#just listening to the song my guitar teacher from high school wrote again

[technovillain]

:']

[anonymous-swiftie]

If you are on twitter, please retweet this:

https://twitter.com/ASwiftie00/status/1334245577933148164?s=19

Dear #Swifties,

I'm new on tumblr, and I really don't know how to use it.

I know you are the best supporters of the music industry and I'm here to ask your help.

I'm fighting with a crippling depression, that due this covid situation just got worse.

I'm at my lowest, I truly don't know if I will make it through this time.

I always dreamed to talk to Taylor, since I was a teenager. She is the only one that make me feel like I do fit in this world.

I've created this account because I know she is very active here, and I'm trying to reach her with this part of my story.

You can read everything below.

I didn't write any personal information because I don't want this to be seen by my family or somebody that can recognise me.

I don't want upset anyone.

I know that everyone hope to meet or chat with her, and so you are probably wondering why you have to share this here.

You're totally right, maybe it's a stupid idea to ask you this, but I haven't anything left in my pocket to fight this situation, and you're my only hope right now.

Thank you.

#taylor #swift

*******************************************

Dear Taylor,

I keep writing and deleting this, over and over again.

I feel so dumb to write my personal story here, but this truly is my last chance to feel better and try to overcome this giant monster called depression.

I genuinly don't know if I can make it through this year. It's the worst period of my entire life and i don't even know if it's worth living this hell anymore.

I know you have millions of supporters (that probably write you every single day, and they are all better fans than I am, that's for sure) but I know that you proved, time after time, to be so down to earth and to use your time to read your fans messages.. so, in this moment, I'm just trying to share a part of my story with you.

You are the one that make feel understood, since I was like 13teen.

I'm so sorry if my English isn't very good but I'll do my best.

I'm not very active on social media , because I'm very shy when I have to talk about myself.. but If this could work, I must do it.

I will try to send a letter, If I can find the strength to mark this feeling on paper.

**IF I'M WRITING TO SOMEBODY FROM HER STAFF, PLEASE JUST LET THIS MESSAGE REACH TAYLOR**

I'll try now to resume, because I don't want to bother you too much.

This has been a crazy year so far, and the all the time I spent by myself during the lockdown didn't help at all.

This situation brought me back to childhood.

I spent a lot of my days back and forth in hospitals, due to my allergies.

I had to wear a mask all the time I wanted to go outside to avoid severe allergic reaction (that's why this Covid thing awakened some hurting memories)

I didn't have real friends back then, 'cause I've spent most of the summers at home, watching other kids playing around, from my window, or from the windows of my classroom.

It was so hard to make new friends, because the only thing that other kids saw was my mask.

I was the masked kid.

I was the strange kid.

I couldn't play with them.

Everytime I tried to play with them, the only thing I heard was "oh you are ill , I don't wanna be like you so stay away".

This situation made me start to write things in my personal diary.

I wrote small sentences, as a kid, and that was the only thing I could do alone inside an empty classroom during all summer.

This situation continued  for many years.

I wasn't the cool kid before, I wasn't the cool guy after.

The only things that let me enjoy those days were writing and listening to your songs.

I started to listen to your music thanks to my English teacher. She was a fan of folk and country music and she gave me a pic in which you were singing near a lake (I still have that photo somewhere, I strongly remember the white banner with your name written in red on it) and told me to listen to the cd she gave me that day.

I immediately fell in love (I think I still have a crush on you, I'm sorry).

I loved your album. I loved your voice. I loved the lyrics.

I remember having a "test" in school: each one of the class had to write their favourite lyrics and let the others guess the song.

If the someone guessed It, We could play the cd.

I chose Love Story and I translated it in Italian.

The class guessed the song, and I played it.

After the lunch break I went back to my desk and I saw some bullies that were breaking my cd-album and they started to laugh at me because I loved your music an I loved writing poems.

I was a boy so I was a loser because I enjoyed those things.

That felt terrible, but I continued to love your songs even more .

Those were my inspiration to write and to study english.

I felt so good when I listened to your album and this still happens.

Then I went to a private high-school.

Nothing changed, I still was the nerd guy that always got good grades and I have to say that the first year was quite good, but the second year was the start of the apocalypse.

I choose that school because two girls that I knew from childhood went there.

One of the cool new guys started to spread a fake "news" about me.

He said to everyone that I was the boyfriend of one of the two girls that I mentioned before.

So he was the cool guy and one of the girls believed him and told me to f*** myself.

The other girl was her best friend, so you could imagine by what happened next.

After 14 year spent together, I was nobody.

I didn't have "friends" in that class anymore.

I didn't say hello to anybody for 4 years, and nobody would say anything to me.

Nobody to talked with me.

That's great when you're a teenager.

I hated to wake up every morning.

I had an eating disorder, I lost like 22pounds in less than a month. Got hospitalized twice. I kept vomiting for 3 years, every single morning before school.

During that time I only talked with one of my cousins, who lived like 2 hours by car from me.

He was older than me but he always tried to help.

He knew that I loved to write poems so he started to give me guitar lessons.

I made it through a lot of things thanks to him.

I'm sorry, It's hard for me to write this part of the story.

I still get emotional when I think about this.

On the 10TH of December 2013 (some days after his birthday) we received a phone call from his mother: She warned us that he didn't return home after the last working shift.

I wrote a message to him like 3 hours prior to that phone call.

Never had the opportunity to get a reply again.

This year is the seventh year that he is missing.

That destroyed me.

I felt empty.

I felt like nothing couldn't help me.

I still feel that everytime I care about someone in my life, it will disappear someday.

This have happened several other times.

You know when ignorants say that men don't cry, is real bullshit. Men cry. I cried a lot.

I wrote so many poems , lyrics, thoughts in that period of time, that I destroyed my hands.

That was the only way to close my eyes and let me reach another reality because the real one was way too much for me.

Be a sensible man in this world is somehow a curse.

All these things made me afraid  even to hug someone 'cause I feel I'm too ugly or just to scared to be refused.

I will stop here my story, but there's so much more to tell.

I make it through all of these things and memories because I keep dreaming that one day I could meet you and we could talk together.

Dreaming about the fact I could spend a day with you made me find the power to battle my depression.

I'm 25 now and this year I'm not dreaming anymore.

I was going to start again university, I wanted to get a degree in marketing and have the chance to live in the us.

For years I believed that I would make it and hopefully be part of your marketing team.

I'm so stupid. All these years I kept dreaming to avoid pain.

I wanted to pursue my passion and continue to write lyrics but all I was doing was putting myself in unrealistic realities.

This covid situation made everything clear.

When everyone had someone to facetime (or video call) I was alone.

When everyone had someone asking them "how are you?" I only had myself looking in the mirror saying: "Will I ever feel better?"

I've never been the one for anybody, and I think I'll never be.

I won't be the one among all your fans to realize his dream.

Nobody likes me, and I'm exposing myself once again just because I want the opportunity to smile at something that could happen to me.

I'm tired to smile only for others best moments.

I've always seen the sun through a window.

I want to feel happy.

I want to burn my face with the sun.

I'm so sick of hiding my pain,

sick to cry when I'm alone in my car before going to work,

sick to let my eyes rain on my pillow every night.

I'm sick to say to my mother that I'm fine, just because I don't want to make her feel bad.

It's not her fault.

She is battling with a degenerative autoimmune disease, why I should put other weight on her shoulders?

I didn't give up to my weakness before because I don't want to hurt her.

I always say to her that soon she will feel better, that's why your song It's stuck in my head.

But when she won't be here anymore, how I can go through all of that?

I don't even know if will ever get better for me.

Will this pain ever stop?

Sometimes it's so hard to live and so easy to die.

Hope that my dream to spend some time with you can become true.

Thank you for everything, you gave me the strength to go on for many years.. But this time is so hard to put on my armor and continue this battle.

But is this even worth if thy I try to surround myself with people and I always feel lonely?

D.

@taylorswift @taylornation @jackleopards-thedolphinclub

[britneyshakespeare]

I was never really supposed to be a poet. Old followers and mutuals from way, way back in the day (which I'm sure is very few of you) (I'm talking circa 2014-16) may remember that when I was a teenager I played guitar. And I kinda just stopped completely shortly after I finished high school. I was also a passionate theater kid at one point but due to the toxicity it held for me, at least in my environment at the time, I stopped that too, even before I finished high school. I had a casual, passing interest in poetry since middle school, but it wasn't really more than a flirtation. Though for several years now I have called it the love of my life. I prioritized other creative pursuits above it, for sure. And it wasn't even until I was a sophomore that I even viewed it as a skill to develop on its own. My early poems were very much philosophical thought vomit that I thought was deep, but it was actually just creatively bankrupt and lazily constructed. Most poems are, for teenagers just dipping their toes in it. I didn't READ poetry at all on my own until that time as well. That helped me better appreciate it and get excited about finding myself in this new medium.

And lately I've just been thinking about how really, I originally wanted to write poetry because I thought it would help me learn to write songs. That's why I got so eager about sonnets, villanelles, ballades, other form poetry and rhyme schemes. Poems were just songs without the music, I thought. How wrong I think that is now! Some songs are poems and some poems are songs, but not all have to be or even should be. The differences between poetry and music should be embraced just as much as their similarities. Due to how much less often people read poetry than they listen to music, the comparison always ends up being a disadvantage to the art of poetry in the long run. It benefits a song to think of it as simultaneously a poem, but it undermines the value of a poem by itself. Spoken or written words without accompaniment can be very powerful and purposeful.

I never could write songs anyway. Never. I never wrote one complete song with lyrics and music. They just don't work together naturally in my brain. To me, playing guitar is such a different instinct than playing with words. And the lyrics I wrote, even after having developed my own poetic voice, were fucking awful. Somehow. I don't think poetry and songwriting are interchangeable skills. Again, the stereotype that they are ultimately undermines poetry because people think they can just transfer their skill from one form to another, and it just doesn't work. This is why so many celebrity poetry collections are awful, even when they're published by a famous musician. Sure, they know sound and rhythm, and even use them in language, but they're likely saving their better stuff for their album where they know what to do with it. They'll "bend the rules" by writing lazily, arrhythmically, overall with less effort and attention, thinking that more "free-flowing" (and by that I mean, prosaic) structure is what makes it poetry. Again, because it simply wouldn't work as a song. Well, as a poem, the product is also terrible. Appreciate poetry as its own standalone art. That's the only way to become a good poet.

But lately, I've missed music a lot more, for some reason. Maybe it's that I've been rereading my diaries and I remember how important it was to me, how much joy I got out of playing the guitar (and for a minute there also the ukulele), how relaxing it was. My guitar teacher in high school was also fucking awesome. Super cool man. Great at teaching basics and more complex stuff. Whether I was practicing or learning new things, or even teaching my friends a few songs and skills, it was such an enjoyable hobby to me. Sometimes I like telling people I "used to" play guitar, because it makes it sound like I tragically broke up with it. Sometimes people even encourage me to keep playing! And I'm normally like, well, no. I had a good time with it while I did it but I have other things in my life that occupy my hours and fuel my inspiration instead. No bother.

However, though, it's really kicking me. To the point where I just said, fuck it, grabbed my ukulele out of the closet, because that was the small, easy one to play. I played ukulele because I didn't need to learn any new skills, just the different notes/chords. Ukuleles were also unbearably trendy at the time if you remember the mid-2010s as well as I do. There were a lot of lazy uke players, which is fine, but if you already knew guitar, it was going to be easy as fuck. And it was. To me it was a lesser instrument as well, in terms of not really appreciating its uniqueness as it's own separate instrument, which I'm sure not many people do. It's the pretty baby guitar to a lot of people. I feel somewhat bad about that, and I guess I sort of partook in perpetuating that, because it was not my priority. Ukulele to guitar was poetry to songwriting. Lesser and lazier. I could've stood to know more. I should know more. I'll learn more. I hope.

But, yes, I took that out of the closet and tuned it and played one song with only a couple chords. I went into the attic because I knew I was going to sound bad and unpracticed (because it was! I am!) and I didn't wanna disturb my parents. And I only did it for like 15 or 20 minutes, and I'm so very rusty, but like. Geez that hurt my fingies. I don't remember how to hold the instrument comfortable either. My muscle memory is gone. And I can't believe how constantly-callused my fingertips used to be. I just lived like that! I lived like that. My nice soft little fingertips returning was the real reason I stopped playing guitar after high school.

[nightshade-minho]

Nightmare (1)

Warnings: Angst/Fluff/Smut.

Suggestiveness, making out, eventual smut.

fake dating!au, college!au, roommates!au, best-friends to lovers!au.

(There are 13 parts to this fic, and they're all linked in my masterlist.)

You’d known Lee Minho since the two of you were in kindergarten.

The story of how you met involves macaroni necklaces, messy finger paint and the teacher scolding you for getting Minho covered in glue and sequins...something which Minho took the blame for almost immediately.

Ever since then, you’d known Minho would always be there for you, the light in your life when everything else felt wrong or unsafe. He was there for you when you fell sick, sitting by your bed and reading you Harry Potter fanfiction. He was there for you when you had your first kiss with a guy named Matt who told the whole school you were a tramp...and he was there for you when your first boyfriend of eight months dumped you for a blonde with daddy issues.

He was the one constant in your life. The one thing you knew would never change, the one person you knew you could trust with your life.

Which is why right now, you almost wanted to throw up. Cause there he was, pressing a redhead against the wall, the two of them heavily making out. His hands were on her ass, hers were slung around his neck. The sounds of the partying college students around you became nothing more than a buzzing sound in your ear, as you tried to blink the tears back. So...this was why he had texted you to say he couldn’t make it for Movie Night.

It wasn’t quite the fact that your best friend was currently sticking his tongue down some random girl’s throat....no. It’s the fact that he’d blown you off to attend this sleazy frat party. Perhaps the Minho you thought you knew was just a figment of your imagination. Maybe this was what he had been all along.

You turn around, pushing through the crowd as you search for the exit. If you had to stay there for one more second, you would probably puke.

As you finally managed to get to your bicycle and get back to the apartment you shared with him, you sighed.

Minho had always had a lot of things in common with you. It was why your friendship worked so well. All throughout high school, he’d been the perfect best friend. The two of you were in your own little impenetrable bubble, spending time with only each other. Afternoons consisted of dance parties, sing-offs and Disney movies. Halfway through high school though, you started noticing the slight changes in his behavior. How he actually seemed to enjoy the girls ogling him when he was dancing in the practice room, even though he wouldn’t admit it. How he started attending parties, and how he liked being the center of attention. Afternoons now consisted of booze and getting ready for parties, where there would be more booze.

And that’s when you realized that you and Lee Minho had one fundamental difference, and that was his confidence.

He was so self-assured, unfazed by opinions. You on the other hand, succumbed to criticism a lot more easily.

Of course people started talking about you too when Minho got popular.

“Who’s that girl he hangs out with all the time? I don’t think I even know her name.”

“Do you think they’re dating?”

“Hah! He’s way out of her league. They’re childhood friends or some shit. But you girls don’t need to worry, she isn’t a threat or anything.”

“Yeah. He would never go for someone so...mundane.”

There was the word. Mundane. That’s what people thought you were. The truth is, you had a lot to offer...a lot to show the world. However, living in Minho’s shadow made that difficult.

And now, as you cycled along, the image of him making out with that girl played over and over in your head. When did it all go wrong? When did Minho turn from your loyal best friend to a popular fuckboy who only hung out with you for old times’ sake?

When college rolled around, you two decided to get an apartment together, since all the dorms were full and there was no one else you trusted enough to live with. And for a while, things felt like old times. Living with Minho...sharing a home? It all felt right somehow. And that...that’s probably when you realized you were in love with him.

In between all the partying and fucking that Minho did, he would spend time with you. You’d watch movies together, bake, he’d dance and you’d watch, you’d play guitar and he would listen intently, his eyes closed...unaware that every song you wrote was meant for him.

•••

You’d been living with him for 2 years now. Approximately 730 days of knowing you were in love with your best friend, while being painfully aware of your unreciprocated feelings at the same time.

Could anyone blame you? Yes, he was handsome. The hordes of girls following him around proved that to be accurate. Yet none of them knew about his little quirks and habits- like the way he stayed up till 3 AM...meaning you had to kick him awake every morning. His habit of excessive blinking, his weird laugh and unhealthy obsession with anything feline...all of them did nothing but make you fall for him deeper.

You put your bike in the shed, making your way to the apartment.

You knew he was a little bit of a player ever since he hit puberty, but you’d never actually seen him with another girl. None of his sexual escapades took place in the apartment you shared with him. This place was yours and Minho’s only- no one else was allowed to encroach the space.

You unlocked the door, greeted with a sad, empty apartment. You removed your jacket, throwing it on the sofa and making your way to your room.

You wanted to take a shower, feeling filthy after all the things you’d witnessed at the party. So you stripped, and stepped under the scalding hot water...washing away the sweat and tears...and wishing you could wash away your feelings.

Once you were done, you went through your drawers to find an oversized shirt, only to see a big, black spider make an appearance.

The scream you let out was embarrassingly shrill, and you were glad no one was around to hear it. Minho was the one who usually took care of bugs, but he was, unfortunately, elsewhere.

You gathered the shirt, your underwear and your puppy plushie Gyu before quickly running out of your door and locking it. You leaned against the wall and tried to regain your breathing.

The only choice you had right now was to sleep on the sofa...but then you remembered how Minho’s room was currently unused.

Fuck it. By the looks of the way he was groping the girl back at the party, he was most definitely not coming back tonight.

You opened Minho’s bedroom door carefully, surprised at how clean it was. You lowered yourself onto his bed and wrapped yourself in the blankets, hugging Gyu close to you, imagining for a minute that it was your annoyingly charismatic best friend...and slapping yourself for that immediately.

Sleep overtook you quickly, your dreams plagued with him.

•••

Meanwhile...a certain Lee Minho happened to recall his appointment with his best friend just as the redhead kneeling in front of him was about to unzip his jeans.

He stepped back just as she leaned forward, frowning.

“What the fuck are you doing?” She asked, eyes narrowed.

“I’m sorry, but I just remembered I have this other thing I really have to be at...uh, what’s your name again?”

“It’s Rina, asshole! And fuck you.”

Minho smirked, before opening the door and leaving. “Right back at you, sweetheart.”

Yes, he was aware that this was a total asshole move, but at the same time he knew how disappointed and hurt you would be if he left you hanging...and that’s something he didn’t want to deal with.

And that’s how he ended up back home, sighing as he found the front door unlocked. One of these days, your carelessness would probably be the reason for an untimely death.

He pushed open the door and locked it behind him, surprised to find the living room dark and empty. The sofa was illuminated by the faint moonlight streaming in through the window, a lone jacket resting on top of it. He groaned as he noted the stack of DVDs and untouched snacks laid across the coffee table.

Carefully he made his way to your room and knocked on it. As seconds of silence stretched by, he pushed the door open slowly, only to find it as empty as the living room. Weird. Were you not home?

Confused, Minho shrugged and turned around to go to his room. Maybe you’d gone out for an evening walk or something, and would be back soon.

Of course, when he opened his bedroom door, he quickly realized that wasn’t the case. Cause there you were, cuddled up in his blankets with your plushie, softly snoring. He wrinkled his nose.

Fuck, she’s cute.

He shook his head with a smile, turning around to pull his shirt off, his jeans following suit. He rummaged around in his drawers for sweatpants and pulled those on, choosing not to bother with a shirt.

He quietly got onto the bed, and carefully lifted the blankets back so he could get in too...however, nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.

You were wearing his shirt. That was the first thing he noticed. The second thing he noticed was how far up it had ridden, exposing your entire bottom half to him.

When he lifted that blanket, catching a glimpse of his best friend’s ass wasn’t what he had expected. It didn’t help that the panties you had on were exactly the kind he liked- grey and lacy, accentuating the curve of your butt perfectly.

Minho gulped. He tried reminding himself that this was his best friend, whom he wasn’t supposed to view in such a light...but he was a man, regardless. And there was a half-naked girl lying in his bed. The fact that he still had half a boner from his previous activities at the party only made things worse.

Fuck it.

Throwing all caution to the wind, Minho lowered himself so he was lying comfortably, wrapping the blanket around him as well. He wondered if he should keep his distance, but now that you were covered up he felt more at ease. He scooted closer to the warmth of your body and shifted you so that you were closer...his heart clenching when you snuggled up to him in your sleep, resting your head on his bare chest.

Minho was the kind of person who had no idea what he was feeling at any given time. Emotions were something that he had plenty of, but rarely acknowledged- and why would he? It was just unnecessary and only made him feel convoluted. Running through life without giving any fucks wasn’t probably a good idea in the wrong run, but it worked for now.

He sighed for about the millionth time that day. Everything was puzzling to him...and at this point, trying to unpackage all of the emotions he’d amassed and ignored over the years would be impossible. Being the kind of guy who fucked random nameless girls wasn’t what 10 year old Minho had thought he would grow up to be...but life had a way of surprising you.

He snapped out of his reverie when you nuzzled your face into his chest and let out a tiny whimper. Minho looked down at you, noticing that you were starting to shake. He knew you used to get nightmares frequently, so he stroked your hair, and you calmed down gradually, falling silent once again.

As he patted your back, he thought about how he could have been on top of that redhead by now, had he stayed. But it didn’t matter...cause one thing’s for sure, he would choose you over pussy any day.

He fell asleep with that thought etched securely into his mind.

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

in honour of the rawring 20s, more cringy things from my emo/scene phase, a semi-masterpost:

•putting the you me at six lyric “whose keeping a score of who is a whore??? i know you don’t!” as my myspace header in japanese…… so the girls in my year at school that i thought were “whores”, and didn’t like them bc of that, wouldn’t pick up that that i was aiming it at them. like being a weeb and a scene kid douchebag???? they don’t mix lmao.

•screaming “IF YOU HAD A SEX LIFE, A SEX LIFE WOULD YOU EVEN WORRY ABOUT MINE WHEN YOUR BED IS EMPTY???? YOU’RE A WASTE OF TIME!!!!” from the song sex life by d.r.u.g.s (destroy rebuild until god shows) through the halls of catholic school in year 10/2011 to try to ~subtly~ and bitterly flirt with my crush lmao. like honey. chill the fuck out!!!! you’re 15!!!!! not many people have a sex life at 15 anyway lmao

•my uh. jeffree star music phase in 2007

•i’ve mentioned this before but wanting to score my entire year 10 drama shakespeare monologue with emo music and my teacher having to block the idea constantly bc “it’s good enough on its own! i swear to GOD!”

•taking a studded belt to school on the 31/10/2009 bc i had to get ready for amity affliction at my besties house that day after school so we could head up to sydney that night for the concert. saying shit about having a studded belt made me hardcore and wanting to punch people in the face with it bc it was some dumb reoccurring theme i had

•watching the music video for one love by aiden on my ipod nano at school and telling everyone about jeffree star’s i hate you ring in the video and how if i ever had it i’d punch all the people i hated in the face with it….. and then they’d be branded for life with the fact that i hated them?????? like bro. i KNOW you are the embodiment of angsty harry potter from HP puppet pals. but literally!!!! calm the fuck down!!!!!!

•i’ve talked about it before, but breaking up with clear braces boy and immediately demanding him to “hurry up and listen to a day to remember bc they’re fucking amazing!!! and you know i’m motherfucking right!!!!”

•taking 3 hours to straighten my hair just to go swimming….. then like someone pushing me in a pool or the surf (if we’d gone to the beach) and RUINING MY PERFECTLY STRAIGHTENED HAIR AND MY AESTHETIC!!!! HOW DARE YOU????!!! you KNEW you were going swimming girl. why the fuck did you bother to straighten your hair anyway, lmao???

•the whole cringy thing of me wanting to work in the CD shop sanity just so i could play a bunch of emo music and have some cute heavily tattooed emo boy/guy in his skinny jeans, slouchy beanie/now gross beanie hat type thing and band shirt come in and mysteriously fall in love with me….. and then kiss me to “kill me in a record shop” by boys like girls… or like alternatively i’d be making out with my hot older emo coworker in the back to the same song or some other horny emo song anthem/s 😂😂 same went for JB hifi when they came along and started stocking all time low and cute is what we aim for cd’s 😂😂😂 the hot emo bro would also teach me to skate as a bonus hobby outside of work. like KILL ME NOW!!!!

• alternatively to the above, i’d just magically have a hot emo boy boyfriend who was preferably the singer in the band…. but also could play guitar and could hardcore scream really well….. when like the bulk of those dudes were literally in their 20s 😂😅. on this point, teen emo me believing that her liking 20something emo dudes who were covered in tats and piercings and wrote ~hella deep~ lyrics etc etc just apparently made her more mature than the girls in her year at catholic school who liked justin bieber or one direction (who were literally the same age as us lol). like girl no. if those older dudes hit on you, IT’S A RED FLAG!!!! FUCKING RUN!!!!

•wanting to take my edgy pop punk road trip to a town 8 hours north from where i am as soon i got my licence and stuff… also the whole moody thing about ~crashing my car just to feel again~ theme i had going on 2011/year 10 in my teen mental breakdown phase in regards to getting my licence bc i was so desperate to do something ~reckless~

•basically a good bulk of my high school statuses tbh

•me taking in the same 3 pics of the same 3 scene queens and hayley williams (and cassidy pope, once) into my hair dresser EVERY 8 WEEKS to get my hair cut just like them 😂😂 i even updated my facebook status in year 9/2010 once with “got hayley williams hair cut today :D :D!!!!” i swear to god my hairdresser got so sick of me taking those pics in lmao 😂😅

•stage diving at a local amity affliction show in 2010/year 9 and going straight to the fucking floor bc i accidentally jumped into a hole in the crowd…. but i suppose it’s bc i was the biggest wanker at the show bc….. before we went in, i was bragging hella loud about how “hardcore” i apparently was 😂😂

•using my hot topic dress in my year 10 drama monologue bc i thought its steampunk style was elizabethan enough when paired with my black marching band style jacket (that i used to imitate black parade era mcr) and a pocket watch that was a tiny moveable robot. and also my trusty red flanno shirt from jay jays

•wanting entire clothing lines from certain band members from certain labels. and most especially booty shorts with the persons name (most frequently a dude) plastered across my ass 😂😅

•wanting the entire mid2000s line of drop dead merch. also bbycks (baby cakes) and zumiez etc etc. also glamor kills.

•desperately wanting my bra to be on a mic stand of a certain band dudes mics (just why lmao)… or on certain band members mics lmao (also just why)

[iadoreyouharry]

His Reputation

summary: Y/N and Harry are in High School. The two of them absolutely hate each other but have to work together at an English assignment. 

pairings: Harry Styles x reader

warnings: Angst and swearing. 

word count: 3,6K words

a/n : To be honest, i don’t really know if i like it that much, but i still wanted to share it with you! Please let me know if you liked it! :)

Today was the first day of senior year. Y/N couldn’t be any happier about finally starting her last year. She was over with this shit show of a school. First of all, Y/N didn’t have many friends. She tried to make them, but they were mostly put off by her appearance. She mostly wore dark clothes and didn’t always have a smile on her face. She barely put any effort into her make-up, only some mascara what was smeared out at the end of the day. 

But nonetheless Y/N had one best friend. It was hard for Y/N to open up to people and she could be cold and distant to a stranger at first, but if you get her to trust you she was literally a sweetheart. And so, it happened to be that Y/F/N won the trust of Y/N. 

In contrast to Y/F/N, Harry Styles was the person Y/N would never trust, even if he was the last person to exist on this planet. The hatred towards him was big. 

Harry Styles was a captain of the High School football team and was pretty popular. Freshman guys looked up to him, they aspired to be as good as him in Football one day. And the girls would drool all over him in the hallways. Even though he got a generous choice for girls he was still single. Some people said he didn’t want to have a relationship because he focused too much on football, others said he might be dating someone secretly. Y/N didn’t care about all this bullshit over Harry. She lived her life without having to obsess over a stinky football guy. The funny thing, she was the only one.

“How can you not like him?” Y/F/N asked Y/N. 

“How could you like him?” Y/N responded. “He is so full of himself, I’d almost think he wants to marry his self later.” Y/N chuckled when she saw him looking in the tiny mirror in his locker, fixing his hair. “Why would he care so much about his hair, god damn.” 

Y/N closed her locker and walked away from the scene. Girls were admiring from a little distance, but all you can do was find the nearest bathroom to puke. 

Harry tried sometimes to talk to Y/N, but it was short conversations. Y/N would respond back with short and cold answers and would cut off the conversation immediately. 

Y/N may hate Harry, but Harry did find Y/N interesting. He was confused as why she didn’t like him? How could someone not like him? He knew he was handsome and attractive; how could she not see it. But because she didn’t like him Harry felt more attracted to her. She was mysterious and he liked it. He only didn’t show it. After trying to talk nicely to her, and not succeeding, he became cold and harsh to Y/N too. 

After 3 full years of pestering each other on and off they were not thinking off ceasing this year. 

“Hey, Raccoon, still didn’t learn how to do some proper make-up?” Was one of the first things Harry yelled at Y/N when she walked into school. Y/N’s reaction? holding up two middle-fingers in Harry’s direction with a fake big smile. 

Y/N and Y/F/N said their goodbyes when they split to go to their classrooms. First period would be English. Y/N sat down in the back corner of the room to not be seen. The start was good, the teacher, Mrs. Anderson, talked about her summer break and introduced herself. She even showed pictures of her two dogs. But then hell broke loose. Mrs. Anderson paired people together to interview each other about their summer break and write a whole essay about it. Y/N hated projects where you needed to work together. But she hated this project even more when she heard who her partner would be. 

“And then next, Y/N Y/L/N together with Harry Styles.” Harry looked to Y/N with a smirk on his face and all you could do was put a middle finger up. Gladly Mrs. Anderson didn’t see it. 

After class Harry walked up to Y/N. “Please, fuck off.” Y/N said and grabbed her bag to leave. 

“You need to talk to me, otherwise we will both fail this class.” He said and crossed his arms. 

“Fine, then I’ll fail this class, everything to not have to talk to you.” 

“For a fact, I know you can’t fail this class, or you can’t graduate.” A crooked smile could be seen on his face and his head was tilted a bit. “So, what do you say, mine place, or yours?” 

“Library after school sounds just fine.” With those words, Y/N walked off to her next period. 

//

After school Y/N walked to the library to work on the project with Harry. She had told the horrible news to Y/F/N but the only thing she could say was: “Maybe you two might actually talk for once, and maybe even slightly be friendly to each other.” Y/N thought she was crazy and that that never was going to happen. 

Once in the library Y/N found a spot and pulled out her laptop to be ready for the interview she had to take. But Harry was nowhere to be seen. The thought of mailing him came through Y/N’s head, but that would look desperate, and Y/N was everything but desperate. 

After a good twenty minutes Harry finally showed up, he was dressed in his football uniform, and his hair was one big mess. “Practice took longer than expected.” he said. He took place across from Y/N and laid back in his chair. 

“I don’t care what the hell you were up to.” Y/N snapped. “Just be in time.” 

“Jeez, why so grumpy?” Harry laughed. Y/N was already irritated and couldn’t wait for this god damn project to be over. “So, what do we need to do?” 

“Didn’t you listen to the explanation of Mrs. Anderson?” 

“No.” 

Y/N sighed and tried to explain calmly what the two of them needed to do. 

“So, we need to interview each other?” Harry asked, “and then need to write an essay about each other’s summer break?” Y/N nodded. 

“Exactly, it isn’t that hard.” 

“If it isn’t that hard, then why won’t you write both of our essays?” Harry proposed. “You wouldn’t have to see me, and I wouldn’t have to do anything.” 

“Do I look like your little slave? I’m not going to do that, idiot.” 

After a while the two actually started to ask each other questions about their break. Y/N tried to come up with good questions and tried to answer Harry’s questions as well as possible. But his answers were short and Y/N couldn’t work with those, and let’s not talk about the questions he asked. 

“Aren’t you going to write my answers down?” Y/N noticed that Harry didn’t write anything down on his notebook during the whole interview. 

“Nah, I’ll remember it.” He crossed his arms and smiled. “Or, I’ll just come up with something.” 

“You can’t do that.”

“Oh, and who are you to say that? You’re not my teacher.”

//

The whole afternoon was full of the two fighting like this. and Y/N was relieved when they called it quits. They weren’t done, far from. Y/N didn’t have enough to get a whole essay to write, and she was sure Harry didn’t either, with his dumb ass questions. 

“So, when are we going to work on this further?” Y/N asked when she packed her stuff. 

“I thought we were done?” 

“We are far from done, how do you think you are going to write a whole essay about my break with this little information.” Y/N rambled. 

“Just, like I said. I’ll come up with some stuff.” 

“You can do that,” Y/N said, “But I’m not going to, so we’re going to meet up again to work on this horrible project, if you like it or not.” 

Harry put his hands in his pockets and was thinking about it. “Fine,” he finally said. “But, at my place tomorrow after school.” 

“I don’t fucking know where you live, Styles.” 

“I’ll just text you the address.” Harry already walks away. 

How in the hell was he going to text her if he didn’t even have her phone number? Y/N decided that wouldn’t be her problem. 

When Y/N got home she decided to make a start on her essay. Even though she didn’t have much to write about she stretched the hell out of everything and finally got at least one page full. The fact that the main thing Harry did in his break was playing football made Y/N laugh. How can a person be so dedicated about a school sport? When he didn’t play football, he hung out with friends. At least that’s what he had told Y/N. 

Harry played so much football to get away from his house. His parents were fighting all the time and Harry didn’t like being in the middle of it all. At home he often was in his room listening to music on 100% volume to zone out of the real world. Harry liked music, he has a guitar and he also likes to sing, but he keeps that to himself. Sometimes he even wrote songs, but would never let anyone hear them. The lyrics would be hidden away in an old book in a drawer in his room.

Of course, he couldn’t tell Y/N this was what he was doing in the holidays. He had a reputation of being the hot football player who wasn’t afraid of anyone. And even though he knew he could get any girl, he still was insecure. He was scared people would see when he hadn’t slept all night because of his parents. The bags under his eyes would sometimes be so big, he put his mother’s concealer under it. Nobody would notice. 

Harry was glad that his parents finally decided to get a divorce, and his dad would move out. It was quiet in the house, finally. And Harry got to have a good night sleep again. His bond with his mum had grew since, and he was really glad for it. 

When he got home he went to the kitchen where his mum was preparing dinner.  He gave her a quick peck on the cheek and then sat on the counter. 

“How was school, darling?” 

“I’ve got to do a stupid project for English class with that stupid girl, Y/N.” Harry’s mum knew he didn’t like Y/N, but she disagreed about how he talked about her. 

“Harry,” she said warningly. “You probably don’t even know her that well, maybe she’s a really nice girl.” 

“Sure, that’s why she’s so cold and harsh to me.” 

“Maybe she has her reasons?” Harry walks off unagreeably. He loved his mum, but in this case a little less. He knew Y/N was stupid. She didn’t like him, so why would he be nice to her? He tried it long ago, and that didn’t go well. Why even try now?

//

After school Y/N was walking to Harry’s house. It was a fifteen-minute walk and rain poured down. She forgot to bring an umbrella and was now soaking wet. She already felt the embarrassment of sitting in Harry’s room, clothes dripping on his floor. Amazing. 

After fifteen minutes of walking, Y/N arrived at Harry’s place. It was a cozy house, not too small, not too big. Y/N didn’t expect Harry to live in a house like this. She had more the image in her head of a big house with big entrance and huge garden. 

She walked up to the door and rang the bell. Anxiously waiting for someone to open it. After a few seconds a woman opens the door and squeaks when she sees Y/N. “Oh, you must be Y/N! come inside it must be cold!” Y/N follows the woman into the house and there they stood in the hall. “I’m Anne, Harry’s mum.” the woman says. “You’re soaking wet, darling. Do you want something warm to change into?”

“Oh, no I don’t want to bother-”

“I’ll get Harry to get you something warm.” She yells upstairs for Harry to come downstairs and get Y/N some warm clothes. Harry’s face speaks for itself, he’s already done with this bullshit, but does what his mum tells him to. 

Anne told Y/N to just follow Harry and it would be alright. So, she did. Harry walks into a room, Y/N guessed was his. The walls were painted in a light color and it was clean. Y/N imagined his room full of football supplies, but she saw nothing what was related to football. While Y/N was looking around the room Harry was picking out some of his old clothes. He gave them to Y/N and told her she could get changed in the bathroom. 

Harry had given Y/N some sweatpants and his old football shirt. It was way too big on her, but it was better than the wet clothes she was wearing. Anne offered to put her wet clothes in the dryer so Y/N handed them over to her. 

When Y/N walked back into Harry’s room Harry looked up. He didn’t want to find Y/N cute in his old clothes, but he did. And he hated himself for that. It was just cute how the clothes were way too big on her. She awkwardly stood in the door opening and waited for Harry to say something. 

“You can sit on my bed.” Harry offers while he was already seated at his desk. Y/N plops down and grabs her laptop from her bag. Y/N was confused, as to why his mum was so kind and caring while Harry was far from that. 

The two, were to surprise, working great together. Harry finally asked some good, deep questions and Y/N was glad to give some good answers in return. After an hour the two were finished interviewing each other without any hassle. 

Harry dropped on his bed with a big sigh while Y/N was still seated at the end of it. “Glad that’s over with.” he says while staring at the ceiling. 

“Yes, indeed.” Y/N answers as she puts her laptop away. “I’ll get my own clothes again so I can leave.” 

“They’re probably not dry yet.” Harry says. “You can stay a little longer if you want, I can make you a cup of tea?” In this hour of not fighting with each other Harry began to see why he was interested in her four years ago. He saw her ticking away on her laptop with her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth. It was funny how she made weird faces while typing out some of the answers. And he admired when she giggled sometimes. It wasn’t a lot, but for some reason it felt like home. He knew he couldn’t be harsh to her right now. 

“Why are you so nice to me all of a sudden?” Y/N asks suspicious. Harry was never nice to her, so something’s got to be up. 

“It was peaceful today, I liked it.” 

“I thought that was just to get over with this project.” 

“No, I-, do you want tea or not?” Y/N chuckled and nod her head.

She was still surprised Harry was acting so nice out of nowhere. She had do admit she really liked this side of him. But she was still scared he’d change at a glance. Maybe he only was this nice because there was nobody else and his reputation couldn’t be destroyed. 

Harry already was off to the kitchen so Y/N was alone with her thoughts. She really wanted to believe he could always be this kind, but she needed to see him like this at school. She was scared that if she would open up, just a little bit right now, he would use it against her, and pester her even more with it. 

After 5 minutes Harry comes back up with two cups of tea and hands one over to Y/N. “Thank you.” She says with a slight smile. It was silent while the two of them while slurping their tea. 

“Y/N I can’t do this.” Y/N looked up at Harry in confusion. She knew it, he couldn’t fake being nice to her. Of course, she was right. It was just an act. “I can’t act like I hate you, when I actually like you, you seem really nice.” 

“What?!” Y/N almost spits out her tea. “How?” she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “Then, why were you always so rude to me?” 

“Because you acted cold and harsh towards me!” he exclaims. 

“Ow.” 

Dead silence. 

“I’m just not so open towards people I don’t know, I don’t trust people that easy and i can be cold, i guess.” Y/N explains. “I always thought you just picked on me.” 

“No, in our first year of High School i really tried to talk to you in a nice way, but you always cut off the conversations.” 

“So, because I was cold to you, you became cold and mean to me?” 

“Yes, i guess so.” Harry takes another sip of his tea. “I guess the tea is hot today.” Y/N laughed and gave nudged his arm. “Can you trust me now?” 

“Well, no.” Y/N says. “How can I know you really mean this?” 

“I just don’t pester you the upcoming days on school? If you don’t either?” he extends his arm. “Promise?” Y/N nods and takes his hand. 

“Promise.”

//

The next week the two of them didn’t snap at each other and it was peaceful between the two of them. They also didn’t speak to each other, but sometimes they would send each other a small smile in the hallways. 

Y/F/N noticed the sudden change between Y/N and Harry. “What is going on, why aren’t you guys fighting all the time?” 

“We came to our senses, and agreed we should stop being mean to each other.” Y/F/N was shocked. She saw the two of you fighting each day for the last three years, how was that changed of a sudden?” 

“But, you literally hate each other.” 

“Well,” Y/N begins. “I thought he hated me, but it was me who was harsh to him in the beginning, so he became harsh to me too because of that.” 

“So you hated him for being mean, but it was your own fault?” 

“Exactly.” 

“And you’re sure he won’t start picking on you again?”

“I hope so.” Y/N gulped. “He promised it.” 

“Let’s hope” Y/F/N says cheery. “Because I’m liking this truce.” 

When Y/N was walking in the way of a bathroom she walked by Harry and his friends. 

“100% you’re going to pick on her again next week.” She hears one of his friends say laughing. 

“Yeah, absolutely.” Harry confirms and laughs with his friend. 

“What the fuck, Styles?!” you blurt out. Harry looked up in shock after hearing you. He wanted to say something but you ran into the bathroom. 

“Y/N,” he stood by the door to try and talk to you. He heard his friends behind him laughing but he didn’t care. Why did he care so much about this stupid reputation, it wasn’t meant for Y/N to hear that, he didn’t mean a thing he said, he just wanted his friends to like him? “Y/N, please.” he repeated after she didn’t respond after the first time. After the third time of not responding he walked into the girl’s bathroom not giving a fuck. 

“Go away.” Y/N yelled. Harry could tell she cried a bit and tried to cover it up. “You don’t care about me.” 

“I do, I really do Y/N.” 

“Didn’t seem like it back there.” 

“Y/N I have a reputation here.”

“Exactly, and getting a truce with me would ruin it, go ahead, let’s ruin each other’s lives again.” Harry wanted to come closer to Y/N but she pushed him away. “If that fucking reputation is so fucking important to you, mister fucking styles, then go ahead and save your reputation.” She punched Harry on his chest. For harry it didn’t hurt that much, but Y/N really needed to relieve her anger at him. Harry grabbed her wrists so she stopped hitting him. “Let me go!” she exclaims. Harry doesn’t let go and stares deeply into Y/N eyes. 

“Fuck my reputation.” Harry says. He leans forward and crashes his lips onto Y/N. At first Y/N was in shock by the sudden kiss but was soon joining him. Their lips were in sync. Harry grabbed Y/N’s cheek and stroked it with his thumb and Y/N’s hands were all over Harry’s curls. The anger she had really was outed in the kiss and it made it even more passionate. The two couldn’t get enough of each other, and they both realized that this was the thing they both wanted, but tried to put that feeling away for so many years. 

“Harry.” Y/N begins as the kiss came to an end. “Are you sure you want to get rid of that reputation, for me?” 

“one hundred percent.” He grabs her hand and squeezes it. “please, trust me.” 

“I want to, but how do i know you won’t keep talking about me like that.” referring to the scene with his friends from a moment ago. 

“You still have my football shirt from the afternoon we did the interview?” Y/N nodded, Harry said she could keep it because it didn’t fit him anymore. That was a lie, he wanted her to have it, it looked adorable on her. “Please, wear that to school tomorrow, and I’ll gladly show you off to everyone in this school.” 

[ginkgomoon]

Gavin's 'Falling Slowly' and Film 'Once'- Analysis

Since the beginning, I’ve wanted to do an analysis on the song Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, but since it was only mentioned twice (in Mark Date and Gavin’s Music and the Past Call), I thought it was going to be left at that. But because of the mention again in @cheri-translates' post, perhaps... there could be more to it. Because this song was made for the film Once, I had actually watched it earlier this year. I wasn’t going to post this analysis originally, but the trailer literally made me cry. After watching it with the knowledge from my first viewing, the trailer had a bigger impact on me that I didn’t expect. This allowed me to push on. Rewatching the film for this helped me realise some parallels between the film and Gavin’s history with MC, along with its song Falling Slowly. For me, the film was so heartfelt, vulnerable, honest and real. Just like the side that Gavin shows MC. It also had super hilarious moments that made me laugh so much while crying over the sad bits. Highly recommend this movie (if you don’t mind some occasional cursing!) Now I can say I’ve watched Once twice.

Below contains spoilers for Gavin's CN content (referring to Cheri's translations) and on the film.

“Your performance… was a miracle to me.” -Gavin

Once is a 2007 Irish romantic drama about two struggling artists in Dublin, Ireland. The film was turned into a musical and won various awards, with Falling Slowly winning at the Critics’ Choice Awards and the 2008 Academy Award for Best Original Song. This was on top of receiving a Grammy nomination. Once only had a budget of only $150,000 USD.

In an Interview with Glen Hansard (male lead), he stated that during the scene of Falling Slowly in the music store, director John Carney wanted this shot to be the centrepiece- just two musicians connecting through music. This scene where the actors first got together to perform and sing in harmony allowed the crew to maintain the perseverance needed to finish the film despite various major setbacks. (People kept buying the same piano in the music store featured because of this film LOL)

“The closest a non-musician will ever get to feeling what it feels like to write the song… or to discover… it was the most moving scenes of the film.” -The Interviewer

The first impression some viewers may have upon watching would be criticising the shakiness of the handheld cameras. However, the actual intention (from the ex-film student perspective that I had) was to give it a sense of realism. This film aims to depict more of real-life from the perspective of the main characters. Even the characters' names weren't disclosed as they were literally 'unknown artists' in everyday life. It was ultimately based on Carney’s own personal experience, while Hansard, wrote the music for the film.

“The movie is sad, funny, real, everything that life is and it gives you hope. It's about a moment that happens in life that may not come by again or may not last forever, but it just might have the greatest impact on you. I know I'll be watching "Once" again.” -A fellow Once viewer.

We are introduced to the male lead (Guy), playing the guitar and wanting to make it big with his music, who also fixes vacuums with his father for a living. He meets the female lead (Girl) and she bugs him into fixing her vacuum. In the beginning, he’s cold and doesn’t want to associate with her (especially after when she gives him 10 cents for his busking).

Look how grateful he looks-

Even when Gavin and MC met again after their separation, Gavin puts up a fragile guard in front of MC while protecting her from a distance, like in high school. And just like how Joe Zieja stated in his MLQC interview-

“Gavin is a really interesting character, especially when we first started out before he and the producer really had a relationship… Gavin’s very cold. He’s very business-like, he just wants to get stuff done. But it’s really neat to see Gavin’s shell melt over time as he develops a relationship with the producer.”

In the film, Guy finds out that Girl can play the piano, who learned it from her father before he passed. Turns out, Guy is heartbroken from his ex (who’s currently in London) who cheated on him. Girl tries to convince him to get her back with his songs.

Similarly, Gavin discovers MC’s music during his fall shown Campus Date, in the moments where he received his Evol. Gavin devotes his life to protect her.

(I also did a timeline of MC and Gavin’s high school history together here that also references these parts.)

*Casually dragging vacuum*

Together, they go to a music store and she plays Mendelssohn for him. Then finally, at 15:42 of the film, they start to play Falling Slowly.

(So good! So good!! When they start harmonising!!! No fancy editing or cuts- it’s just two artists and pure music.)

Through music, they connect with each other’s souls. Just like how MC saves Gavin with her music that fateful day. And soon enough, Gavin comes across MC playing another song in the music room.

That song was Falling Slowly. He doesn’t know the name of the song though, only remembering the melody. Later, he learns how to play the guitar because he liked it and thought that perhaps he could perform it to his special someone one day. Such moments had inspired Gavin to write and make his own songs then record them onto his CDs so that maybe one day she could listen to them.

A thought I had was that did Gavin hear the piano and decide to make a guitar version, only to figure out that he was the missing piece?

Even the music store owner was very impressed-

Just like how Gavin slowly begins to soften up to MC, in the film, the instrumental of Falling Slowly plays when Guy and Girl start to bond. Guy tries to talk to her more but she states that she “has responsibilities”. It’s revealed that she has a daughter at home and a husband still in the Czech Republic. Even so, together, they write and record songs for his journey to London- back to his ex and to pursue his dreams as a musician.

Later, they go out for a spin on his father’s motorbike- he even prepared another helmet for her (SPARKY 2.0??). He asks her to teach him how to say “how much do you love him?” in Czech when they talk about her husband upon finding out that she’s married. She replies with, “it is you I love” in Czech. But he has no idea what she said. (*Grips heart*)

He wants her to go to London with him, start a band, and sell out shows. But she can’t. The song they recorded together “When your mind’s made up” (I have this song on repeat) plays in the car as they drive to the beach before he leaves for London the next morning.

So, if you want something And you call, call Then I'll come running To fight and I'll be at your door When there's nothing worth running for

The music producer is clearly so impressed-

Together, they schedule a time to meet up just before he leaves for the airport. Guy waited all night till morning for her.

But she still doesn’t come. And that was the last time he ever saw her. Just like how MC wasn't able to see Gavin who waited the whole day before he left. This was shown in Old Days Date that I did a heart-gripping analysis on here.

Guy’s father had said, “make your Ma proud.” (*Cries upon remembering Gavin’s loving mother*)

In the end, still unable to reach her, Guy gifts Girl a piano. In the beginning, they had a conversation where they spoke about pianos being too expensive, hence why she kept going to the music store in order to be able to play. Even though they are both short on money, he still manages to buy her a piano- the same one they played Falling Slowly together.

And while the film comes to an end, Falling Slowly plays in the background while Guy is off to the airport.

*Dramatic power-walking*

This was a heartbreaking ending for the viewers because not only that they didn’t end up together, they weren’t able to see each other before he left. And it wasn’t disclosed why she couldn’t make it.

Nothing too fancy happens because again, this was to show a slice of real life, and this proves it to be more tragic and beautiful. It can’t really be described unless it’s experienced. And I had the chance of viewing it not once, but twice.

This film (and song) is important for Gavin and MC because, despite their complicated history of misunderstandings, he always wants to put their relationship first and make the most out of what they have now together. Girl had helped Guy achieve his record deal and pursue his dreams. She had done her part on his journey to becoming an artist and both had to part ways. Without her, he wouldn’t have been able to record his songs and leave. Likewise, without MC, Gavin wouldn’t be the man he is today (hence, Winter World). Gavin is very vocal about this as well.

Gavin lowers his head, and the light follows his movement, descending onto the scrapbook, illuminating every word he writes- “I’m very happy to have met you in the past.” -CN Mark Date

“It doesn’t matter what happened in the past. What matters is every moment I spend with you now.” -Sugar Figurine Phone Call

“Seeing you again is the best present I could hope for.” -The Best Gift Phone Call

"Even though I'm curious about the future as well... I care more about the present. For me, it's good enough to seize the day. As long as you're here. The next second will be everything I need. Protecting what I have now, is the best plan for the future." -School Legend ASMR

With Falling Slowly, it’s quite a straightforward, romantic song. Originally in the film, Guy wrote it about his ex-girlfriend so it does has some sad lyrics. MC didn't know how Gavin knew about it.

Teacher Zheng: Just now, MC mentioned that you play the guitar and bass incredibly. Could you let me hear it? It’d be best if the two of you could play together. I haven’t heard my Orchestra Leader play the piano in a very long time.

To be honest, this is not a “request” at all. If Teacher Zheng wants to hear it, I’ll definitely be willing to play for her. But Gavin…

I cast Gavin a probing glance, wondering if there’s a need to persuade him. To my surprise, he nods.

Gavin: I could, but I’m really not as skilled as she says.

Teacher Zheng: Haha that’s all right. I just want you to use your heart when performing. What’s important isn’t how good it sounds, but the heart.

Gavin: Could I borrow the guitar over there?

Teacher Zheng: Of course.

Basically shown in Mark Date, Gavin’s been preparing for this moment all this time. He already knows what song to play. And what’s so amazing is that the first instrument we hear is the guitar which leads the piano. Therefore, once Gavin plays his piece, MC would know what song it is and then join in with her piano. AND THEY WOULD SING TOGETHER.

Maybe it’s just my misperception, or the sunlight just happened to fall onto his eyes, but I keep feeling as though his eyes are even brighter than usual. It’s as though they are flashing with light.

This is a slightly melancholic song, but the moving light and wind seem to make it refreshing and clear.

🎶 Lyrics 🎶

It's a slower song to help listeners slowly take in the emotions, lyrics and main dueting instruments of piano and guitar with the occasional violin in the back. It's so simple, and yet so powerful.

The guitar has its solos and the piano appears more prominent in the chorus. In the beginning, it's just the guitar, with the piano joining in after.

[GUY & GIRL] I don't know you but I want you All the more for that Words fall through me and always fool me And I can't react And games that never amount To more than they're meant Will play themselves out

Gavin never got the chance to be close to MC in high school, so he showed his affection through other methods. He walked 10 metres behind her after school and was her silent guardian against those who had negative intentions towards her. In the library, he had tried to introduce himself to her, but she had already dashed off.

Before waiting for him to say the introduction he had rehearsed countless times in his heart, the girl had already uttered a “thank you” and hurriedly fled. -CN Tilted Time Rumours and Secrets

Gavin couldn't help but develop this softer side for her and didn’t know how to control it or express it other than doing things such as leaving strawberry milk on the piano and learning guitar in hopes of playing it for her one day.

Those "games" he's referring to were those things they did, such as MC smiling at him when crossing each others' paths in the hallways, and Gavin buying her hot drinks and only looking at her among the snowball fight chaos at school in the Winter. Gavin has no power over how everything will turn out, nor does he try to have complete control over it either.

"... I believe that some things are destined. Like..." -Gacha and Destiny Phone Call

[GUY & GIRL] Take this sinking boat and point it home We've still got time

This "sinking boat" of the relationship is what they're both trying to save. For Gavin, this could be suggested to be about himself.

In a split second, the noise ceases abruptly. After a moment of silence, whispers surface in the crowd. Vaguely, I can catch a few phrases.

“Bad.” “Fighting.” “Misfit.” -CN Mark Date

Gavin had a tough time in high school being the outcast, but MC kept him going, fighting in the name of justice. And had quite literally saved his life. She was his lighthouse when he was battling the rough waters back home. And MC- she was also his home.

“As he clenched his fists, a power deep down within awakened. It was a rapture of rebirth. A declaration of the end of darkness and the advent of the light.” -Campus Date

[GUY & GIRL] Raise your hopeful voice, you have a choice You've made it now

Gavin wants her to realise his feelings, be around and talk to him more- and say "yes". But even so, he still gives her a choice not to, and would have to live with that. Gavin thought she already had when he departed and spent years thinking that her absence showed all of what had to be said.

[GUY & GIRL] Falling slowly, eyes that know me And I can't go back

Gavin's falling slowly for MC (compared to when he fell really fast before MC saved him LOL). Once he starts, he can and would never go back. He hopes that MC would see him the way he truly is.

MC: “I have one more thing to tell you. MC is a bit slow. She is not as good as you think, and will also be blinded by rumours…”

Gavin: “She’s a very nice person. What she thinks of me has nothing to do with anyone else." -Old Days Date

[GUY & GIRL] Moods that take me and erase me And I'm painted black

Gavin can't handle his feelings. (*Cries*)

After being in a daze in the piano room, he’d be in a daze in the library, continuously staring at the empty seat where MC used to sit, and I have no idea what he’s thinking about.

But I really didn't expect a person who sleeps in class to be in a daze in the library for an entire afternoon... Did Bro Gavin and MC have a fight recently? -CN Minor's Memos

[GUY] You have suffered enough And warred with yourself It's time that you won

He states that he understands that the girl had it rough, but if she was to be with him, she wouldn't get hurt. Gavin wants to be the one for her.

"MC, I want to make you happy forever. If... I hope that person is me." -First Year In-Game Birthday Visit

[GUY & GIRL] Take this sinking boat and point it home We've still got time Raise your hopeful voice, you have a choice You've made it now

[GUY & GIRL] Falling slowly, sing your melody I'll sing it loud

Gavin recognises MC's "melody", and urges her to sing (her presence) and Gavin will listen and follow, singing his one, too. Together they will harmonise.

[GUY] Take it all Oh, I played the cards too late Now it's gone

The song finally ends with both the guitar and piano, whereas at the beginning it was just the guitar.

This part is the most powerful and heartbreaking. Gavin regretted not giving the farewell letter to MC directly- from "playing the cards too late", then suffers the loss of her, her presence, and her melody.

But fortunately, in the end, Gavin successfully returned home- to MC.

"Want to play for a while tonight? I haven’t heard you playing the piano in a long time too.

If possible, I’d like to make a song request.

How about “Falling Slowly”?

We could sit by the window and play it together again." -CN Gavin’s Weekly Text - Piano Concert

Somewhere, Gavin is happily playing Falling Slowly with MC.

[knives-out20]

The Impact Of The Intergalactic - David Bowie Opinion Essay - by Beck S.

This is an essay I wrote about the span of David Bowie's career. I wrote it for a summer school course I took last year (August 2021) for a course called History of Rock & Roll.

My teacher gave nice feedback after he marked it, talking about how it was an "Excellent paper. It charts Bowie's progress throughout his career well, and includes significant detail. I could really feel the passion you have about him throughout. In fact, there is *too much* detail! The paper was supposed to be 3 pages max, double-spaced. Still, this is a good problem to have; better too much than too little."

So...enjoy!!

From his early works like Hunky Dory, to Black Tie White Noise in the 1990’s and stretching over to Blackstar as his final album, David Bowie has rarely had a bad album or song- in my opinion. His career has had ups and downs, his musical creations ranging in the way he would pitch his voice and what instruments he would use, the people he would produce with, and the wild things he would say. Charting David Bowie’s development over time is in fact an interesting journey.

Early on in his dreamy career, Bowie would have done nearly anything- or in fact, anyone- to grow in the music world. Hopping from band to band (like The Velvet Underground), producer to producer, doing whatever he could do to get ‘in’ in the industry. His early albums weren’t taken very highly in their times- especially with the ‘man-dress’ he wore on the British release of his The Man Who Sold The World album. Although, this dress was only the start of the androgynous appearance he would soon be known for, over the course of his 5-decade-spanning career.

The 1970’s were strange, to say the least. He married Angela Bowie at the start of the decade, then welcomed their son Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones a year later. Bowie went on to be hopped up on cocaine. David donned the look of one of his famous personas, The Thin White Duke. The same persona with slicked-back ginger hair, a white button-up under a black waistcoat and paired with black dress pants. The same Duke who called Adolf Hitler one of the first ‘rock stars’ and gave off a lot of faschist energy. He said many statements he’d later apologize for and grow as a better man from, which is good- it’s better than standing by then, or even backing himself up and supporting them. David Bowie called that period the darkest days of his life, and blamed the crazy statements on his horrid addiction and deteriorating mental state. The late 1970’s were more favorable, seeing as it gave the world what was dubbed the Berlin Trilogy alongside Brian Eno and David’s personal friend, Iggy Pop. Made up of three of his albums: Low and Heroes (both in 1977) and Lodger (1978). He moved from Los Angeles to Switzerland, then to Berlin as a further decision to escape his addiction (the reason he moved away from LA in the first place). It was in Berlin, of course, where he wrote his famous song Heroes, about two lovers, one from East Berlin and one from West.

Speaking of Berlin, David Bowie performed near the west of the Berlin Wall in 1987; he played so loud that crowds gathered on the east to listen. At this time, Bowie had no idea he would be the beginning of the city’s soon-coming unifying. After his death in 2016, the German government thanked him for bringing the wall down and unifying a divided Germany.

Music isn’t all he is known for, though it is a majority. He also starred in movies from time to time. Being the titular man in The Man Who Fell To Earth in 1976, Jareth the moody goblin king in Jim Henson’s 1986 Labyrinth film (what is most likely his most famous role), Monte the barman in the 1991 movie The Linguini Incident, cameoing as himself in Zoolander (2001), Nikola Tesla in the 2006 movie The Prestige, and even Lord Royal Highness in Spongebob Squarepants’ Atlantis Squarepantis in 2007, among a few others. David Bowie dabbled in the art of acting, and was not that bad at it. He was good enough to gain a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, too. Sometimes it bends my mind that my first introduction to my all-time favourite musician was in a Spongebob Squarepants movie, back before I knew who he was, but David Bowie was never one to shy away from foreshadowing. At least one song from many of his albums would hint at the direction he’d go in for his next release. For example, his track Queen Bitch on Hunky Dory foreshadowed his soon-coming Ziggy Stardust. And the Diamond Dogs track 1984 actually hinted at the Philadelphian soul of Young Americans, which is a more famous song of his, which he went on to perform on The Cher Show with its host.

The 1990’s were certainly an experimental time for David Bowie. But to my knowledge, I think the 1990’s was a time for everyone. He married supermodel Iman some days after performing at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, and released the album I named earlier, Black Tie White Noise. It is known to have had a prominent use of electronic instruments, as was his other 1990’s album, Earthling. The early 1990’s greeted David’s first real band since the Spiders From Mars, dubbed Tin Machine. They recorded three guitar-driven albums which received mixed reviews from the masses, but Bowie looks back at this period- as do I- with a certain fondness; “a glorious disaster” he called it, when talking to journalist Mick Brown. Tin Machine is a period I don’t listen to often, compared to his solo stuff, but I don’t press the skip button when it comes on.

Alas, the starman’s career drew to a close as the 2000s rolled in. David Bowie greeted the 2000’s with the birth of his and Iman’s daughter, the beautiful Alexandria Zahra Jones. After suffering a- strange, as it were- heart attack symptoms mid-song during a concert in 2004, he took a hiatus from his career. I say strange because given what I know, he was trying his best to stay healthy at the time. According to my special Rolling Stone edition magazine about David Bowie (released at the start of this year), he was on tour and performing in a really hot arena. But Bowie was sober, and had quit smoking. He was taking medication to lower his cholesterol, and worked out with a trainer. Bowie looked great, and yet he felt a pain in his shoulder and chest, along with a shortness for breath. A bodyguard rushed onstage to usher Bowie off of it, cutting the concert short. He only performed live once or twice after that point, but was set on never going live ever again. And he kept his word on that, unfortunately but also fortunately. Unfortunately, because David Bowie live would have been quite the experience- I wouldn’t know, personally. But fortunately, because I do not believe anyone needs a repeat of the 2004 Reality scare.

I am actually not too fond of speaking of his final years. Nobody really likes to speak of the last years of their idols’ life before their death, so it’s no surprise. Blackstar was David Bowie’s 25th and final album, recorded entirely in secret in New York alongside his long-time producer, Tony Visconti. The album's central theme lyrically is mortality, and seeing as Bowie was undergoing chemotherapy for his cancer at the time, I see it as his way of coping with his incoming death. His producer Tony Visconti called him a ‘canny bastard’, when he realized Bowie was essentially writing a farewell album. Every song on the album is what is considered a swan song, a swan song in question being a phrase for a final gesture of some sort before retirement or death. In this case, death. Over the course of recording the album, David Bowie’s chemotherapy had actually been working and he had an eerie optimism while recording. But by the time they shot the two music videos Blackstar and Lazarus, where he showed off the definite passage of time and cruelty of chemotherapy through sparse and gray hair with sagging skin, he knew his condition was terminal and that this would be a battle he would lose. Blackstar wasn’t the first album to have been made by a musician succumbing to a fatal illness, but in my opinion it is in fact the most beautiful. It’s jazzy, and elegant, showing how at peace he had become with dying.

Blackstar the album was released on January 8th, 2016. Also known as David Bowie’s 69th birthday. Two days later, David Bowie died at his Lafayette Street home on January 10th after living with liver cancer for up to 18 months. Beforehand, he had let it be known he did not want a funeral nor a burial, but rather that his body be cremated and the ashes to be scattered in Bali by his loved ones. His wish was received, and planet Earth was very much bluer and quieter without his colour and wonderful noise.

As I said earlier on, David Bowie’s career came with ups and downs. His mysteriously close relationship with Mick Jagger, his cross with famous underage groupie Lori Maddox, the births of his two talented children, his faschist bender in the 70’s, and final bang of Blackstar in his final year on earth. Through the highs and lows, his career and his music meant a lot to the quote-unquote misfits and freaks of the world, myself included. David Bowie turned and faced the strange, shouted “you’re not alone!” To those who felt the loneliest, he surely spent his career helping those who needed to be themselves, feel more freer and braver in doing so, no matter what they may be when they are themselves. He never went boring, he never went stale, he sang what he wanted and dressed how he pleased, and kept to his word on how much more to life there is when you’re just that; yourself. A year after David Bowie’s untimely passing, his son Duncan Jones accepted an award for British album of the year that was won by Blackstar at the 37th annual Brit Awards. When he accepted it, he made a speech about his father that I will leave here, and never forget. Seeing as it perfectly encapsulates David Bowie’ legacy, and the true meaning of his extraordinary career.

“I lost my dad last year, but I also became a dad. And, uhm, I was spending a lot of time- after getting over the shock- of trying to work out what would I want my son to know about his granddad? And I think it would be the same thing that most of my dad's fans have taken over the last 50 years. That he’s always been there supporting people who think they’re a little bit weird or a little bit strange, a little bit different, and he’s always been there for them. So...this award is for all the kooks, and all the people who make the kooks. Thanks, Brits, and thanks to his fans.” - Duncan Z. H. Jones (February 22 2017, at The O2 Arena in London.)

[gyllenhaalstories]

SOUTHPAW, PART 1: HEADCANONS.

notes: dear anon: thank you for making me appreciate jake the rapper! also i know nothing about rap, so i’m sorry if this is pure trash! i never finished watching southpaw because it was too dark for me, but i took some very loose inspiration from it. warnings: mentions of dark past, mentions of sexual content... this got really long (2k words). gifs credits: alphalewolf. extras: if you want more informations about rapper!jake, please scroll through my blog. i have edited some older posts with the tag: topic: rapper!jake, so check it out if you’re interested. i have taken some ideas and put them in this list. (at the end of the list i provided some goodies!)

PART TWO WILL BE UPLOADED SOON, KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR IT!

attention, attention! please note i know absolutely nothing about rap. i very rarely enjoy listening to rap music, it’s simply not for me. this might be inaccurate and off compared to the actual world of hip hop and other similar genres. i apologize for my lack of knowledge! this is an au in which jake is not an actor or a producer or anything of the sort. his fame, he built it with his music. you must keep that in mind while reading these headcanons or else it will get confusing. also, i’ve taken some loose inspiration from jake’s actual work, but that’s just for the sake of backstory. are you ready to dive in this twisted fantasy?

Jake Gyllenhaal. Known as Hall. He exploded the charts after being picked up by one of the biggest record companies for his first album: Hall of Fame. He was a rookie, yet he was older than most of the rappers you can think of today. He worked his way up undercover. He started participating in poetry and slam nights at local cafés. He became a songwriter, through connections. He sold some songs that are absolute classics today, but he does not care. He did not feel like they fit him anyway.

Growing up, Jake had it rough. There was a lot of fighting at home. His older sister was the perfect angel and him? The absolute disaster child. It was not like he ran after danger and trouble, he seemed to always be at the wrong place in the wrong time, he hung out with the wrong crowd. He managed to avoid juvie on some miracle. What was the miracle, you might ask? He was caught robbing some local bank with his “friends” and the cops, at first, did not believe he was innocent. While his friends were screaming and threatening the innocent clients of the bank, Jake actually tried to help them out of the building safely. The cops arrived at the same moment and thought he was keeping the strangers hostage. He was arrested on the spot. The other guys played the victims, blamed it all on Jake but it was only when Jake wrote the whole story, from the beginning where his friends manipulated him and made of him their puppet to when he felt this adrenaline rush telling him he needed to save the strangers that night. His writing was too sincere, too raw to be a web of lies. The police released him, but they kept an eye on him.

His escape were writing and music. He impressed all of his teachers at school. Talented, gifted, magical. That was how they described Jake at every parent and teacher meeting. Writing dumb sentences that made very little sense and playing with a guitar after school, that did not make his parents very proud compared to his sister who was on top of all of her classes and working hard for a future of wealth and success.

Music was his entire life. He would come home from school and blast music until he was called out for dinner. Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Heart, Pink Floyd, Metallica, name it. He liked it loud. He liked it weird. He liked it with a deeper message, with double meaning.

He worked all types of jobs, some legal and some not so much. He was saving money for college. He applied. He got in. He started his classes. He had big dreams, too, he had ambitions. Maybe he could his talent to good use? He wanted to study philosophy, literature, music, creative writing... Anything that required thought and depth. He made friends, there. He befriended the edgy punk guy, he had tattoos everywhere, he listened to the same bands, he was quiet but his essays spoke volumes.

Jake was disappointed, his illusions were broken. He hated the format of his classes, the feeling like his opinion and his inspiration did not matter, it was always about meeting some stupid requirements to please a rich professor who did not care about passion, about talent, about originality. Jake dropped out, soon followed by his friend. His friend was hired at a tattoo parlor and Jake hung out there all the time. He would stay up until 5 am, 6, 7, all night and all day long. He loved the clients there. He would write and read his writing out loud to the clients when they were tortured by the needle shooting the ink in their skin. Talented and gifted, they all the same thing.

He started to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

He wrote, not just stories and opinion pieces. He started writing songs, melody and lyrics. He started playing them, he started writing his own poetry too. He was introduced to freestyle battles. And as he fought against other talented thinkers, he noticed he spoke with a tempo, with a rhythm. He was rapping and he did not even realize it.

His career sky rocketed from the moment a music producer attended one of the rap battles. He was famous, he got quite the thick wallet and the connections. Jake was introduced to legends of hip hop. They all influenced him as his career grew to become something overwhelming and terrifying, yet thrilling and addictive.

Hall had a style of his own, though. It was romantic, yet absolutely disgusting and dark. It was aggressive, yet vulnerable and philosophical. He spoke of his trauma, of his hatred, of his envy, of his fears... He used his songs as an escape. He was becoming his own escape.

And his own prison. His family did not care about him, he was a shame, even. Aside from his old college friend, he never built strong friendships. They were all after him for fame and cash. He slept around, guys and gals, threesomes, foursomes... He did not care, anything for some genuine connection, even if it lasted for a very lazy and messy fifteen minutes in the trashy bathroom of a concert hall. Rumour had it he was a great lover, but he was so bad at loving.

Now it gets interesting...

Hall rapped alongsides Eminem, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott... The biggest pop stars were fighting just to get him to rap a line in their songs. Rihanna wishes he was the one singing Love the way you lie, does that give you an idea? He appeared on duets. He wrote more solo albums, sold them instantly. He never left the top of the billboard in weeks, months, if not years. It never really got to his head. He was still that sensitive boy writing about knights and princesses in his bedroom with walls covered by band posters. Fans did not care about this side of him, they loved him for his lyrics about snorting coke, drinking his pain away and fucking whoever wore the tiniest skirt around.

His latest album, Southpaw, was an even bigger hit. Pure filth. Pure gold. Imagine 13 tracks, Cardi’s and Megan’s WAP but reversed. He does not rap about how good he fucks people. He raps about how good they feel. That’s some real depth here, no pun intended.

You met him at one of his concerts. Your friend won VIP passes, so you were standing in the front and got to take a picture with him. You did not understand the hype around taking a photo with this guy, he just stood there and looked absolutely emotionless.

You hated rap, or perhaps you loved it. You did not care much for Jake, that was for sure. You thought he was just another lame rapper who thought he was the real deal because his lyrics were so explicit, even the clean versions made angels cry. The truth was, you did not know much a bout him. You found him too commercial, like he was scared of becoming irrelevant.

You saw right through him already.

But him? He already cared too much about you. You caught his attention as he rapped his songs. He could not take his eyes off you. You weighted heavy on his mind, caused him to stutter and forget lyricvs. Fans laughed, they said he was probably too drunk or too high too focus. Drunk in love, that’s what it was.

There was something about you. Maybe it was the Black Sabbath shirt you wore. Maybe it was the unimpressed look on your face. Maybe it was your plump lips he wanted to kiss. Maybe it was the sight of you laughing with your friend that made his heart skip a beat. Maybe it was the fact you treated him like a normal person even if you had not spoken to him first.

So, you met backstage.

Your friend was beaming from ear to ear, showering Jake in compliments.

“Did you enjoy the show?” Jake asked you.

“For someone who shows no emotion, sound dead inside and look like they wish they were doing anything but making dozens of thousands of dollars by singing a couple of semi mediocre tracks, yeah, it was not that horrible.”

He was up for a challenge.

You two exchanged insults like it was a boxing match. Each round was getting more and more intense. It was no longer insults, it was straight up flirting. You noticed when your bodies were so close you could smell the scent of watermelon chewing gum that escaped from his warm breath. You could hear the way his raced even faster than yours.

You were snapped out of this fantasy by his bodyguard, indicating other fans waited for him.

He remembered the name your friend called out, saying he needed to bring you home before something bad happened.

It was the most beautiful name he had ever heard.

He hung out around that concert hall for the next couple of days. At the bar nearby, at Starbucks, at McDonald’s, anything for the sake of seeing your face again.

And he did.

You were walking out of the record store with a vinyl of Heart squeezed under your arm. You looked so happy. You had paint stains all over your clothes. You were erasing the memories of a terrible relationship by decorating your tiny apartment, and you needed to set the right ambiance. You needed guidance, you found it in the strong minds of the ladies behind Heart, in Joan Jett, in Stevie Nicks. You found your silver lining in music.

Jake ran behind you, he pretended he was out jogging and he mysteriously bumped into you. He grabbed your vinyl before it could fall on the ground.

“Nice pick.”

“We finally agree on something.”

Another round of flirty insults...

... That ended in the two of you fucking like animals on the floor of your apartment.

And fucking on the couch the next day.

On the kitchen counter the morning after.

And finally, on the bed. That was a really special one. Jake was the first person to be on your bed since the departure of your ex. He could feel that you were not in the mood for a rough battle for dominance.

That night, he made love to you.

For, quite possibly, the first time in his life, he expressed his love directly to somebody. “Princess, baby girl, beautiful, gorgeous, amazing”, he showered you in compliments, and praises. The slow movement of his hips, the intense passion in his eyes and love in his heart spoke louder than the music you were playing in the background to set the mood.

You were not just another trophee to hang on the wall. You were special.

He was special too.

He bought you every record that reminded him of you. He bought you collector items of your favourite bands. From the silliest decoration to a new car to replace your crappy one, passing by tickets to exclusive and sold-out shows, Jake had never felt more famous in his life than when he was with you.

His fans noticed the change in his songs, in his lyrics. They were just as explicit, just as rotten and just as corrupted. However, they came from a place of light and love, not of darkness and rage.

He sang about how good your felt when you climaxed around him. How drenched he was whenever he made you squirt. How he loved to taste himnself on your lips. How he was full of love and of lust for you. How he would quit everything if it meant he would live a normal life, for once, and with you.

You inspired so many songs that became massive world-wide hits.

You travelled the world with him on tour. You helped him design his new merch and you wore his t-shirts with pride. You attended concerts in your freetime. You loved staying up all night, painting and drawing while he was writing about this mirage of a goddess, blessing his existence with a smile and a sparkle in her eyes.

He was addicted to you.

He was crazy for you.

And he went crazy on you.

for research purposes and not because i wasted my time hearing eminem talk about stuff i don’t understand so i could stare at jake’s thighs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP_cKP4OjsA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whV5oQDvVWE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGqC9URTJIQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5imXD1LPnwo

and finally, for good measure :

@gyll-yee-haw​ ily

[gayenerd]

I just realized I didn’t post that 2007 Rolling Stone article I posted about here. 

Billie Joe Armstrong

The Green Day leader talks Bush, Britney and being a middle-aged punk for our 40th anniversary.

DAVID FRICKE

Posted Nov 01, 2007 8:19 AM

You have two young sons. What kind of America will they inherit?

This war has to finish before something new blossoms. There's no draft — that's why none of the kids give a shit. They'd rather watch videos on YouTube. It's hard to tell what's next — there is so much information out there with no power to it. Everything is in transition, including our government. Next year, it's someone else in the White House. There's no way to define anything. It's Generation Zero. But you gotta start at zero to get to something.

Is there anyone now running for president who gives you hope for the future?

Barack Obama, but it's a bit early to tell if this is the guy I like. I get sick of the religious-figure thing. People don't question their rulers, these political figures, just as they don't question their ministers and priests. They're not going to question George Bush, especially if he goes around talking about God — "I'm going to let God decide this for me. He's going to give me the answer." The fear of God keeps people silent.

When did you first vote in a presidential election?

In 1992. I was twenty. I voted for Clinton.

Did you feel like you made a difference?

Yeah. The Eighties sucked. There was so much bullshit that went along with that decade. I felt like Clinton was a fresh face with fresh ideas. There were times when he was dropping bombs, and I'm thinking, "What the fuck are you doing?" But he became a target. We have this puritanical vision of what a leader is supposed to be, and that's what makes us the biggest hypocrites in the world. We got so inside this guy's sexual habits. Now we have a president going around, killing in the name of what? In the name of nothing.

What did you accomplish with your 2004 anti-Bush album, "American Idiot"? He was re-elected anyway, and the war in Iraq is still going on.

I found a voice. There may have been people disenfranchised by it. People have a hard time with that kind of writing: "Why are you preaching to me?" It does sound preachy, a bit. I'm a musician, and I want to say positive things. If it's about self-indulgent depression or overthrowing the government, it's gotta come from my heart. And when you say "Fuck George W. Bush" in a packed arena in Texas, that's an accomplishment, because you're saying it to the unconverted.

Do you think selling nearly 6 million copies of that album might have an effect on the 2008 election? A kid who bought it at fifteen will be voting age next year.

I hope so. I made it to give people a reason to think for themselves. It was supposed to be a catalyst. Maybe that's one reason why it's difficult for me to write about politics now. A lot of things on that record are still relevant. It's like we have this monarchy in politics — the passing of the baton between the Clintons and the Bushes. That's frightening. What needs to happen is a complete change, a person coming from the outside with a new perspective on all the fucked-up problems we have.

How would you describe the state of pop culture?

People want blood. They want to see other people thrown to the lions. Do audiences want rock stars? I can't tell. You have information coming at you from so many areas — YouTube, the Internet, tabloids. Watching Britney Spears the other night [on the MTV Video Music Awards] was like watching a public execution. How could the people at MTV, the people around her, not know this girl was fucked up? People came in expecting a train wreck, and they got more than they bargained for.

She was a willing conspirator. She didn't say no.

She is a manufactured child. She has come up through this Disney perspective, thinking that all life is about is to be the most ridiculous star you could be. But it's also about what we look at as entertainment — watching somebody go through that.

How do you decide what your children can see on TV or the Internet? As a dad, even a punk-rock dad, that can make you conservative in your choices.

I want to protect them from garbage. It's not necessarily the sex and drugs. It's bad drugs and bad sex, the violence you see on television and in the news. I want to protect them from being desensitized. I want them to realize this is real life, not a video game.

The main thing I want them to have is a good education, because that's something I never had. Get smart. Educate yourself as much as you can, and get as much out of it, even if the teacher is an asshole.

Do you regret dropping out of high school?

Life in high school sucks. I bucked the system. I also got lucky. My wife has a degree in sociology, and there are conversations she has — I don't have a fucking clue what they're talking about. College — I could have learned from that.

But I was the last of six kids. At that point, my mother was fifty-eight, and she threw up her hands — "I'm through with this parenting thing." Also, I could not handle authority figures. But I wouldn't say I'm an authority figure for my kids. I provide guidelines, not rules.

What is it like being a middle-aged punk? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

It's about the energy you bring with you, the pulse inside your head. I want to get older. I don't want to be twenty-one again. Screw that. My twenties were a difficult time — where my band was at, getting married, having a child. I remember walking out of a gig in Chicago, past these screaming kids. There were these punks, real ones, sitting outside our tour bus. One girl had a forty-ouncer, and she goes, "Billie Joe, come drink with us." I said, "I can't, I've got my family on the bus." She goes, "Well, fuck you then." I get on the bus, and my wife says, "Did that bitch just tell you to fuck off? I'm gonna kick her ass right now." I'm holding her back, while my child is naked, jumping on the couch: "Hi, Daddy!" That was my whole life right there — screaming kids, punks telling me to fuck off, my wife getting pissed, my naked son waiting to get into his pajamas.

There's nothing wrong with being twenty-one. It's the lessons you learn. At thirty, you think, "Why did I worry so much about this shit?" When I hit forty, I'll say the same thing: "Why did I worry about this shit in my thirties?"

What have you learned about yourself?

There is more to life than trying to find your way through self-destruction or throwing yourself into the fire all the time. Nihilism in punk rock can be a cliché. I need to give myself more room to breathe, to allow my thoughts to catch up with the rest of me.

Before Dookie, I wasn't married and I didn't have kids. I had a guitar, a bag of clothes and a four-track recorder. There are ways you don't want to change. You don't want to lose your spark. But I need silence more than I did before. I need to get away from the static and noise, whereas before, I thrived on it.

Are you ready for the end of the music business? The technology and its effect on sales have changed dramatically since Green Days' debut EP — on vinyl — in 1989.

Technology now and the way people put out records — everything comes at you so fast, you don't know what you're investigating. You can't identify with it — at least I can't. With American Idiot, we made a conscious effort to give people an experience they could remember for the rest of their lives. It wasn't just the content. It was the artwork, the three acts — the way you could read it all like someone's story.

Is music simply not important to young people now the way it was to you as a kid?

People get addicted to garbage they don't need. At shows, they gotta talk on their phones to their friend who's in the next aisle. I was watching this documentary on Jeff Tweedy of Wilco [Sunken Treasure]. He was playing acoustic, and he ends up screaming at the audience: "Your fucking conversation can wait. I'm up here singing a song — get involved." He wasn't being an asshole. He was like, "Leave your bullshit behind. Let's celebrate what's happening now."

We need music, and we need it good. I took it very seriously. There's a side of me where music will always send chills up my spine, make me cry, make me want to get up and do Pete Townshend windmills. In a lot of ways, I was in a minority when I was young. There are people who go, "Oh, that's a snappy tune." I listen to it and go, "That's the greatest fucking song ever. That is the song I want played at my funeral."

Now that you've brought it up, what song do you want played at your funeral?

It keeps changing. "Life on Mars?" by David Bowie. "In My Life," by the Beatles. "Love," by John Lennon.

Those are all reflective ballads, not punk.

I disagree. They are all honest in their reflection. The punk bands I liked were the ones who didn't fall into clichés — the Clash, the Ramones. The Ramones wrote beautiful love songs. They also invented punk rock. I'd have to add "Blitzkrieg Bop" to the list.

What is the future of punk rock? Will it still be a voice of rebellion in twenty years?

It's categorized in so many different ways. You've got the MySpace punks. But there is always the subculture of it — the rats in the walls, pounding the pavement and booking their own live shows. It comes down to the people who are willing to do something different from everybody else.

You are in a different, platinum-album world now. What makes you so sure that spirit survives?

I'm going on faith — because I was there. Gilman Street [the Berkeley, California, club where Green Day played early shows] is still around. And that's a hard task, because there is no bar — it's a nonprofit cooperative. It's like a commune — this feeling of bucking the system together, surviving and thriving on art. Punk, as an underground, pushes for the generation gap. As soon as you're twenty-five years old, there's a group of sixteen-year-olds coming to kick your ass. And you have to pass the torch on. It's a trip to have seen it happen so many times. It gives me goose bumps — punk is something that survives on its own.

[iheartsunset]

Papa Louie Scarlett HCs

-Rosabella Ocampo is a 23 year old singer/songwriter and graduate school student who lives with her fiancé, Rudy, in a Powder Point condo. She is widely known by her legal/stage name, Scarlett Heart and is the lead singer/songwriter of Scarlett and the Shakers. While punk ska and playing gigs with her friends are her true passion, Scarlett plans to become a game theory professor in the future. She can mostly be seen writing lyrics for a new song, riding roller coasters with Rudy, climbing trees with Clover, and just vibing with Marty.

-Scarlett is rather bold and seductive, often playfully flirting with others or making jokes about inappropriate topics. I stole this from Rouge, thanks SnapCube fandub for revitalizing my love for Sonic. Alongside her flirtatiousness is her intelligence and desire to succeed, using rules and lessons that she learned from various games to apply to her daily life. Thanks to her love of poker and mahjong, Scarlett has grown to be very analytical and sly in her motives. Out of the shakers, she is undoubtedly the big sister friend as she’s kind of a bad influence on the rest of them and is always subjected to scoldings by mom friend, Janana.

-Rudy calls her “Princesa” because of her Cinderella-like backstory. Her mother was a very kind woman and Scarlett lived happily with her and her father. Her mother died in a roadside construction accident when Scarlett was only 9, leaving Scarlett heartbroken. Her father then married a woman named Moira with two sons, Graham and David, who was emotionally abusive towards Scarlett until she moved out at age 16. Scarlett’s relationship with her dad deteriorated over time and she’s basically disowned them since. She finds solace in Marty and Clover’s parents, who think of Rudy and Scarlett as their own. She also got along with the other Frostfield residents and helped Willow get back into hockey after her infamous car accident (the first one).

-Stan Twitter often makes memes of her because she’s so iconic and quotable. One of her most iconic moments was when she screamed “I wrote this next one about my bitch ass stepmom. Moira, if you’re listening, your hair is limp and you fucking suck!” at the VMAs.

-Music was her escape as a child, hence why she learned to sing and play multiple instruments. However, her stepmother made her play the violin in the school orchestra as opposed to being allowed in a punk rock band. Even though she was concertmaster and first chair, she hated life so badly. Scarlett can play the guitar, bass guitar, violin, cello, drums, the trumpet, the saxophone, the bassoon, the piano, the xylophone, the harp, the flute, the recorder, the French horn, the clarinet, i didn’t even list all of them and I’m tired already. When one of the other shakers has lead vocals on a song, she’ll take over playing their instrument.

-Scarlett met Rudy during their shared freshman year of high school. Hazelnut High’s orchestra department had its annual field trip to Powder Point (based off my actual orchestra field trip!). Scarlett decided to sneak away from her snobby classmates and teachers and have the time to herself. On one particularly large roller coaster, she sat next to a boy with a Mohawk who told her that since he was a Powder Point native, he could more than handle it. He then proceeded to cry the entire time while holding her hand. They realized how much they had in common and kept in contact even after her trip was over. Their relationship is super lovey dovey, yet chill at the same time. Couple goals, but not on the level of Prudence x Cooper x Taylor.

-The shakers got together during the 23rd season of Flipline’s Got Talent. After the shocking elimination of Taylor Morales in the quarterfinals, the remaining acts were merged together. Scarlett and Rudy and Marty and Clover were two sets of pairs merged together. They all got along beforehand and loved Scarlett’s songwriting, so they all wrote an original song together for the finals. Even though they were fan favorites and had lots of support from the audience, Bill and Boopsy’s amazing ventriloquy act was what won the show, with the upset Shakers coming in second place. Afterwards, they were approached by Janana who offered to become their agent, and all they’ve known since was success. Fun fact: Rudy wouldnt accept Clover and Marty into their act unless they beat him and Scarlett at poker. They did.

-The shakers each can speak multiple languages, with Scarlett being able to speak fluent English and Tagalog, Tagalog being her native language (Filipino gang!). She can also speak some Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Hindi, and Gaelic because she hangs around the other Shakers and Janana so much.

-All of the food, drinks, clothes, and personal belongings Scarlett loves are various shades of red. Cherries, longanisa, red wine, and candied strawberries are her favorite. Her entire wardrobe? Red. Her LED lights? Red. It honestly scares Rudy how red everything is.

-Her voice would either be Jessica Sanchez from American Idol or Gwen Stefani from the No Doubt era. She also covers a lot of No Doubt songs during their concerts. Speaking of covers, the shakers like to sing classic rock songs as well as modern day hits. Scarlett has the vocal range to do Ariana and Mariah Carey justice.

-Her and Marty are best friends. They’re both on the same wavelength and will most likely have the same reaction to memes, like word for word the same reaction. They usually have to get Rudy and Clover out of trouble most days. I love their chaotic, yet chill energy, like the types that just sit and observe and quietly make funny comments to each other.

-She determines whether she likes you or not based off of how good you are at mahjong or poker. If you suck enough to let her win, she’ll love you forever but if you match her in ability, she’ll respect you but kinda fear you as well. If you refuse to play altogether, she hates you. She’s a game theory student, so playing any board game with her is grounds for disaster because she’ll use her weird psychology and tricks to win all the time. Ironically, she sucks at video games. Even though she loves games of chance, she’s hugely against casinos and betting, instead trading small trinkets like food or makeup.

-At the Cheeseria, she set up a poker table, a mahjong table, and a pool table for the entertainment. They unfortunately had to get rid of the Uno table because somebody (ahem, Jojo) got a little too heated over a match with Papa and Wally. And by “got a little too heated”, I mean that Jojo literally got in a fist fight with Papa and lost.

-All she watches are telenovelas. Don’t ask about The Office or Game of Thrones, all she knows is stuff like Rubi and Maria la del Barrio.

-She doesn’t like musical theater except for Phantom of the Opera. She has taken a few roles as Kim in Miss Saigon, but secretly regrets it because musical theater is so much harder than just a regular concert. She still respects theater actors, but will never again sit through Anything Goes.

-She is the only one of the workers who has managed to successfully punch Guy Mortadello. Koilee and Rudy came close, but Scarlett landed an especially hard punch to his nose. Next to being engaged and forming Scarlett and the Shakers, she says it’s the third happiest day of her life. Now, Guy Mortadello is extremely scared of Scarlett and will cry if he sees her or hears her song on the radio (which is all the time).

-She has a tattoo of a heart of her hand along with a crown. On three of her fingers are a yellow Diamond, green clover, and blue spade.

-Scarlett is absolutely gorgeous and badass, I always kept rewinding Papas Cheeseria just to see her and Rudy in the opening because I had crushes on them both. Anyways, stan Scarlett for good grades (it’s not working though I’m still failing two classes)

[dream-a-little-bigger-x]

Chapter 9 -- Perfect Harmony | Charlie Gillespie

Summary: Emily Fox is a talented 17-year-old with a passion for all things music. Her dream is to become a successful singer-songwriter one day. But to achieve that dream, she needs to get into one of the most prestigious music schools in her district – it’s all been part of her plan since she was six. Sadly enough, those schools cost a ton of money that her parents don’t want to invest. They don’t even want her to pursue her dream. So, now Emily’s hustling, working at the music store to save up to get into college. That’s until she meets Charlie, an annoying seventeen-year-old boy with the same dream as her. The only difference is, he’s just doing it. He doesn’t need a fancy college to pursue his dream to become famous with his band. He just writes his songs and books small gigs here, there and everywhere. Will meeting Charlie defer her from her dream college, or will he actually help her achieve the dream?

Pairing: Charlie Gillespie x OC (Emily Fox)

Warnings: mentions of death, sexual assault

Important note: the characters of Charlie, Owen, Jeremy and Madison are based on the characters they play on the show and i do not own their names, only OC are mine. The songs aren’t mine either, they’re all from the show except for one.

Chapter nine

~|Emily Fox|~

I still can’t believe what’s been happening between Charlie and me. For the first time in a really long time, I’ve been able to tell someone about Uncle Robert without feeling like I’m a burden or they don’t understand what I’ve been through. With Charlie though, I feel as though a weight is lifted from my shoulders because he took some of the weight away from me. He made me feel understood, respected, important. The warm and fuzzy feeling erupts in my body every time I think about it. My heart bursts from happiness every time I think about it. Especially about the almost-kiss that happened last night. “Someone’s in a good mood,” Uncle Mitch, who’s eating breakfast at the kitchen table, notices when I walk down the stairs on Wednesday morning, dancing to the song playing in my head. Which, I’m not going to lie, is part of the song Charlie and I wrote together last night.   “Oh, uhm… I guess it’s because I’m hanging out with Madi after school,” I shrug, not wanting to tell him the whole truth. I’m happy I get to hang out with Madison again, but I’m not going to pretend I wouldn’t rather spend more time with Charlie than spend my time thinking about him. “Right, not because the cute boy from the Music Store,” he mumbles it under his breath, but I hear it loud and clear. I feel my cheeks heat up, and have to hide my face from Uncle Mitch, so he doesn’t see. “I knew it! Okay, tell me everything!” With the cheekiest smile on his face, he props his head up on his hand, blinking up at me. “I really got to run, Uncle Mitch…” I try, but he checks his watch to see that I still got plenty of time left. “Right…” I sit down on the opposite side and cough once, trying to figure out where to start and what he already knows. “So, he and his band performed at the Open Mic Night at the Music Store on Saturday, right? And they performed this super amazing song and I tried to refrain myself from dancing and be impartial about it, you know? Playing it cool and stuff,” Uncle Mitch chuckles at that, nodding his head in agreement, “And then he came to see me afterwards and I told him not to be a stranger when he left the store. So, then Monday and yesterday, he came to the store. On Monday, I asked him to help me with my song…” Uncle Mitch’s eyes widen in delight, “And then he asked why I wouldn’t write with anyone else since we’ve basically created a masterpiece.” “What did you tell him?” he asks. “I told him the truth. I told him I used to write with Uncle Bobby, the one who taught me everything I know about music and that he passed away last year. Normally, people just tell me to move on because it’s been so long, but Charlie didn’t. He just listened to me and told me he understood. He said he’d wait for me until I’m ready to write songs with somebody else.” Mitch’s smile widens, and I can even see a single tear roll down his cheek. I can’t say whether it’s from pride, happiness, sadness or something else, though. “I’m so glad you finally told him, Muffin! I think you really got a good one with him.” My heart fills with the same warmth it did when Charlie told me he understood. Charlie really is a good egg. Might have to keep him close. “So, did you kiss him yet?” The question startles me, not expecting him to ask that specific question. “What? No! We’re just friends!” I may sound a tad too defensive. But what happened last night is something I’d much rather keep to myself. Not because I’m ashamed it happened, because I am not. At all. I want to keep it to myself, so it’s just something between Charlie and me. A secret. Something only we know. Something we can sulk in and just think about forever without anyone meddling. “You so have kissed him!” He sounds like an excited toddler on Christmas morning. “No, Mitchell, I have not.” Using full names will always be my favorite thing to show annoyance. Especially when they give you that startled look. And especially when they know why you use full names. “Don’t ‘No Mitchell’ me, young woman!” He points at me sternly and tries to keep up the severe expression, but a small smile tugs at his lips because Uncle Mitch can never be angry with me. “Now get to school!” I salute him, grab my backpack and start to leave the kitchen. “Hey!” his voice makes me turn around again, “I’m really glad to see you shining like this again, Muffin. You seem more alive since meeting that boy.” I can’t fight the smile tugging at my lips, so I don’t. “Thanks, Mitchy,” he offers me a wide smile, “I love you.” “I love you too, Muffin. Have fun at school.” “Yeah, you too!” Uncle Mitch is a marketing teacher at a college in Los Angeles. Sometimes, I do wish he’d teach high school and teach at Los Feliz High School instead. It would mean we could spend even more time together than we already do. It would also mean really awkward moments for the both of us. So, maybe it’s better the way it is. Just maybe.

After school, Madison and I head to her house to hang out for a while. To say I’m excited about it is an understatement, but I’m even more excited to see Charlie at the store later tonight.

“Hey, I have to close the store again tonight, so I can only hang out until like six.”

“Again? Gee, that girl is really exploiting you,” Madison comments as she plops down onto the bed on her stomach. “What do you want to do?” I think about it for a second. We should probably do the sensible thing and study, but knowing Madison, that probably won’t happen.

“Can we study Spanish for a moment? I’ve got a test tomorrow and with work tonight, I won’t be able to study for it enough.” Madison groans loudly, turning on her bed so she’s on her back.

“I thought we were going to do something fun?”

“You’re Puerto Rican, Spanish is your second language,” I point out to her, hoping it would convince her to help me. The look on her face doesn’t tell me good news. “Please, Mads? I really need to do well on this test or Uncle Mitch will tell me to quit my job.”

“Which will affect your love life, right. Fair enough.” Her mouth goes so fast I barely realize what she’d said until I’ve mulled it over in my head.

“My job doesn’t affect my love life, Madison.” She raises an eyebrow at me, and I’m left wondering whether it’s because of what I said or because of the full name-usage.

“Your dream boy is at the Music Store every single day. If you stop working there, you will never see him again. So, yes, it’s going to affect your love life.”

“Charlie is not my dream boy,” I blurt out whilst grabbing my Spanish textbook from my backpack. The silence in the room is agonizing and I’m not even sure why it’s quiet.

“Uhm, yes, he is. I can tell how your eyes sparkle when you’re talking about him or music or writing music with him and I caught you staring at his Instagram on more than one occasion.” I can’t believe I’ve been this imprudent with the whole Charlie thing. Of course Madi would know. She knows who I like way before I actually like them.

“Can we just get to Spanish now, please?” Madison rolls her eyes, an amused expression on her face. “Don’t roll your eyes at me!” I chuckle, and now, so does Madison. As I climb onto the bed with her, she adjusts her own position, so she can read along with me in my textbook.

For an hour or so, we study Spanish. Madison asks me questions, queries my vocabulary, and corrects me if I’m wrong. And so, by six, I’m sufficiently prepared for my test tomorrow, and ready to go and see Charlie. Which I’m most excited about, obviously.

“Say hi to Dream Boy!” Madison yells when she lets me out of the house. I turn around to reply something, but she’s already gone back inside and closed the door.

“He’s not my dream boy…” I mutter to myself, not entirely sure if I’m lying or not. Charlie is amazing. He’s brought out a side in me I hadn’t yet found. A love for songwriting with other people again. A love for music again.

“Hey, Emily!” The familiar voice makes me jump out of my thoughts. Beautiful thoughts. About Charlie. But then reality comes in and it’s even more beautiful because Charlie’s right there. He’d just arrived at the store too.

“Oh, hi, Charlie,” I greet back and open the door to walk in with Charlie in tow. “Did you finish your song yet?” I ask while making my way to the cash register to dump my stuff there and greet Ash, so she can leave.

“Almost! We’re just tweaking it a bit, rehearsing it with the band and stuff,” he replies, having picked up his guitar on the way to the counter. “What about your song? I’m really excited to hear.” I can’t help the smile tugging at my lips.

“See you, Emily, Charlie!” Ash waves quickly before dipping out of the store and leaving us alone. That’s when I realize we really are alone. Just like yesterday.

“Uhm, yeah. Almost. I think I might have it by the end of the week. I’m kind of struggling with some things still, but I’ll be fine.” He softly strums his guitar while keeping his eyes on me.

“Will I be the first one to hear it when it’s finished?” he asks.

“Uhm, yeah. Yeah, definitely,” I reply. My body’s heating up entirely from the way he’s looking at me, and it’s making me fidgety, so I start sorting through some of the invoices from today.

“I kind of want to keep

Finally Free

for when you decide to join the band…” he tells me, and I halt my actions to look up at him again. Bad idea. Abort.

“That’s nice, Charlie, but I really don’t know my answer yet.”

“No, yeah, I know. Just… Want to keep that song safe for if you do.” He offers me a wide smile. “Shall I start polishing guitars now?” he points to the other guitars on the wall.

“I’d rather you play some songs for me,” he looks at me, surprised. “Please?” He plays a couple of chords again, a soft melody filling up the entire space and my heart.

“I don’t have any lyrics for this one yet, but I came up with this killer melody last night with the boys.” I bite my lip listening to it, trying to focus on the melody and not him.

“How are the boys, by the way?” I change the subject, hoping it’ll keep me from concentrating too much on him. And his biceps – he’s wearing one of those muscle tanks again that show off his arms very nicely. Or his cute smile. Or his pretty eyes.

“They’re fine… Just Jeremy and Owen, you know? We had a couple of band practices and we’re doing okay; I think.” He doesn’t stop playing that same melody over and over again, and I really wish he wasn’t.

“Why don’t you have a rehearsal here?” I suggest. I genuinely want to see the boys again. They’re fun to be around. “I work the entire day Saturday, so you could come at closing, play a few songs while I clean up and stuff?” Charlie abruptly stops playing, his eyes turning sad, his lips forming a pout.

“Is it because you’re sick of me?” I blink a couple of times, startled at the question.

“What? No!” I hope I sound confused and not defensive or sarcastic. “No, I love spending time with you. But I really do like Owen and Jeremy, and I love your music, so…” I trail off a little to find him smiling his wide, bright smile again. “It’s a win-win?”

“More like a win-win-win, I think,” he says. I tilt my head a little in confusion. “You win because you’ve got good music to clean up to. The band wins because we’re allowed to practice in a music store that has amazing equipment. And I win…” he moves closer to me. Only the counter is between us now. “Because I get to spend time with you.” I swallow a lump in my throat. He’s standing so close to me. Albeit, not as close as he was last night. But still. Very close.

“Right…” I mutter and let out a chuckle, “A triple win it is then.” Charlie’s smile widens and my heart just swells. How can a human I despised for like a few hours turn into the most adorable freaking human being alive? Everything he does either makes me smile or blush or makes my heart just swell.

“Triple Win could be our new band name,” Charlie suggests. I look up at him, just to check if he’s serious about it. When he nonchalantly hops onto the free part of the counter, nearly knocking me in the head with his guitar and sitting on part of my invoices I’m still sorting because Ash is a mess, I realize he’s actually serious.

“Triple Win is not a good band name, Charlie,” I chuckle and tear the invoices from underneath his ass, “It just doesn’t make sense if there are four of us.” Charlie’s eyes widen and mine do too. I probably shouldn’t have said that. Now he’ll get his hopes up that I’ll actually join the band. “You know,

if

I ever do join the band.”

“Oh, right,” his smile falters, “Sunset Curve is way better.” The smile’s back. I chuckle at his comment, but don’t say anything. I can’t really argue with it anyway.

“Can you get your ass off my invoices now, please, Charles?” His eyebrows furrow and his smile fades away slowly. Probably shouldn’t ironically use his full name either. But I still like to mess with him a little. Without saying another word, he jumps off the counter and, while strumming his guitar, walks over to the piano to go and sit over there.

“What are you doing anyway?” he questions, nodding at the papers in my frustrated hands.

“Trying to put this invoices in order of purchase. You know, from 9am this morning until fifteen minutes ago, but Ashlynn’s handwriting is terrible, and I can’t make anything of some of these.” This makes him get up again, but this time he leaves his guitar at the piano, and he walks up to me. Even though we both know it’s not allowed, Charlie comes to stand behind me at the counter, leaning his hand onto the countertop, hovering over my shoulder.

“I have terrible handwriting too, I might be able to decode this,” he tells me when I suddenly tense up entirely. “This one’s from 2:26pm,” he says, pointing to the paper in my hands.

“I did not make a two out of either of those numbers.” He chuckles. I can feel him breathe behind me since his chest is pressed against my back, and I must try my best not to turn my head to look at him. If I do, our faces will be as close as they were yesterday, and I’ll want to kiss him.

For about an hour, Charlie and I sort through the invoices together until they’re finally in the right order and I can put them safely in the blue folder where they belong.

“Thanks for helping with that, Charlie. I could not have done that by myself,” I say and turn my head to look at him, thinking he’ll have taken a step back by now. He hasn’t. This was a terrible idea.

Abort. Abort. Abort.

We’re standing so close, my nose brushes against his cheek, causing him to look down and now we’re just staring at each other. My mind is running lapses, panicking about what to do. Abort mission or give in and kiss him? Whilst my mind is busy going over the possibilities and consequences, my heart is thumping out of my chest.

“I think you would, it would’ve just taken ages,” he mumbles. His voice comes out in a rasp, making my toes curl up. “But you’re welcome.” He turns ever so slightly, standing more next to me than behind me, and his eyes flutter close.

Abort. Abort. Abort.

“I got to… Uhm…” I say, but I’m not sure if I want to do anything than be here and have him this close to me. Without consulting my brain, my eyes flutter too, and I feel myself leaning in. I can feel his breath on my lips when my brain decides to brake and abort this entire mission. I jerk away abruptly, making Charlie open his eyes now too. “I got to… do stuff…” I walk past him and towards the askew sheet music to clean up that mess. I don’t know how I left Charlie, and to be fair, I don’t dare to look at him. It takes me at least five minutes before I look up and find him at the piano, grabbing his guitar again.

The rest of the night is spent in pure silence. The only thing filling up the room is Charlie’s soft melody and his voice singing ever so softly. I can barely understand a word he’s singing, but it’s just a reminder that he’s still here. Though the sound tells me he is, I still glance up every now and then. Either I catch him already glancing at me, or I’m caught by him. And every time we do, we both smile.

I don’t really know what to do with myself or the things I’m feeling inside. Every time I’m standing as close to Charlie as I was before, there’s this tingly feeling that I feel

everywhere

in my body, but my brain just stops working every single time our lips inch closer. I don’t even know why my brain does it. It’s like I can’t even control it. I want to. But I can’t.

When I’m done cleaning up, Charlie puts his guitar back on the wall and grabs his stuff too. It’s completely silence between both of us except for the explosive sexual tension between us. That’s loud enough for both of us.

“So…” Charlie starts when we’re outside and I’m locking the door. I cringe a bit, thinking he might start talking about what had just happened. “Can I come back to hang tomorrow too? And I’ll bring the boys on Saturday.”

“Yeah, of course,” I reply and fall into step with him to walk down the street together. “Hey, if you bring the boys Saturday, will you show me that

Finally Free

song?” Charlie opens his mouth, possibly to object, but I interrupt him, “It might convince me to join the band?”

“If it’s finished by then, we might,” he replies with that soft, lazy smile on his face. “Will you show me

Perfect Harmony

then?”

“If it’s finished by then, I might,” I repeat his answer whilst one corner of my mouth tugs into a smirk. Charlie chuckles at that, shaking his head at me. “How did you and the boys become a band?” I’ve been wanting to know that since I met the three together at the Open Mic Night.

“We met each other in Middle School, and we all liked music, and then we learned that all of us play a different instrument and boom, band!” he explains amusedly with a bright smile as if really happy with the memory.

“You guys hit it off right away?” I ask, and without knowing, lead him onto my street.

“Uhm, yeah, pretty much. All three of us were kind of new, didn’t have many friends, so we automatically kind of attracted to one another.”

“The purest form of friendship,” I respond, “That’s how Madison and I are too. We met in Kindergarten and I remember her pushing Brianna off the swings because she was mean to me,” I have to laugh at the memory of Madison and me in Kindergarten. “Or at least, that’s what our parents told us.” My smile fades a little, thinking about my parents.

“Was your Uncle Robert a sibling of your parents?”

I nod in response, “He was my mother’s brother. But I’d rather not talk about my parents too much.” Charlie’s eyebrows knit together in confusion, asking me what happened with them. “Long story short, they kicked me out of the house when I told them I wanted to go to the Music Academy instead of a ‘real’ college.” I use air quotes around the word ‘real’. “I live with Uncle Mitch now; he was Uncle Bobby’s husband.”  

“Oh… I’m sorry about that, Emily,” he sounds sad, and when I look at him, even his eyes look the part. It makes him look like a sad puppy. “That must suck bad. I imagine going to that fancy school is like a dream of yours?”

“Yeah, Uncle Bobby and I used to dream about it all the time,” I smile at the memory of Bobby. He was an amazing support and I hope he’ll be proud of me once I make it through auditions. “But the audition process is very intricate and only a few people get in.”

“I’m sure you’ll capture your spot with your wrecking ball of talent.” I offer him a smile, and then halt right in front of my house.

“This is my place,” I say, pointing, “Well, my Uncle’s place.” He turns around to look at the small house with the white walls and the red door. If anything, the red door gives away who lives in the house. It was Bobby’s idea to paint it red. He always wanted to stand out.

“It’s quaint,” Charlie nods approvingly.

“I mean, it ain’t no mansion, but it’s definitely home.” Charlie chuckles at that.

“Well, I’m going to head to the shed for band practice,” he says, and I can tell he’d much rather stay but I can’t invite him in with Mitch home. The poor boy won’t survive the abundance of questions that’ll be thrown at his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, definitely. See you tomorrow.” He offers me a smile and a wave, and I return the favor until he walks away.

“Stop staring at my ass!” he yells, startling me slightly because I

was

looking at his ass.

“Don’t flatter yourself!” I yell back but can’t help but smile. And blush.

I almost really did kiss him today. If my brain didn’t object so hard, I would’ve kissed him. And I would be fine with that.

Taglist: @parkeret @lukeys-giggle @hannahhistorian92 @gingerxarmy @marinettepotterandplagg Lemme know if you want to be on my taglist for this story/any of my other works!

[modern-fae-female]

Elorcan Modern AU Chapter 7

Elide got ready for her second day at Adalarn High School. She had gotten home around 8:00 last night after a fun night with Aelin, Manon, and Lysandra. She had gotten to know the girls better and really felt like she was becoming their friends. It turns out that Aelin ran a fencing club that Lysandra was a part of and Manon was captain of the girls Lacrosse team along with 12 other girls who the school called ‘ the thirteen.’ They had eventually gotten to the topic of Lorcan and his odd interactions with Elide, who realized she had a question about the project to ask. After a little bit of convincing Elide had managed to convince Aelin to ask for Lorcan’s number so she could text him the question, even though she could just ask the next morning she felt like she didn’t want to wait that long to talk to him. When she had gotten home she hoped her uncle would be passed out drunk, but sadly that was not the case. He was still awake and very mad at Elide for not coming home after school as it seems the whole phone conversation with her seemed to have slipped his mind. Elide had made the mistake of starting an argument with him, which ended with her getting slapped very hardly in the face and she realized it would leave a mark. This would be fun to explain to everyone tomorrow. Just what she needed, something else to be mad fun of at school. She did the same routine the next morning and headed to school, sadly she couldn’t covering the bruising on her right cheek very well and it defiantly was going to get noticed. 

“ Hey Elide how was... oh what happened to you,” Aelin said as she walked in the school parking lot. 

Yeah, Elide definitely didn’t do a good job of covering it up well. 

“ Oh um.. I’m still getting used to the new house and accidently walked into a door rushing to leave this morning,” Elide lied. 

She looked around as the rest of the group had joined them and she could tell they didn’t buy the story, but let it go. The bell rang and Elide realized she would have to sit by Lorcan in this class. She walked in and saw that he hadn’t arrived yet, at least no big entrance for her today. A few seconds before the final bell rang Lorcan walked into class and sat down next to her. 

“ Hey, oh what happened to you?”

“ Oh, I accidently walked into a door. I’m still not used to the new house and was in a rush this morning,” Elide lied again. 

‘ Oh sorry, that looks like it hurts.”

“ Its’ sore but I’m fine, I’ve handled plenty of these over the years. 

Elide realized she slipped up and Lorcan looked at her confused then he seemed to have understood what happened to her, but before he could speak Mr. Allsbrook walked into class and began the lesson. Just like the day before Elide tried to ignore the staring eyes of Lorcan next to her and just like the day before she saw a note passed to her. Lorcan once again looked away and started taking notes from the lesson while Elide opened the note. 

“ You give the word and your uncle and mysteriously disappear.” Elide giggled slightly at the thought of Lorcan going and beating her uncle and Lorcan seemed to have heard her and looked back at her. They made eye contact for a second and Elide could have sworn she saw the corners of his mouth slightly raise. Elide leaned down and pulled out a peice of paper from her bag and wrote, “ Thanks, I’ll keep you updated on when I need to be rescued.” She passed it over to him and he looked at her in surprise and opened up the note, this time she definitely saw the corners of his mouth turn up into a small smile. He turned the paper over and wrote, “ Any time princess.” This time it was Elide’s turn to smile as she read the note and they both turned back to the lesson with smiles on their faces. 

The rest of the day went by smoothly as Elide sat with and talked to her friends during class and at lunch. The electives here switched so instead of debate Elide had music and would have debate again on Wednesday. She was surprised to feel her heart drop a little as she realized she wouldn’t be working with Lorcan today. The class had the same students from her Debate class along with Manon, Aelin, and Aedion as their class had a couple of students join their music class. She was happy to have some more friends in the class. Their music teacher, Ms. Yteger, walked onto the stage and announced everyone would perform something in front of the class to get a sense of what they were good at in music. Elide felt okay about this as she learned to play the piano at the request of her uncle and could also sing as her mother taught her when she was still alive. She was however nervous about performing in front of other students as she never had before. To her luck she would be going fourth, Manon and Ren both in front of her. Ren played the guitar and Manon the drums and soon it was Elide’s turn. She could feel the butterflies in her stomach as she walked on stage and felt the eyes on her. She walked over to the piano and sat down, she took a deep breathe and started playing. As a kid Elide and her mother would often play the piano and write songs together, there was one they wrote before her death that Elide remembered as she started to play it. 

“ Here’s the one thing I want you to know

You got some place to go

Life’s a test, yes, but you go toe-to-toe

You don’t give up, no you grow”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrH8M8bEfWQ( rest of the lyrics, song from Julie and the Phantoms.

Elide played the last note and looked up to the rest of the students looking at her in shock. Then Aelin stood up clapping and cheering, then Aedion, then Manon, and surprisingly Lorcan, until the whole class was standing and cheering for her. Elide felt her cheeks get red as she walked off the stage and back to her seat. By the time she got there she cheering had died down and her friends were congratulating her on how amazing she sounded.  The class soon ended and this time Elide went straight home as she had homework to do and didn’t want Vernon to be mad again. She took out her key and opened the door to no Vernon. As Elide walked into the kitchen she saw a note badly written and said ,” Had some work to do, won’t be back until Friday and I expect a full dinner prepared when I get back.” Elie’s heart felt relived as she would have a little bit of time without the worry of coming home to an angry Vernon. Elide managed to find some food and make a small dinner and did her homework. As she sat down to read she felt her phone buzz and wondered who would be texting her. To her surprise she saw Lorcan’s contact pop up with a text message. 

>> Hey, wanted to say you sounded amazing during music. I went to the library and I checked out some books we can use tomorrow. 

<< Thanks, I wasn’t that good. And sounds good on the books, I’ve taken some basic notes on what happened during the case.

>> You did sound great and perfect. 

<< Whatever you say knight. 

>> Knight? 

<<  Yeah, aren’t you my knight in shining armor ready if I need a rescuing. 

>> oh, of course princess. 

<< Really, is that my new name. 

>> Hey if I’m called knight your being called princess, it’s even your new contact name. 

<< Perfect, knight is yours. 

>> Oh great. Well princess even knights need their beauty sleep. See you tomorrow, don’t forget. Library 5:30, and you did do a great job in music. 

<< See ya tomorrow Mr. Knight. 

That night the princess and the knight both went to sleep with a smile on their face. 

The next day Elide got up a little as she didn’t have to deal with her uncle and did her routine and walked to school as she replayed last nights conversation with her knight. What she didn’t know was that the knight was also thinking about his conversation with a certain princess. 

“ Woah, what's got you in a good mood, not that I’m complaing?” Fenrys asked Lorcan as they headed into school. 

“ None of your business.”

“ Well as far as I know you didn’t really talk to Maeve after school so my bet is on another girl. Oo is it that Lochan girl, the one who your paired up with for debate and whos performance in music seemed to have you captivated.”

“ Like I said, none of your business.”

“ Oh, it is her. Well whatever she said to get you in a good mood I’m thankful.” Lorcan growled as Fenrys walked away and he headed into history. Like the day before Elide was already there, but this time he did give her a smile and she returned it. 

“ How’s my favorite knight?” 

“ Oh, so you have other knights.”

“ Sadly no, but if I did you would be my favorite.” 

“ Oh, whys that princess.”

“ I don’t know, I’m just comfortable with you.” 

Lorcan’s heart stopped, no one had ever told him that or made such easy conversation with him before. 

“ Well princess, I feel honored to be your favorite and will continue to work to be in your good graces everyday.”

“ Smart, you defiantly don’t want to be in my bad graces.”

“ Oh, little Lochan has got a dangerous side does she.”

“ Yes she does, you should be glad you haven’t seen it yet.” 

“ Hmm.. hey I realized the time we meet at the library is around dinner time. Would you maybe want to head over to the bistro after we work on the project some.” 

Lorcan’s heart stopped for the second time that morning as he realized what he had just asked. Elide looked shocked but quickly but back on her smirk. 

“ Hm.. well I guess so since I have you as my knight there to protect me against any lurking dangers.”

Lorcan returned the smirk as they went back to the little banter and small talk. 

“ Happy to be your most loyal protector my princess,” and he slightly bowed. 

Elide giggled and Lorcan thought it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. What both didn’t realize was that Manon and Aedion were watching them in utter confusion as they had never seem Lorcan look that nice and smile. Class started and the rest of the school day went by well. Elide and Lorcan looked a little bit over some of the notes Elide wrote up and listened to Ms. Ansel’s lesson during class. School ended and Lorcan headed to practice, realizing that 5:30 couldn’t come quick enough. What stopped him was a long nail grabbing him by his shirt and dragging him into the corner outside the locker room. He looked down to see Maeve looking at him. 

“ What’s up Maeve?”

“ What’s up is that I heard Manon and Aedion talking to their bitch queen about how you were giggling and smiling with Lochan during history today. What's up with you?”

Lorcan froze, he had never behaved like that around anyone but with Elide it just came out and he didn’t think about anyone seeing them. 

“ You told me to get information from her and the best way is for her to get comfortable with me. I’m doing what you asked.” 

Maeve didn’t seem very convinced but decided to let it go and Lorcan walked into the locker room to get ready for practice. For the second time he got corned but this time by Dorian and Aedion. 

“ Look Salvetter, we don’t know what game your playing but leave Elide out of it. She's sweet, kind, and a good hearted person and I don’t want her to get hurt by some game your playing with her,” Aedion threatened him.

“Who said I was playing a game,” Lorcan responded and walked away heading to get ready for practice. 

Lorcan played exceptionally well as he wanted to hurry and meet Elide at the library. He quickly got out of his sweaty clothes and hurried onto his motorcycle to the library. He got into the library and looked around to find her in his usual spot watching the sun set. With the golden sun shining on her face she looked gorgeous and Lorcan couldn’t stop staring at her as he strode over to her. As he started to sit down she looked up and smiled at him. 

“ Hello my dear knight.”

“ Hey princess.” 

They both smirked and Lorcan brought out the books he had texted her about. They took some notes and started a basic outline of the debate. After almost and hour they were both starving and decided to head over to the bistro. The bistro was right next to the library they decided to walk over. They got in and Elide ordered some pasta and Lorcan some beef meal. They got a table by the corner and continued to make small talk. They talked about school, morath where Elide used to live, the Adralan School District where Lorcan grew up. Lorcan marveled at how easy it was to talk to her and when it came time to pay Lorcan insisted he pay for both their meals. 

“ I had fun talking to you tonight mr.knight”

“ I did too my princess. Do you have a car you drove here?”

“ Oh no, Lysndra offered to drop me off, I just planed on taking the bus back home.”

“I can drive you home.”

“ Oh no, I don’t want to be an imposition.”

“ You are the farthest thing from an imposition, come on I can’t leave you to find the bus to take home. Besides its going to be dark soon. So whether you like it or not I’m taking you home.”

Elide smiled at how determined he was to take her home. When they got to there motorcycle looked terrified as he realized this is what he drove. After about 5 minutes of convincing Elide that he was a good driver and he had a spare helmet she finally got on slightly holding his waist. Lorcan stepped on the gas and they took off. Elide let out a little squeal and gripped Lorcan harder, practically holding on for dear life. Lorcan chuckled as she held on tight and realized how he liked the feel of her arms around him. After a couple more minutes Elide relaxed some and opened here eyes and finally they got to her house. 

“Your carriage has arrived at its destination my lady.” 

“ Thank you kind sir.” 

“ See it wasn’t that bad was it.”

“ It was terrifying at first but I could get used to it.” 

Elides face grew red as she realized what she said. “ Not that you have to give me a ride again, it just wasn’t as bas as I thought.

Lorcan chuckled again, “ well princess whenever you want a ride I’m always happy to give you one, but you don’t have a car?”

“ No, my uncle doesn’t want to buy one for me and I never really had the chance to get a job and make money.”

“ Actually, there’s this little bookstore near my house that's hiring. I could recommend you if you want. I go there often.”

“Really? That would be amazing.”

“ Glad you be of held my lady. Well it’s getting colder so why don’t you head inside and warm up.”

“ Always taking care of me aren’t you.”

“Always princess.” 

Elide’s face grew hot and red at the comment and she started to head inside. 

“ See you tomorrow my kind knight.”

Lorcan chuckled, “ Until tomorrow my dear princess.”

That night Lorcan and Elide went to sleep with even brighter smiles on their faces.

@bri-loves-sunflowers

[authenticcadence18]

30 Questions About Me

THANKS FOR THE TAG @bugaboo-n-bananoir ILY!!!!

(Nick)name: Cadence

gender: cis female

Star sign: Pisces

Height: uhhhhh I am not sure, it’s taller than 5ft at least

Time: night! (Well I wrote most of this last night, but now it’s the evening of the next day!)

Birthday: well I’m a Pisces, so my birthday is between Feb 19th and march 20th!

Fave band/group: Pentatonix! Or For King and Country. Or the piano guys, the vitamin string quartet, Voctave.....also Phineas and the Ferbtones👌

Fave solo artists: I really like Lauren Daigle, and Jackie Evancho used to be my FAVE. Aaand idk if this counts but Michael Giacchino! love his scores, especially the score for Inside Out. There’s also this guy called Clay Kramer on YouTube who makes KK Slider covers of popular music, his stuff gives me so much seratonin😅

Song Stuck in my Head: Well I’m listening to music rn and “I’m Me” from Phineas and Ferb is on so I’ll say that! (I’ll revisit this one when I finish the list and update it with whatever song i’m listening to/is stuck in my head then) (ok the music has since been turned off and now I have “Status Quo” from High School Musical stuck in my head so! There ya go!) (now it is the next day, and I’ve got “when the party’s over” stuck in my head...i think these three songs are an accurate reflection of my taste in music🤣)

Last Movie: uhhhhh oh yeah, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice! It was SO GREAT because Jay Baruchel plays the main character (and the main character is super awkward), so I felt like I was watching Hiccup from the How To Train Your Dragon franchise learn magic and it was GLORIOUS. And also Nicholas Cage is great. And I liked the love interest in the movie as well!! She had a role to play in the story and felt authentic and genuine, which I appreciated!

Last Show: ok well the last show I watched by myself was Phineas and Ferb! Specifically, the episode with the Mardi Gras block party and then the one where Candace and Stacy compete in an obstacle course against Isabella and Ginger (omg wAIT ginger and Stacy are sisters and Isabella and Candace are GOING to be sisters mY HEART I—AH🥺). I hadn’t watched those episodes in forever, so they were really fun to revisit! I think the last actual show I watched was Kids Baking Championship or something, lol. (Those kids are AMAZING. So skilled!)

When i created this blog: November 2019! It was riiiight after the season 3 finale of miraculous aired and absolutely wrecked my emotions. I had some fanfic written that I’d never posted and had been thinking about making a tumblr/ao3 for awhile, and seeing the finale made me finally go, “.....you know what, yeah. The finale is aired, no more spoilers.....it’s time to make a blog.” So I did! And I posted my first fic! And I’m so happy i did :)

What Do I Post: a bunch of multi fandom stuff XD. This blog started off as 90% Miraculous, 10% other fandoms I like...but now it’s just kind of a hodgepoge of my favorite fandoms (with a focus on Phineas and Ferb, lol). I reblog a lot of posts, and then I post original stuff too! I write fanfic, nowadays for Phineas and Ferb but for Miraculous in the past (and probably in the future!), I draw art (mostly Phinabella art because I’ve been drawing them since i was 11 and it feels good to return to my roots), and OCCASIONALLY I will write an analysis post (I’ve got one in the works rn actually 👀), attempt to make a meme, or dip my toe into salt just SLIGHTLY before quickly backing away, lol. If I were to list the fandoms I post about in the order of how frequently I post about them, I’d probably say: Phineas and Ferb, Miraculous....and thennnnn everything else is pretty random and depends on the day, lol.

Last thing i googled: Jay Baruchel 😂. Couldn’t remember how to spell his last name!

Other blogs: this is my only blog! Sometimes I think about making a separate blog for my art and writing, but I am not sure if I should or not....maybe I will someday, but idk. I also have an AO3 for fanfic and an Instagram for art! All are under the name “authenticcadence18.”

Do I get asks: sometimes, yeah!! Sometimes I reblog ask games/prompts and get some asks for those (I’ve got so many prompts in my inbox I want to write/draw things for...ah it’s fine, I’ll get to it eventually😅), and sometimes lovely people will leave thoughts or nice messages in my inbox🥺💕. I’ve got a specific tag for all those nice messages so I can read back over them whenever I need a boost!

Why this url: it’s a music pun! When a song/section of a piece of music ends with a dominant chord resolving to a tonic chord (if you’ve read a certain fic of mine you should know allll about dominant and tonic chords👀🤣), it’s called an authentic cadence! There are different kinds of cadences, and authentic ones are my favorite. One example of this is “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” I also use this blog to be my authentic, fandom-loving self! So I like authentic cadences, and also, I’m Cadence and using this blog to be authentic! Woo! (And 18 is just my favorite number, lol) I’m glad I ended up choosing a name that doesn’t tie to a specific fandom becaaaaaause this ended up being a multi fandom blog!

Following: 232!!

Followers: 292!!! (THANKS SO MUCH Y’ALL ILY 💕)

Average amount of sleep: wellllll for the past week and a half I was sick so I was probably getting 9ish hours a night (because I would sleep in really late, lol). but NOW? In my immediate future? I suspect my average amount of sleep is going to go down because I’m really bad about staying up late even when I have to get up early😅. Hoping to be good about getting at least 7ish hours a night!

Lucky number: 18! But y’all probably already guessed that, lol.

Instruments: my voice, piano, ukulele, viola (but it’s been a HOT minute), aaaand i used to be able to play guitar but then I got a ukulele and forgot all the guitar chords. (I also dabble in songwriting! I primarily use voice and piano when writing music.)

What I’m wearing: my favorite sweatshirt (that was last night, rn I have on a tanktop), some leggings, and socks!

Dream job: I’m currently learning to be a teacher, and I LOVE teaching and working with kids so that is definitely a job I’m really excited about!!! I would also love to portray characters at Disney or something (well, maybe not at Disney because I hear they’re strict, but like....I want to be Rapunzel or Anna or something, that would be so fun). OR, I would LOVE to work in tv animation somehow, be it voice acting, writing scripts/music, and/or story boarding. basically if I could do what Dan and Swampy did for Phineas and Ferb/Milo Murphy’s Law, I would LOVE THAT. (Especially the writing music part. Getting to write music for established characters and get PAID for it would be SO COOL.!.!.!) Also I think it would be so fun to write Disney storybooks! Like, those books that are about Cinderella baking a cake or Ariel befriending a seahorse, stuff like that. Those brought me a ton of joy as a child!

Dream trip: I want to visit alllll the Disney parks someday😅. (Not right now because, ya know, Covid...but someday!)

Fave food: uhhh i really like pizza. And popcorn. Also hummus and guacamole!

nationality: American

Fave songs: “Times” by Tenth Avenue North; “Can’t Help Falling in Love” (I made an entire playlist of just this song when I first started writing my fic of the same name, so I like the original and a ton of covers of it!), “Show Yourself” from Frozen II, “What Might Have Been” from Phineas and Ferb (and lots of other songs from that show, i made a whole post about that once but I can’t find it, oof); “Rescue” by Lauren Daigle; “Thank You” by Pentatonix; “I See the Light” from Tangled; “Your Hands” by JJ Heller; “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran.....i like a loooot of songs so this is just the tip of the iceberg, but I think that’s good for now, LOL! (As soon as I post this I’m going to remember another song I love, lol)

last book: I got the book Unbirthday for Christmas! It’s basically Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, but if she’d never gone to wonderland and things went horribly wrong there. (I think, I’m not that far into it yet, lol)

Top 3 fictional universes I’d love to live in: 1. DANVILLE, PLS. Especially as a kid, I SO would’ve loved to hang out with Isabella and Phineas and the rest of the gang! Danville is so vibrant and unique and people are always randomly breaking into song there, that’s my kind of place! 2. Fairytopia (from the Barbie movies!) because I could be a fairy OR a mermaid OR BOTH and eat seeweed to breathe underwater even if I wasn’t a mermaid. Like, that’s the dream right there. (I’ve always loved mermaids and fairies, lol!) 3. Maybe San Fransokyo from Big Hero 6? All of the technology in that universe is really cool! And I would love to eat a noodle burger, lol .

Oh! That’s the last one! Wow! This was so FUN!!!!!!! Thanks again for the tag, Maddy!!!! :)

I’ll taaaag @sketchy-panda @macaronsforchat @simplynewyorkbound @inkjackets and anyone else who’d like to do this! (And pls don’t feel pressured to play at all, or answer all of the questions! I was definitely vague with a few of my answers, lol)

[schnowydays]

The “Herne and the Red Kite” Analysis Nobody Asked For

WARNING: This is probably a very long and unnecessary post. 

Wah, so at first I was quite nervous on posting this at all because this is just so embarrassingly long and it is really overly thought out. Plus no one even asked for it and there does not seem to be a need for this since the song is kind of straightforward. But, I still put work into this so I’m going to post it anyways cuz it would feel like a waste if I didn’t. Plus, I’m immensely busy with school right now, so why not just let this fester while I’m away? So,,, here we go:::

Okay, so this was spun out by this post and I just became so interested in what the heck this song was about. I’ve always loved listening to it but I had no idea what the heck was going on - who is Herne? A red kite?? Does this relate to Hadley and Rosalie???

Plus, I love reading analysis on stuff so, here I am, attempting to make my own.

Anyways, to give a quick overview, I am going to be analyzing both the words and the instruments used in the song, going strictly by the studio recording. Everything here will be MY OPINION ALONE so it could be possible that I am horribly wrong on certain things. This research was INCREDIBLY LIGHT so there are probably a lot of details that I missed. Plus, I don’t really have strong music or literature knowledge, nothing beyond what you’re taught in high school. I’ll try to clear up the blocks of text with pictures or videos of things I think are helpful. 

I’m basically going to be the English Teacher who finds meaning in everything meme. You know, the:

So, without further ado...

Background

The Song Itself

As we all know, “Herne and the Red Kite” was written by Hadley Fraser and was released on his EP Just Let Go. Although it was released in 2014, I’m not entirely sure when this song was written, so it could have been really any time before then. Just to get it out there, based on what others have already said (from that post, yes), this song is most likely to be about Hadley and Rosalie Craig. Here is the song itself if you’ve (somehow) never heard it before. You can also listen along and read at the same time :D

Characters in the Song

Herne

Based on only a Google search, “Herne the Hunter”, an English folklore ghost, is really the only thing that shows up. He is mentioned by Shakespeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor in which he is described as “the ghost of a former Windsor Forest keeper who haunts a particular oak tree at midnight in the winter time” (Wikipedia). He is associated with the Windsor Forest and the Great Park in Berkshire. He basically does a lot of not cool stuff, like making cows produce blood instead of milk and making trees die. Another version states that he was made so that parents can scare their children into being more obedient. Herne is also the surname of a bunch of people. Because Herne is such an interesting name to use for a song like this (why didn’t he pick literally anything else??), then there is probably some intention behind the use of this name and probably the connotations that come with it.

Red Kite

So, apparently, the Red Kite isn’t actually a kite but is actually a kind of English bird. Fun fact, during Shakespeare’s time, it was considered to be an insult to be called a kite because this bird, back then, was regarded as quite a lowly bird since it was literally associated with trash. It was related this way because it eats dead things haha... However, it was hunted intensely until it became basically extinct except for a few in Wales. Over time, as the population began to thrive again, the Red Kite became a celebrated symbol of Wales (probably) (source). 

According to a lot of different sites, apparently Red Kites also have some meaning to them. I think the most consistent and most important one is how they are a connection between the living and the underworld. This mystical connection binds well with Herne being a folklore ghost who, of course being a ghost, is probably dead. So, already, they are a pretty good match.

A good thing to note as well, birds, in general, are usually used to symbolize freedom. Also, as far as I can tell, there are really no previous stories or songs or works or whatever about Herne and Red Kites together. 

Hadley and Rosalie’s Relationship

I got this information from here (brought up by @peonybooks​ in a chat, thank you!!)

So, depending on where you look, in 2008 or 2009, Hadley and Rosalie met on the set of A Christmas Carol production in Birmingham, although at the time, they were both dating other people. A piece of the set had fallen on Rosalie during that time and basically destroyed her arm. However, she was determined to swiftly come back to the stage because she was afraid that if she hadn’t, she’ll never be able to come back at all. That, and “because [she] had fallen in love with [Hadley]” (my feelings waaa).

Once the production was over, Hadley shipped it back to LA while Rosalie stayed in London. Hadley returned a year later and called up Rosalie for a drink. It was then discovered that they had actually liked each other this entire time!! They just never told each other. They lived together in Crystal Palace after that and married in 2014. This makes it around the time that this EP was released. 

Hadley and Rosalie as Herne and the Red Kite

Something interesting I noticed was the relation of their names to these characters. H is for Hadley and Herne. R is for Rosalie and the Red Kite. 

Of course, this little fun fact breaks a bit if Hadley is using his real first name, Robert, haha. The “Red” in “Red Kite” can also be a relation to how Rosalie has red hair (thanks @alittlepawblog​ hehe).

Also, something worth noting is how Rosalie sings all the lines that are in Herne’s perspective, and Hadley sings all the lines about the Red Kite’s perspective. That trade-off is quite neat, actually. They are both narrators together in this story, but they are swapping who talks about who. It makes the whole song feel like they are speaking for each other together. 

Lyrics and Instruments

I think for this part, I am going to break it up by when each person sings. So basically, whenever there is a new singer or if they start singing together, that will be a new section. Italics are lyrics, regular print is the analysis.

Instrumental

The story is introduced by an accordion. To be honest, it sounds quite static, or maybe even stoic. There is not a lot of feeling in it, maybe to demonstrate how Herne and the Red Kite’s lives were like before meeting each other.

The sprinkles of hi-hats spring the beginning of the song, which consists of a guitar melody, bass and a violin. The violin has a recurring melody that is highlighted every time there is an instrumental break. It could perhaps represent Herne as both Herne (and subsequently Hadley) is mentioned throughout the song consistently, while the Red kite is only mentioned after the introduction. 

Rosalie

Herne lived alone, lived alone in a wood Staring at swallows, wishing he could Join their migration from flower to flower Finally deciding to rest on some bower

Herne is introduced right off the bat, making him kind of the main character. That, and the fact that he has the most lines in the song directly about him. Makes sense if Herne is supposed to stand in for Hadley, since Hadley wrote this song. The fact that he lives in the woods also fits nicely with how he is supposed to be a ghost associated with the Windsor Forest and the Great Park. 

The lyrics state he is lonely and stares at swallows, wishing he could join them and fly far away visiting beautiful things (“flower to flower”). Swallows are typically symbols for very very good things, like happiness, protection, connection, conflict resolution, etc. The words “finally deciding to rest” kind of makes it like he has been on this long trek for happiness for a while. He’s been doing this search for so long that he just has to rest, finally. And, in case you didn’t know like me, a bower is “a pleasant shady place under trees or climbing plants in a garden or wood” (thanks Google). 

So, just to recap Herne is a lonely ghost who doesn’t want to be this way. He wants to be happy, have a connection with something, but being isolated in the wood just doesn’t let him do that. This may indicate how lonely or just duller things seemed to be for Hadley before he met Rosalie. He didn’t feel a true connection or see true beauty, something he desperately wanted to experience, until her. 

BOTH

With another With another

Albeit being very short, these can potentially have meaning behind them. “With another” - another what? They also start singing together here for the first time. Perhaps the “another” is each other, Hadley and Rosalie, or a foreshadow that Herne will be joined by another person or being soon, a sort of set up for the Red Kite, who is introduced in the next line. 

Hadley

Herne lifts his head and the Red Kite goes drifting by Suddenly in love with something that caught her eye

Hadley now sings but from the perspective of the Red Kite. Notice before that Rosalie sang the last verse, but all about Herne. They kind of mirror each other in this way. 

With the video above, you can see how, while they drift, the Red Kites move their head a lot. Maybe this is a normal bird movement and I’m just too dumb to know, but they seem to be actively searching below them. I think this derives from how they are scavenger birds. However, instead of spotting food, she spots Herne and is “suddenly in love”. This could parallel into real life, where Rosalie might have seen Hadley in passing on the production and experienced love at first sight. These lines indicate that Herne (Hadley) has clearly seen the Red Kite (Rosalie) as well, probably having the same love at first sight moment, something that can be inferred once the song progresses into the next Rosalie verse. 

In this verse, the accordion returns as well, possibly indicating some remnants of the past sadness still lingering. There is uncertainty. However, a new instrument is also introduced simultaneously: the mandolin. To me, it kind of sounds very happy and bright and hopeful, especially in the plucky way it was used. This new instrument, as well as the potentially cheesy representation (rip me), can indicate that something new and exciting is going to begin.

BOTH

Something that's shining so bright in the sunlight Let's hope we never...

If we’re sticking with the definition of bowers being shady, then should it not be very unlikely that the Red Kite or Herne have spotted each other at all? Perhaps through this line, they are saying how unlikely their relationship was to have occurred, but when it ultimately did, it was glorious. In the following line, they say “Let’s hope we never lose that thing that shines in the sunlight ever again”. Maybe it was just so unbelievably good, so amazing, that they were afraid that they would lose it because it just feels so unimaginable. Besides, this flips well into reality since they never told each other they liked each other and kept it secret for a whole year!! PLUS, they were dating others when they first met!! Very unlikely relationship indeed. 

...then again, this could just be them saying the other is really great haha. 

The accordion is fazed out as if the longer Herne and the Red Kite gaze at each other, the past sadness and loneliness are slowly melting away. The violin returns, swelling into the next line. 

BOTH - HADLEY MELODY, ROSALIE HARMONY

...lose that thing that shines in the sunlight ever again

Them singing together makes it like they are in total agreement with each other.  It’s like Hadley is making this statement in the melody, and Rosalie supports wholeheartedly with her harmony. From Hadley to Rosalie, and Rosalie to Hadley, they feel like the other outcompetes the sun (the sun!).

Instrumental

The violin melody from the beginning returns, as does the guitar melody. However, after the violin does its melody once, the trumpet now copies it! If the violin represents Herne because of how both he and the violin are introduced at around the same time, then the trumpet could represent the Red Kite, bringing new a much more vibrant, bold and triumphant vibe to Herne’s life. Plus, the fact that the trumpet copies the violin’s melody probably means there is a connection between the two. This would make it somewhat like an instrumental duet or could also possibly foreshadow that something very good is about to happen. 

Rosalie

Only one Herne and not enough wood Climbed up the bower and atop it he stood Called down the Red Kite from high up above Come land down here and be my love

Herne feels so attracted to the Red kite that he feels a physical pull to her, so much so that he climbs up on top of the bower. With not enough wood, he’s too far away from the Red Kite, and with only one Herne, it feels like nothing is there to support him in what he is trying to do. So he calls down the Red Kite to be with him instead, kind of like how Hadley called Rosalie for a drink all those years ago. It was him that reached out at the end that called her to him. “Be my love”, they will soon declare to each other during/after that fateful meeting. 

This also begins the hunter-bird relationship, if we are going to take this a little more literally. Hunter and bird relationships are very mutualistic. They help each other, with the birds guiding the hunters to their targets and the hunters paying them back in some way, usually through food or other means. 

BOTH

Forever Forever

Singing together, they both want to be together forever (haha, pretty obvious?)

Hadley

Red Kite flies down (he's waited his life for this) Whispers to Herne something, whispers, and then a kiss

As the Red Kite flies down towards Herne (as Rosalie gets closer to Hadley, or comes to meet him), Herne (Hadley) thinks that “he’s waited his life for this”. This goes back to the beginning where we know that Herne really wanted to go beyond the wood to see new beautiful things. Now someone beautiful has come to him instead, making his once isolating and lonely world so much more dazzling and loving. 

They also whisper, which is a pretty intimate choice of word. And they kiss! Literally spelling out a loving relationship. The happiness, love, protection, connection that Herne (Hadley) yearned for, for such a long time, is finally here. 

The mandolin also returns, the hope has its pay off! It continues to play throughout the rest of the song until after a few “Herne and the Red Kite” repeats at the very end of the song.

BOTH

Something that's shining so bright in the sunlight Let's hope we never... 

BOTH - HADLEY MELODY, ROSALIE HARMONY

...lose that thing that shines in the sunlight ever again

Once again, they repeat these words, as if to reaffirm this message that they are the best thing to have happened to each other. This is also at the end of the song, you can interpret as the end of this segment of the story, but the start of something beautiful. As time goes on, this magnificent idea they hold of each other never changes, despite anything that happens. 

Instrumental

This instrumental segment sounds like a slightly altered version of the instrumental breaks we’ve heard before. It is a lot more energetic, with the first threeish notes being kept from the original, but now tacked on with something extra. Overall, it just sounds so much happier than the instrumental breaks we’ve been getting before. 

BOTH

Herne and the Red Kite (repeat)...

This line is repeated 12 times (yes, I counted). The overall feel just sounds so triumphant and happy, like we’re celebrating. The joyous melody has the mandolin fade out, and if you really listen, the trumpet and violin seem to be having a very animated conversation with one another, calling and responding to each other and at times responding really quickly. The same guitar melody that we hear during the instrumental breaks is back as well.

Instrumental

All the instruments fade away, with the violin’s recurring melody closing the celebration off until there is only the guitar left. With only the violin standing out at the very end, it's nice that the original solo melody is now surrounded by all these other exciting things, making it kind of say that Herne is still Herne, but now he is surrounded by so many wonders now that the Red Kite is here. With the guitar having its ending solo, It makes it sounds like this is a tale gone by, and now we talk about it as if it were a folktale or a legend. It kind of feels like we’re just talking about this story around a campfire instead. Herne and the Red Kite grew old and grew old together, closing off the song like a musical “happily ever after”. 

Extra Stuff

Interesting Notes

The way it is written sort of sounds like a children’s poem, describing a simple but cute story

The song, overall, personally has a folklore vibe to it haha

There are a few pairs that can be picked out

Herne and the Red kite

Hadley and Rosalie

Male and Female voice (duet)

Violin and Trumpet

Accordion and Mandolin (Accordion is replaced by the Mandolin)

Any time the two sing together, it kind of just reinforces the narrator aspect of things, how they seem to be telling us the story of how they met and ultimately fell in love from a long time ago

Unanswered Questions

Why use Herne of all figures? Herne is supposed to be a very scary ghost. If it truly is supposed to represent Hadley, does this mean he identifies with the ghost in some way? Or did he derive some meaning from Herne’s presence in the works he shows up in?

Conclusion

Waa ok, that’s all I have for now about Herne and the Red Kite. If you made it to the end, thank you so much!! Truly appreciative that you read all the ramblings <3 

Here is the super general story: Herne was yearning for something more and was feeling lonely. Then he saw the Red Kite drift by, and for both of them, it was love at first sight. He desperately wanted to be with her, so he called out to her despite the odds or the distance, and as she descended to him, he felt excited that his loneliness was finally going to end. From then on, they shared a happy and joyous relationship until the end of time. The end~

The writing of this post took much longer than the actual light research and speculation part of it. Again, I might be completely wrong because this is just what I think is going on, and I might also just be looking waaaayyy too deep into things. If this is truly a proper, or at least somewhat proper, reflection of Hadley and Rosalie’s relationship, then I feel incredibly soft :’) 

If you have any other ideas, or if you agree/disagree with my analysis, please let me know!! I’m really excited to see what others have to say. :D

Until next time, I guess haha

[raereview]

A Writer in Her Early Twenties Writing About Smoking Cigarettes and Feeling Inferior? …Groundbreaking

an essay I wrote in November of 2020 as I was nearing graduation from Columbia College-Chicago

You know when a bug gets stuck on its back and its little legs start flailing and it  frantically rocks back and forth trying to flip back over? That’s how I’ve been feeling recently.

I started smoking cigarettes again to calm me down because smoking weed always makes me have an unwanted existential crisis. In high school, I loved smoking cigarettes because it made me feel like an adult. I dreamed of being someone like Carrie Bradshaw; smoking cigarettes at parties and being so terribly interesting that I only had to write one column a week to pay for a lavish lifestyle. That dream was only amplified when an English teacher wrote on one of my assignments in red ink that she wanted to read my memoir one day. After that, I smoked cigarettes my friends would steal from their stepdads, while I waited impatiently to turn 18 so I could be an adult, leave my hometown, and become a real writer.

Now I’m 21 and can legally buy cigarettes in the city of Chicago. I bought a pack of American Spirits two days after the 2020 Presidential Election because my anxiety was getting high and I couldn’t. I tell myself they are better than regular cigarettes— even though it clearly says on the package they aren’t. Just holding a cigarette is sex to me (I never describe things as sex, but my first Creative Writing professor used to, and she sounded so fucking cool when she did). I always feel dizzy after the first couple hits. I can’t imagine that’s normal. I know that weed is probably better for my body, but I like that no one judges me for not inhaling correctly like they do with weed. I can let the smoke barely touch my lungs before I puff it out of my lips, and no one says a goddamn thing. And so maybe it’s just the action of smoking, but I always feel calmer by the time I put out the cigarette, leaving behind that black mark and bits of ash.

On the 13th of November, Phoebe Bridgers and Maggie Rogers released a cover of “Iris” by Goo Goo Dolls because Bridgers tweeted that she would do so if Biden won the election. I didn’t recognize the song based off the title, but after a quick google search, I remembered hearing it on the radio growing up. It’s got one of those choruses that feels like it was written to be screamed at the top of your lungs in the car with the windows rolled down. I paid $1.50 for the song on Bandcamp (the proceeds went to Fair Fight), then I grabbed my pack of cigarettes, and went out to my back porch to listen to it. I’d barely been able to get out of bed all week, but I knew the cover needed my full attention because I recently became a “stan” of Phoebe Bridgers.

For a while I felt as if Phoebe was someone I knew through a friend of a friend; we ran in the same circles, but never really crossed paths. I adore Hayley Williams and Phoebe’s vocals were on my favorite song on her new album, most of the music I listen to is indie and makes you want to cry which is how you could describe her music, and her lowercase tweets always showed up on my timeline. I knew I’d become acquainted with her eventually, I just wanted to be ready; I had a premonition she’d change my life. I wanted us to fall into each other at the perfect moment.

Sometime in late June or early July, I was laying on the futon in my sister’s spare bedroom, staring at my phone in the darkness while everyone was asleep. The quiet nights of West Texas creep me out when I’ve gone months in Chicago without a moment of silence. I don’t remember what I was initially looking for on Spotify when her solo, sophomore album Punisher came up on the “recommended” section. I hit play because it felt like Spotify was a friend trying to set me up with her for the millionth time, telling me to just trust them and to meet her. It felt like the perfect moment, spilling our guts under the covers, “What if I told you I feel like I know you, but we never met?”

By “Moon Song” and “Chinese Satellite” I was silently weeping, trying not to wake up my nephews in the next room. Punisher made me feel introspective and existential, and the record almost gave me the same floating, panic feeling that weed gives me (but it’s cool when she does it). The strings from “Graceland Too” and “Savior Complex” swam inside my bloodstream and lifted me off the futon, off the part of Texas that I suspect she writes about hating.  I was 16 when I had my first weed-induced existential crisis. My friends drove me around town in an attempt calm me down and I kept asking them if I was dead; Punisher feels like the soundtrack to that car ride. Receiving an impressive 8.7/10 on Pitchfork, the publication’s Sam Sodomsky describes her songwriting on the album as “candid, multi-dimensional, slyly psychedelic, and full of heart.” There are moments as a writer where a line makes me mad because of how well it described something I have yet to put words to, and Bridgers made me furious when she sang on the final track “I Know the End”: “When I get back I’ll lay around Then I’ll get up and lay back down Romanticize a quiet life There’s no place like my room.” It’s so simple, but it perfectly described the way I can get so anxious that I spend most of my days in bed, convincing myself I’ll never not feel this way.

That’s at least how I’d describe my recent state of constant anxiety. I know it started before the election, but constantly checking news sites seemed to amplify everything. I think the thing I have been most anxious about (personally, not politically) is the fact that I’m moving back home to my hometown after I graduate next month. I finally became an adult, but I will be graduating with my Bachelor of Arts degree in Creative Writing, and I have no job prospects and no memoir in the making. I try to remain optimistic, but the catastrophic thinking my brain does is very convincing and tells me that if I can’t find a job in my field that I’m a bad writer, and if I’m a bad writer I’ll never be understood, and if I’ll never be understood I should just quit writing now, and if I quit writing then I should just lay in bed and not go to my zoom classes. It’s a long series of pointless, self-deprecating “and if’s”, but once they start it feels like telling yourself that you’re only going to smoke a couple cigarettes, and then you end up going through a whole pack in a few days and all you’re left with is regret and a headache. So, during that week of bed-ridden anxiety, I was thankful that my new love for Bridgers was stronger than my imposter syndrome. If I was doomed to be misunderstood, I wanted to listen to a writer who I feel like I understand.

When I went outside to listen the song, I quickly remembered that it was November in Chicago and my fingers shoved themselves deeper into my jacket sleeves. I managed to peak them out just enough to light a cigarette and hit play on the song. I was sure I looked very dramatic to the men doing construction on the apartment next door: a girl in her 20’s, smoking with her headphones in, staring off into the distance. The cover initially sounds more stripped and melancholic than the original, just Bridgers light vocals and an acoustic guitar. My legs were already shivering, but all the hairs on my body stood up higher when Rogers came in and their voices molded together. I don’t know her music, but the twang in Maggie’s voice that carries the second verse was comforting to my southern roots. I took a long drag when she sang “When everything feels like the movies, yeah you bleed just to know you're alive.” If I didn’t know better, I would have thought this cover was the original.

“Iris” is a song I’ve always known all the words to, but I had never really listened to the lyrics. The song was written by Goo Goo Doll’s John Rzeznik for the movie City of Angels (1998) staring Nicholas Cage. Rzeznik told Dan MacIntosh of Songfacts that when he wrote the song he was inspired by Cage’s situation in the film and thought “Wow! What an amazing thing it must be like to love someone so much that you give up everything to be with them.” Phoebe Bridgers’ songwriting feels like it comes from the same universe as “Iris”, specifically her song “ICU”. Both songs could technically be described as love songs, but I feel that a disservice to both.

They differ from traditional love songs because write about it in a realistic way, almost as if the thesis of both is “I know everything is awful and we could hate each other one day, but I want to be with you anyways.” A line from the chorus of “Iris” almost says this exactly, but far more eloquently, “When everything's made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am,” and then verses repeat this sentiment of knowing the love could end, but wanting the love anyways. Bridgers’ songwriting in “ICU” comes at a relationship with the same approach. The verses describe things she thinks could complicate or end the relationship (the other person’s family, someone falling out of love, self-sabotage). Regardless, the refrain keeps repeating, “But I feel something when I see you”. All this to say that when Bridgers sings Rzeznik’s lyrics, they feel as if they are her own.

The Goo Goo Dolls must have also thought Phoebe would do the song justice as their twitter account replied to Bridger’s original tweet a few days after Biden was announced the projected winner, saying “We’re waiting…” with the gif of Judge Judy motioning “hurry up”. When I read or hear really good writing, I selfishly question if writing is even actually what I’m meant to be doing… if it was something that should have stayed a hobby, or a poorly constructed daydream of becoming Carrie Bradshaw. 

Recently, I wrote a paragraph about one of my favorite albums with the intention of writing a whole essay about it. However, after that I got stuck. Every time I tried starting the next sentence, I hit the backspace button until it was gone. I spent two whole days watching interviews with the artist, reading reviews of the album, listening to the whole record on repeat for hours, and I couldn’t get anything more than that paragraph. The words simply would not come to me. Moments like that, combined with rejection emails from literary magazines or hearing Bridgers sing lines that take my breath away, I wonder if I should keep fueling my love for something that will always love someone else more or if I should quit?

I listened to the cover of “Iris” on repeat until my cigarette was out. The big tree in my backyard is barren because of the new season, and so now more of my neighborhood is visible. It was around 4p.m. and the sun was already starting to set thanks to daylight savings (until I wrote that sentence, I didn’t think to consider my anxiousness and my need to stay in bed all day could also be attributed to seasonal depression). I’ve always been obsessed with sunrises and sunsets. I know I probably write about them too much: how they make the whole world “glow” orange, the transitions of the colors in the sky, how they always represent an end or a beginning. My hometown has the best sunsets and sunrises: the land is so flat you can see all the way to the horizon, there are no clunky buildings blocking your view. I thought maybe this sunset would spark inspiration in me, so turned to go toward the edge of my porch to see more of it, and for a second I looked at the windowsill I rested my lighter and cigarettes on.

Lying there was a fly stuck on its back. Before they fixed the insolation, our apartment was infested with so many flies that all summer the surfaces of my home were perpetually covered in fly guts. The fly’s little body twitched frantically as it tried to push itself over. I felt pity for the fly even though others of its kind spent the warmer months buzzing in my ear and making me want to move. As I watched the insect, I realized that my anxiety doesn’t feel like drowning or spiraling or falling. It feels like flailing— like a bug stuck on its back trying desperately to get right side up again. It’s kind of pathetic how much it feels like the end of the world. I might not be the first person to think of that, but the metaphor came to me so clearly that it took my breath away. Quickly, I used my lighter to flick the fly back onto its legs. We stared at each other for a moment. I know flies don’t have facial expressions, but I swear, it looked confused. I thought maybe it heard horror stories about me from its friends about the sweaty girl who kills them with rolled up newspaper and wondered why I helped it. Finally, it turned from me and crawled away in the opposite direction.

That fly made me like a god, but more importantly, it made me feel like a writer. I found the words again. Relating to an insect isn’t exactly Carrie Bradshaw or Phoebe Bridgers, but I was excited. I immediately ran inside and started this essay. My frozen fingers started to warm up as I typed everything out. It felt like writing and I were a married couple who had sex for the first time in months; we got our spark back. And I know writers aren’t supposed to wait for inspiration to start writing, and I know this doesn’t make me as good as Phoebe Bridgers, and I know I still don’t have any job offers, and I know I didn’t cure my anxiety but writing this felt really good.

When I wrote this essay, someone I showed it to said they “got my angst”, but not my love for writing. Maybe that’s because I don’t always love writing in the explosive, epic way I sometimes think I should? I love writing with the kind of love that I’m told is in good marriages; the love is a choice. There are days when I can’t stand a word I put on the page, but there are also the days where I find perfect metaphors for sunsets or anxiety or bugs or Phoebe Bridgers. There are days I lay in the warmth of someone else’s words as if they were the sun. There are days where I can’t stand go to class after turning an essay in because I don’t want people to associate the person on the page with the person sitting across the room from of them. However, even on days when I can’t stand writing or being a writer, I still wake up, put on my fake glasses that make me feel like an intellectual, I grab my New Yorker tote, I write silly lyrics I think of on the train, I read someone else’s work and remind myself they had 20 drafts of this I’ll never see, I reread my own work and see if any lines make me catch my breath, and I write.

I write because I still have the desire to be understood. I write to try and understand why I can’t stop loving it even when I hate it. I write because I fear one day the inferiority will be too much and I won’t wake up and choose to still love writing.

I still listen to Iris on repeat because the lyrics are as painfully relatable as they are catchy. At its core, the song is asking someone to understand. I think that’s what all I want, understanding. I want to know that someone else feels the same way I do about sunsets, or Carrie Bradshaw, or Punisher, or smoking cigarettes to look cool. If I write my truth, maybe someone will understand? Alexander Chee wrote in his How to Write an Autobiographical Novel that “To write is to sell a ticket to escape, not from the truth, but into it.” Maybe that’s why I don’t love being high because I feel like I am trying to escape the truth? Maybe that’s why I love Phoebe Bridgers’ songwriting and writing in general because it makes me feel like I am trying to escape into the truth? Maybe if I can make it to the truth, I’ll be understood? 

Maybe I’ll understand?

Sources: Bridgers, Phoebe. Lyrics to “Punisher.” Genius, 2020, genius.com/albums/Phoebe-bridgers/Punisher. Sodomsky, Sam. “Phoebe Bridgers: Punisher.” Pitchfork, Pitchfork, 22 June 2020, pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/phoebe-bridgers-punisher/. Rzeznik, John. “Goo Goo Dolls – Iris.” Genius, 7 Apr. 1998, genius.com/Goo-goo-dolls-iris-lyrics. MacIntosh, Dan. “John Rzeznik of Goo Goo Dolls.” ShieldSquare Captcha, 12 June 2013, www.songfacts.com/blog/interviews/john-rzeznik-of-goo-goo-dolls. Chee, Alexander. How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. Bloomsbury, 2019.