hated and adored how careful she was with what she said. Always hypotheticals, always vague answers or clever half-truths. It’d been a long time since he had an actual challenge and this twenty-something young woman was proving the most enticing one yet.

“I think you got bored,” that caused a warm glow to ignite behind her amber eyes, glossing them up attractively. “I think,” he began again, tamping down the desire to impress the darkness in her that called so temptingly to the darkness in him that he’d buried so long ago. “that you were trying to be normal, and then you saw Theo in your Supernatural Societies class in Berkeley, recognized him, and gave up on being normal for vengeance.” the smile that was curling at the edges of her lips made his blood sing, “After him you finished your degrees and sat out to get rid of people just like him. Not other serial killers, but people who were false to society while endangering others. It’s why they’re all former Emissaries to non-existent packs, and why those that used police stations for pack centers were strung up. They were a message,”

“What’d they say?” her scent remained amused, her tone was husky and borderline wanton.

“That they didn’t deserve any kind of afterlife, that they deserved to exist in agony.” maybe he said that with just a bit too much conviction, a little too much understanding because the moment the words left his mouth her scent bled a sliver of arousal that smelled like sandalwood. He couldn’t very well use that as a sign of her guilt when his own arousal had begun to answer back, he was just in control enough to not let it.

“An interesting assessment,” her words were slow as her scent slowly righted once again, “one which I’m sure the killer would agree with.”

“The killer, not-” before he could finish Erica was opening the door at the end of the hall and practically sprinting to him. Suspect forgotten in the face of Erica’s worry, something that hadn’t shown since-

“The Argent’s are here, Talia signed her release to them due to lack of convincing evidence.” he gave a singular glance backward, caught the vicious curl of her lips, and began marching down the hallway with his cellphone in hand.

“Talia, I need you to negate that transfer-” his sister sighed heavily on the other end, patronizing even without words.

“Peter, you’ve no concrete evidence that this very human girl has killed twenty-four Emissaries, most of which were bigger than her. There’s no suspected partner, and she’s been compliant with all our tests and questions. While I do not like Gerard nor do I trust the Argents it is now in their jurisdiction to clean everything up.” he glared darkly at the wall of the lab and pressed his thumb and pointer to the bridge of his nose.

“Talia, she’s guilty. I know she’s guilty, and she’s not just human she’s-” a pause, then a snort of derision from his sister over the line.

“Exactly, you’ve no evidence for any of these accusations. My decision is final,” before he could question why the North American East Region head hunter Gerard Argent was here to pick up someone so plain and banal she hung up, ending their discussion.

“Why do you think she’s guilty,” Isaac - his lead interrogator - asked, cherubic features pinched in confusion.

“You’re questioning my judgment too?” he raised his hands in mock surrender, drawing another irritated sigh from Peter. “I know she’s guilty because my gut tells me she is.”

“Okay,” the relent was not what he had expected, he was so used to everyone - read sister, boss (also sister), her emissary, and a good portion of his family for the last couple years - second-guessing him or questioning him. “You’re a self-serving, sarcastic jackass most of the time,” his alarm must’ve shown because now Isaac was explaining, “you also have a terrible - if it costs me my life then why bother? Mentality, but whenever you tell us to follow a lead because it’s your gut instinct we always find a connection.”

“Sarcastic, self-serving jackass?” Erica clapped him roughly on his shoulder with a burst of laughter.

“The sassiest, kind of makes what she said a little more confusing. I’ll be waiting? Thought it meant she’d be waiting to be found innocent, makes things a little confusing.” that joy, that relief, it was all short-lived when they watched the Argent’s wheel - yes, wheel, because they apparently saw fit to have her in a straight jacket with a muzzle, tied to a wheelchair, with her ankles chained together - their suspect down the ramp into the back of their armored vehicle. It, as well as the fact that Gerard Argent himself got into the same van with her, told Peter all he needed to know.

They knew her, they knew what she was, and they knew she was guilty. More than that they had specifically wanted her, but why?

“Talia, you’re not listening!” his shout shut his sister up, even if she did flash her alpha reds at him in annoyance. “You don’t restrain a human like that unless they’re not human!”

“As much as I hate it, Alpha Hale, Peter may be on to something.” Lydia Martin, head of the forensics department of their building, groused. “I only met her twice. The first time to gather the DNA samples she had death coating her like a second skin. I thought it was just because she had been in that vat,” a shiver of disgust, “but just now, when I sedated her for the transfer, it was still there.” she tapped perfectly manicured blood-red nails against her throat and grimaced. “I’ve had a scream itching at the back of my throat all day but it’s slowly getting worse.” a glare his way followed by a softer smile to Talia - who was finally looking like she may have regretted her choice. “I’m a Banshee, I predict death, but I’m smart too, Alpha Hale.” She bowed her head slightly and cleared her throat. “There’s something off about her, if you don’t trust my intuition then trust my word as a Banshee.”

“The tests came back negative of supernatural-” Talia began, shoulders slumping just so.

“There are ways to fake them,” Lydia cut in, “But it could also be that whatever she is isn’t yet registered.” hazel green eyes narrowed on Peter, “Just like we had to do with Reyes, her hybridization was rare and hadn’t yet been recorded. Her DNA analysis came back regular with no known secondary strain. Since we have we’ve registered only two other Kanima Hybrids. Whatever Stilinski is we don’t have it registered, meaning she’s either rare-” she trailed off, head tilting to the side.

“Or it’s not a DNA thing.” now both of them were looking at him, “Derek’s serial killer girlfriend, the one Deucalion had to put down, what was she again?” anger flashed across his sister expression before it was quickly replaced with horror.

“A demon,” she cursed and sat back down to put her head in her hands. “She was a Demon.” With a sigh, she picked up her phone and dialed the one number he knew she really hated to call.

“Alpha Hale,” Deucalion greeted, tone pleased. “To what do I owe this rare honor?”

“The Jennifer Blake, the Demon you put down, how did you know she was a Demon?” he hummed in thought before he, too, put her on speaker.

“Because I could see her aura, back when I was blind.” when he had his eyes impaled by Gerard Argent’s arrows, he means. “I assume you’ve run into yet another one, is it yet another inspiring lover for the young Derek?”

“No. Can they pass DNA tests as human?” a deep sigh followed by a brief call for Kali - his head researcher.

“Demons are human, essentially. They’re born, but a Demon is born in the human when an absolute corruption of their soul happens. It’s harder than stories and television makes it seem and it has to be completely willing on the human's end. They don’t die, they don’t become emotionally mute or psychotic, but they do have the abilities of whatever level Demon they become.”

“It’s not a possession? What do you mean by the level of the demon, and how do you know all this?” a condescending chuckle in the background had Peter’s hackles rising. He didn’t like his sister at times, but she was his sister and only he could badmouth her to her face.

“No, it’s like - ugh, human terms. It’s like when a Caterpillar forms a chrysalis and turns into a butterfly. It’s still the caterpillar, but it has a different name and a different form, only now it can fly. Same thing with Demons, they’re still mortal, but now they have extra abilities. So far only four Demons have been registered by our team. A level one is a basic grunt, they seem to come to the weaker willed ones, basic added strength but low intellect. Level two seems to frequently appear from average prey. They have the strength of a beta wolf and can see auras, they know at a glance whether you’re human or not and what kind of supernatural you are. Level three’s are not so common but not rare, they can tap into magic use and pass as a witch or Druid, have the strength and speed of a Beta wolf, but they’re highly susceptible to Iron. Level fours are… difficult. They have a strength that rivals an Alpha and all the abilities of a Darach. They don’t need any sacrifices but they hunt,” a pause then an ascending grunt from Deucalion. “We captured one who called themselves the Huntsmen, they’re the ones who take other damned souls. They don’t hunt other Demons but they will fight with them regularly. They don’t have a social structure or pack sense but they are loyal to a singular partner. The one we had wouldn’t talk until we threatened his mother, so it seems the partner can be platonic.”

Okay, well she hadn’t expressed any abilities so he could almost rule out a level four except…

Except something about her still struck him. She wasn’t of basic intellect and she definitely was not average prey. If she had been able to see Auras then she would’ve reacted to seeing Erica for the first time, she hadn’t. ‘But they hunt,’ Kali had said, they hunt and they take other damned souls, souls like Emissaries who weren’t but were reaping the rewards.

“Kali,” he was very aware that his sister was back to glaring at him, “The souls they take, what do they do with them?” the pleased rumble over the line made the predator inside him curl up in joy.

“They burn them, apparently only a few of the damned souls make the cut to be an actual demon.” a pause, “You have a Demon you’re hunting, don’t you? I told Duke we had to go back to California when Theo Raeken showed up dead, but we were busy.”

“Why do you say that?” there had been nothing - aside from the grisly remains of his corpse left behind - that signified supernatural occurrence.

“Because it’s the first Demon on Demon killing I’ve ever seen, whatever predator you’re hunting is going to be a challenge.” she sounded wistful and wanting. It was no secret that Deucalion’s pack, who he made into his entire mobile branch of the SI, was of the brutal sort. Every one of his pack were fighters and THEN they were geniuses. Ennis, the main muscle, was also a former surgeon. Kali, his fiance, had a black belt in nine different martial arts with a masters in forensics and criminology - she was also a tad insane. Deucalion had been formerly blind, yet even then he retained his fighting capabilities and had extended the knowledge of werewolf senses tenfold. He, currently, had too many degrees to ever need worry about what he would do for the rest of his life - though he need not worry, as he currently was filthy rich thanks to proper investments. The twins could combine into a giant, invincible fucking werewolf and were currently getting their Doctorates. If they were saying that level fours could be difficult then perhaps he should bring Erica along when he followed the Argent Convoy.

“-ause,” his sister had clearly asked how they knew it was Demon on Demon murder. “Xander, our level four we’ve got under quarantine, has been searching for the demon responsible for his death. The Demons were born at the same time, Raeken’s was stronger ‘cause of all his murders and yet this little fledgling Demon manages to kill him like that. I’d applaud the one responsible before gauging their-” anything else was cut off by an ashen Scott McCall, Talia’s secretary.

“Ma’am, it’s the Argent convoy, it’s been attacked.”

“What?!” she barked, angry and panicked - no doubt because Peter had been right. He’d rejoice and rub it in her face if his wolf weren’t currently prowling under his skin.

“You had the Demon and let it go,” Deucalion mused from the phone, “do you need our assistance, Alpha Hale?”

“No.” Peter snapped, glaring at his sister. “You didn’t listen to me before, listen to me now.” his wolf, something he’d been so out of tune from, something that had been a part of him and then muted by his sister, was making itself known for some reason and it had all started with her. He needed to know why, he needed to catch her.

“No, Alpha Blackwood, thank you for your information.” by the time the phone was hung up Scott already had a GPS signal blinking away on a map, almost as if it were waving.

“Play the recording,” thank god for Peter’s suspicious ass for insisting that they record every Tip - anonymous or not - that was sent into their building.

‘My name is Mieczysława Angelika Stilinski, but you can call me Stiles. It wasn’t very nice to sign me away, Talia, but thank you for the opportunity regardless. Gerard Argent met a gruesome, slow death that I took great pleasure in. His convoy is also dead, well, except for three of them. By now you have most likely called Deucalion and got the whole shebang about Demons, so you’ll know that these three were spared ‘cause they were pure. Good on them too, surrounded by so many dickbags.’ the clink of metal cufflinks told them all that she had gotten rid of the shackles around her legs. ‘I’m using one of their cell phones so you can pinpoint it and come save them.’ a muffled, female grunt followed by a slight pop, ‘Nice wallpaper, by the way, don’t worry I’m patient.’ a chuckle and then the line went dead. Peter wasn’t listening to whatever his sister had to say, too focused on trying to figure out what she had meant by that last line.

‘Nice wallpaper, by the way, I’m patient?’ she was definitely a level four then, he’d known of a single Darach to be able to teleport. I’m patient, ‘I’ll be waiting’, Erica had said. She would be waiting for… for him? Why, more importantly, where-

‘Nice wallpaper,’ oh she was not ballsy enough to go to his house. She had sent that message for him, she wanted him to come to her and had set it up so they’d be alone. So he sent Erica and his team to the convoy knowing full well they wouldn’t find her. She could’ve collected his damned soul the first time she saw him, despite that something told him that she didn’t want to kill him. He wanted his own answers too.

Such as why his wolf responded so savagely to wanting to be near her when Talia had nearly disconnected the connection between them after he went on a revenge killing spree on a purist family that had nearly burned Cora alive. She spent a year in a medically induced coma so her body could heal itself and Talia, her mother, had told him to calm down. Did Stiles know something about that night, did she know something about him that Talia might’ve made him forget?

No, no he couldn’t be questioning his sister right now, not with a Demon present.

So why wouldn’t the thought leave his mind until he was staring at his front door?

“You can come in, I promise I’ll only bite if you ask me too!~” she singsonged from inside his home, proving his thoughts true. He just wasn’t expecting to see her with a frilly bright orange apron on while moving around his kitchen, making some kind of delicious smelling stir fry. Even more was the fact that the Kate Argent sat at the head of his table, glaring heatedly at Stiles’s back, struggling against barbed wire that wrapped completely around her, tying her to the chair. “I brought you a present,” Stiles cooed, “Do you like it?”

“Love it,” he replied immediately, confusion and agitation rising even as his wolf preened under his skin. “Why?”

“Because you don’t remember, I had to be sure that you didn’t and weren’t just yanking my chain.” she moved the pan off the heat and stepped directly in front of him, watching with warm amber eyes as he struggled with what he wanted to do. Crush her, kind of, against him or against the floor? He wasn’t sure. “Talia took from you,” her hand reached out to brush her fingertips against his breast pocket, the resounding slap of his hand encasing her wrist drowned out both their shocked gasps.

Her skin lit him like fire, though not literally, it made every muscle up to his shoulder clench in heady anticipation. It felt familiar though he’d never touched her before. Talia took from him, how would she know?

“Peter,” his gaze snapped to her eyes and watched in fascinated horror as her iris swirled like the milky way before the once amber was now cloudy white. “remember.”

And he did, god he did, and how he burned. Talia had taken his memories, his wolf, she had fabricated his very nature. He was not a nine to five guy, he was vengeful, protective, and by god he was hedonistic. What’s more is that this beautiful, bloodthirsty little thing had been his, just as he had been hers, they had hunted and slaughtered and enjoyed the finer things in life together.

“Cora wasn’t almost killed by purists,” he mumbled, calloused fingers brushing ever so gently against her mole and freckle dotted cheek. “She was burned by you.” and then beta blues were blazing as they centered on Kate Argent. “I had killed all of your little accomplices and then my sister,” it was said as a curse, “My sister made me forget so she wouldn’t have to go to war with your family.” he couldn’t help the way his shoulders sagged in relief as her nimble fingers work to undo his tie and the first two buttons of his shirt. “She sent you to them,” he murmured, unknowing of when his arm wrapped around her waist to draw her near and uncaring because she was plastered against his side with a pliant hand resting over his heart. “knowing who you were.”

“No, your wolf protected me from his alpha.” more preening. That darkness that had rested at the back of his mind, the sudden connection of his wolf after near three years of silence -

Three years. She had waited three years for him. “You knew me, even when you didn’t.” he was able to profile her so easily because he had known her. “She would’ve killed me if she had known,” rough fingertips brushed over his cheekbones and his slicked-back hair, ruffling it just so that it was no longer slicked back. “You care about your family and you finally have that bond with them,” her thick brows furrowed, milky white bleeding back to expose the sad amber hues. “If you want to forget again, forget everything-”

He silenced her with a sound kiss, devouring the whimper she gave before she melded her body against his. He had forgotten what kissing her felt like, the fire that she was, the raw yearning she evoked with him. It had been that way since she came across him killing Kate’s henchmen and offered to join, wolf howling mate - then he had her screaming it all night. They’d been together a week - a single, blissful week of not having to hide their natures, of belonging - and in that week he found she was his true mate and he was her soul bonded, the one she’d be loyal to no matter what - out of choice.

“This gift,” he breathed, uncaring for their current witness to their heated makeout. “Marks our new beginning.” his relationships with his team had been built on lies, his relationship with his sister was fabricated, none of them would want him how he was - and he honestly didn’t want them. “Care to go to war with the Argents with me, darling?” Her smile was absolutely savage and spoke to his wolf on levels the moment he saw her gleaming teeth.

It took twenty-four hours, sixteen missed calls and nearly thirty unanswered texts before Talia went to her brother's listed address, fearing the worst. Whatever she had imagined did not prepare her for the reality of the situation. Kate Argent hung from an empty living room with gauges in her throat, stripes of skin under her fingernails, and the bottom half of her body in the fireplace, charred beyond recognition.

‘JUST IN, ALPHA TALIA HALE OF HALE PACK WILL BE STEPPING DOWN AS DIRECTION OF THE CALIFORNIA SUPERNATURAL INVESTIGATION UNIT PENDING INVESTIGATIONS OF FRAUD, EMBEZZLEMENT, AND NEEDLESS ENDANGERMENT. NEXT UP; NEW SERIAL KILLERS ON THE LOOSE?! STAY TUNED FOR INFORMATION ON THE DEATHS OF OVER A DOZEN HUNTER’S ASSOCIATION HUNTERS AND HOW THE HUNTER’S ASSOCIATION ITSELF IS IMPROVING WITH THE LOSS! THIS IS AMELIA GADES WITH YOUR CNN NEWS,’

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johannesviii · 5 years ago

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Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2019

The last list, for now. It’s been a wild ride.

Not the best of these lists, but some really refreshing stuff charted that year, and what was good was super good. And also, here’s a barely elligible #1 that nobody seemed to care about for some reason.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

In 2019, my finger was fixed, I dropkicked depression in the garbage bin (with a little help from Eurovision because it was super good and full of hilarious shit), got married, and went on a roadtrip on Vancouver Island (BC, Canada), and that was my first real travel in 13 years. Met a lot of great people, seen amazing places, trees, bears and whales. And planes are also part of the adventure when you’re not used to them (you can watch movies on little screens from your seat now?? I had no idea. I watched so many movies). It was very exciting.

I also saw VNV Nation live in February, for the third time in six years. This time I had enough budget to buy a tshirt. I wasn’t expecting that concert to be even better than the previous two. At that point the new album had only been out for a couple of months and we still knew the lyrics of most of the new songs and Ronan’s face was constantly broadcasting a kind of “...........how” expression (face it guys, we like you. A lot). And they finished with All Of Our Sins and let me tell you, half the club was ready to start a revolution by the time that was over. Super intense.

Ok. 2019 albums! First, let’s talk about some negative things. Coldplay released Everyday Life at the end of the year. It was... uh. It was basically how I stopped loving their new stuff. That’s a very sad conclusion (for now) to this saga. This is exactly what I feared would have happened after Viva La Vida, aka them trying to go back to their earlier sound - except in the meantime we’ve got three fantastic albums with songs full of energy and joy. So I’m not too mad about this, just disappointed.

Within Temptation released Resist, and it wasn’t very good either, but I appreciated the general aesthetic of it. More SF-themed albums in symphonic metal, please. NF released The Search and while I’m still not a fan there’s a song on it that would have been #1 on this list if it had been elligible, so that’s something. And Carly Rae Jepsen released Dedicated and it was super good so why isn’t she getting new hits. Why. It feels unfair. Oh, and Avantasia made Moonglow and that’s the first time I’ve cared about their stuff in like a decade or so. Ghost In The Moon is super good, check it out.

But the big event of the year music-wise, as far as I’m concerned, was the return of two bands I thought we had lost forever. Of course My Chemical Romance reformed, but they don’t have new music yet, so the main event for this post is the return of Tool with Fear Inoculum. It’s not even their best album, but having a pretty good new Tool album in the year of our lord 2019 wasn’t at all something I was counting on. Of course, the hardcore fans are still as insufferable as ever (insert the “you need a pretty high IQ” copypasta here), but it didn’t spoil my enjoyment of it. Come on! Their first album in 13 years! 80 minutes of hypnotic heavy rhythms and weird shit, an album that trolled me when I opened it by playing a music video while I was looking somewhere else (yeah I jumped), and they even managed to land a track for one week on the US hot 100! Again, Tool! On the hot 100! in 2019! Unbelievable. Are we starting to return to the good timeline? I certainly hope so.

Unelligible songs, now. The Search by NF would have topped this list super easily. Might be one of the songs I listened to the most in 2019, actually. Now That I Found You by Carly Rae Jepsen, again, should have been a hit, and I beg you to watch this music video if you’ve never seen it. The 1975 released the super unexpected People, which was still good, and also Frail State of Mind. And most unexpected of all, three artists I didn’t care about at all teamed up and made absolute gold: I Think I’m OKAY, by Machine Gun Kelly, YUNGBLUD and Travis Barker. That would have been the second slot on this list if it had been elligible. Or maybe the first, even? Not sure. I’m just so happy this kind of angry but uplifting music is starting to become popular again. I just love everything about this song.

Here’s a short list of honorable mentions!

Roi (Bilal Hassani) - I don’t like this song a lot, but I do like it, I’m glad it was our song for the ESC 2019, and Bilal is a very nice and endearing person, and everyone who disrespects him on twitter is free to come fight me in the pit, where I’m still waiting with that tambourine from my 1992 list.

Con Calma (Daddy Yankee, Katy Perry, Snow) - You already know I liked the original Informer a lot, so I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t pleased to hear this clone of it on the radio.

Breathin’ (Ariana Grande) - Here’s the usual “if I had better taste this would be higher” honorable mention.

Summer Days (Martin Garrix) - In the absence of any new hit song from Macklemore this will do in a pinch.

Circles (Post Malone) - The fact that everyone seems to adore this and I’m over there saying “it’s ok I guess” probably means I will never love Post Malone nor understand the hype about him, and that’s okay, I can live with that.

High Hopes (Panic! At the Disco) - Still elligible. Still good but too borderline annoying to make the list.

How Do You Sleep (Sam Smith) - This year Sam Smith pulled a Viva La Vida and decided to stop making boring music all of a sudden and I’m LIVING FOR THIS. I certainly hope they continue in that direction.

And now, the list.

10 - La Grenade (Clara Luciani)

US: Not on the list / FR: #55

The only semi-filler on the list. I still like it a lot. Don’t have anything to say about it, though.

9 - Panini (Lil Nas X)

US: #40 / FR: Not on the list

Wasn’t too impressed by this at first and it took a while to grow on me, but the chorus is a nice little earworm, and “hey panini, don’t you be a meanie” has a tendency to pop in my head when I read hateful comments on the internet now. And Lil Nas X is just too endearing to be ignored. We’re so lucky to have someone who became famous so quickly and instantly decided to dress like a Jojo character and have the geekiest music videos possible and still be super nice and humble. We don’t deserve this guy.

8 - Dance Monkey (Tones And I)

US: Not on the list / FR: #6

I’m super glad the US are finally getting on the hype train in 2020 because this is a ton of fun. If the voice was juuuuuust a little less grating this would be even higher. Impossible to get it out of your head and somehow in this case that’s a good thing.

7 - Dancing With a Stranger (Sam Smith & Normani)

US: #14 / FR: Not on the list

As I said in the honorable mentions, Sam Smith pulled a Viva La Vida and decided to stop making boring music all of a sudden and I couldn’t be happier about that. This song is still a bit too calm for my taste most of the time, but when I’m in the right mood, it’s just fantastic.

Again, I hope Sam Smith continues in that direction, because if you had told me a couple of years ago that I would start to like their stuff one day, I would have laughed out loud.

6 - Bad Guy (Billie Eilish)

US: #4 / FR: #16

Duh.

I’m not as enthusiastic about When The Party’s Over as a ton of people are, mostly because, well, it’s a slow emotional song with little to no colour in it and by now you’re already aware I tend to have next to zero interest in that kind of songs. Bad Guy, on the other hand, is half hilarious half scary in equal doses, and even if I’m not super fond of the weird outro, it’s still a fantastic, weird as shit song, and I’m really glad Billie Eilish exists. Can’t wait to see where she goes from there.

I’m super glad this song didn’t come out when I was a teenager myself though. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I would have survived if the musical landscape from 16 years ago had been as depressed as it currently is. Thank god music is slowly getting more energetic again in 2020. Let’s stay on that track.

5 - Hey Look Ma I Made It (Panic! At The Disco)

US: #61 / FR: Not on the list

I follow several music critics on youtube and over the course of 2019, I’ve seen undiluted vitriol and hatred against this song (Spectrum Pulse even made a list of his “worst hit songs” of the decade and put this one at #10! TEN!!). And... I don’t really get where it’s coming from? Maybe I’m too literal-minded to see what the problem is with a sarcastic song saying “look I sold out and now I found success again! And it’s not that great!”. I just think it’s a lot of fun. Thank god Todd put it on his best list, at least we can agree on one thing for once.

It is hilarious that after putting so many Fall Out Boy songs on my lists, the one that I love the most from Panic! is the sellout song. Not sure why this was huge while the even better Say Amen wasn’t, though.

4 - Sunflower (Swae Lee & Post Malone)

US: #2 / FR: Not on the list

I usually don’t get the “chill” songs that tend to be successful these days but this one, unlike most Post Malone songs (bar Circles), has lovely pastel colors and a cloudy texture and it’s a really good vibe. It took several months to grow on me but it sure did.

In about ten years, people will listen to Sunflower and be submerged by nostalgia, mark my words.

3 - Old Town Road (Lil Nas X)

US: #1 / FR: #1 (see, everyone agrees for once)

Everyone on the planet already wrote a thinkpiece about this song and yet I’ve only seen maybe one out of five mentioning, just in passing, that the entire song is based on a Nine Inch Nail track from Ghosts I-IV, superbly re-used to make a weird and insanely catchy country hip hop song out of it. Ghosts has been one of my go-to albums to listen to while I’m painting for about ten years now. I’m saying all this because hearing a track from Ghosts on the radio for months was absolute bliss for me, especially in a new and improved version.

Thank you Lil Nas X for everything you’ve been doing and I wish you a long and successful career. You deserve it. I love this and I love you.

2 - Bury A Friend (Billie Eilish)

US: #73 / FR: Not on the list

Hello again, Billie Eilish.

This song is absolutely terrifying and that was before I even saw the music video. This is the soundtrack of your nightmares right there. I’m not even sure it deserves to be so high on the list, but frankly I’m too terrified to care. Maybe Old Town Road should be higher. I don’t know.

Also you have to know that when I’m super tired I go into echolalia mode and automatically repeat words or entire sentences that my brain considers interesting, like “potiron” (pumpkin) or “dramatique” ; and recently, my brain decided “when we all fall asleep, where do we go?”, sung exactly like it’s sung in this song, was its new favorite sentence. So. Hearing yourself saying that to an empty room while you’re drawing or folding clothes or cleaning plates is not a very pleasant experience, and it makes this song extra scary to me.

And now, here’s the last #1 of the last one of these lists (for now), and I’m glad to announce it closes this series of posts in a super fitting way.

Check this out. It’s so perfect in every way.

1 - Walk Me Home (Pink)

US: #99 / FR: Not on the list

Nobody seemed to care about this song over the course of 2019, and it's barely elligible, and I still have no idea why. The music reviewers I follow only either talked about it super briefly when it came out, or not at all. The rare ones who were making top 100s at the end of the year instead of top 10s usually put it somewhere in the middle of their lists. And yet it’s the elligible song I’ve listened to the most.

If you’ve been reading this series of posts for a while now, you probably already know exactly why it’s here, but here’s a quick recap.

The second album I ever bought in my life was Pink’s Missundaztood in 2002, and I loved her music a lot:

I was still really fond of her stuff in 2007:

Then she started to become less interesting and I basically ignored her apart from a brief blip on my radar in 2017:

Meanwhile, in 2012, fun. made some of the best songs of the entire decade before vanishing instantly, and I’ve been mourning them ever since:

And in the middle of last year, here I am, listening to the radio, and suddenly I hear something that sounds exactly like a fun. song, except I’ve never heard it before and it’s sung by a female singer, and, most importantly, it’s 2019 and fun. broke up more than six years earlier. And I’m like, what’s going on. This is so good. What the hell. What is this.

And I hear it a second time weeks later, and I google it, and I discovered that 1) it was Pink singing this, which made it my favorite Pink song in literally more than ten years, and 2) it was, indeed, written by one of the guys from fun., among other people who’s influence is less obvious.

I guess the main lesson from 2019, between newcomers making great music based on dead trends, old groups reforming, and this song, is that nothing’s gone forever, and things you used to enjoy can come back at the most unexpected time and in the most unexpected form.

There’s always, always gonna be new music to love, and it’s just a question of time.

Quick note

And with this, these lists are over... for now.

I don’t regret making them even if they were a ton of work, because that was super useful for a lot of different reasons.

They helped me get a better understanding of my own life’s chronology. That may sound stupid but I tend to link events to the music I was listening to at the time, and putting all that music in chronological order helped a lot.

I rediscovered a ton of songs I had completely forgotten about, and a lot of new ones. My playlist is much richer now and I’m happy about that.

I also discovered a few artists I knew nothing about.

It forced me to analyse two depressive episodes in my life and just because everything was now in exact chronological order, it accidentally helped me pinpoint what caused both of them. Better and cheaper than therapy. Impressive.

It made me realise how important some bands and artists had been in my life, and I relistened to some of their catalogue while making these lists. For some it was really obvious (Indochine, Placebo, Mylène Farmer, My Chemical Romance among some others), and for some others (Moby, Linkin Park, Mika in particular), it was a real surprise.

It made me realise that Placebo might have been huge in France but weirdly enough not that huge in the UK nor in the US. It’s especially striking when you look at their wikipedia page in English then in French and realise how detailed the French one is compared to the English one. Can’t believe Sleeping With Ghosts was a n°1 album here and basically nowhere else. That was the band where that discrepency was the most obvious but it wasn’t the only one like that. Really puts stuff in perspective.

It also helped me realise how cyclical popular music is. 1) trends tend to die near the end of every decade and the worst year is usually somewhere between the 8th and the 9th year. 2008 and 2018 tend to confirm this. 2) For the same reason, some new & interesting stuff appears at the beginning of every decade, and reaches its high point of quality between the 2nd and 4th year of the decade. 3) Basically I’m saying we’ve now passed the lowest musical quality in recent memory and 2022-2023 will have some exceptional music.

See you in December 2020. I have no doubt there’s a ton of great music coming up in the near future.

#Johannes’ bad not good pretty terrible music lists #music #long post #the last one #I can't believe this is over #I loved making these lists #spider tw #eye contact tw

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age-of-shadows · 5 years ago

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Narratives of a Misplaced Entity - Moonglow songfics (part 1)

uhm, so it’s been ages since i last wrote anything seriously, i hope this ain’t too bad though my english vocabulary is pretty basic (hope that isn’t too bad).

basically this is a songfic series of how I (let’s highlight the I) feel like Moonglow’s story goes by, with my own headcanons on the characters and everything. i’ve actually been asked to do this by a bunch of mutuals and friends, so i thought i’d give it a try. i hope you like them!

CHAPTER ONE - GHOST IN THE MOON

Words: 934

“Why this? Why me?”

They felt the crisp breeze caress their face, messing their light locks and moving the thin and fresh grass leaves that tickled them as well. They could only look at the starlit sky with their human eye, the right one; while the left one refused to stop tearing up, being this the only eye where they were able to distinguish anything in the darkness.

“Why are they trying to make me believe I’m like them, just so they can leave me on my own whenever the slightest thing turns out wrong? Why can’t I belong anywhere? Why... can’t I simply be human?” They sobbed quietly.

Their human side didn’t cry, they’d learnt to control their emotions so that they wouldn’t push anyone away a long time ago. However, they couldn’t become one with their shadows. What were they, exactly? What was the thing that kept them for being completely human? What was hiding behind those shadows, under that gloominess they had been carrying with themselves since they had use of reason? Maybe it was only them who could see it?

Their only wish was for time to stop in that exact instant, for them to never see the sunlight, to be able to fuse with the moon and still live in this world in a disembodied way, so that no one would even have to witness this monstrosity. Forever they’d been feeling a strange fixation with the night and its light: it was faint enough so that you could barely get a grasp of reality in it, and cold, yet warm enough to embrace an entity like them.

They tried to get a hold of themselves once again, standing on their knees this time and trying to quench their shadows, breathing deep and closing both eyes, letting go hearing the quiet sound of the wind and the tree branches softly crashing with each other, making more than one raven take off in order to look for a less shaky shelter.

“And here I am again in your dark cloak.” They whispered, as they opened their eyes once more yet keeping their head low, looking at their clenched fists, resting on their thighs. “Hoping to be embraced in your silence, while I stay quiet just for one more night, waiting for the sun to rise again to return to my tormented life. Why can’t you let me stay here forever? Why can’t you stay there looking down on me for a lifetime, O’ moon?” They raised their head slowly, looking directly at the satellite, which raised radiant, with barely any clouds taking away its spotlight. “You’re the only thing I have left, the only place where I feel at home. Why, even though you lack of life, do you keep on leaving me like they do, night after night? Why can’t you talk it out with the Sun, ask him to lend you a bit more of his time? I’m unable to rest, I can’t sleep, I can’t disconnect from this reality in any other way than hiding in the night.”

They closed their eyes once more, breathing deep again as well, as they run a hand through their hair. It was then when a fleeting yet strong thought crossed their mind. Fly. Run away. Evade themselves from the world. Just running away in search for haven, a haven that only consisted of themselves and no one else. Not looking back. A coward thought, maybe, at first sight, but they really did not have anything left to look back on, no one, what was keeping them from losing themselves in the vastness of the world? They didn’t even have any basic necessity to supply, they didn’t need to eat, they didn’t need to sleep: they could perfectly be described as a living dead.

They opened their eyes widely this time and turned their head around, taking their sight off the extensive meadow and setting it on the gloomy forest, in a very specific tree branch. There was a raven steadily looking at them, how much time had it spent there? It looked as if it had heard all of their monologue, even those words that didn’t come out of their mouth. Slowly they stood up in that direction, but looking back at the moon again for one second, only to turn it back to the raven as soon as they heard it squawk. This raven, that looked slightly bigger than any other they had seen before, moved its feet swiftly to turn its back on them and take flight afterwards, to fly deep into the forest.

They felt this bird was inviting them to enter the forest, maybe it wanted to show them something? Maybe it was defying them? In any way, they didn’t have any other better choice than to go into the forest. They had decided to never come back, whatever happened, and hoping that this night that had been as any other regular night became unique and changed everything.

“Oh, ghost in the moon, I hope you’ll grant me admission tonight into your tenebrous wicked gloominess, yet golden and precious in my eyes. The only hope that is still alive in me is that you won’t leave me on my own.”

~FIN~

#avantasia #avantasian #moonglow #tobias sammet #elans avantasians #fanfic

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blackkudos · 5 years ago

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Billy Paul

Paul Williams (December 1, 1934 – April 24, 2016), known professionally as Billy Paul, was a Grammy Award-winning American soul singer, known for his 1972 No. 1 single "Me and Mrs. Jones", as well as the 1973 album and single War of the Gods, which blends his more conventional pop, soul, and funk styles with electronic and psychedelic influences.

He was one of the many artists associated with the Philadelphia soul sound created by Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, and Thom Bell. Paul was identified by his diverse vocal style, which ranged from mellow and soulful to low and raspy. Questlove of the Roots equated Paul to Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, calling him "one of the criminally unmentioned proprietors of socially conscious post-revolution '60s civil rights music."

Life and career

Early years

Paul was raised in North Philadelphia. His love of music began at a young age, listening at home to his family's music collection.

He recalled: "That's how I really got indoctrinated into music. My mother was always...collecting records and she would buy everything from Jazz at Philharmonic Hall to Nat King Cole." He began singing along and tried to emulate the records he heard: "I always liked Nat King Cole. I always wanted to go my own way, but I always favored other singers like Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald – I loved Ella Fitzgerald. There are so many of them. Nina Simone was one of my favorites – Johnny Mathis, They all had a style, a silkiness about them.... I wanted to sing silky, like butter – mellow. I wanted to sing mellow you know what I mean. One of my favorites is Jessie Belvin – they used to call him Mr. Easy. A lot of people forgot about him you know – Sam Cooke is another one of my favorites."

Paul explained why he was particularly influenced by female jazz singers: "I think the reason behind that is because of my high range. The male singers who had the same range I did, when I was growing up, didn't do much for me. But put on Nina Simone, Carmen McRae or Nancy Wilson, and I'd be in seventh heaven. Female vocalists just did more with their voices, and that's why I paid more attention to them." Perhaps the female vocalist who had the most impact on him was Billie Holiday, whom he called "a BIG influence." He began developing a vocal style that would eventually incorporate traces of jazz, R&B, and pop.

He began his singing career at the age of 11, appearing on local radio station WPEN, then owned by the local Philadelphia Bulletin newspaper. He attended the West Philadelphia Music School and the Granoff School of Music for formal vocal training. He recalled: "Well you know, it was something that my mum would say I needed, holding my notes you know, and delivering my notes. It gave me assurity, cos my mother was 100% behind me and it created the style and uniqueness of Billy Paul. All my life I wanted to sound like myself, I never wanted to sound like anybody else. How that occurred was cause I always wanted to be a saxophone player....I took my uniqueness and treated it like a horn, which created a good style for me."

When I was 16, I played the Club Harlem in Philly and I was on the same bill as Charlie Parker. He died later that year. I was there with him for a week and I learned what it would normally take two years to pick up. Bird told me if I kept struggling I'd go a long way, and I've never forgotten his words.

Paul's popularity grew and led to appearances in clubs and at college campuses nationally. He changed his name from Paul Williams to Billy Paul so as to avoid any confusion with other artists such as songwriter Paul Williams and saxophonist Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams. He explained: "I had Jules Malvin, who was like my play father. He was my manager at the time. He took me up to the Apollo and I warmed the Apollo for six weeks and that’s where he gave me the name Billy Paul. I didn't question it."

First recordings

In 1952, he traveled to New York City and entered the recording studio for Jubilee Records. Backed by Tadd Dameron on piano and Jackie Davis on the Hammond organ, Paul released his first single that April: "Why Am I" with "That's Why I Dream" as the B-side (Jubilee Records 5081, both written by Bernard Sacks and B. Sidney Zeff). Billboard reviewed the tracks favorably, saying of "Why Am I" that it was "Expressive warbling of a moody ballad, by the label's new 16-year-old chanter", and of "That's Why I Dream": "Organ and piano lend the singer a hand in this slow-paced etching of a romantic number".

In June 1952, Paul released his second single – this time collaborating with the Buddy Lucas Orchestra – "You Didn't Know", backed with "The Stars Are Mine" (Jubilee Records 5086). Billboard was again positive, saying about "You Didn't Know" – "Billy Paul, new young singer, makes an impressive bow on the label with a strong performance of a weeper ballad which should pick up spins and plays. The Lucas ork furnishes okay backing. A good disk" and about "The Stars Are Mine" – "Paul sings this new tune more quietly, over a smooth ork reading. Side is not as exciting as flip and tune is not as strong." A few weeks later, Jubilee took out an ad in Billboard to promote their artists in anticipation of the annual NAMM Show – the music industry trade convention put on by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM). Jubilee plugged Paul's latest single and noted: "He's New – He's Hot!" Despite Jubilee's efforts, none of the tracks by the young singer made the charts.

Army years and resumption of professional career

Paul's career took an unexpected turn when he was drafted into the Armed Services. He recalled:

I went in, in 1957, and I was stationed with Elvis Presley and Gary Crosby – Bing Crosby's son. We were in Germany and we said we're going to start a band, so we didn’t have to do any hard work in the service. We tried to get Elvis to join but he wanted to be a jeep driver. So me and Gary Crosby, we started it and called ourselves the Jazz Blues Symphony Band. Some famous people came out of that band; Cedar Walton, Eddie Harris and we toured all over Germany. Elvis didn’t wanna join us. I used to see him every day but he drove the jeep for the Colonel. He didn’t want to join our band. He wanted to get away from music for a while, while he was in the service you know.

Paul and the other members of the 7th Army Band, including Don Ellis, Leo Wright and Ron Anthony, used the service to further their musical careers as best they could—careers they knew would continue once they returned to civilian life. Paul said: "I sang in the service, I sang with a jazz band. So when I came out I sang Jazz, going to clubs and so forth.

Paul also did some boxing in the Army – a sport he had grown up with, as he explained in a 2012 interview: "Yeah we had a gym and all my friends from my neighborhood were boxers. Even during my army days I boxed as well as singing. Actually I still go to the gym; both me and my wife have trainers... Miles Davis would always say: 'Come to the gym! I'm gonna beat your ass!' Then one time I got hit too hard and I said no I'm going to sing!... That made my mind up."

After his discharge, Paul formed a jazz trio with hard bop pianist Sam Dockery and bassist Buster Williams. In 1959 he joined the New Dawn record label and released the single "Ebony Woman" backed with "You'll Go to Hell" (New Dawn 1001), both written by Morris Bailey Jr. In 1960, Paul recorded "There's a Small Hotel" (Finch 1005, written by Rodgers and Hart), backed with "I'm Always A Brother" (Finch 1006, written by Leon Mitchell and Charles Gaston). None of these songs charted, but Paul would resurrect and re-record both "Ebony Woman" and "There's a Small Hotel" in later years.

Paul was a brief stand-in for one of the ailing Blue Notes with Harold Melvin. Paul remembered: "Well, I didn’t want to dance so Harold Melvin fired me (laughs). I had a six month stay with the Flamingos – I was with The Flamingos for a while." It was around this time that Paul established a lifelong friendship with Marvin Gaye—both singers filling in with other groups. Paul recalled: "I was one of the Blue Notes at one time and Marvin Gaye was in the Moonglows.... We were such good friends. We never did a record together and that would have been one of my dreams. And you know what one of my fascinations is? What we would be doing if he were here today. I think about Marvin every day. The love I have for this man is unbelievable. We were close, we were like brothers. When I would go on the road out in California, he would go round to the house – he and Blanche (Billy's wife) [would] make sure Blanche’s mother would take her insulin because she was a diabetic. I would heavily depend on him to make sure she ate and took her insulin. That’s how close we were. You know sometimes, even today. I wake up and hope it was a dream, but it’s real – it’s real you know."

Philadelphia soul years

In 2012, Paul was asked how important the city of Philadelphia was to him and what the Philly sound is: "It's very very important to me. I was born here and so many great and influential artists come from here as well. Its a city of its own and has its own sound. I think what makes it different is the drama; you know how they say everyone marches to their own beat? Well i think Philly has its own beat as well, and it's distinctive. It sounds easy, but it's hard to play."

Neptune and Gamble releases

Paul and his wife and manager Blanche Williams were in the process of recording his debut album when they met Kenny Gamble. Paul recalled:

I was singing in a jazz club called the Sahara. He had a record shop on South St & Philly – right round the corner and I was singing with a trio at the Sahara club on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. He came over and said 'I am starting a record company and I would like to sign you.' Low [sic] and behold I took all the material I sung every weekend and I did an album in three and a half hours – a whole album. I had this album, and I produced it – me and my wife. And we gave him this album called Feelin' Good at the Cadillac Club to help start the record company and that was the album that helped start it up. I was singing totally Jazz then, but when I heard the Beatles and heard the gospel influence and everything I just said: 'I can make jazz with R&B.' That transition came when The Beatles came out to America. When I heard The Beatles that was my turning point. They were like my mentors. You know the funny thing about that, when I heard (Billy sings) 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand', at first I said these guys are like a flash in the pan. But the second album when they started doing all this, I had to like take all that back. John Lennon – one of the greatest writers in the world.

Paul's debut album Feelin' Good at the Cadillac Club was released in 1968 on the Gamble label. Largely a collection of jazz covers of songs popularized by others, it was a studio album that attempted to recreate the feel of Paul's live club performances. Neither the single "Bluesette" nor the album reached the charts. The album was re-released in 1973.

Paul's second LP, Ebony Woman (1970), was a more commercial release on Gamble & Huff's Neptune label. Paul cut a new version of his 1959 single and made it the title track. Gamble & Huff were firmly in control of the production. Merging jazz and soul, the LP achieved some modest success reaching No. 12 on the Billboard soul chart an No. 183 on the pop chart.

Philadelphia International releases

After Neptune folded, Gamble and Huff started their third label – Philadelphia International Records (PIR) – and brought Paul with them. Gamble and Huff signed a distribution deal with Clive Davis and CBS Records.

Going East (1971) was the first Billy Paul album released on the Philadelphia International Records label, making full use of the label's regular group of ace musicians MFSB at Sigma Sound Studios. As they had done on the previous LP, Gamble and Huff sought to find the balance between Paul's jazz roots and the funky soul that they hoped would bring mainstream success. Paul nearly reached the charts with the single "Magic Carpet Ride" (cover of the 1968 Steppenwolf hit) and the album climbed to No. 42 on the Billboard soul chart and No. 197 on the pop chart.

"Me and Mrs. Jones" and international fame

With each album, Gamble and Huff were moving closer to realizing the sound they envisioned for Billy Paul, and they achieved it with the 1972 album 360 Degrees of Billy Paul and the single "Me and Mrs. Jones". Both the album and song received commercial and critical acclaim.

"Me and Mrs. Jones" was a No. 1 hit for the last three weeks of 1972, selling two million copies (platinum single status), and went on to win Paul a Grammy Award. The gold album and platinum single broke the artist on world charts, including the United Kingdom, where the single entered the Top 20 of the UK Singles Chart, reaching No. 12 in early 1973. In the years since then, the song has been covered numerous times, most notably by the Dramatics in 1974, Freddie Jackson in 1992 and Michael Bublé in 2007. Paul recalled the Grammy win and the song's overall success: "Oh man! I was up against Ray Charles, I was up against Curtis Mayfield, I was up against Isaac Hayes. I was in the Wilberforce University in Ohio, I had to go do a homecoming – my wife and her mother went. And when I see Ringo Starr call my name, I said Ohhh... Yeah... The most sobering thing is to have a number one record across the whole entire world in all languages. It’s a masterpiece, it’s a classic."

The song was PIR's first No. 1. In addition, the label was enjoying considerable success with their other artists, including the O'Jays and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. Paul remembered the atmosphere at the label: "It was like a family full of music. It was like music round the clock, you know."

"Am I Black Enough" controversy

But Paul's massive success was short-lived. The follow-up single – "Am I Black Enough for You?" – failed to reach the heights of "Mrs. Jones", with the song's Black Power political message proving too much for mainstream radio's taste. There was and continues to be much controversy surrounding the choice to release this track as the follow-up to a cross-over smash hit.

In a 1977 interview, Paul made plain that he opposed the choice from the beginning:

I think though that a lot of mistakes were made at the time. The biggest one was releasing 'Am I Black Enough For You' straight after 'Mrs. Jones'. People weren't ready for that kind of a song after the pop success of 'Mrs. Jones'. They were looking for a sequel or at least something that wasn't provocative. You'll remember at the time that I told you I was 100% against it and history has proven me right. But though it was a company mistake, I'm still satisfied with both CBS and Philadelphia International. However if I had released a different track I may have reached the heights of Michael Jackson.

Decades later, Paul was more philosophical about the song: "That was what I had with 'Am I Black Enough.' I wanted – I'm gonna make it this time and come out. I think it's true to the audience, cos they look for something to come out compared to Mrs. Jones and that was Clive Davis' idea to do that. I think it was Kenny and Clive Davis, but I think it was mostly Clive Davis." For his part, Davis has said that he opposed releasing the song as a single. Still, Davis called it an "all time great record, all time great performance". Gamble, the co-writer and producer of the track, said the song "was great and Billy sounded great doing it". Paul reflected: "Well you know... For a long time I was angry about it, I had a bit of a letdown. Now the song is ahead of its time. I feel as though I let the song down when I went into my darkness. I feel like I abandoned the song. And I'm still going to get to the bottom of 'Am I Black Enough'."

Ultimately, 360 Degrees of Billy Paul reached No. 1 on the Billboard soul chart and No. 17 on the pop chart. Despite the disappointment over the chart performance of "Am I Black Enough", there was no reason to believe that he could not replicate the album's success or reach even greater heights. In May 1973, while still promoting 360 Degrees of Billy Paul, he was asked about a follow-up LP: "I'm afraid that there will be something of a delay. As of right now, there are two sides actually completed. I have to tell you about one of them — Kenny and Leon wrote it especially and it's a definite single at some point. It's called 'I Was Married' and I honestly think it will be bigger than 'Me and Mrs. Jones'. But for me, there are still two singles from the 360 Degrees album — 'Brown Baby' and 'I'm Just a Prisoner'. But, we are starting to work on the album more seriously from May 15." Despite Paul's enthusiasm, neither "Brown Baby" or "I'm Just a Prisoner" were released in U.S., although "Brown Baby" was issued in the UK but failed to chart.

"Me and Mrs. Jones" was such a huge hit that Gamble and Huff decided to re-release Paul's first two albums, Feelin' Good at the Cadillac Club and Ebony Woman. Reissued in 1973, both albums featured new cover art and were a boon to new fans hungry for Billy Paul product who had already purchased his first two PIR LPs. Still, neither reissue was terribly successful, with only Ebony Woman re-entering the album charts at No. 186 Pop and No. 43 Soul.

Paul's next album, War of the Gods, was the follow-up to 360 Degrees of Billy Paul and was issued in November 1973. Unique in Paul's catalog, it contains lengthy psychedelic soul, song suites and marked a conceptual and musical advance for Paul that did not go unrecognized by critics and fans. And while the LP and its singles enjoyed some success, Paul was unable to repeat the kind of wide impact he had with his previous album and "Mrs. Jones". The War of the Godssingle "Thanks for Saving My Life", backed with "I Was Married" as the B-side, was a top-40 hit, reaching No. 37 on the pop chart and a top-10 soul record, reaching No. 9. It also reached No. 33 in the UK.

Paul's 1973 European tour with the O'Jays and the Intruders spawned his first true live album: Live in Europe. Recorded in London and released in 1974, it reached No. 10 on the Billboard Soul Album chart and No. 187 on the pop chart.

Got My Head on Straight was released in 1975 and was an attempt to return to the successful formula of 360 Degrees of Billy Paul. A collection of jazzy, soulful, funky, pop songs, it reached No. 140 on the Billboard Pop Album chart and No. 20 on the Soul chart. It included the singles "Be Truthful to Me" (No. 37 R&B); "Billy's Back Home" (No. 52 R&B); and "July, July, July, July", which did not chart. Despite the attempted return to form, the lack of mainstream success was a major disappointment to Paul, Gamble and Huff, and everyone at PIR.

Jesse Jackson controversy

When Love is New followed in the same vein as its predecessor and had a similar fate. Released in December 1975, it reached No. 139 on the Billboard Pop Album chart and No. 17 on the Soul chart. It included the singles "Let's Make a Baby", which hit No. 83 on the Pop singles chart (the last record of Paul's to make that chart), No. 18 on the Soul chart and No. 30 in the UK, and "People Power", which reached No. 82 on the Soul chart and No. 14 on the U.S. Dance chart.

"Let's Make a Baby" proved controversial and there were calls to ban or alter the track because of its supposed obscene or negative message. Jesse Jackson and Operation PUSH led the movement against this song and others such as Hall & Oates's "Rich Girl" and the Four Tops' "Catfish". The campaign was waged locally, with individual stations making their own choices about how to handle the matter. For example, leading R&B station WWRL in New York City played "Let's Make a Baby" but decided not to announce its title. Other stations went so far as to alter the lyrics. Privately, several black disc jockeys described the controversy as "Jessie's phony crusade against sex on the air." The disc jockeys – who refused to allow their names to be used for fear of reprisals – accused Jackson of being "absolutely dishonest" about the campaign, with one popular radio personality making reference to Richard Pryor's 1975 appearance at one of Jackson's events:

This man suddenly discovered sexy recordings when several of our black recording artists began to stop performing for nothing at his annual Black Expos. Remember, this is the same Jackson who presented at one of his Black Expos the filthiest recording comedian in show business. And that comedian was filthy that night at the Amphitheater. It got so bad that parents and their children could be seen leaving the place.

The disc jockeys further pointed out that Jackson was not critical of other artists, such as Roberta Flack and the Brothers Johnson, who had similarly suggestive songs like "Jesse" and "Get the Funk Out of My Face" but who were supporters of Operation PUSH. Several radio veterans were convinced that Jackson's actions were little more than a publicity stunt, calling it "just another of his gimmicks, which he will soon drop for another, just to stay in the news."

For his part, Jackson responded:

We have not...leveled 'blasts at Billy Paul.' We have carefully and consciously avoided 'blasts' at specific entertainers and instead have focused on specific records – of which Billy Paul's 'Let's Make a Baby' is only one in a whole series, increasingly explicit and dominant in a market almost exclusively directed at children....Love and romance are part of life and we are not suggesting that these subjects should be 'censored' in record lyrics. Our appeal has been directed toward pornographic lyrics that degrade human sexuality rather than uplifting the human spirit. The lyrics change in Billy Paul's record was decided upon independently by WVON radio. Mr. Paul has not protested to WVON about the change. The allegation that we have 'suddenly discovered sexy records' because artists have stopped performing for nothing at PUSH EXPO is patently false....The fact that several artists performed at EXPO who have songs we find objectionable is further evidence that our concerns are directed not at the artist but at the record.

Surprisingly, the controversy only escalated with the release of Paul's next album, Let 'Em In in late 1976. The title track was a funky soul version of Paul McCartney's No. 3 U.S. hit from earlier that summer. While McCartney's version was heavy on personal references and comparatively light on political figures, Billy Paul's version turned the formula on its head to become a kind of civil rights anthem – albeit one with a personal touch due to the mention of his recently deceased twin sister Pauline Williams. As where McCartney only obliquely refers to "Brother John" (John Lennon or brother-in-law John Eastman or John F. Kennedy) and "Martin Luther" (the martyred civil rights leader or the 16th-century theologian), Billy Paul's version is far more explicit in reciting a list of deceased civil rights leaders (Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Medgar Evers, and Louis Armstrong). Furthermore, interspersed with Billy Paul's verses are memorable passages of speeches by Malcolm X and King.

Yet, just as they had done with "Let's Make a Baby", WVON – Chicago's oldest black-oriented radio station – altered the song. This time an engineer at the station spliced in a parts of a speech by Jesse Jackson as a substitute for parts of King's speech. Chicago Tribune columnist Gary Deeb said the station "mutilated" the song, doing so in order to solidify ties with Jackson, and called the whole episode "simply ridiculous". Paul was furious and said that he had the "shock of my life" when he learned of the alteration.

Reverend George Clements, the crusading pastor of Holy Angels Catholic Church on the South Side of Chicago, presented Paul with an award for the song on Billy Paul Day, May 23, 1977, that included a ceremony at the church with the church's school choir performing the song. When informed of the honor by Father Clements, Paul reportedly cried tears of joy. Clements said:

In an age of cynicism, suspicion and outright despair, it's uplifting to hear the kind of message that Billy Paul is giving all of us over the radio. Billy Paul is telling us that the dreamers, like Dr. Martin Luther King, are dead now, but it is time to let their dreams begin to come into our souls and begin to make an impact on our society. Congratulations to Billy Paul. Truly he has made a hit, not just with the general public, but also with Almighty God!

In all, Let 'Em In was Paul's first LP to crack the top 100 pop album chart since 1972's 360 Degrees of Billy Paul, reaching No. 88. Paul also had his usual success on the Soul charts, with the album hitting No. 27 and the singles "How Good is Your Game," "I Trust You," and "Let 'Em In" reaching Nos. 50, 79, and 91 respectively. Paul's version of the Elton John hit "Your Song" cracked the top 40 in the U.K., reaching No. 38.

Final PIR recordings

Paul released Only the Strong Survive in 1977 and it proved to be his final charting album, reaching No. 152 on the Pop chart and No. 36 Soul. The LP's title track was the first single, reaching No. 68 on the Soul chart and No. 33 in the UK. The next time Paul's voice would be heard during the summer of 1977 was on the track "Let's Clean Up the Ghetto", featuring the "Philadelphia International All-Stars": Billy Paul, Lou Rawls, Archie Bell, Teddy Pendergrass, Dee Dee Sharp Gamble, and Eddie Levert and Walter Williams of The O'Jays. The song reached No. 91 on the Pop chart and No. 4 on the Soul chart. The Let's Clean Up the Ghetto album also included the Billy Paul tracks (both written by Gamble & Huff) "New Day" and "New World Comin'". All proceeds from the album and single went toward a program to benefit inner-cities throughout the U.S. Paul followed up the success of both his "Only the Strong Survive" single and "Let's Clean Up the Ghetto" with "Sooner or Later" – another track from his latest LP. Yet the track failed to chart as did "Don't Give Up on Us" and "Everybody's Breaking Up", which was officially released in the U.K. but only issued to radio in the U.S.

Paul's final studio album for Philadelphia International was First Class, released in 1979. It was the first album since his 1968 debut Feelin' Good at the Cadillac Club that did not make either the Pop or Soul charts. The LP's first single "Bring the Family Back" failed to chart but a 12" disco version did reach No. 90 on the Soul chart and No. 51 on the Dance chart. "False Faces" was also released in both single and 12" disco versions but neither charted.

Paul's run at Philadelphia International officially ended with the 1980 release Best of Billy Paul. This double-album compilation included four previously unreleased tracks: "You're My Sweetness," "Next to Nature," "What Are We Going to Do Now That He's Back," and "My Old Flame." The UK version was a single LP titled Billy Paul's Greatest Hits with a different track listing and only one of the "new" songs: "You're My Sweetness". That song was released as a single and reached No. 69 on the Soul chart. Paul's final single for Philadelphia International was an edited version of a song from his first Philadelphia International album Going East: "Jesus Boy (You Only Look Like a Man)", which failed to chart.

Numerous "best of" compilations of Paul's Philadelphia International work have been released over the years, though critics have made plain that most have failed to capture the right balance of singles and album tracks to fully represent the depth and breadth of his PIR output. For example, AllMusic's Andrew Hamilton said of the 2002 collection Super Hits: "If you didn't live and die with Billy Paul's albums when he cranked them out on Philadelphia International Records, you won't have a clue as to what his fans want to hear. To compile a CD from Paul's singles is to compile a mediocre collection; you have to supplement the singles with choice LP cuts. And with a brief ten-track collection like this, some of the singles should have been replaced with a few of Paul's icy album joints." By contrast, Jason Ankeny said that the 1999 compilation Me & Mrs. Jones: Best of Billy Paul "goes far beyond the classic title track in restoring the singer to prominence, showcasing his versatility via superb covers of pop favorites.... [and] the inclusion of R&B chart hits.... it all adds up to a definitive portrait of Paul in his prime."

Paul was on the Philadelphia International label, in all, for nine years and while he enjoyed considerable success – especially with "Me and Mrs. Jones" – critics generally agree that he deserved better. Andrew Hamilton put it bluntly: "Gamble and Huff did a horrible job picking Paul's singles. Some better choices, and his career might have been Hall-of-Famish." Similarly, Jason Ankeny wrote: "Too easily dismissed as little more than a one-hit wonder, Billy Paul was, in fact, one of the most gifted and affecting talents to grace the Philadelphia International stable – the recipient of some of the Gamble and Huff team's most lush and sophisticated productions. His deeply soulful voice bridged the gap between jazz and soul, textured in equal measure by street-smart swagger and touching vulnerability."

Post-PIR studio recordings

Paul made two studio albums in the 1980s. The first, Lately, was released in 1985 and was a dramatic musical departure from the lush Philadelphia Soul of his previous efforts. Recorded for Lonnie Simmons' Total Experience Records, the album's synthesizer and keyboard-driven tracks (typical of music production at the time) were closer to Simmons' work with the Gap Band and Yarbrough and Peoples than they were to Paul's '70s orchestrated wall of sound. The album's title track, a ballad, was released as a single in the U.K. but did not chart. The follow-up single – a slow jam called "Sexual Therapy" – fared better, climbing to No. 80 on the U.K. charts.

Paul's final studio album was 1988's Wide Open for the Ichiban label. Similar in production style to his previous release, though perhaps a bit smoother, it reached No. 61 on the Soul chart. However, the singles "We Could Have Been" and "I Just Love You So Much" failed to chart.

"Retirement" years

Paul announced his retirement in 1989 on stage in London. But like so many artists before him, he could not resist the temptation to continue to play live shows and record. In 2009 he was asked how he was enjoying his retirement in South Jersey: "Retired? Are you serious?"

Post-"retirement," Paul regularly toured in the U.S. and abroad playing small clubs, hotel ballrooms, Las Vegas showrooms, Jazz festivals, and theaters. Asked in 2012 whether playing in Philadelphia held special meaning to him, he said: "I try to feel comfortable wherever I play, but they call it being a native son and I do get a lot of respect there so it is special. The reaction internationally is great as well, so even in Paris or Brazil we have great audiences. Songs like Mrs. Jones are huge everywhere so I do perform a lot overseas."

In 2000 he released a CD – Live World Tour 1999–2000 – on his own label, PhillySounds. Recorded in São Paulo, Brazil; Paris, France; Bermuda, and Philadelphia, it contained the following tracks: "Billy's Back Home," "Love Buddies," "When Love is New," "This is Your Life," "Thanks for Saving My Life," "Let's Get It On/What's Going On," "War of the Gods," "I Believe I Can Fly," "Your Song," "Without You," and "Mr & Mrs. Jones." Two years later, a complete show from that tour was released outside the U.S. on the PID label. Titled Your Songs: Live in Paris, it was recorded in December 2000 at a private event for the RFM TV Channel at Studio 287 in Paris, France. It includes the songs "July, July, July, July", "Only the Strong Survive", "It's Too Late", "Brown Baby", "Let 'Em In", "It's Critical", "False Faces", and "Let's Clean Up the Ghetto", among others.

As these live albums illustrate, Paul's concert set lists were varied, containing both his own songs as well as cover versions of jazz, soul, rock, and pop tunes. For example, his September 16, 2001, Sunday afternoon show at Gloria's Seafood in Philadelphia featured "Billy Boy," "Billy's Back Home," "Just in Time," "Old Folks," "Sleeping Bee," "Ebony Woman," "Thanks for Saving My Life," "Love Buddies," "April in Paris/I Love Paris," and "Me and Mrs. Jones."

His show of June 12, 2011, in São Paulo, Brazil consisted of "Thanks for Saving My Life," "I Will Survive" (performed by backing vocalist Anna Jordan), "Hello," "Purple Rain," "Smile," "Mrs. Robinson," "Your Song," "Me and Mrs. Jones," and "You Are So Beautiful."

"Me and Mrs. Jones" lawsuits

In 2000, Nike began airing a commercial featuring track and field star Marion Jones – the face of Team USA for the 2000 Summer Olympics. The campaign, entitled "Mrs. Jones", depicted the athlete as a half-hidden DJ talking about issues such as education and better pay for female athletes. The ad also featured Paul's studio recording of "Me and Mrs. Jones". Paul saw the commercial and contacted an attorney, who filed suit in a federal district court in Los Angeles against both the sportswear company and its advertising agency, Wieden & Kennedy. Paul sought $1 million in lost licensing fees, arguing that the company had not obtained his permission to use the song. A spokesperson for the ad agency called the decision to air the song without permission "a very stupid mistake."

On the heels of the Nike suit, Paul targeted his former record company for unpaid royalties on his signature song. He claimed that he had not received an accounting statement from Philadelphia International Records in 27 years and sued Assorted Music, its owners Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, and Sony Music Entertainment for nearly half a million dollars. At the 2003 trial in a federal district court in Los Angeles, Joseph E. Porter, the attorney for Assorted Music, argued that Paul was only owed about $27,000, explaining that while the company had mistakenly failed to collect proper foreign royalties on the record, Paul actually owed the company about $314,000 for the costs of recording and producing the 10 albums he made for Philadelphia International from 1971 to 1980.

In the end, the jury deliberated for less than an hour and found that Paul did not owe the company anything. Instead, they awarded him half a million dollars in unpaid royalties for his recording of "Me and Mrs. Jones." Paul said through a statement issued by his attorney: "I'm so glad my path to justice has finally come to an end. I've been waiting years to be paid for my recordings." Seymour Straus, who testified at trial on Paul's behalf commented: "There is no question that Billy Paul's royalties had been improperly calculated for many years." Jay Berger of the Artists Rights Enforcement Corporation said: "This case firmly establishes the rights of singers signed to small production companies to receive 50% of the money earned by the major labels that distribute the records." Chuck Rubin the president of Artists Rights said: "The producers will no longer walk off with any of the artist's royalties." Paul's lawyer Steven Ames Brown commented: "It was a stunning victory for Billy. The jury awarded him $12,000 more than we requested. The years of deception and excuses are over and Billy Paul will from now on enjoy the fruits of his talents. Los Angeles juries have no patience for deadbeat record companies." Brown added: "And Billy Paul was Kenny Gamble's best friend. Can you imagine what might have happened to the others?"

Paul's wife and manager Blanche Williams called the decision a "moral victory" and had especially harsh words for Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff: "The jury was...pissed off at the arrogance of G&H, the 'creative bookkeeping' done by Sony, and at discovering how blatantly and systematically Sony and PIR under-reported Billy's earnings.... In addition G&H will have to pay us interest on that money going back to '94 (statute of limitations). Oh yes, 'the chickens came home to roost.' Winning this case opens the door for all of those other artists whose royalties were withheld or under-accounted to go to court and seek justice, and to know that they have a good chance of winning their case. This is just the beginning of G&H's worst nightmare. The avalanche cometh."

Gamble & Huff's attorney Porter said after the verdict: "It was nothing but an accounting (issue). No one said 'you cheated me.'" Still, Paul's case was an important precedent for other artists including Archie Bell of Archie Bell & the Drells and the O'Jays who also sued Gamble & Huff for unpaid royalties.

Feature film

In 2009, the biographical feature film Am I Black Enough for You?, directed by Swedish director Göran Hugo Olsson, was released. Awarding the film three stars, Uncut magazine said "Olsson modelled his film on Let’s Get Lost, Bruce Weber’s 1989 portrait of Chet Baker, saying: "Paul is certainly no fallen demi-genius to set alongside Baker, but he proves an engaging, articulate subject, with a story that stretches back to playing alongside Charlie Parker, and peppered with the usual racial prejudice. His career is, in its way, emblematic of black America’s struggles over the last half century, including a descent into cocaine addiction and recovery, both shared with his wife, who remains a quirky, willful presence throughout the movie. The pair come across as a jazzy Derby and Joan."

Paul explained why he had agreed to work with the filmmakers: "Well I'm not getting any younger and I wanted to express some things that might have been hidden. I wanted to release my heart and tell people about my highs and lows and I think you get that from this documentary.... It wasn't difficult to make. We were followed all over the world by this film crew from Europe and I got to be very good friends with the filmmakers. I would say things and do things as if the camera wasn't even there. They approached me about doing this film, and they are real fans. "Am I Black Enough for You?" is very popular in Sweden and these guys really knew their music. They were serious about it, they flew over and followed me and it got real personal...and I trusted them. It's very important like the relationship I have with my wife is based on trust. I wish everyone could have that level in their lives.... I am now at peace with myself, I think this movie has done a lot for me because it's helped me get rid of a lot of demons.

Later activity

In 2011, Paul participated in an album by French singer Chimène Badi, recording a duet with her on the Motown song "Ain't No Mountain High Enough".

To mark the 40th anniversary of Philadelphia International Records, in 2011 Big Break Records in the UK began remastering and reissuing many of the albums released on PIR, including Paul's works. They included new liner notes, interviews, and bonus tracks. In the U.S., Legacy Recordings issued Golden Gate Groove: The Sound of Philadelphia Live in San Francisco 1973 – a record company event recorded on June 27, 1973, at the Fairmont Hotel. Paul and other PIR acts were backed by MFSB which featured 35 musicians including Leon Huff on organ. Paul's performances of "East" (10:21) and "Me and Mrs. Jones" (8:34) appear on the album. AllMusic's Andy Kellman gave the release 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Awards and honors

In addition to receiving the Grammy for "Me and Mrs. Jones", Paul won several Ebby awards given by the readers of Ebony magazine; was a recipient of an American Music Award, the NAACP Image Award and numerous proclamations and keys to cities across the United States. Paul received the 2015 AMG Favorite Retro Artist of the Year award, as well as being given the Sandy Hosey Lifetime Achievement Award during the Artists Music Guild's 2015 AMG Heritage Awards broadcast held on November 14, 2015, in Monroe, North Carolina.

Death

Paul died on the afternoon of April 24, 2016, at his home in the Blackwood section of Gloucester Township, New Jersey, from pancreatic cancer at the age of 81.

#12/01 #04/24

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harrisonstories · 6 years ago

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George Harrison performing at the Royal Albert Hall (1992)

Guitar World Interviews George Harrison (released Jan. 2001 - original interview from 1992)

George Harrison looks back at the days when he played lead guitar in The Beatles, the greatest rock and roll band the world has ever known.

By Vic Garbarini

“So, you’re a real loony too,” laughs George Harrison, with the familiar droll, nasal Scouse (as they call it in Liverpool) accent. “Remember lying in that room all day, needle in your arm, feeling dazed, staring up at that ugly lime green ceiling?”

Well, yes, actually I do. And no, we weren’t shooting dope together in some dive. The lead guitarist of the most important group in rock history is reminding me of when we met a few years back in Dr. Sharma’s clinic in London. Sharma is an M.D. who is also an internationally recognized expert in alternative medicine - in particular, homeopathic and Indian Ayurvedic medicines - and it was these treatments that appealed to Harrison’s Eastern philosophic bent. Her waiting room looked like backstage Live Aid: Tina Turner and members of the Police, Pink Floyd - and of course an occasional Beatle - were drifting in and out. Through Sharma, I’d been promised an interview with George Harrison, and now 10 years later - we were finally sitting down to talk. It was late 1992, and George was promoting Live in Japan (Warner Bros.), the concert album of his 1991 tour with Eric Clapton and the last album he released to date.

So why is this interview finally finding its way to print eight years after the fact? Simple: it was lost. Parts had appeared in Guitar World and other places, but the body of the tape disappeared when the famous 1994 L.A. earthquake turned my apartment into a cosmic Cuisinart. Recently, while I was cleaning out a closet, the long-lost tape literally fell into my lap. The timing couldn’t have been better: All Things Must Pass, Harrison’s superb 1970 solo album, had just recently been issued in a remastered and expanded format. What’s more, the massive Beatles Anthology (Chronicle Books) has once again put the Fabs back in the limelight; but while the book is crammed with minutiae that will fascinate anyone with any interest in the Beatles, it contains little information on how the group created its music, the source of its internal conflicts or how those two elements interacted over the years.

I found that Harrison needed a little prodding before he would discuss the band’s inner turmoil. Once he opened up, though, he gave a most revealing and candid interview in which he expressed his true feelings for his fellow bandmates. Although Harrison was the first lead guitarist to become an equal in a major band (pre-Beatles guitarists like Scotty Moore, from Elvis Presley’s band, were clearly hired guns), he was sandwiched between the two most towering songwriters in rock history - and they often wanted to control his playing - or even do it for him. And of course, getting a decent hearing of his songs was no picnic either.

Perhaps it is for these reasons that Harrison has a reputation as the most dour of Beatles; yet he was witty and upbeat during our talk. He forgave Paul McCartney’s controlling tendencies and John Lennon’s indifference - but, it was clear, he hasn’t forgotten. He seemed emotionally evenhanded, even when angry, balancing the good with the bad and always seeing the positive dimension to all his struggles.

“I’m a Pisces, you know,” he joked. “One half always going back where the other half has been.”

George was also surprisingly willing to talk about the Beatles from the unique perspective of a guitarist as well as that of a composer. He told how he developed a guitar style that combined the music of the Mississippi Delta with that of India’s Ganges Delta, thereby creating his distinctive sound. He spoke of his relationships with Lennon and McCartney: who was more stimulating - and difficult - to work with, and why. He also described how he sneaked Eric Clapton into the studio to rescue one of Harrison’s greatest songs, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” And he answered the long-standing questions about whether he was bored during the making of Sgt. Pepper’s.

This may well be the most comprehensive, free-ranging discussion Harrison has ever granted on his years with the Beatles. So, now, here’s the man from the band you’ve known for all these years: Mr. George Harrison.

Guitar World: John Lennon said, “I grew up in Hamburg - not Liverpool.” Is that also true of the Beatles as a group?

George Harrison: Oh, yeah. Before Hamburg, we didn’t have a clue. [laughs] We’d never really done any gigs. We’d play a few parties, but we’d never had a drummer longer than one night at a time. So we were very ropy, just young kids. I was actually the youngest - I was only 17, and you had to be 18 to play in the clubs - and we had no visas. They wound up deporting me after our second year there. Then Paul and Pete Best [the Beatles’ first permanent drummer GW Ed.] got deported for some silly reason, and John just figured he might as well come home. But when we went there, we weren’t a unit as a band yet. When we arrived in Hamburg, we started playing eight hours a day - like a full workday. We did that for a total of 11 or 12 months, on and off over a two year period. It was pretty intense.

GW: Paul McCartney told me that playing for those drunken German sailors, trying to lure them in to buy a couple of beers so you could keep your gig, was what galvanized the band into a musical form.

HARRISON: That’s true, because we were forced to learn to play everything. At first, we played music of all our heroes - Little Richard, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers, Ray Charles, Carl Perkins - anything we’d ever liked. But we still needed more to fill those eight-hour sets. Eventually we had to stretch and play a lot of stuff that we didn’t know particulary well. Suddenly, we were even playing movie themes, like “A Taste of Honey” or “Moonglow,” learning new chords, jazz voicings, the whole bit. Eventually, it all combined together to make something new, and we found our own voice as a band.

GW: I can see how all this musical stretching gave you the tools to eventually create your own unique sound. But it’s hard to believe drunken sailors would want to hear movie ballads.

HARRISON: No, we played those things because we got drunk! If you’re coming in at three or four in the afternoon with a massive hangover from playing all night on beer and uppers, and there’s hardly anybody in the club, you’re not going to feel like jumping up and down and playing “Roll Over Beethoven.” You’re going to sit down and playing something like “Moonglow.” And we learned a lot from doing that.

GW: Did those tight, Beatles vocal harmonies also come out of Hamburg?

HARRISON: We always loved those American girls groups, like the Shirelles and the Ronettes. So yeah, we developed our harmonies from trying to come up with an English, male version of their vocal feel. We discovered the option of having three-part harmonies, or lead vocal and two-part backup, from doing that old girl-goup material. We even covered some of those songs, like “Baby, It’s You,” on our first album.

GW: When you broke through in America, Carl Perkins and Scotty Moore, Elvis’ guitarists, were clearly your main influences as a guitarist. And, like them, you were using a Gretsch guitar. What was it about that rocka-billy style that captivated you?

HARRISON: Carl was playing that simple, amazing blend of country, blues and early rock, with these brilliant chordal solos that were very sophisticated. I heard his version of “Blue Suede Shoes” on the radio the other day, and I’ll tell you, they don’t come more perfect than that. Later, when we met Carl, he was such a sweet fellow, a lovely man. I did a TV special with him a couple of years ago and I used the Gretsch Tennessean again for that, the one I like to call the Eddie Cochran/Duane Eddy model. And you have to understand how radical that sound was at the time. Nowadays, we have all this digital stuff, but the records of that period had a certain atmosphere. Part of it was technical: the engineer would have to pot the guitar [adjust its level and tone] up and down or whatever. It was a blend that was affected by the live “slap echo” they were using. I loved that slap bass feel - the combination between the bass, the drum and the slap, and how they would all come together to make that amazing sound. We used to think that the drummer must be drumming on the double bass’ strings to get that slap back - we just couldn’t figure it out.

GW: The other major factor in your playing was Chuck Berry. I remember being a kid and hearing you do “Roll Over Beethoven” and thinking it was a Beatles song. We never heard black artists on the radio in those days.

HARRISON: Oh, that’s still happening. We did a press conference in Japan when I played live there with Eric Clapton [in 1991], and the first question was, “Mr. Harrison, are you going to play ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ in concert?” And when I said yes, the whole hall stood up and applauded! It was such a big thing for them, which seemed so funny. Then I realized they must still think I wrote it.

GW: Going back to the Beatles’ early touring days, Ringo Starr told me that you all gave up on playing live because you literally couldn’t hear each other, due to all the screaming and the primitive amplification.

HARRISON: We couldn’t hear a thing. We were using these 30-watt amps until we played Shea Stadium, at which point we got those really big 100-watt amps. [laughs] And nothing was even miked up through a P.A. system. They had to listen to us just through those tiny amplifiers and the vocal mikes.

GW: Did you ever give up and just mime?

HARRISON: Yeah, sometimes we used to play absolute rubbish. At Shea Stadium, [during “I’m Down,”] John was playing a little Vox organ with his elbow. He and I were howling with laughter when we were supposed to be doing the background vocals. I really couldn’t hear a thing. Nowadays, if you can get a good balance on your monitors, it’s so much easier to hear your vocals and stay in pitch. When you can’t hear your own voice onstage, you tend to go over the top and sing sharp - which we often did back then.

GW: The Beatles stopped touring in 1966 around the time of Revolver. That album was a quantum leap in terms of the band’s playing and songwriting. Rock could now deal with our inner lives, alienation, spirituality and frustration, things which it had never dealt so directly with before. And the guitars and music warped into a new dimension. What kicked that off? Was it Dylan, the Byrds, Indian music and philosophy?

HARRISON: Well, all of those things came together. And I think you’re right, around the time of Rubber Soul and Revolver we just became more conscious of so many things. We even listened deeper, somehow. That’s when I really enjoyed getting creative with the music - not just with my guitar playing and songwriting but with everything we did as a band, including the songs that the others wrote. It all deepened and became more meaningful.

GW: Dylan inspired you guys lyrically to explore deeper subjects, while the Beatles inspired him to expand musically, and to go electric. His first reaction on hearing the Beatles was supposedly, “Those chords!” Did you ever talk to him about the way you influenced each other?

HARRISON: Yes, and it was just like you were saying. I was at Bob’s house and we were trying to write a tune. And I remember saying, “How did you write all those amazing words?” And he shrugged and said, “Well, how about all those chords you use?” So I started playing and said it was just all these funny chords people showed me when I was a kid. Then I played two major sevenths in a row to demonstrate, and I suddenly thought, Ah, this sounds like a tune here. Then we finished the song together. It was called “I’d Have You Anytime,” and it was the first track on All Things Must Pass.

GW: Paul told me that Rubber Soul was just “John doing Dylan.” Do you think Dylan felt that?

HARRISON: Dylan once wrote a song called “Fourth Time Around.” to my mind, it was about how John and Paul, from listening to Bob’s early stuff, had written “Norwegian Wood.” Judging from the title, it seemed as though Bob had listened to that and wrote the same basic song again, calling it “Fourth Time Around.” The title suggests that the same basic tune kept bouncing around over and over again.

GW: The same cross-fertillization seemed to be going on between the Beatles and the Byrds around that time. Your song “If I Needed Someone” has got to be a tip of the hat to Roger McGuinn, right?

HARRISON: We were friends with the Byrds and we certainly liked their records. Roger himself said that the first time he saw a Rickenbacker 12-string was in A Hard Day’s Night, and he certainly stamped his personality onto that sound later. Wait - I’ll tell you what it was. Now that I’m thinking about it, that song actually was inspired by a Byrds song, “The Bells of Rhymney.” Any guitar player knows that, with that open-position D chord, you just move your fingers around and you get all these little maladies…I mean melodies! Well, sometimes maladies [laughs] And that became a thrill, to see how many more tunes you could write around that open D, like “Here Comes the Sun.”

GW: When you did that tour with Eric Clapton in Japan, you opened with “I Want to Tell You,” from Revolver. The song marked a turning point in your playing, and in the history of rock music writing. There’s a weird, jarring chord at the end of every line that mirrors the disturbed feeling of the song. Everybody does that today, but that was the first time we’d heard that in a rock song.

HARRISON: I’m really pleased that you noticed that. That’s an E7th with an F on the top, played on the piano. I’m really proud of that, because I literally invented that chord. The song was about the frustration we all feel about trying to communicate certain things with just words. I realized the chords I knew at the time just didn’t capture that feeling. So after I got the guitar riff, I experimented until I came up with this dissonant chord that really echoed that sense of frustration. John later borrowed it on Abbey Road. If you listen to “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” it’s right after John sings “it’s driving me mad!” To my knowledge, there’s only been one other song where somebody copped that chord - “Back on the Chain Gang” by the Pretenders.

GW: Around the time of Rubber Soul and Revolver, you met Ravi Shankar and went to India to study Indian classical music, which is full of microtonal slurs and blends. When you came back, your guitar playing became more elastic, yet very precise. You were finding more notes between the cracks, like you can in Indian music - especially on your slide work. Is there a connection there?

HARRISON: Sure, because whatever you listen to has to come out in some way or other. I think Indian music influenced the inflection of how I played, and certain things I play certainly have a feel similar to the Indian style. As for slide, I think most people - Keith Richards for example - play block chords and all those blues fills, which are based on open tunings. My solos are actually like melodic runs, or counter melodies, and sometimes I’ll add a harmony line to it as well.

GW: Like on “My Sweet Lord” and the songs on your first solo album [All Things Must Pass].

HARRISON: Exactly. Actually, now that you’ve got me thinking about my guitar playing Indian music, I remember Ravi Shankar brought an Indian musician to my house who played classical Indian music on a slide guitar. It’s played like a lap steel and set up like a regular guitar, but the nut and bridges are cranked up, and it even has sympathetic drone strings, like a sitar. He played runs that were so precise and in perfect pitch, but so quick! When he was rocking along, doing these really fast runs, it was unbelievable how much precision was involved. So there were various influences. But it would be precocious to compare myself with incredible musicians like that.

GW: When you came back from India, did you intentionally copy on guitar any of the techniques you learned there?

HARRISON: When I got back from this incredible journey to India, we were about to do Sgt. Pepper’s, which I don’t remember much at all. I was into my own little world, and my ears were just all filled up with all this Indian music. So I wasn’t really into sitting there, thrashing through [sings nasally] “I’m fixing a hole…” Not that song, anyway. But if you listen to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” you’ll hear me try and play the melody on guitar with John’s voice, which is what the instrumentalist does in Hindustani vocal music.

GW: Paul told me you wanted to do a similar thing on “Hey Jude,” to echo his vocal phrases on the guitar, and that he wouldn’t let you. He admitted that incidents like that were one of the causes of the band’s breakup. And Ringo said you had the toughest job, because Paul in particular and George Martin as well would sometimes try and dictate what you should play, even on your solos.

HARRISON: Well, you know, that’s okay. I don’t remember the specifics on that song. [pauses] Look, the thing is, so much has been said about our disagreements. It’s like…so much time has lapsed, it doesn’t really matter anymore.

GW: Was Paul trying to just hold the band together, or was he just becoming a control freak? Or was it a little of both?

HARRISON: Well…sometimes Paul “dictated” for the better of a song, but at the same time he also pre-empted some good stuff that could have gone in a different direction. George Martin did that too. But they’ve all apologized to me for all that over the years.

GW: But you were pissed off enough about all this to leave the band for a short time during the Let It Be sessions. Reportedly, this problem had been brewing for a while. What was it that upset you about what Paul was doing?

HARRISON: At that point in time, Paul couldn’t see beyond himself. He was so on a roll - but it was a roll encompassing his own self. And in his mind, everything that was going on around him was just there to accompany him. He wasn’t sensitive to stepping on other people’s egos or feelings. Having said that, when it came time to do the occasional song of mine - although it was usually difficult to get to that point - Paul would always be really creative with what he’d contribute. For instance, that galloping piano part on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” was Paul’s, and it’s brilliant right to this day. On the Live in Japan album, I got our keyboardist to play it note for note. And you just have to listen to the bass line on “Something” to know that, when he wanted to, Paul could give a lot. But, you know, there was a time there when…

GW: I think it’s called being human - and young.

HARRISON: It is…[sighs] It really is.

GW: How difficult was it to squeeze your songs in between the two most famous writers in rock?

HARRISON: To get it straight, if I hadn’t been with John and Paul I probably wouldn’t have thought about writing a song, at least not until much later. They were writing all these songs, many of which I thought were great. Some were just average, but, obviously, a high percentage were quality material. I thought to myself, If they can do it, I’m going to have a go. But it’s true: it wasn’t easy in those days getting up enthusiasm for my songs. We’d be in a recording situation, churning through all this Lennon/McCartney, Lennon/McCartney, Lennon,/McCartney! Then I’d say [meekly] can we do one of these?

GW: Was that true even with an obviously great song like “My..uh.”

HARRISON: "Piggies”? You mean “While My Piggies Gently Weep”? [laughs] When we actually started recording “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” it was just me playing the acoustic guitar and singing it [This solo version appears on the Anthology 3 CD-GW Ed.] and nobody was interested. Well, Ringo probably was, but John and Paul weren’t. When I went home that night, I was really disappointed, because I thought, Well, this is really quite a good song, it’s not as if it’s shitty! The next day, I happened to drive back into London with Eric Clapton, and while we were in the car I suddenly said, “Why don’t you come and play on this track?” And he said, “Oh, I couldn’t do that. The others wouldn’t like it.”

GW: Was that a verboten thing with the Beatles?

HARRISON: Well, it wasn’t so much verboten; it’s just that nobody had ever done it before. We’d had oboe and string players and other session people in for overdubbing, but there hadn’t really been other prominent musicians on our records. So Eric was reluctant, and I finally said, "Well, sod them! It’s my song and I’d like you to come down to the studio.”

GW: So did that cause more tension with the others? How did they treat him?

HARRISON: The same thing occurred that happened during “Get Back,” while we were filming the movie [Let It Be, (Apple Films) 1970]. Billy Preston came into our office and I pulled him into the studio and got him on electric piano. And suddenly, everybody started behaving and not fooling around so much. Same thing happened with Eric, and the song came together nicely.

GW: Yet, rumor has it you weren’t satisfied with your performance on the record. Why?

HARRISON: Actually, what I was really disappointed with was take number one [i.e., the solo version]. I later realized what a shitty job I did singing it. Toilet singing! And that early version has been bootlegged, because Abbey Road Studios used to play it when people took the studio tour. [laughs] But over the years I learned to get more confidence. It wasn’t so much learning the technique of singing as it was just learning not to worry. And my voice has improved. I was happy with the final version with Eric.

GW: Did you give Eric any sense of what you wanted on the solo? He almost sounds as if he’s imitating your style a lot.

HARRISON: You think so? I didn’t feel like he was copying me. To me, the only reason it sounds Beatle-ish is because of the effects we used. We put the “wobbler” on it, as we called ADT. [Invented by a Beatles recording engineer. ADT, or artificial double tracking, was a tape recording technique that made vocals and intruments sound as if they had been double tracked (i.e., recorded twice) to create a fuller sound. The technique also served as the basis for flanging.-GW Ed.] As for my direction I may have given him, it was just, “Play, me boy!” In the rehearsals for the Japanese tour, he did make a conscious effort to recap the solo that was on the original Beatles album. And although the original version in embedded in Beatles’ fans memories, I think the version we captured on the live album is more outstanding.

GW: Want to play rock critic for us and critique his playing?

HARRISON: Ah, well, he started out playing the first couple of fills like the original, and the first solo is kind of similar. But by the end of the solo he just goes off! Which is why I think guitar players like to do that song. It’s got nice chords, but it’s also structured in a way that gives a guitar the greatest excuse just to wail away. Even Eric played it differently every night of the tour. Some nights he played licks that almost sounded like flamenco. But he always played exceptionally well on that song.

GW: You talked about the pluses and minuses of working with Paul. What about John? He was a much looser, more intuitive musician and composer. Did you help him flesh things out?

HARRISON: Basically, most of John’s songs, like Paul’s, were written in the studio. Ringo and me were there all the time. So as the songs were being written, they were being given ideas and structures, particularly by John. As you say, John had a flair for “feel.” But he was very bad at knowing exactly what he wanted to get across. He could play a song and say, “It goes like this.” Then he’d play it again and ask, “How does that go?” Then he’d play it again - totally differently! Also his rhythm was very fluid. He’d miss a beat, or maybe jump a beat…

GW: Like a lot of old blues players.

HARRISON: Exactly like that. And he’d often do something really interesting in an early version of a song. After a while, I used to make an effort to learn exactly what he was doing the very first time he showed a song to me, so if the next time he’d say, “How did that go?” we’d still have the option of trying what he’d originally played.

GW: The melody on side two of Abbey Road is a seamless masterpiece. It would probably take a modern band ages to put together, even with digital technology. How did you manage all that with just four - and eight - track recorders?

HARRISON: We worked it all out carefully in advance. All those mini songs were partly completed tunes; some were written while we were in India a year before. So there was just a bit of chorus here and a verse there. We welded them all together into a routine. Then we actually learned to play that whole thing live. Obviously there were overdubs. Later, when we added the voices, we basically did the same thing. From the best of my memory, we learned all the backing tracks, and as each piece came up on tape, like “Golden Slumbers,” we’d jump in with the vocal parts. Because when you’re working with only four or eight tracks, you have to get as much as possible on each track.

GW: With digital recording today you can also do an infinite number of guitar solos. Back then, did taking another pass at a solo require redoing almost the entire song?

HARRISON: Almost. I remember doing the solo to “Something” and it was dark in the studio and everyone was stoned. But Ringo, I think, was doing a drum overdub on the same track, and I seem to remember the others were all busy playing. And every time I said, “Alright, let’s try another take” - because I was working it out and trying to make it better - they all had to come back and redo whatever they’d just played on the last overdub. It all had to be squeezed onto that one track, because we’d used up the other seven. That’s why, after laying down the basic track, we’d work out the whole routine in advance and get the sound and balance. You’d try and add as much as possible to each track before you ran out of room. On one track we might go, “Okay, here the tambourine comes in, then Paul, you come in at the bridge with the piano and then I’ll add the guitar riff.” And that’s the way we used to work.

GW: “Something” was your most successful song. I think every guitar player wonders, did you get that riff first?

HARRISON: No, I wrote the song on the piano. I don’t really play the piano, which is why certain chords sound brilliant to me - then I translate them onto the guitar, and it’s only C. [laughs] I was playing three-finger chords with my right hand and bass notes with my left hand. And on the piano, it’s easy to hold down one chord and mostly the bass note down. If you did that on the guitar, the note change wouldn’t come in the bass section; it would come somewhere more in the middle of the chord.

GW: But you did play that Beatles-sounding bridge riff in “Badge” on Cream’s Goodbye album, didn’t you?

HARRISON: No, Eric played that! He doesn’t even play on the song before that. We recorded that track in L.A.: it was Eric, plus Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce, and I think the producer, Felix Pappalardi, played the piano part. I was just playing chops on the guitar chords and we went right through the second verse and into the bridge, which is where Eric comes in. Again, it sounds Beatle-ish because we ran it through a Leslie speaker.

GW: Any contemporary bands that strike you as having a bit of the same spark that your early heroes had?

HARRISON: I can’t say I’ve really heard anything that gives me a buzz like some of that stuff we did in the Fifties and Sixties. The last band I really enjoyed was Dire Straits on the Brothers in Arms album. To me, that was good music played well, without any of the bullshit. Now I’m starting to get influenced by my teenage son, who’s into everything and has the attitude. He loves some of the old stuff, like Hendrix, and he’s got a leather jacket with Cream’s Disraeli Gearsalbum painted on the back. As for recent groups, he played me the Black Crowes, and they really sounded okay.

GW: You made music that awoke and changed the world. Could you sense that special dimension of it all while it was happening, or were you lost in the middle of it?

HARRISON: A combination of both, I think. Lost in the middle of it - not knowing a thing - and at the same time somehow knowing everything. Around the time of Rubber Soul and Revolver it was like I had a sudden flash, and it all seemed to be happening for some real purpose. The main thing for me was having the realization that there was definitely some reason for being here. And now the rest of my life as a person and a musician is about finding out what that reason is, and how to build upon it.

GW: Finally, any recent acid flashbacks you care to share?

HARRISON: [laughs] No, no, that doesn’t happen to me anymore. I’ve got my own cosmic lighting conductor now. Nature supports me.

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improbablecarny · 6 years ago

Text

The Best Good Parts of Ghostlights

As according to me

The second half of the story that began with The Mystery of Time, Ghostlights is a promise of similar bombast, excitement, and generally killer music that sure ghosts my lights. ... Is that anything? No? Whatever. Let’s get on to the part we all actually care about:

The spooky skeletons.

Or, you know, the music:

Storyline: The Antiquarian’s shop has burned down, the little clock is as enigmatic as ever, and Aaron Blackwell realizes that the scientists he’s found himself entangled with are really a cult set on controlling the passage of time... and the minds of all at its mercy.

Quick Notes:

Character name changes! The Nobleman is now the Magician, the Antiquarian is now the Mystic (I think he’s the same dude, anyway).

The story is a little harder to follow now, as we’ve done away with the journal entries. However, there’s still a good amount of character interaction, you can suss out a thing or two. What do you think?

There isn’t as much orchestration this time, but the trend of cool, time-themed sound design continues, so keep an ear open.

You know the drill. Official playlist. Stuff it in your earholes.

Mystery of a Blood Red Rose

The Meatloafification is complete. Literally: this song was written for Meat Loaf, who ended up passing on it despite initial positive reception. Ah, well.

This is also the song entered to Eurovision, putting Avantasia in the running to become the German representative. They did not win. Ah, well.

Those points aside, this song really rules. It’s upbeat, catchy, and has a lot going for it.

“Don’t have no TIIIIIME TO WAAASTE”

*choir* BRING ON THE NIGHT

...”while the HOUR DON’T WAIT FOR A BLINK TO CRAM THE PAST” (yes!... what?)

LET THE SCENT OF A POISONOUS ROSE TEMPT ME AWAY

“BOY REACH OUT FOR WHAT IS DUE!” legiterally thought was Bob Catley. Was Tobi. A+

....we’re OFF INTO THE MOOOOOONSHIIIIIINE

Let the Storm Descend Upon You

Big dramatic piece, soaring and mysterious with multiple vocalists... including the return of Jorn Lande as a spirit known as “Temptation”, or as I like to think of him, “Stupid Sexy Satan”.

“Light... breathe and sleep tight...” fakeout prechorus getting me hyped

“It may be your vault... NOW IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!”

“Oh that’s where I’ve been too... there’s nothing but a void over the sanity of foooools!”

Now the CHORUS FOR REAL: bright, almost gospel-esque 🤘😩🤘

“LIGHT... bring me the LIGHT!”

“I will bring uncertainty on a silver plate / like a mantlepiece / I will wipe out darkness!”

“Night! / BLESSED IS THE NIIIIIIiiIIIght!!!”

The “and I Will Make You Mine” lines first sung by Jorn and then Ronnie are both so wickedly ominous I love it

I said the chorus was fantastic in general but there’s something in particular about the last couple lines that musically always makes me go bonkers

THE BREAKDOWN

“For all the world will see it... tower to the stars...” Ronnie’s ACTING

“Let the storm descend upon me / let aurora fall upon me!” AARON...

Jorn does a Jorn thing, it’s badass, so it goes

The whole thing is badass, really.

The Haunting

Look out, Dee Snider is a spooky ghost on our next Sinister Theatrical Evil Guy song!

Again nailing the atmosphere. This is a “running through my mansion halls in a nightrobe holding a candlestick wailing as I’m chased by ghosts” song

S̺͚͙L̯̕E̞̞̼͙̤͝E̗P̟̖̣̟̣̝͉ TI͎G͖̥̭̦͈͉H̤̙̫̤͞ͅT̹͍̫͘ ̧̪͔̥͈S̫͕̱̼͖̮̞O̙̱̥͚̠͎͉M̤̥͔͠E̵̫̗͓̝O͙N̩̫̲E̞̯̱̩̞̣̟’͖S̵̺͖ ̺͍̼́A̖L̜̪WA͡Y͇̫͓̩̟̺͘S̝͇̬͇̟ ҉͓̘͍̯̣̗B͕͇̪͍̥͓͉̀Y͓̭̹͢ ̴Y̼O̰̥̯̭̻͍̖͠U͚̪̭̬̯R̘ ͈S͏̗̣̖̻͈̖̤I̸͎͎̟DͅE̮̺͍̠͙

“Don’t you waste your time to try / and understand this figment of the night” + crazy cool background instrumentals

This song is like if the Trans Siberian Orchestra’s thing was Halloween instead of Christmas

S̱͔̤̟̹̺͞W҉̭E̜̲̟̱̹͇ͅE͓̝̙͖ͅT̟̭ ̲͚̥̩͖͙͍D͔Ṛ̴͖̗̠E̬͝A̭͚M̖ͅS̴̪̲̙ͅ ̱̲͙̼̤S̲͎̖͈̝Ę̜̼̞̠̳̠͖E͙ ̺̗͎̞̞͍̫Y̛͖̭͔̠̭̜O̧̭̫͓̖͖̦U̘̯͘ ̳̦̼̯̘͉͝IN҉͔ ̡̥̯̥̳T̵͇͚͈̻̺H̶̫E̛̖ ̝̪̤̘T͚W̭I̛̼̦̣̘͉L̖̬̳̱̘̱IG̦͇̣̟͕̯H̤̱͎̦̳̝T ̜͕̻Z̠͍̣̩̥O͓̖̹̪̖͖ͅN̦͙̩̥͓͘E̷͓͓̬̮ͅ

😱: God I must contain my wayward fantasy!

👻👻👻: AHHH Ahhhh ahhh!

“I’m the spark they refuse to conceive...” DRAMATIC PIANO

Seduction of Decay

Hello, Geoff Tate. Welcome to Avantasia!

Cool instrumentation!

“You... m̠̻͉A̴̟Ý̳͖͍̱ ͍̦͠N͏̣̮O͇̘͕͖͈͘T̨̞̫ ̼̹̖̮͕̺F̞̩̼͇̯͓͎É͉̫͖È͖̞͎͇L͇̥͚̯̲ ҉̰I̘̰̪̪͓͖̱T͎̱͕̩ ”

This is a slower-paced one but it’s cool to chill out to when you’re in the right mood.

Ghostlights

Wait, we’re four songs in, it must be time for: the Michael Kiske power metal anthem!

“I don’t know if I’m right or wrong! I don’t know if I shall go on!”

“MINDS fly FREE when the gates fly open! Walk on through...”

⛈ “THUNDER AND RAIN AND THE WIND IN MY FACE” ⛈😭

“GHOSTlights DANCE will you HEED the TOKEN??? Blaaazing LIGHT...”

“BLINDING MY EYES GET ME OUT OF THIS MAZE!”

Time signature changes in the chorus... whew

“Fireworks surround me... wherever they GO THEY TELL ME always home!”

Sudden Jorn!

THEY. CALL. ME. HOOOOOOME

Draconian Love

You shed draconian love, you shed draconian love 🎶

Taking a hard turn into goth with Herbie Laghans, revealing to the world that he has a deep liquid chocolate voice apparently

“Tell me how should I embrace? / Like roses we’ll wither on the vine” 👀

HEY HEY HEY

The whole “infiltrate us with mercy” verse is Big Sexy

“Of an unbred cause / an unborn will / whatever THAT MAY MEEEEEEAAAAANN”

The last chorus and pre-chorus? Yes???

Seriously, does Herbie sing like this anywhere else ever?... Can he do it more?

Master of the Pendulum

There wasn’t a Sinister Theatrical Evil Guy song on TMoT so Ghostlights gets two

This one has Nightwish’s Marco Hietala, being crazy good at being a Sinister Theatrical Evil Guy (Ronnie also slays it in live performances)

SUPER cool atmosphere, the Watchmaker is wild.

“Tick-Tock Tick-Tock SOMEONE’S WATCHING OVER ME”

Catchiest chorus EVER

“That’s WHO I AM! I’m the MASTER of THESE haaaands...!”

“I feel your breath on my neck / I feel you behind my back / and as I’m turning around there’s just this frightening sound” 😱😱😱

“I feel it EVERYWHERE... oh I KNOW that you’re there....” 🕯👀

Alternating vocalists on the second run at the chorus!

The interlude with all the clocks ticking argh it’s SO COOL! SO COOL!! STOP BEING SO COOL!

MASTER OF THE HANDS THAT PUSH YOU!

Isle of Evermore

Sharon den Adel is here, it’s a sad ballad.

I like the weird quality to this one. The electronic quality to it reminds me of the intro to Savior in the Clockwork as well, it seems to be a way of representing dreamscapes in this duology, which is interesting.

Float away on Sharon’s voice... sail away through that opening door...

Babylon Vampyres

“A lot of good advice nobody’s keeping for themselves!” is a mood.

“The future ahead is not what it used to be” Tobi keeps using that line and it wrecks my shit every time

“BABYLON IS BURNING... SHINING FROM AFAR!

BABYLON IS BURNING... FROM SUNSET TO SUNRISE!

BABYLON IS BURNING AND YOU’RE GLOWING LIKE A FIERY STAR!

AND no one can tell... if we’ve been for real...”

Tobi and Rob’s tradeoff

The “Ever since I could remember...” passage

Lucifer

Beautiful mournful ballad, intense emotion, will melt some faces

Jorn as the embodiment of temptation is nothing new after The Wicked Trilogy but I think it’s interesting how his character takes a sympathetic turn in this one

“Morning star embrace me on these grounds” the plaintive desperation... INTO it

He WILL Take You Home Tonight

“I’ll make you fume with fury and rage / I’ll make you see what you’re made of tonight” 🤘😏

The last “TOUCHING THE FLAMES TONIGHT” dueting

Unchain the Light

That intro sounds like revving machinery. MUSICAL PICTURES. Have I said “this is SO COOL” enough yet?

The Kiske/Ronnie/Tobi tradeoff chorus is DIVINE

The second verse... I LOVE this character! Jesus CHRIST!

The “you look above to see inside yourself / and find time standing still” part... Aaron’s character turn...

“You turn this moment into what you think it ought to be / DEMYSTIFY THE DAAAAARK”

Great energetic climax. Just. 😭

A Restless Heart and Obsidian Skies

UGH THIS SONG. Again closing the album on a Bob Catley note, but this one is not 10 minutes long for once.

Beautiful beautiful denouement. 😭

The part after the first verse in the instrumental when you can hear time restart 😭😭😭

“Tender feet on stony ground” 🥺

“Sacred heart will you usher me now” 🥺🥺

The whole-ass chorus

“Wake to the SHADOWWW OF A DREAM / NOTHING’S what it seems!” 🥺🥺🥺🥺

“Ghostlights and matter / you know what is real / perception and facts all the same / truth’s what you feel” 🥺🥺😭😭

The whole “and the wind and the rain...” part

This song kills me based on what I think is happening in the story, the atmosphere, the melody, the everything

Cloudy’s “WE’RE UNDER OBSIDIAN SKIIIIEES” rip in the outro chorus 🤯

Bonus Track: Wake Up to the Moon

For a little bit of reference, I have “Wayward child / Wake up to the moon” tattooed to my leg.

This is a bonus track that seems to work as a thematically-related-but-out-of-character credits song, and yet is ALSO a sneaky Moonglow prologue! 💫

The driving melody in the verses... the continual Tobi/Jorn/Kiske/Ronnie/Bob tradeoff... 10/10

“Strange and magic, hear us CAAAAALL YOUR NAME” is a GOOD melody

And there we have it. The end... or the beginning? The past, or the future, or the present itself? Whatever it is, it’s fucking awesome. Thanks for hitching a ride with me, and see you next time!

Cast List:

Tobias Sammet as Aaron Blackwell Jorn Lande as Temptation Michael Kiske as The Mystic Ronnie Atkins as The Magician Robert Mason as Scientist I Geoff Tate as Scientist II Herbie Laghans as Eclipse Dee Snider as Nightmare Marco Hietala as The Watchmaker Sharon den Adel as Muse Bob Catley as Epiphany

#avantasia #ghostlights #metal #music #avantasia breakdown blog

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