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thekillerssluts · 7 years ago

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Arcade Fire’s Win Butler Responds to Criticism of the Band’s Much-Maligned, ‘Misunderstood’ Everything Now Rollout

Ever since Arcade Fire roared out of Montreal in 2004 with the release of its instant-classic debut album, Funeral, the band has built a critically and popularly successful career as purveyors of emotionally earnest, musically galvanizing rock. So it struck some observers as a little discordant when, in advance of its recent Everything Now album, the band undertook a decidedly un-earnest prerelease campaign, flooding the internet for a brief time with, among other things, satirical music criticism, bogus marketing tie-ins, and fake-news stories.

The critical response to the campaign was not kind, and the album, too, was met with some of the toughest reviews of the band’s career. Front man Win Butler has suggested that skeptical critics — of both the promotional high jinks and the album itself — may be missing the point. For the first time in its career, a band with an undeniable gift for connection seems, both intentionally and not, to have crossed a lot of wires. Speaking from the tour bus on the way to a concert in Boston, Butler explained the thinking behind the Everything Now campaign, and his reaction to what he sees as the confusion surrounding the album.

I’ve seen you refer to the Everything Now campaign as an “experiment.” So what was the purpose of that experiment? And now from the vantage point of seeing the album out in the world for a few weeks, do you think the experiment was successful? A big question for us was “How do you release a record post–Donald Trump?” Since we were making a record called Everything Now, and it would be coming out after that election, it felt like a real moment to try and address subjects like fake news and how the media works. The other part of it is that when you make a record in this modern context, it instantly gets refracted in the media. There’s all this side content, this trail that follows everything. So we thought that maybe we’d just make all that content, as opposed to just making the art. That stuff was going to get made anyway, so why not make it ourselves?

Those are sort of more practical explanations. What ideas and theories were you testing? It’s a little bit like when you go to the doctor and they put dye in your bloodstream — we just wanted to see where fake-news articles about the band would go. The media is built for clicks now, and we were trying to see firsthand how it all works. I feel like I now understand on a much deeper level why Trump got elected. Negativity is what travels. So we learned more about how the internet functions, and how it’s an insane feedback loop. It’s like, we just played a show in London that was one of the best shows we’ve ever played there. It was honestly so fucking exciting. And at the show we sold a T-shirt where we put an ironic Everything Now logo on top of Kylie Jenner’s face. It was visually punk as hell. We knew doing that would get a lot of press pickup but every single news outlet in the world covered it. Somehow there’s a story in that, but there’s not really a story in Band Is Really Amazing at Music and Plays a Live Show and People Cry Because It’s So Beautiful. So it was really interesting to us to see what got picked up about Arcade Fire. That idea plays into what we were doing as well: We were providing the ammunition for people who wanted to write negative things about the band: Here you go! Here’s something to be outraged about!

Is it possible, just on a personal level, that you give too much emotional weight to negative coverage of the band? What you just said about providing ammunition makes it seem like Everything Now was being released with a preemptive feeling of defensiveness. But I think it’s fair to say that, on balance, Arcade Fire have been hugely successful with critics and audiences. I understand that criticism. The success we’ve had is one in a million. But there’s an overall level of meanness online — I think it was worth pointing out the disingenuousness of that stuff. I remember when Lana Del Rey played Saturday Night Live. Say what you will about her, but she’s a real fucking artist, and the media reaction to that performance was like people were trying to ruin her career. Did they really want to ruin this person? Or did that stance play better online? Like I said, so much of it seems very disingenuous. And I’m not just talking shit about music journalists now. I know how lucky the band has been. But publications are tightening their belts and people have to churn out more stuff, and the media landscape has changed — it’s turned into a fucking meat grinder. The Everything Now campaign was happening in the context of all that and coming out of an election where we essentially elected Mussolini as president of the United States. It would’ve been hard for us to just be like, “So this is our new record!” I wouldn’t know how to not try and address what’s going on in the world.

Did the marketing campaign negatively color how people heard the new music? I don’t know. I think some things were misunderstood. From my perspective, the album is musically one of the best things we’ve ever done. It’s also one of the most earnest. People have called it a cynical record, but I don’t think any honest attempt to listen to the music really supports that reading. So it’s hard for me to square that with the negative reception —which hasn’t been the case in Europe, where they took the campaign much differently. Obviously the French are not going to have as much of a problem understanding a meta news campaign; you don’t have to explain any of this to a French journalist. Everything we’ve done has been pretty obvious if you read past the headlines of the stories, which is something else we’ve learned people don’t really do. The other reality of it, for me, is that fans are enjoying the album and listening to it. So again, it’s hard to square what’s been written about Everything Now with my experience of Everything Now.

I can’t imagine there was a lot of backslapping and handshaking after you guys saw that fake-news stories you put out were picked up as real. Has it been at all emotionally satisfying to test your idea that the media is broken? It wasn’t triumphant, but these aren’t exactly triumphant times. We’re not in a particularly feel-good mood. It’s extremely dire and extremely dark right now. When things are this shitty, sometimes nihilism is a good response. It’s like the punk-rock movement in the U.K.— the Sex Pistols cursing on TV. It’s not overtly political, but in the context of the politics of those times, it’s just “fuck this fucking shit.” We weren’t excited about making people feel weird. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a valid thing to do.

It seems like you have a clear sense of your intentions for the Everything Now campaign. Does other people’s being less clear suggest that maybe the band’s execution wasn’t as sharp as it could’ve been? Or that maybe the tone was coming off more snide than you’d hoped? Maybe there was a certain amount of naïveté on our behalf about how things would be received. I guess at the very core of it, we were hoping that, at least among our fans, we could contribute to a conversation about thinking about what you read, not taking things at face value, critical thinking. Maybe certain parts of that got away from us.

Like what? The thing that really got away from us in the most fascinating way was when we played a show in Brooklyn. There was this kind of big story about how we demanded there be a dress code, which was completely false and was something that could’ve been corroborated by a simple phone call or email to our publicist. But instead of that, there was this sea of outrage: “How dare they do this!” There was even an article written in Canada slagging the band about the dress code after it was clear that we had nothing to do with any dress code. A journalist writing about something after it was proven fake was not something we’d anticipated happening. But I can’t say I was surprised, because that’s where the culture’s at now. Fake news becomes something that real news has to respond to. It’s totally insane. From my perspective though, the Everything Now fake-news campaign lasted about a week and a half, and let a lot of people know that there was a new Arcade Fire album coming out. So I’m not really sweating a lot of this.

Does the response to the campaign — and what I imagine was the difficulty of putting it together — make you at all want to go the Radiohead route and basically just let the music do all the talking from now on? We only did something like five interviews for Reflektor. This is by far the longest interview I’ve given for this album.

Maybe you didn’t give a lot of interviews for Reflektor, but you promoted it with a special on network TV. The band wasn’t exactly shy about letting people know it had an album out. But the thing is, it’s bad to me when a record comes out and people are like, “Oh my god the new Radiohead record! Yes!” — then it’s gone the next day. It might as well not have existed. Remember when Radiohead played the MTV Beach House for Pablo Honey? You watch that video and you can tell the band was in hell. That was some stupid-ass shit, but you know what? That’s where I learned about Radiohead. They suffered through that, but they did it because they wanted people to hear their music. Before OK Computer, they toured the U.S. opening for Alanis Morrissette — most British bands weren’t doing stuff like that, but Radiohead wanted Americans to know about their music. Now, 20 years later, they’re still here. We want people to hear our music too. I don’t think we’d go out and open for Taylor Swift, but we want people to hear our music, too.

Would you have done anything differently with the rollout? Or put another way, has any of the critical feedback you’ve gotten rang true? Any criticism anybody else has had of the band — I’ve already had my own way, way harsher criticisms. Honestly, we’re talking about two weeks in the lifespan of this album. You listen to some of the albums Leonard Cohen made in the ’80s, and they have cheesiest-sounding keyboards, but those are such essential records. They’ve stood the test of time. If the songs are good enough and interesting enough, the music lasts. Time will tell if Everything Now holds up — everything else is ephemeral. And if ultimately the biggest regret of my career is that some people think maybe we made a misstep with an album rollout, I can certainly live with that.

#Arcade Fire #Win Butler #interview #Everything Now

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resmarted · 5 years ago

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i am golden embers from the oldest burnt out flame that somehow manages to stay alive well past the party. i don’t know how we got here, but i’m drawing little cartoon skulls on the back of your hand and ruminating on death culture and our historical fascination with it, not to mention this modern day obsession. wake up, i’m worrying at you. i know, it’s been a long time since we’ve talked like this, in this house with all the windows open for anyone to be able to look in and see. me, a shameless blubbering idiot and you, an omnipresent interdimensional being that changes names and faces depending on what time of day it is. i wish we could be friends like normal and not these shapeshifting spaces that descend and disappear before they can even get a chance to form. i’m out of practice, but shall we? i am the cutest boy in school, (get over it, i just am.) and you are my closest friend. at least you were when we were kids, before puberty made things weird and gender norms influenced the politics of our relationship. back when life was endless summers in a treehouse and i was the only dude in your life besides your dad, and then even more significantly when he left. we were such pure vessels of innocence, or at least i was, you were more of a terrorist in an young girl’s body. we spend our days playing with your barbies, one of many secrets we take to our graves, and we have intricate plot lines for each of their relationships. i make scenery for them out of legos, a lawn to lounge on and a clunky castle to sleep, they even had a hot tub. we have an entire world that nobody knows about and eleven thousand inside jokes based within it, this galactic sandbox that goes on for miles where nobody can hurt us. in seventh grade two boys from our school come over and spot the dolls laying in the corner of the treehouse and they give me hell for it, and i mean it gets really bad. they carelessly pull apart their tiny clothes, some of them handmade by your aunt, and hold them up like torches made of naked plastic flesh. it is startling and i know fighting them will only make it worse, will only turn them into even bigger deviants, so i don’t provoke them any further and take all necessary precaution to keep it from happening again. admittedly, this is where shit starts to hit the fan with us. i tell you the next day you can’t bring them in here anymore, and that this is not a storage facility for your girl stuff, to which you respond with a look only the demon possessed child that you are could invoke. we don’t talk for what turns out to be the longest week of my life, and i try to compromise because i miss you terribly and all of our stories, how are all of our characters (ripped directly from episodes of 90210) even doing right now? i ask what if we just, yknow, not use the dolls anymore, but still play the game. we finally come to an agreement and spend the rest of the year lounging around telling stories in the air, playing without the physical evidence, just these long sagas that never get written down or repeated or acted out with dolls of any kind.

you’re growing up faster than i am, your body is developing first and you got a nice set of big naturals before we even get to high school. and what am i supposed to do, not notice? i try not to. i try to act like it’s totally not making me feel any type of way when you start to experiment with makeup and of course i’m not jealous of the boy band members you secretly fawn over when no one from school is around to make fun of you. what do all these meatheads got that i don’t got? besides muscles and money and matching wardrobes with dope harmony skills. i magically take up guitar the next summer and whenever you start to talk about another hollywood hunk i am just like so anyway, here’s wonderwall. you never seem to catch on, never showing to have the slightest clue, and over time our stories become fewer and farther between because you’ve got new daydreams now. you’ve grown tired of the dramatics in our pretend romances and you want a real one. you want jake who has a mustache and works at gadzooks in the mall or bryan who is always hogging the pinball machine at skate country. i call him a dweebmunch and you just drift further away from me. by high school we barely know each other, you can hardly even remember i exist as you join all these teams and squads and athletic girl gangs, and i still haven’t lost my baby fat. you’re dating marcus who plays defense on our school’s football team and at some point the new normal becomes this sort of familiar strangers vibe where we barely acknowledge each other when passing in the halls but wave to each other’s families when passing them in real life. we don’t actually talk again until prom night when you show up drunkenly to my backyard like the last four years never even happened. your mascara is running and your dress is torn, your pretty hairdo that took hours at the salon that day is all disheveled, and you hold a bottle of wine to your lips like it’s water. you are barely able to steady yourself long enough to climb up into the treehouse where you find me choking on a hit of weed with a look of terror like i’ve just seen a ghost. technically i have. you slur your words and ask me for a hit and i’m terrified of you, just take whatever you want, you monstrous beauty queen. you tell me that you hate your boyfriend but don’t go into detail, that prom sucks and your friends suck and everyone is fake and nobody will even be able to outgrow this version of themselves because their parents never did, and at one point you’re holding up the bottle yelling with burgundy stained teeth that nobody in this town cares about anything other than football. which is true, it’s just one of those towns where our whole identity is based on touchdowns and score boards because that’s all anybody’s got to live for. you curl up in a corner, finding a couple of your old dolls safe and secure and you smile at me, saying you thought they weren’t allowed up here anymore. i don’t even look back at you when stating that obviously abby and olivia don’t count since they are notorious rule breakers. you hold one up to sit atop my shoulder and talk in one of your stupid voices, requesting a live rendition of wonderwall. don’t be silly, i’m eighteen now, i’m too cool for oasis and have upgraded to strictly radiohead, the bends album specifically. we start to argue like we are ten all over again when you insist i am just being pretentious because i can’t acknowledge the obvious golden child that is karma police, and without thinking i retort that i’d rather be pretentious than pretend i’m dumb just to fit in with those who are. you knock me square in the jaw with your trusty right hook and i land harder than you expected. you’re not even concerned, and why would you be? you’re three sheets to the wind and screaming things like you think i wanted things to end up this way? you gave up first, if you would have just been a real friend to me none of this ever would have happened. you’re crying hysterically now like all good prom nights end, and i am rubbing the sore spot on my face.

i don’t fight you though, i know better. instead i just bundle you up and put you to bed like the little trainwreck that you are, and in the morning when the birds chirp and the sun fills this tiny space, you can’t remember how you got here or why your head is pounding so hard now. i am sitting up reading a burroughs novel because i’m cultured and mysterious now, with a thermos of coffee already waiting for you. you lean over to puke outside and it lands twenty feet below, and you hate when i tell everyone this story because i always say that’s the part where i knew i loved you. but it’s true, i had never been more certain of anything in my life than when i saw you hurling out this red river across the yard and thought how nice it was to have you back around, if even for a very delirious moment in a state of great confusion. we get breakfast at a diner we used to fantasize about being old enough to go to without our parents someday, and somehow that manages to be the beginning of the first of many best summers of our lives. now we’re old enough to go all kinds of places without our parents, and it’s still very novel for us to hold hands in public and be out past curfew. somehow we manage to stay these wild eyed teenagers no matter how old we get, and i wouldn’t want to grow young with anyone else.

#long reads

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ineverhadmyinternetphase · 8 years ago

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All You Did Will Be Undone

AO3 Link

Genre: Oneshot, part of QPR verse, first meeting, 2009 phan, asexual phan

Summary: Fiction. What 2009 phan would have looked like if they were ace and wanted to be in a QPR.

Warnings: discussions of sexual themes (but no smut, they’re ace it’s just them figuring stuff out)

Word Count: 7496

A/N: Happy birthday, @charlottekath! This entire QPR verse I have planned would not exist without chatting to you about ace phan headcanons so this seemed like a fitting gift <3

Title from Taxi Cab by Twenty One Pilots (thanks for making me obssessed with them too Charlotte)

Reminder that I don’t know Dan or Phil at all and I’m not suggesting this in any way reflects reality. This is a work of fiction

---

The first time telling Dan the truth was hard.

Dan was perfect in every way – exactly what any guy in Phil’s age and situation of life should want. Except Phil. Because as much as he might try, Phil didn’t want that.

Dan was perfect. He called every night without fail, even when his skype window was dimmed to the lowest brightness and he had to whisper, lips close to the microphone, for fear of waking his parents. He texted Phil every morning, and texted back promptly when Phil messaged him, and he indulged Phil’s weirder side by seeming to actually like the often odd creative things his brain made.

Phil would never forget the first time he’d started to notice danisnotonfire. He’d popped up a few times in his notifications, sure, but it wasn’t until Phil’s Space Adventure Videos that he really started paying attention to Dan. The guy had left comments on every single part, which showed a level of obsession that not many viewers of Phil’s had. When Phil read the comments danisnotonfire had left, he was unashamed to announce that he’d squealed into his pillow repeatedly.

Needless to say, Phil had felt the need to reply, and sent Dan a dm. Dan’s excited reply had only increased Phil’s growing affection, and then things just took off faster than both of them could imagine. It was only a matter of time before they were swapping facebook and skype details and then almost-daily calls became a thing, and seeing Dan’s face for the first time had made something swoop in Phil’s stomach.

That had never happened before.

A long, long time ago, Phil had come to terms with the fact that he’d never have a real relationship. He’d fumbled around some at uni, tried to figure out something that seemed alien to him, but no one seemed to get it. Or maybe he just didn’t get everyone else. Either way, Phil had seen that he was apparently missing something when he watched his friends pair off happily and frequently, and he was left alone on the outside, a little bit too weird for this.

Until Dan.

Now, when Dan looked at him for a beat too long through the skype camera, or on the rare occasions Phil made Dan laugh and it made his eyes go crinkly and his often worried expression smooth out, Phil still felt that odd swoop in his stomach. He thought maybe he understood butterflies now, the way everyone said you were supposed to feel when you had a romantic interest in someone. The feeling was new, and honestly it surprised Phil who had more or less resigned himself to never wanting a partner by that point, but it was good, he thought, so Phil didn’t fight it. Instead, he let it settle, and he watched Dan back through the skype camera and felt this odd pull that seemed to say, yeah, him.

Whatever it was, it was the closest thing to romance Phil had ever felt.

Only then he’d learned more about Dan. About the fact that he’d just broken up with his long-term girlfriend, and Phil tried to ignore the slight tug of jealousy at that. He learned Dan’s desperate fear that he’d never be accepted because he’d come to realise a long time ago that he also kind of had a thing for guys, but Phil had reassured him about that, too. Evidently, that wasn’t an issue for Phil, because the way Dan looked at him all heavy and warm did strange wriggly things to Phil’s insides.

But there were the other things Dan did that just left a slightly sour taste in Phil’s mouth.

Dan didn’t mean to do it – Phil was certain of that. He’d seen Dan in his softest moments, late at night when his eyes were fuzzy with sleep and first thing in the morning when he was yawning and his voice was all squeaky and muffled and he blinked at Phil out of a frankly ridiculous nest of blankets. The Dan of those moments made Phil’s heart ache – soft, happy, everything Phil could ever want in life.

But then there were the other times.

Mostly in the evenings, when they were both chatting in their rooms and Dan’s eyes would go dark and heavy and he’d start to murmur things. Things that would have been inappropriate if he’d still been in a relationship with his girlfriend, and were still incredibly terrifying to a Phil who was really, really not ready to confront this sort of thing.

“I really need to get laid,” Dan said casually one evening, making Phil choke on his coffee. It was nothing more than a passing comment, the kind of easy casual way they had of talking to each other when they were both increasingly more comfortable in each other’s company. But it still had the power to make Phil choke.

He hated this kind of thing. Already he could feel his chest constricting and his stomach tying itself up in knots, and Dan had done nothing more than allude to something perfectly normal for teenagers. Or so Phil had been told.

So he gave a weak smile back to Dan and managed a quiet, “Yeah?”

“Fuck, yeah.” Dan flopped over backwards on his bed and gave Phil a look. From under his lashes, biting his lower lip. “It’s been ages.”

Phil’s already weak smile trembled. He didn’t know what to do with this. He knew – or he thought he knew, at least – that Dan felt some interest back at him. After all, he called Phil endlessly, tweeted him at every possible opportunity, and told other people on twitter to back off if it looked like Phil was paying more attention to them than he was to Dan. Dan’s actions could easily be called jealous, unless Phil was reading too much into them.

But if he wasn’t, and Dan really did want him back, then that – that would involve something like this.

Something Phil really, really wasn’t comfortable with.

This was ridiculous. He was supposed to be the mature one, even if more often than not it felt like Dan was the older one between them. Regardless, Phil was the one who was supposed to be experienced, to know how to direct them. But he didn’t, or at least, he didn’t want to. So he hid every time Dan brought up something like this, changing the subject as quickly as he could without being rude.

Dan didn’t seem too disappointed, at least. He always went with whatever lame topic Phil would drag up, humouring him even when he was being a mess. But it made Phil feel bad, made something unpleasant twist inside his stomach, like a reminder that he could never, ever be good enough for Dan.

Of course Dan would want more. So Phil had to force himself to at least try.

He looked at Dan now, flopped on his back in his bed with his eyes all warm and dark and his expression heavy. This was supposed to be the ideal, wasn’t it – to have the person you’re interested in lying all open and willing before you. Phil just didn’t know what to do with it, but he was far too terrified of losing Dan, and so he was going to try.

“I like looking at you like that,” Phil murmured to start with. After all, that wasn’t a complete lie. He liked the way it felt to see Dan’s fringe flopping down into his eyes, and he liked the way Dan’s face softened when he looked back at Phil.

“Yeah?” Dan answered, his tone all low and alluring.

Phil swallowed. “Uh. Yeah.”

“Good,” Dan continued after a beat, in which Phil panicked about what on earth he was supposed to say next. Dan stretched out obviously on the bed, arching his back, eyeing the camera. “I like you looking at me like that.”

Phil managed not to choke out loud. He kept his face impassive and hoped it came across as interested – at least enough to keep Dan placated, or from running away because he thought Phil was prudish or innocent or judgemental, or something. Instead, Phil rushed to add, “Good. That’s – good. I like looking at you, Dan.” Again, not a complete lie. In fact, if Phil kept his eyes trained solely on Dan’s face and nowhere else, he very much liked the view.

Dan’s entire face split into a smile, then, a wide honest one that made his eyes crinkle up and glimmer out through his far-too-long fringe. “You too. Is it bad that I’m literally counting down the days to meet you in person?”

“Not bad to me,” Phil answered, and that was the most honest thing so far. He was rewarded with another giant beam from Dan which made Phil’s stomach wriggle all over again.

Maybe he could pretend for long enough to make this work.

---

Phil definitely couldn’t pretend for long enough to make this work.

Things were getting progressively worse the closer it got to Dan coming to meet Phil.

Well, no, progressively worse wasn’t quite the right way to describe it. Dan was still amazing. They still had hours long discussions about the proper characterisation in their favourite anime, or arguments over the merits of a Muse song against a Radiohead song, or Dan would still gush over Phil’s most recent videos. Those conversations were still the best, and only getting better with time.

It was the other moments that were bad – the ones where Dan pushed at Phil, and then got worried when Phil couldn’t respond without freezing up.

The trouble was, Phil was really trying. Every time Dan said something suggestive, or bit his lower lip and stared right at Phil, or went into explicit detail about his favourite dynamics within their shared anime ship, Phil could feel himself freezing. And he really needed to get a grip, because every time he froze, Dan would send him a worried look and ask, “Are you alright?”

“’Course I am,” Phil would always answer immediately, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

“Are you sure?” Dan pressed, and then in the beat of silence that followed, “I mean – I don’t have to come up, or like, if you’d rather meet in a public place first – or if you’d rather come here first—”

“No,” Phil answered quickly – too quickly, because Dan’s face fell and that was Phil’s least favourite expression in the world. Phil let out a frustrated sigh. “No, you idiot, of course I still want you to come here.”

That was true – Phil had never wanted to meet someone so much before. Now there were only eleven days before Dan would be sitting on a train up to Manchester and Phil would be on his way to the train station to meet him, probably arriving ridiculously early because Phil really couldn’t bear to be late. He’d met online friends before – PJ being the one he was closest with – and they’d always gone well, at least for the most part. Phil thought he had that part figured out.

He was just kind of terrified of what Dan might do, or what Dan might expect from him.

Dan right now was giving the camera a serious look, before he looked away and gave this small little smile that made his dimple appear and Phil wanted to wrap him up in his arms.

“Good,” Dan murmured almost too softly for the microphone to pick up. “I really, really like you, Phil.”

Phil’s heart was in his mouth. “Same.”

“No, but like,” Dan lifted his head and looked Phil straight in the eyes, and Phil’s stomach dropped. “I really like you. Actually, properly, not-just-friendly like.”

Phil’s stomach swooped and erupted, something shooting down his spine and making him curl forward and press both hands to his mouth. He could feel his stupid smile happening behind his fingers, the stupid one where his tongue showed, so he ducked and hid and could feel his cheeks going red.

Dan chuckled from the camera. “Is it a good thing that you’re hiding from me?”

“It’s a very good thing,” Phil promised from behind his hands, peeking up through his fringe at Dan. “And same, Dan. About everything.”

Dan’s answering beam was everything Phil could have wanted.

---

Later that night, Phil lay back in his bed staring at the ceiling, nowhere closer to falling asleep than he had been hours ago. It was 3am, way later than he usually stayed up, but he just… couldn’t get his brain to shut up. Dan had fallen asleep on skype hours ago, and Phil had left his screen up in a probably worryingly stalker-ish way, his laptop balanced by his pillow showing him the darkened sleepy lump that was Dan.

He looked relaxed. Calm, happy. Everything Phil could possibly want.

Except that Dan was going to hate him.

Phil couldn’t help but feel like he’d been leading Dan on. As much as he wanted to let himself be incredibly happy that this wonderful person liked him back, his happiness was tainted by a hint of fear. The same old fear that had haunted him all through his fumbling through his uni days – he just wasn’t enough.

He never could be enough. He didn’t want to be enough. He wanted to hold Dan’s hand and take him out on dates, in fact he’d already planned to take Dan to the sky bar and really treat him. Dan deserved to be spoiled, and Phil loved to spoil people, and he wanted this weekend to be perfect for both of them. He was going to collect Dan from the station and show him all around his city, cling to him as much as possible, hold his hand and cuddle him if Dan would let him, but…

But that was all. The thought of going any further than that made Phil sick to his stomach.

He should just force himself to try it. He had before, after all, at uni, but he’d never got further than taking his clothes off before having to run to the bathroom and throw up. He didn’t want to do that to Dan. Even the thought of hurting Dan like that terrified him, and as much as Phil wanted to believe it would be different with Dan, he knew himself well enough to know that wouldn’t be the case.

He just wasn’t built that way. And it made him an awful person, because Dan was going to expect it and Phil was all but leading him on at this point.

He had to tell him.

It was the only fair way.

Phil turned his head against his pillow, dragged his duvet up until it was wrapped up under his chin, and stared at his laptop where he could see the top of Dan’s sleeping head. His hair looked so fluffy, curling a bit at the edges, and his face was all smooth and young looking. Young, Dan was so young, and it was almost terrifyingly easy to forget that sometimes. They just clicked so well, but Phil knew he would never ever take advantage. Dan was already fast becoming the most important thing in his life.

“I just want to be fair to you,” Phil whispered towards his laptop, and watched as Dan shifted a bit in his sleep, but didn’t open his eyes. Phil almost willed him to, just so he could get this conversation over with while he was still feeling brave enough to do it.

But then he really would lose Dan forever.

Phil stared at Dan for a long time, and then went back to staring at the ceiling, and wished sleep would help him shut up his worried thoughts.

---

Eight days before Dan was due to arrive, Phil finally gathered the courage to tell him.

Or at least, that’s what he was sternly telling himself as he sat on his bed and stared at his laptop screen, open on a window with Dan. He just had to hit call and Dan would pick up, he knew that already, but was he – was he really ready?

“Phil?” His mum’s voice called from the doorway, and then her head appeared around the side of his bedroom door. “Just popping to the shops, do you want anything?”

“More cereal,” he answered instantly. ��And marshmallows.”

“You’re a menace,” she told him, and then caught sight of the staring contest he was currently having with his laptop. She gave a small knowing smile. “Does he know yet?”

Phil blinked, glanced up at her, and gave a small smile. “Yeah. He likes me back.”

His mum’s little squeal of excitement made Phil grin, but it also scared him. She’d always been wonderfully accepting of him having crushes on boys too, but he’d never actually brought someone home before. He knew she’d been worried about him being 23 and never having had a proper relationship, and now Phil felt awful that he might have to end it with Dan so early because he couldn’t get his body to work properly and want something that made him sick to think about.

He just had to grit his teeth and tell Dan already, get the cord cut before they got closer and it hurt even more.

“I’ll leave you be,” his mum said with a wink, and then backed up out of his door.

Phil waited for the front door to snap shut, and then he went back to staring at his laptop screen, still open on his skype chat with Dan. It would be so easy just to press call. Phil really wanted to see his face again.

He just didn’t want to deal with the way Dan’s expression was going to crumple, and then he’d get angry and hang up and never speak to Phil again.

But even that was better than hurting him by leading him on.

Eventually, Phil just went for it. He pressed the call button and sat with his heart in his mouth, and then as soon as Dan’s face appeared on his screen and he grinned and started saying hello, Phil was blurting out, “I don’t want to have sex with you.”

There was a startled squawk from the screen, and then Dan rolled over sideways and there was a muffled thump and a groan.

Phil blinked. “…Did you just fall off the bed?”

“No,” Dan grunted, his voice sounding very muffled. The skype call window was currently only showing a heap of blankets, and then there was some ruffling and Dan’s head appeared over the top of them, his hair a curly mess, his eyes dim.

Phil laughed, all fear temporarily forgotten. “Oh, you did. You’re adorable.”

“Shut up!” Dan was dimpling, though, his eyes warm and soft as he clambered his way back up onto his bed, flopping down on his stomach and looking up at the camera with a gaze that held so much warmth, Phil’s breath caught in his throat.

He really, really did not want to lose this.

“What did you say?” Dan asked carefully once he was back in position, and Phil gulped. His throat was closing up, but Dan didn’t leave him in agony for long. “You don’t want to have sex with me, is that what you said?”

Phil swallowed. It sounded harsh, said like that, out in the open. He flinched despite himself.

“Um,” Phil managed to say into the silence a moment later. “No, I – I don’t.”

Dan was staring at the camera with an unreadable expression – and Phil would kill to know what was going on inside his brain just then.

“You don’t?” Dan asked eventually, his voice small.

“No, but like, it’s my fault,” Phil rushed to try and explain, and winced when Dan just looked more confused than ever. “Like, Dan, I – will you let me say something?”

“I’ll always let you say anything,” Dan answered, but his tone was already getting miserable and he looked sad and oh, this was the worst thing Phil had ever done in his life. “I mean – if you don’t want this you could have told me, I would have dealt with it—”

“I do want this,” Phil interrupted sincerely.

Dan sent him a flat look.

“I do!” Phil was quick to defend himself, but when Dan’s face just crumpled up some more, Phil rushed to add, “Look, just – give me five minutes, ok, let me explain?”

There was a silent minute that stretched on forever, in which Dan stared at Phil for so long that Phil was sure he was just going to say no. But then Dan relented, and gave a tiny little nod.

“Ok.” Phil let out a loud breath, and then sat forward so he could wrap his arms around his knees. “Ok, so – so I don’t want to have sex with you.”

The skin around Dan’s eyes tightened.

“But I don’t want to have sex with anyone,” Phil was quick to reassure. He lifted a hand when Dan just gave him a confused look. “Just listen? Please?”

“Alright,” Dan nodded again, but his voice was still all small and he still looked very confused.

Phil let out a breath, hugging his knees in close to his chest. “It’s like, I’ve just – I’ve never wanted to have sex, ok? I mean, I’ve tried – I really tried, but I’m not like you, I never had a relationship, I never really wanted one until you started stalking me—”

Dan made a noise of complaint, but Phil sent him a look and then kept on talking. “I don’t know, just, you’ve been the first person in my life I can see myself with. Just – just not like that.”

Dan was quiet for a moment. He wasn’t looking at the camera, instead staring down at his blankets and picking at a fraying edge, and Phil’s heart was hovering in his mouth.

“Like what, then?” Dan muttered eventually, still staring down at his blankets. “If not like that, then like what?”

Phil bit his lip, thinking hard. He hadn’t lost Dan yet – not yet, he didn’t have to give up hope yet. If he could just frame this properly.

“Like,” Phil answered gently, “Like, I want to take you out to fancy restaurants and buy you soft toys and let you borrow my hoodies. Like I want to hold your hand and show you around my favourite places and talk to you for hours on end. Like I want to cuddle with you and touch your hair and introduce you to my mum. Like that.”

Dan had melted a bit. He gave a little wriggle, the sound of the blankets rustling loud through the crackly skype reception, and then Dan’s pixelated warm brown eyes were glancing back up at the camera, finally, and Phil was drowning in his gaze again.

“I want that too,” Dan whispered back, so quietly Phil almost didn’t catch it.

Phil had to close his eyes for a moment. The room span with his relief. “Are you sure? I mean, could you be happy with just that?”

“Phil—” Dan started, but Phil shook his head, interrupted him again.

“No, I need you to be serious – are you going to be ok with just that? Because honestly, I don’t think I could ever give you anything more.”

“Phil—”

“And it isn’t fair, because you deserve everything, you deserve someone who could give you everything and if I’m not that person then I’d rather you just told me now—”

“Phil!” Dan exclaimed loudly, and Phil shut up abruptly, staring startled into his webcam. Dan rolled his eyes, but the movement seemed – affectionate? “What on earth gave you the idea I wanted to have sex with you?”

Phil almost choked. As it was, he just spluttered very unattractively and could feel himself going very red in the face. “Oh. I – oh. Have I been reading this wrong, then?”

“No,” Dan continued, and was he actually smiling now? “Well, not exactly.”

“I don’t understand,” Phil confessed weakly.

“What’s not to understand?” Dan shuffled about a bit, his feet kicking up into the air as he lay on his stomach and avoided Phil’s eyes again. “I want all the same things as you. So let’s just – get on with that, shall we?”

Phil snort-laughed. “How romantic.”

“Shut up.” Dan curled up in a defensive little ball, moving about so much that Phil was having trouble tracking his movements. “I mean, clearly we want all the same things, so it’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” Phil hedged. He wanted to just believe that, to drown in something he never thought he’d find, but he just – couldn’t believe Dan really meant it.

After all this time, with how suggestive Dan had been getting with every new call, every new text or tweet or dailybooth, Phil had been sure this would be a dealbreaker. He still kind of believed it – because how could Phil be enough for someone like Dan, really?

Dan shuffled about a bit, and then his face crumpled. Phil’s heart lurched. He reached for his laptop screen, like that would somehow help close the distance between them, and just seeing how Dan looked absolutely miserable sealed it for Phil.

He’d ruined everything.

“It’s ok,” Phil said hollowly. “Like, don’t feel bad – I get it, I know it’s not enough—”

“No, it is,” Dan insisted, but he was snivelling and Phil felt absolutely awful.

“Dan, please—”

“Shut up, Phil,” Dan insisted thickly, and ok there were actual tears in his eyes now, and this was the first time Phil had ever seen Dan cry. Shit, he’d made Dan cry.

“I didn’t think this was possible,” Dan muttered after a moment, wiping irritably at his nose and lowering his face until it was mostly hidden in the blankets.

“Don’t be embarrassed.” Phil leaned into his screen, eyes flicking everywhere he could see bits of Dan – the top of his head, a stray curl, the way his fingers clutched at the blanket he was hiding behind. “Just – tell me, Dan, talk to me, please.”

A hollow chuckle sounded from somewhere in the blanket. Dan didn’t emerge, but he did start talking, the words hard to catch through the thick material. “I didn’t think it was possible. I thought – once you meet someone and decide you want to date them, like, that’s it, the only option is sex and stuff. So I thought, if I could just get that bit out of the way, then it would be over and then you’d be happy and we could get to the better stuff.”

Phil stared at the screen, dumbfounded.

“Which sounds really dumb now I say it out loud,” Dan muttered, still hidden behind the blanket. “I mean, it’s you, I should have known you’d – but – I didn’t know – I mean, is that why you’ve been looking so terrified whenever I mention coming to visit you?”

“I wasn’t terrified,” Phil argued, still trying to get his head around what Dan was saying.

Dan snorted. “Yes you have been. You’ve gone white as a sheet every time I mention it.”

“I’m pale!” Phil defended himself, but Dan just chuckled again before finally lifting his head out of the blankets and sending Phil a soft, warm look.

Phil melted. He leaned in close to his screen again, drinking in as much of Dan as he could, and asked, “So – so you’re ok? I mean, if we – if we never did that, are you seriously saying you’d be ok with it?”

“I’m saying I’d be fucking relieved,” Dan answered. “I didn’t even think it was an option, to just not do that – I mean – it doesn’t mean you don’t—” he went pink, cut himself off.

Phil picked up where he thought Dan was going, and beamed. “No, it doesn’t mean I don’t still care about you.”

Dan let out a surprised little laugh.

“I care about you so much,” Phil murmured, watching the way it made Dan wiggle again. “So much, but I just – you’ve been getting all suggestive, and I felt awful for leading you on – I mean, of course you’d want something normal, but I just know I really don’t, and I was sure I’d lose you but it was fairer, you know? Because you deserve to be happy.”

“You make me happy,” Dan answered lowly. “I don’t want anything else.”

Phil melted. “You really mean that?”

Dan nodded. He smiled at Phil, wide enough that the corners of his eyes just started to crinkle, and then asked, “So I can still come and visit, right?”

“You’d better, or I’m flying to Wokingham to steal you,” Phil answered immediately, shocking another laugh out of Dan. “But until then, can you go and make your dog bark at the camera again?”

Dan snorted. “Needy as fuck, you are.” But he still got off his bed, smile wide and bright and grinning, and picked up his laptop to carry downstairs.

---

Four days before Dan’s arrival, Phil called PJ.

Phil was freaking out. Sure, things had been going better with Dan than he’d ever dared to imagine, especially since they’d ironed out exactly what they wanted. It was still hard, and Phil still had trouble believing that Dan really was ok with him not wanting… certain things.

“Like, what if it means he doesn’t actually like me like that,” Phil was speaking a mile a minute down the line to PJ. “I mean, he might only be saying it to go along with me, or like, to make me feel better about it or what if he really thinks he’s coming here as a friend? What if I think it’s a date and then he isn’t even interested? What do I do then?”

“Phil.” PJ’s voice was calm. “You’ve been talking to him for how long now?”

Phil bit his lip. “It’s not even been that long, just – this has all happened so fast.”

PJ was quiet. Phil could basically hear the disapproval, and he sighed. “It isn’t like that, PJ, you know that.”

“How can you be so certain, thought?” PJ argued back. “I mean, you hardly know him.”

“No, I know him.” Phil was sure about that. He thought about the way Dan looked in skype calls, how eagerly he texted Phil back, how apparent he was online leaving comments all over Phil’s videos. Phil had lost any doubt that Dan wasn’t genuine a very long time ago.

PJ sighed. “I’m just trying to look out for you, Phil.”

“I know, but you don’t need to.”

“Just be careful?” PJ begged. “He’s a fan, after all – he might be trying to use you—”

“Not Dan.”

“—Or maybe he thinks this is a way to get attention—”

“Not Dan,” Phil argued, insistent. “He doesn’t even like attention, he didn’t make any videos until I encouraged him.”

“So he’s already kind of used you,” PJ pointed out.

Phil stopped short.

“And are you sure it’s a good idea to invite him over when your parents are away?” PJ pressed.

Phil snorted. “PJ, that – that’s so not even a problem, have you not been listening to anything I said—”

“Does Dan know that, though?” PJ demanded. “I just want you to think carefully about this. I don’t want my friend to get used.”

Phil melted a bit then. He softened his tone, answering, “He knows, Peej. We’ve talked about it.”

They had. Phil had outlined at least three more times just how much he wasn’t going to get too physical with Dan, and Dan had been more relieved each time he’d said it. Miraculously, it looked like Phil had managed to stumble across the one person in the universe who was tailored exactly to him – all the same interests, the same love of long calls and dogs and discussions about their favourite characters, and then Dan even had the same physical boundaries as Phil.

He hoped. It would all come to a head in four days’ time, and Phil was absolutely terrified.

“Just promise me you’ll be careful?” PJ asked, sounding concerned.

“I promise,” Phil answered, and felt his heart tug in his chest. It was a little too late to be careful. He’d already fallen fast and hard – and he just had to hope that Dan had fallen, too.

---

Half an hour until Dan’s arrival, and Phil was shitting himself.

He’d arrived at the station stupidly early, but waiting alone in the house after waving his parents off that morning had not been a good idea. Phil had paced circles into his carpet, broken a glass in the kitchen, and then stared blankly at the TV until he decided it would be better to just get out of the house.

He’d caught the earliest bus, and now here he stood, on a packed station platform waiting for a train to arrive carrying the most important person in the country.

Phil hoped the train knew just how important its cargo was.

There were lots of angry-looking business people striding purposefully about, rushing up the stairs or pushing past each other to wait right by the yellow line on the platform. Phil found a little corner to sequester himself away in, by one of the beams holding up the roof, and tried not to let his heart clamber its way up out of his throat.

It felt like the train took forever to arrive. Eventually, though, the rush of the engine and clanking of the rails announced its incoming status, and the people stepped back as the announcer came on, and then the train rushed in and slowed to a halt and then the doors were opening and—

There was a guy a few doors away, awkwardly tall and hiding behind his brown fringe, eyes glued to his phone so much that Phil was amazed he didn’t walk into anyone.

Until he did, and then Phil was laughing watching him awkwardly trying to apologise to the kid he’d knocked into, and then Phil was walking before he could talk himself out of it.

He covered the distance in five steps, caught the edge of Dan’s voice saying, “Sorry I didn’t – I wasn’t looking properly—”, and it was Dan. His voice, his eyes that skittered upwards and caught on Phil, his expression that absolutely froze.

Phil stepped around the child and grinned at Dan. “Hello.”

Dan’s eyes had widened. He stood there absolutely still and silent for a moment, phone in hand that Phil could just see was open on the text conversation with him, and then Dan let out a breathless laugh. “Fuck, you’re real.”

Phil’s nerves dissipated the minute he heard Dan speak. His grin widened, and he opened his arms, and Dan stepped into them and clung on tight, and it was the best feeling in the world.

“I’m real,” Phil agreed, and crushed his arms so tight around Dan that he could hear the breath whoosh out of Dan’s lungs.

“Can’t breathe,” Dan gasped, but he was smiling and leaning into Phil, all elbows and bones and sharp corners, but Phil didn’t care.

“I know,” Phil told him, and squeezed him tighter.

---

That evening, they were curled up together on Phil’s bed, watching old fullmetal alchemist episodes on Phil’s laptop. It was an anime they’d both seen before, and discussed separately many times, so it was the best one to stick on in the background while they figured out exactly how they should be around each other.

The first cuddle attempts had ended in a lot of sharp elbows and soft winces. They were both tall and bony, and as much as Phil had dreamed about wrapping Dan up in his arms and hugging him close forever, the reality was proving much more difficult to actually bring about.

Not that he would change this for the world. He had Dan’s hair shoved in his face and Dan’s knees poking into his shins, and his arm was kind of squashed under Dan’s head where Dan had wrapped himself up all small and comfortable and pressed his face right into Phil’s collarbone, where there definitely wasn’t any kind of view of the laptop screen.

Phil didn’t complain, though. He wanted to keep this forever, with Dan curled up all tight to him and Phil’s arms holding him close.

They’d had the very best of days. Phil had kept his promise and taken Dan out on a proper date, coffee in starbucks and a fancy meal at the skybar, and then taken him all around the city and shown off all of Phil’s favourite haunts. Dan had taken it all in with bright eyes and a dazzling smile, but more often than not, Phil would look down at him to explain something only to find Dan staring straight at him.

It was almost embarrassing, how much Dan stared at him, but Phil was quickly coming to love it.

They’d come home late in the evening, and made dinner together (frozen pizza, it hardly counted as cooking), and the sight of Dan in Phil’s kitchen taking control of the washing up and closing all the cupboards behind Phil was almost too much. Dan just looked so right there, Phil was hit with the possibility of a future – of having Dan in all his future kitchens.

If Dan would even want that.

They’d held hands a few times, around the city, and now Dan was tucked right up under Phil’s chin, but Phil was still kind of terrified that he was going to do something wrong. Even now, cuddling Dan and warmer and happier than he’d ever been, Phil wasn’t fully relaxed. He was scared of doing something wrong – of putting a hand in the wrong place and giving Dan the wrong idea, or scaring him away and sending Dan skittering back to the other side of the country again.

Dan shifted a bit, and Phil’s heart skipped a beat. But all Dan did was adjust himself so he could look up at Phil, head on Phil’s pillow, and remain curled up in his arms.

Phil’s breath caught a bit.

“Can I try something?” Dan asked softly, so softly Phil wouldn’t have heard him if they hadn’t been in such close proximity.

Phil swallowed, nodded.

“I think we should talk about it first, though,” Dan amended after a moment of just staring at Phil’s face. It almost made Phil self-conscious, to be stared at like that – how on earth could someone like Dan find him so fascinating?

“Alright,” Phil agreed, nudging at Dan. “What do you think we should talk about?”

There was some kind of fight sequence happening on the laptop screen, but Phil was all caught up looking at Dan just then. The way Dan was tucked up against him, curled up small on Phil’s bed where Phil had been imagining him for so long.

“I want to try something,” Dan said again, and was his voice trembling a bit? “But you can say no – like, I don’t want to make things awkward.”

“Duly noted.” Phil poked at his cheek, at where the hint of his dimple was appearing. “It won’t be awkward.”

Dan made a face at him, drew back a bit. He looked into Phil’s eyes, and he looked actually nervous, his lower lip caught between his teeth, his gaze a little guarded.

“Dan?” Phil murmured, almost worried now. “Tell me, I promise it won’t make it awkward.”

Dan peeked up at him. “You promise?”

Phil nodded sincerely.

“Alright then.” Dan drew a breath, curled up a little closer. “I want to try kissing you.”

Phil spluttered.

“I just mean try,” Dan hastened to add, squirming a bit in Phil’s hold. “Like, it’s fine if it doesn’t work – and it’s fine if you don’t want to try, too, like I know – you said this kind of thing isn’t really your scene – so it’s fine, ok, we can forget I ever brought it up if you want.”

Phil stared down at him, trying to read Dan’s expression. Honestly, he hadn’t been expecting that – but then, they’d never really brought it up, had they, boundaries. They’d never talked about what each of them wanted, aside from that one extremely awkward skype call.

“You want to try?” Phil asked after a moment, surprised.

Dan squirmed again. “Only if you’re comfortable.”

“Why?” Phil asked before he could stop himself.

Dan grimaced, and then hid back in Phil’s neck. “I dunno. Just – everyone says it’s meant to be good, right?”

Phil blinked. “I suppose?”

“And I do like you like that.” Dan was talking quickly now, his words warm against Phil’s throat. “I mean, I definitely like you like that. So it seems like we should try?”

Phil had to bite back a smile. “So you know this is a date, then, right?”

Dan snorted. “Yeah, I think the number of times you mentioned it over skype cleared that right up.”

“Hey,” Phil shoved at him, “I just meant, you know, with – what I told you I don’t want to do – I thought maybe you’d got the wrong idea.”

“Well, I didn’t.” Dan peeked up at him again, all warm smiles and sharp edges. “So do you mind? If we try?”

Phil went silent again for a moment, thinking it over. He’d kissed a couple of people before, knew the mechanics of it, and it had never really done anything for him before. But this was Dan, after all. Maybe it really would be different when you found the right person.

And Dan wanted to.

“Yeah, sure, we can try,” Phil agreed with a small shrug.

“And it won’t be awkward if it doesn’t work out?” Dan rushed to add, peeking up at Phil through his fringe. “I just want – like, I just want to check. That we’re both on the same page.”

Well, Phil definitely wanted to check that too. So he nodded, carefully untangling one hand to press gently to Dan’s cheek, guiding him closer.

Dan’s eyes fluttered shut, and he leaned in, and then they were kissing.

It was – weird. For Phil, at least. It wasn’t bad, not as bad as his other kisses, but it was just – warm, and wet, and kind of nice, maybe? But still mostly weird.

Dan drew back after a moment, thankfully not too long, and Phil blinked at him. He liked the way Dan’s cheeks had gone just a little bit pink, the way he was staring at Phil like Phil meant everything again.

“So?” Phil asked after a moment.

Dan made a face. “Uh. Would you be offended?”

“Not unless you say my breath smells.”

Dan hit him, making Phil squeal. But Dan was smiling again, which was all that Phil ever wanted to see. “Honestly, it was just – not really my thing?”

“Same,” Phil rushed to agree, and let out a thankful little sigh. “I mean – it’s not bad exactly, just—”

“Just not that great either,” Dan finished for him, nodding with his lower lip caught between his teeth again. “Alright. Yeah. Good. Back to cuddling now, please.”

Phil snorted. “Not until you get your elbow out of my stomach.”

“It’s comfy, fuck you,” Dan muttered back, and deliberately jabbed his elbow in harder. Phil rolled his eyes, reaching out to catch Dan’s arm, warm and soft and supple against Phil’s fingers. Phil deliberately moved Dan’s arm up until it was wrapped around him rather than squidged between them, and then shoved Dan’s head back into his neck so Phil could bury his face in Dan’s hair.

“Oi,” Dan squawked. “Can’t see anything, here.”

“Shut up, you were fine there before.” Phil closed his eyes, and just breathed Dan in. He was still having trouble believing this – believing that someone could match him so perfectly. But Dan had done nothing but make it more than evident that they were on the same page for every little detail, and anything they weren’t, they could iron out pretty quickly.

Seeing Dan on skype had been perfect, but this – having Dan folded up against him, knobbly knees and bony elbows and everything – this was more than Phil could ever have imagined.

Impulsively, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of Dan’s head. “You’re perfect.”

“I mean, I won’t argue with you.” Dan chuckled, accepting his fate of being smushed up against Phil by curling himself in smaller. “If you’re going to keep saying stuff like that.”

“I am,” Phil decided, nuzzling him close.

They were silent for a moment, aside from the continuing action from the anime on the laptop.

“Hey, Dan?”

“Yeah?” Dan’s voice was small and sleepy.

“How much are you fanboying over being inside my bedroom right now?”

“Phil!”

“I mean, it must be like being inside one of your favourite videos, right? I’ll even sign something for you.”

“I hate you,” Dan said decisively, elbowing Phil in the stomach again.

Phil couldn’t even bring himself to mind. He just gathered Dan back up into his arms and closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of the boy he’d never quite dared to imagine might actually be real.

He never wanted to let go.

#phanfic #2009 phan #QPR phan #queerplatonic phan #asexual phan #iwritephanthings

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angry-woman · 8 years ago

Text

Perception (Part II)

I have never had an event in my life affect me as much as being on a reality TV show. And it wasn’t one of the shows where they pay you to go to Hawaii for 3 months to find A Shot At Love with Tila Tequila (speaking of perspective: Tila, you’re an immigrant, stop being a racist piece of shit and check yourself, girl). It was a singing competition. I never thought I would be the type of person who was capable of being on a reality show, basically because people can be really mean to other people, especially if they are on TV. Before social media, if you didn’t like someone on a reality show, you would just bitch about them to your family and friends and the participants of the show could carry on with their lives with nothing but their own self hatred to bring them down. Now, everyone is a goddamn keyboard warrior and feel like their opinions matter. Not to say they don’t, (as I’m writing an essay hoping people will give a shit about my opinions) but it’s difficult to know how many people think you suck without ever meeting you. The screen between you and the consequences of what you say grows as quickly and viciously as the YouTube comments section of a Justin Bieber music video. If you never have to meet someone, why feel bad about what you say to them? Maybe because that’s an actual person you’re talking to and even though you only know them through your television screen, they eat, shit, smoke, cry, and feel bad about themselves like everyone else when someone says “load up on guns and shoot this retard” (I did a cover of Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ on the show).

The first time we spoke, the person in charge of my web presence told me, “If anyone says something that upsets you, let me know, because there’s a good chance it will happen”. I knew from the moment I accepted the invitation to audition that being on a reality show meant opening my life to a lot of people, something I try to avoid at all costs unless it’s my Mom who knows more about my bodily functions than she’d like, but I want to be a professional musician, so it felt like an opportunity that I would regret not taking.

I think one of the most important things to acknowledge about this experience is that the show is entirely French speaking, from the instructions given behind the scenes to the interactions with coaches and hosts on stage, and I am an anglophone from Ontario. I went for my pre-audition in the summer of 2015, and didn’t hear back for months; I received the phone call to pre-record and practice with the band for my blind audition a week before I needed to be in the studio (because someone else couldn’t do it, they told me- I never understood why they would ever tell someone that). I had to prepare a list of 3 songs in English and 3 in french for them to choose which one I performed. They obviously chose a song in French.

I’m going to skip a lot of the boring details, because I could probably write an entire book about it that would really only be interesting to me 40 years in the future as a recounting of that thing I did that one time. I made it past the first round of auditions, selected my coach, and became the token Anglo who can sing in French but can barely speak a word. This really resonated with the people who watched the show.

Everyone was really kind. I couldn’t have ever imagined being accepted the way I was, for whatever reason it may have been. I only received one message from a girl who thought I should move back to Ontario because Quebec is for French people and I embarrassed myself on the show. I tried to remind myself through the entire experience that the things people say on the Internet are not so much to hurt someone else but to make themselves feel better.

I was interviewed by an English paper in Montreal about my audition and what it is like to be on a French speaking show as an anglophone. In retrospect, (and don’t get me wrong, I’m really grateful that someone took enough interest in me to want to write an article about me at all) but I don’t really think that article was so much about me as it was what I represented. I never wanted to be a spokesperson for the anglophone community during my passage on the show, I just wanted an opportunity to progress my career, and maybe learn some French. After each performance, even if it was just one sentence I spoke in French, people would send me messages thanking me for trying. I knew that was important to people, especially in a place like Quebec where language is such a large and important part of their culture. It was important for me to respect that, especially as the show progressed and people started to “get to know me”, and somehow still liked me. It just sort of felt like at moments, people were more interested in my presence as an anglophone than in my presence as a performer.

I grew up playing in punk/alternative bands, which if you met me at 14, you would never believe. I was a really shy kid with horrible stage fright, and the idea of getting up in front of people with nothing else for them to look at but me was enough to, at multiple points in my life, induce vomit. But I really liked playing music, and I was lucky enough to meet a great group of guys in high school who were stupid enough to ask me to be the lead singer/lyricist for their band. I definitely adopted the 'punk lead singer shithead’ role very quickly. I had never felt like I belonged anywhere so much in my life, no matter how difficult it was to get up on stage. People really liked us. And if you haven’t gotten how self-deprecating I am yet, I’m not a gloater. A bloater, yes, but no gloater. I really wasn’t very popular in high school so I knew it wasn’t my personality that people were drawn to, it was the music. It’s a really liberating feeling to know you’re being yourself and doing what you love and people respond to it. I was lucky that I got to fall in love with music that way. I never felt like I had to be something I wasn’t.

When I hit my early twenties, I started to really enjoy listening to jazz. Like, gimme a cup of coffee and a Chet Baker vinyl and I’ll trade you my first born kind of enjoyment. I also find as I’ve gotten older and the style of music I write has changed, so has the tone of my voice. I will for sure still aggressively sing Rise Against in my partner’s face on road trips or let out a good pig squeal every now and again, but the sultry tones of blues and jazz make me feel sexy and speak to me a bit more now than punk music does. For my blind audition, I sang a super jazzy arrangement of 'La Mer’, which is the French version of 'Beyond The Sea’, (if you’ve ever seen a cruise commercial, you’ve definitely heard this song). I wanted to keep in this style of music for the live shows, but my coach was insistent that I play something punk.

“I’ve seen the videos of you playing your guitar, sweating, rocking out, we should show the real you”.

…the “real” me. I didn’t even know who that was. It definitely wasn’t the 14 year old girl who had no idea what she was doing and somehow stumbled upon punk music, but it wasn’t the 23 year old who sang La Mer on a reality show, either. He wanted me to sing American Idiot by Green Day because it was a popular song that a lot of people would know. I wanted to do something like Sleater Kinney or Bikini Kill, because if you’re going to be “the girl who plays punk music”, you might as well be the fucking girl who plays punk music. We settled on Smells Like Teen Spirit because it’s popular enough that the audience would know it, and I liked it enough that my pride wouldn’t be hurt singing it live in front of 2.5 million people. Even if it may be their most popular song (or hated depending who you ask), there’s no denying that Nirvana played a huge role in my musical education and was my first real introduction to grunge, as I think it was for a lot of people. Maybe that’s why that performance held the power it did, because it tapped into a part of people where they remembered that they didn’t have to give a shit. (I won’t talk much about the performance for which I was eliminated, but I got to sing 'Creep’ by Radiohead and say 'fucking’ twice on national television, so being labeled as the 'rocker girl’ has its perks, too.)

They compile a montage of your rehearsals, interviews, and your coach’s commentary before your live performance. During the interview, they asked me if I thought I could win with the song. I couldn’t outright say no, even if I believed it, so what I did say, what has stuck with me even a year later, and what never aired, was this: “if a young girl who wants to play punk music is scared of finding her way in a male dominated industry and feels inspired by what I do, that is a win for me”. They instead chose to air the phrase they prompted me to say: “I feel sexy with my guitar”. They wanted me to wear a skirt and play up the little school girl look, but I didn’t want to be seen as the girl who played punk music. I wanted to be seen just as the person who played punk music. So instead, I wore dress shoes, high waisted tartan pants, and a shirt and tie.

Honestly, people lost their shit. I won the first live show with 64% of the vote. I’m pretty sure this was mostly because people were so shocked by the performance and didn’t expect something like that from me. And to this day, I am still known as the girl who played Nirvana. If people recognize me on the street, that’s how they remember me. Not my name, not for La Mer, but as the girl who played Nirvana. I’m planning to release an album sometime this year, which to my surprise, people actually seem to be anticipating, but a lot of them want me to do something punk or rock, and that’s just not what it’s going to be. Not because I don’t still love it, and there are some songs that are upbeat and fun and raw. But there are others that are sweet and tender or moody and sad or bluesy or soft or a mix of everything. I just don’t ever want to feel like I have to represent myself by one thing, or like I have to make decisions based on what I think other people will like more than I will.

My intention isn’t to insult anyone with anything I’ve said, because frankly, I understand why anyone working on the show made the decisions they made. They need to put on the best show they can, and sometimes, that means cutting the anglo punk chick’s speech pushing her feminist agenda. Everyone is built a story so the people watching the show can feel closer to the participants. This is just the way reality shows work. The Hills, Real Housewives of wherever the fuck, all of these shows work on creating an identity for the “characters” so the audience can either love them or hate them. But the audience needs to feel something, or they won’t respond to the show. Maybe it wasn’t exactly how I would have wanted it, but the audience felt something when I performed. 8 months later, I got a message on tumblr from a girl who told me how much my presence on the show meant to her. To know that you impacted a strangers life in a profound way is a really incredible feeling, one I would not have if it wasn’t for being on a reality tv show. I don’t want to deny that that experience will always live with me, but I want to be honest about it. I want to control how I am perceived, however much I’m able to do that.

*I want to thank anyone who has shared one of my videos, liked my posts, sent me a message, followed my journey, told me 'lache pas’, or supported me in any way during and after my experience on the show. I’m so lucky to have met the people I did, experienced the things I have, and be getting closer to my dream of being a musician. There are no words to properly describe my gratitude.*

#personal essay #essay #nonfiction writing #writing #la voix #the voice #anglophone #francophone

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ridleykemp · 5 years ago

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Pandemic Notes #5 (notes on a note-free meme)

If you’ve been anywhere near social media, mostly Facebook I presume, you’ll have seen this one: Day X of "20 Albums In 20 Days". Covers only, no explanations. Albums that impacted your life in some way. Nominate someone else to do the same thing each day.

That kind of list-making is absolute catnip to me. There’s one little problem: “no explanations.” If there’s anything I love more than music it is talking about why I like music. So, while I did the thing over on FB, I’m going to cheat now and provide the stories that go with my selections. Why? I don’t even know what day it is anymore, so cut me some slack on this one.

1. Oil and Gold - Shriekback

“Nemesis” was absolutely all over the clubs back in the day, which is appropriate because it’s a great song. When I finally bought the records, though, I was shocked. It was maybe the sixth or seventh best song on the album. Literally everything on Oil and Gold is great. These albums were in no particular order, but this was as easy a pick as I’d get to make.

2. Viva Terlingua! - Jerry Jeff Walker

I was raised on showtunes (mom) and 70s country music (dad). This was a particularly bloodless era in the history of C&W. The “Nashville sound” just didn’t work for me. This, however, is not Nashville. This was my introduction to “outlaw” country, which was much more my speed. It was my first exposure to country where the band seemed as important as the singer, and the Lost Gonzos were one hell of a band.

Jerry Jeff was my first concert, too, at Billy Bob’s in Fort Worth. I won tickets to a New Year’s Eve all-you-can-drink show. Not a bad first show, huh?

3. Suffer - Bad Religion

Matt, one of my co-workers at the record store, recommended this to me. Or, rather, he recommended Christian Death’s record and I mis-remembered it. Some accidents work out. This changed how I looked at punk with the intelligence, the quality of the vocals, and the energy of the performance. I was reliably told that real punk doesn’t have harmonies, but I can live with that.

4. Hearts of Oak - Ted Leo + Pharmacists

Newly divorced and in a strange city, I was re-discovering discovering music in the early 2000s. Canadian music video channels and especially Spin magazine were two of my more reliable sources. I loved Ted Leo before I heard a single note of his music, so it was a tremendous relief when I finally got hold of this album and found that the music lived up to the hype. Leo was obviously influenced heavily by the stuff from the 80s that I wasn’t cool enough to like then.

5. Loveless - My Bloody Valentine

Sigh. I was given the promo copy of Loveless (on cassette, no less!) at the record store. I listened to it once, decided it wasn’t really my thing, and gave it to Curtis. A decade or so later, I heard “Soon” in some random place and realized I’d made a huge mistake.

6. Fear of a Black Planet - Public Enemy

Stefan, a guy I waited tables with, knew I was heavily into Nine Inch Nails and thought I’d dig this. So I went over to his house and he put on “Welcome to the Terrordome” and damned if he wasn’t right. This did for hip-hop was Suffer did for punk, at least for me. I had to re-evaluate everything I thought about the genre because Fear of a Black Planet is undeniable. And Bob, if you’re reading this, I still remember your take on the title track.

7. Flood - They Might Be Giants

In 1990, there were two albums that were reliably in the record collection of every girl I knew: This one and Yaz’s Upstairs at Eric’s. I was already a TMBG fan, but the fact that they covered a song my mom used to sing to me (“Istanbul”) kind of freaked me out. At the show on this tour, instead of shirts, they sold fezzes, which has to be the most TMBG thing ever.

8. Pretty Hate Machine - Nine Inch Nails

This album was my life for longer than I care to admit. Every track still works for me. In August of 1989, when “Down In It” hit the clubs, none of us had heard anything like it (well, Skinny Puppy fans had…*cough* ). I don’t think I wore anything but black for a couple of years. I got the CD at the most alternative store in Dallas (that would be the Hastings at Valley View and yes that’s a joke) in November and haven’t stopped playing it since.

9. LP - Ambulance, LTD.

One of two bands on this list that were murdered by label issues. I found Ambulance by accident. I went to a SxSW showcase at the Red-Eyed Fly to see Stellastarr* (who were terrific) and got there in time to see an opening act that played absolutely perfect guitar pop, stuff Matthew Sweet might have come up with if hadn’t listened to so much Television. Anyway, the flyer for the show had the band order wrong I thought I was looking for The Unicorns, and it took me a couple weeks to find out who I’d really seen. This is a strong contender for best album of the millennium.

10. Young Team - Mogwai

I choked on this selection. I love the album, and Mogwai Fear Satan is one of my favorite songs to play loudly (if not well) on guitar. But…if I were to pick a Mogwai record, it should probably be Rock Action, which was my first and I still use the intro from “2 Rights Make 1 Wrong” as my alarm song.

11. Electric Version - The New Pornographers

Another Spin discovery. The reviews were glowing but didn’t really give me any sense what they sounded like. Eventually, this album was added to the jukebox at Casino el Camino and I got to give it a listen. It was love at first note. All of their albums are hook-stuffed, harmony-rich power pop perfection, but this one is my pick of that very fine litter. The first four songs would make the best EP in rock history.

12. This is the Day…This is the Hours…This is This! - Pop Will Eat Itself

1989 was weird. “Can U Dig It?" got a smidgen of airplay on the corporate-indy station in Dallas for some reason. It was the first time I’d heard music that was largely sample-based that actually rocked. The whole album is a mad cut-and-paste collage with Clint Mansell and Graham Crabb rapping over the top (very over the top, in fact). They’re one of five bands on this list I’ve never seen, but it’s not for lack of effort. They cancelled their last show due to visa problem, and when the opened for NIN on The Downward Spiral (and their own, equally excellent Dos Dedos, Mis Amigos), well…that a memorable night.

13. We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed - Los Campesinos!

I love Los Campesinos! unapologetically, and that is the only way to love them. Their heart is on their sleeve and their sleeve is in your face. The title track, a minor masterpiece of tweeXcore, has one of my favorite lines:

”Oh we kid ourselves there’s future in the fucking, but there is no fucking future.”

They’re a band I can listen to any time I need to feel exactly that way. They also figure several times in Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s Phonogram, and they capture how I feel about Los Campesinos! perfectly:

14. Over-Nite Sensaton - Frank Zappa and the Mothers

“Montana” was my introduction to Zappa. In Jon Lamendola’s car outside Collin Creek mall, he put this tape in and..it was so dumb, and so funny, and yet also so good. It was like listening to a Loony Tunes soundtrack with the smarted, weirdest guy you know making up a narration. It’s probably not my favorite Zappa record, but it’s certainly the one that means the most to me.

15. Dusk - The The

I bought this at the Sound Warehouse on Park and Preston one night after work because I kind of liked the single, “Dogs of Lust”. At the time, I was a little disappointed because the rest of the record is far less aggressive, but it stuck with me through all these years. The bookends, “Love Is Stronger Than Death” and “Lonely Planet” are absolute masterpieces but it’s strong start to finish. I tend to come to things late, and this album got me through the early 2000s in style.

16. Like This - The dB’s

Oh, college radio. KCOU in Columbia, Missouri was my first college radio station and they were playing all the college-appropriate bands of the era (Smiths, REM, U2, and a lot of Zappa), but there’s no question as to the identity of the biggest band of my freshman year: The dB’s absolutely dominated airplay that year. Five songs from Like This got huge play. This is the other band destroyed by their label, which went belly-up right after the release of Like This. The Holsapple-led dB’s should have been one of the giants of their day. Instead, it would be a decade before this record ever made it to CD.

17. Discipline - King Crimson

I was an Adrian Belew fan before I was a Crimson fan. “Big Electric Cat”, from his Lone Rhino album, was the first music video I remember seeing on a video-only show. Anyway, for as weird as their record is (and it ain’t normal), it’s incredibly accessible as well. My sister was on a date with her eventual husband and they stopped by his flat before going out. He told her to put a record on and this is the one she pulled from his collection. He was both shocked and impressed, but he shouldn’t have been; my sister has always been much cooler than me.

18. OK Computer - Radiohead

There seems to be a lot of Radiohead backlash now and I don’t get it, but there’s a lot that I don’t get. I’d heard “Creep” and thought it was pretty good, but I hadn’t really kept up. Driving down to south to go camping with Andi and her mom, we listened to this and The Bends over and over…in no small part because I kept asking her to put it back on. Like the Crimson record, it was weird (duh) but accessible (huh?) and hypnotic. Those two remain my favorite Radiohead albums, with OK Computer getting the nod because the last three songs are perfect.

18.5 Peter Gabriel (third album) - Peter Gabriel

Uh oh…I’ve got too many albums to list and not enough space to do it! So, I cheated and went with 18.5 because I was not going to leave this album out. It’s still my favorite Peter Gabriel record. This is the “melting face” album, and I had a button with the cover of the album on my jacket. At the arcade (because we all went to arcades back then), a kid came up to me, looked at that button, and said “Eww! I bet that’s a sick rock guy!” That’s Pete, all right: A sick rock guy.

19. Reckoning - R.E.M.

I’m an unabashed R.E.M. fanboy and love all of their records, but Reckoning is the one that is “mine” more than any. I saw them do “So. Central Rain” on Letterman and there may have been a great deal of alcohol ingested by the band prior to the performance, but it only served to make it hazier and more southern-Gothic. I’d put side 1 of Reckoning up against any other album side out there.

20. Three Sides Live - Genesis

No, it’s not the best Genesis record. It may not even be their best live record. But, I saw them for the first time on this tour and side three may have impacted my life more than any other piece of music. That’s the side that has “In The Cage” and “Afterglow” with an extended instrumental medley between them consisting almost entirely of Tony Banks keys and Phil Collins’ dueting with Chester Thompson on drums. The instrumental section still gives me chills. The primary reason I’ve owned (and even tried to play) the dozens and dozens of pianos and synths I’ve owned is down to that one section of music.

So, that’s the list from Facebook. It’s not perfect. In fact, it’s not even really the right top 20. If I were to do it again, I’d probably leave Mogwai off the list. I’d have to find some way to shoehorn in The Pixies’ Doolittle or Sisters of Mercy’s Floodland or Arcade Fire’s Funeral. Anyway, those the short versions of the stories behind the 20 album covers.

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