#on the bright side now I can watch some live performances from that year AND I get to hear how they sound with Mark on drums!!!

[musicrunsthroughmysoul]

I wasn't sure how listening to another Big Country album (that I have not heard yet) on Stuart's birthday would go...so, um, basic thoughts here...

After listening to The Buffalo Skinners I have to say, oof, boy, the first half was ROUGH to listen to. I couldn't even finish listening to "Alone" because I hated it immediately and it did not get better the more I listened. Sorry BC, but making that not only the opening track on the album but also the first single...yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes. I don't know if it's the level of vulnerability in it that makes me dislike it so much, but it just seems really...so...whiny. I know every songwriter who ever lived has at some point written a song about how a S/O did them wrong, alienated them, etc. but this song, to me, lyrically and musically doesn't have anything new or interesting to say about that concept. I mean FFS "Broken Heart (Thirteen Valleys)" is less cringey than "Alone", but unlike "Alone", "Broken Heart" takes at least a measure of responsibility for the loneliness. So yes, that's part of what bothers me about it. To be honest, I would've preferred "Seven Waves" (musically credited to Bruce Watson!) to have opened the album, and probably to be a single, if not the first single...but given the fact that "Alone" was apparently the band and especially Stuart's idea to be the first single...ahem, I can imagine someone's feelings might've been hurt by the idea of "Seven Waves" being an opening track/first single. To be honest, actually, I did not like any of the songs from the album that were initially released as singles. That includes the re-recorded "Ships", originally from No Place Like Home (which, I guess I prefer that version to The Buffalo Skinners'; maybe the abruptly country twang was it the fucking slide guitar? I don't know but it was NOT RIGHT THERE to "Ships" toward the end is the reason I could not like it, but why it's certainly more tolerable in its original release), but ironically I liked the re-recorded version of "We're Not in Kansas" (and I like it way better than the NPLH version)! But the last half of the album was definitely my favorite. I really liked "Winding Wind", and "Pink Marshmallow Moon" was not as cringey as I thought the lyrics suggested it might be. I guess conviction is a method to make what would otherwise be cringe-worthy a little more tolerable, and I do think Big Country utilized that method a not-insignificant amount. But good for them, since it made for better music, I suppose.

[kingofpopmj]

Can’t Go On Without You By My Side

Summary: You visit your boyfriend of two years on his BAD world tour. The excitement of witnessing him perform live is quickly tainted the moment she walks in.

Pairing: Michael Jackson x Reader

Warnings: SMUT

Requested: no

*Y/N's POV*

Michael and I were finally able to plan for me to visit him on tour. I was lucky enough to get a week and a half off of work and we were determined to make the most of it. Michael had insisted on picking me up from the airport even though he was technically supposed to be at the venue. We arrived about ten minutes after the show was scheduled to begin, but thankfully, no one called us out on it.

I stood off to the side, watching Michael completely own the stage. The way he mastered his onstage persona was breathtaking. His smile was so bright. I took a moment to discreetly admire his outfit, clinging to his body tighter with each passing song.

“He’s sexy, isn’t he?” A breathy voice sounded from beside me, interrupting my silent gawking. I guess I wasn't being as discreet as I thought.

“Um—” I looked to my left, making eye contact with a very tall woman. She was beautiful. A tight black dress clung to her body so tight it almost looked painted on. I know exactly who this is.

“The correct answer is yes. He can do it all, if you know what I mean.” My hands clenched into fists with such force I could feel my rings digging into my skin. “He’s absolutely the sexiest man alive. I’m so exhausted, he kept me up all night this past week. That's not a complaint by the way. He is so worth it.”

I couldn’t put together enough words to form a complete sentence. Quite frankly, all my focus was on holding myself back. I couldn’t catch a case right now. Michael might be cheating on me and this woman is certainly a whore. That was that. I couldn’t change fact. If I went off and beat the living shit out of some groupie it would ruin the rest of my life. I couldn’t let the anger control my behavior. He betrayed me, but I refuse to let him see how much it really broke me.

“I’m so sorry, I get all misty watching him. Don’t we all?” She laughed, squeezing my shoulder, little did she know she was dangerously close to losing those boney little fingers. “My name is Tatiana, and you are?” She held out her hand, batting her eyelashes so hard I thought she’d fly away. At least I hoped she would. Maybe over a large body of water, perhaps shark infested waters.

“Hi, I’m Y/N.” She let out an exaggerated gasp, slapping her palm against her mouth.

“You’re the girlfriend! Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry.” She quickly ran off leaving me standing there alone with this feeling in my stomach that I couldn’t describe.

I glanced around the immediate area, seeing no one else near me felt worse somehow. I don't know many people here other than Michael. I became distracted as he sang Rock With You, little did he know he was moments away from getting rocked. Y/N, no, stop. I release the tension in my hands, shaking it off, trying to let go of the violent thoughts swirling in my mind. Besides how therapeutic it was right now, it wasn’t productive. I need some air, a drink, a hitman? No. Air, I need air.

The clicks of my heels echoed through the halls as I headed towards an unknown destination. I'm probably lost, but that’s a problem for future Y/N.

*Michael's POV*

As Rock With You came to an end, I noticed Y/N disappear behind the curtain. Exactly, two songs have gone by since then and still no sign of her. During the brief outfit change after Thriller, before intermission, I notice Greg, my music director mouthing something to me.

"What?" I mouthed back, scratching my forehead. He's terrible at this.

"Your girl." Okay, I got that. I nodded, shrugging slightly as if to say and what about her.

"Mad."

I couldn’t play charades any longer, as the lights dimmed and the band took over the stage I snuck behind the large equipment to get closer to him.

"What happened?"

"I saw Tatiana talking to her. She did not look too happy after that brother."

I nodded slowly, processing his words before walking off. I should be taking advantage of my break, but I couldn’t relax not knowing where my girlfriend was.

“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you. What are you doing all the way back here?”

"Nothing I just needed some air." She said lowly, avoiding my eyes.

"Are you okay?" I moved towards her, cupping her face in my hands. The look in her eyes answering my question, but I wanted to hear it from her.

"Yeah, well, no, but it can wait until after the show."

"Are you sure?" I asked and she nodded in response. "Now, can you please come back with me? I perform better knowing my beautiful woman is watching me."

She accompanied me as I changed into my next outfit. She helped me slip into my coat, but my excitement was short lived, because I could sense her sadness. What is going on?

"I love you, baby." I watched closely as she struggled with her response, she began biting on her bottom lip, her eyes growing glossy. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Her voice cracked and she quickly turned away from me.

"I know you Y/N. You're hurting and I'd like to know what's going on so I can help."

"S—She—" Y/N broke down right, her body was shivering as she tried to compose herself. I felt less than helpless.

"Who?" I tried comforting her, but she brushed me off, moving away from me all together.

A quick knock on the door, signaling that intermission was coming to a close and I needed to get back out there.

"I'll let them know I need more time. I'll be right back."

"No!"

"You're crying. Y/N, baby, I'm not leaving you."

"I'm alright. Please, can we just talk about this later?"

I didn't want to agree, but she wasn't asking, she was practically begging. I intertwined our fingers, keeping her close as I weaved my way through the backstage area.

"Please, stand here and watch the rest of the show. It would mean the world to me." I smiled at her and kissed her temple as I hugged her.

"I'll be right here." She reaffirmed my confidence. Then, she grabbed my collar, pulling me into her lips. Her tongue was pure magic. Normally, I'd be embarrassed about public affection, but with the way I'm feeling, I'd love to feel every inch of her right here, right now. I didn't care who was watching.

She pulled away and I desperately chased her lips as she giggled at my neediness.

"You have to go."

"There is no way I'm leaving your side after that."

"You don't have a choice."

"I will be back. Very, very soon."

*Y/N's POV*

I watched the second half of Michael's concert the way I should've watched the first half. I enjoyed myself dancing and singing along to my man's voice. What Tatiana said hurt me, but I felt so foolish when I thought logically again. Michael isn't that type of person. I didn't need to talk to him about this, because once the anger and hurt wore off I was able to come to a conclusion on my own. She's lying. She has to be.

"You're still here?" This damn witch. "I'd be halfway home by now if I found out my boyfriend stepped out on me."

There was so much I wanted to say, but I chose to let her words go in one ear and out the other. The last thing I want to do is let her know she ever got to me.

"Well, that's my cue. Enjoy the show." She winked, walking pass me and flipping her hair.

I was forced to watch as Tatiana strutted across the stage with my boyfriend chasing after her. This was one of my favorite songs and now I couldn’t even enjoy it. I felt my blood begin to boil as she shamelessly flirted with him in front of the crowd of thousands.

She was getting closer and closer to him. She was doing this on purpose and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Why is this song so long all of the sudden?

"What the hell is she doing?" I heard Frank DiLeo grumble from behind me. I jumped a bit at his tone, but tried to play it off.

"Everything okay?" I asked softy.

"Hey darling, yeah she was supposed— what the hell! Get her off the damn stage! Now!"

I turned my attention back to the stage and I wished more than anything I wouldn’t have done that. I tried to blink as if that would change the view, but it didn’t.

I was stuck in that horrible moment as the worst thing I could imagine was confirmed. I had a front row seat to my own humiliation and I had no idea how to escape.

Before I knew it, she was walking towards me. "So happy you could be here to see what a real power couple looks like." She stopped in front of me, crossing her arms. "Sorry honey, he's moved on to bigger and better things."

I felt my cheeks heat up as I became uncomfortably aware of how many eyes were on us.

"Tatiana, that's enough. Get away from her." Frank shouted, shooing her away like a toddler.

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

We stood in silence as Man in the Mirror blasted through the speakers. It wasn't until Michael's long passionate goodbye to his fans, wrapping up the concert that Frank slung his arm around my shoulder.

"Darling, you know she's full of it right?"

"I'm not sure."

"Michael and I have to take care of some business. I won't keep him too long and I'll send him your way after."

I knew that was his way of telling me it was private business that I couldn’t be around for. I hugged him before heading off, I wasn't really sure where I was going, but walking felt better than sitting with my thoughts.

"Baby! I'm so sorry. Frank told me what happened after—"

“I need to get out of here before I do something I regret.” Michael reached out, taking a firm hold of my hand, he pulled me down a short hallway and into his dressing room.

“I’m sorry you had to see that.” He finally spoke, shutting the door behind him.

“You’re sorry I had to see it?”

“Yes.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Y/N—”

“Does that mean you do it often?”

“No, that’s not—”

“You go around kissing other people when I’m not around?”

“Y/N, I’ve never—”

“I know they’re everywhere, throwing themselves at you, but I never thought you let them get to you.”

“Stop!”

“What!”

“I’ve never cheated on you!” He shouted in a tone I had never heard before, the look of pain present in his eyes. Shit.

“That’s not what people are saying.” I muttered, suddenly I felt so guilty.

“People? What people?”

“Who do you think! She said you two—”

“That’s a lie! I only see her during performances. That’s it. Y/N, I would never do that to you.”

“How am I supposed to believe you after that? She kissed you and you let her.”

“No, no, no! I didn’t let her! I wasn’t even paying attention to her. When I’m on stage, I’m there to perform. Why would I spend weeks planning for your visit just to betray you?”

“She was so awful to me, the things she said, then, she went out there and—”

“Got herself fired.”

“Michael, I’m pissed, but I’ll get over it. I don’t want this to affect business. You don’t have to fire her.”

“I already did.”

“Michael—”

“I only want to work with people who respect me and my loved ones. She won’t be missed. I don’t care to have people around me that I can’t trust.”

“I’m sorry I yelled. I’m so sorry I accused you of—” Michael shut me up, gripping my hips, pressing my body against his and kissing me sloppily. His hand claiming a possessive hold of the back of my neck, deepening his touch.

"I love you." he spoke into my mouth, his hot breath sent shivers down my spine. I felt myself tremble as his fingers explored my inner thigh, pushing up my skirt to give himself more access.

"I love you." I said, slipping my fingers around his belt buckle. He smiled knowingly, pushing me back, my ass collided with the counter and I felt myself crumble at his roughness. The cold countertop causing me to let out a moan. He pulled away for a moment, reaching behind me and clearing off the counter in one swift movement. "Such a gentleman." I purred in his ear as he picked me up.

"Only for you." A smirk on his face as the sound of nylon tearing filled my ears. "I love how sexy these look on you. I'll have to replace them." His long fingers slipping pass the freshly shredded fabric of my panties and teasing me one finger at a time. He watched as my head leaned back onto the mirrored wall, he chuckled as I struggled to find something to grab onto.

"Michael!" I was fighting to breath feeling him knuckle deep inside of me, hitting the right spot. "Fuck! Deeper!" I begged for more. Contrary to my needy cries, he pulled back, leaving me feeling empty as he unbuckled his belt, letting his pants fall to the ground. I took this opportunity to tear his shirt off, throwing it across the room.

Michael pushed my legs apart, admiring how much I yearned for him, he slowly pulled me towards him with a strong grip on my legs. My bare ass slide across the counter painfully slow until I finally felt his hard tip press against my entrance.

"Always so wet and ready for me." He slammed into me, giving me no time to adjust which threw me further over the edge.

"Harder!" I yelled as he pounded into me with such intensity I swear I could feel him rearranging my guts.

"Baby, I want to cum inside of you." His voice smooth, making me even more wet.

"Please!" The walls were shaking as we continued to devour one another.

"You're fucking perfect." He whispered against the bare skin of my chest, I felt him everywhere. My eyes rolled back as his dick massaged all the right places.

Suddenly, the door swung open violently, causing me to panic and try to cover my exposed chest, but Michael stopped me. He grabbed my wrists trapping them behind my back in on of his hands as he increased his speed again. My moans escaped my throat against my will as tears of pleasure rolled down my cheeks. At this point, my entire body was shaking, Michael's tongue rolling against mine elongating my high further.

"What the fuck are you doing!" A voice shouted, causing my head to snap in the direction of its origin. Tatiana.

"You feel so good wrapped around my dick." He declared as he sucked on my neck. It was impossible to concentrate on anything else but his lips. "I'll never get tired of fucking this perfect pussy." Michael didn’t stop. He spoke clearly and confidently as he fucked me with purpose.

"Get the fuck out of here!" Tatiana yelled.

"Y/N!" Michael whimpered, his seed spreading within me, causing my legs to tingle. He gazed deep into my eyes, beads of sweat trailing down his face. "I fucking love you." His hand gently curled around the side of my neck, pulling me back into his sweet mouth.

"What the fuck!" Another shout from the demon herself. I paid it no mind. Looking back at Michael, his long dick still twitching inside of me.

"I love you baby." I smiled, wrapping my arms around his neck, leaning into his neck to leave my mark. Tatiana stood there staring at us in shock, so naturally I challenged her stare. I waited to see if Michael would break focus, but he didn’t.

“We are busy in here. Close the door on your way out.” Michael said sternly between breaths, not even sparing her a glance.

The door slammed shut seconds later and it was only then that I took the time to look around the dimly lit room. Make-up and personal belongings littered the floor. Various unfamiliar items surrounded us, leading me to believe that I was made apart of one very well thought out, very devious plan and it turned me on.

"Michael?"

"Yes, my love?"

“This isn’t your dressing room, is it?”

“Nope.” He smiled triumphantly, planting tender kisses all over my face.

“You’re so sneaky.”

“You’re my girl. That’s never changing.”

“You quite literally marked your territory.” I giggled as he caressed my collarbone, watching as goosebumps formed.

“Oh, Y/N, baby, I’m just getting started. We’re gonna be here all night.”

“Let’s see what you got rockstar.”

“Baby, don’t make me carry you out on that stage and give those lovely people an encore they’ll never forget.”

“A girl can dream can’t she?”

I winked teasingly as I positioned myself onto my knees, looking up at the man I love, confident I was about to give him the best head of his life.

[badnewswhatsleft]

2023 september - rock sound #300 (fall out boy cover) scans

transcript below cut!

WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE

With the triumphant ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ capturing a whole new generation of fans, Fall Out Boy are riding high, celebrating their past while looking towards a bright future. Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump reflect on recent successes and the lessons learned from two decades of writing and performing together.

WORDS: James Wilson-Taylor PHOTOS: Elliot Ingham

You have just completed a US summer tour that included stadium shows and some of your most ambitious production to date. What were your aims going into this particular show?

PETE: Playing stadiums is a funny thing. I pushed pretty hard to do a couple this time because I think that the record Patrick came up with musically lends itself to that feeling of being part of something larger than yourself. When we were designing the cover to the album, it was meant to be all tangible, which was a reaction to tokens and skins that you can buy and avatars. The title is made out of clay, and the painting is an actual painting. We wanted to approach the show in that way as well. We’ve been playing in front of a gigantic video wall for the past eight years. Now, we wanted a stage show where you could actually walk inside it.

Did adding the new songs from ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ into the setlist change the way you felt about them?

PATRICK: One of the things that was interesting about the record was that we took a lot of time figuring out what it was going to be, what it was going to sound like. We experimented with so many different things. I was instantly really proud. I felt really good about this record but it wasn’t until we got on stage and you’re playing the songs in between our catalogue that I really felt that. It was really noticeable from the first day on this tour - we felt like a different band. There’s a new energy to it. There was something that I could hear live that I couldn’t hear before.

You also revisited a lot of older tracks and b-sides on this tour, including many from the ‘Folie à Deux’-era. What prompted those choices?

PETE: There were some lean years where there weren’t a lot of rock bands being played on pop radio or playing award shows so we tried to play the biggest songs, the biggest versions of them. We tried to make our thing really airtight, bulletproof so that when we played next to whoever the top artist was, people were like, ‘oh yeah, they should be here.’ The culture shift in the world is so interesting because now, maybe rather than going wider, it makes more sense to go deeper with people. We thought about that in the way that we listen to music and the way we watch films. Playing a song that is a b-side or barely made a record but is someone’s favourite song makes a lot of sense in this era. PATRICK: I think there also was a period there where, to Pete’s point, it was a weird time to be a rock band. We had this very strange thing that happened to us, and not a lot of our friends for some reason, where we had a bunch of hits, right? And it didn’t make any sense to me. It still doesn’t make sense to me. But there was a kind of novelty, where we could play a whole set of songs that a lot of people know. It was fun and rewarding for us to do that. But then you run the risk of playing the same set forever. I want to love the songs that we play. I want to care about it and put passion into what we do. And there’s no sustainable way to just do the same thing every night and not get jaded. We weren’t getting there but I really wanted to make sure that we don’t ever get there. PETE: In the origin of Fall Out Boy, what happened at our concerts was we knew how to play five songs really fast and jumped off walls and the fire marshal would shut it down. It was what made the show memorable, but we wanted to be able to last and so we tried to perfect our show and the songs and the stage show and make it flawless. Then you don’t really know how much spontaneity you want to include, because something could go wrong. When we started this tour, and we did a couple of spontaneous things, it opened us up to more. Because things did go wrong and that’s what made the show special. We’re doing what is the most punk rock version of what we could be doing right now.

You seem generally a lot more comfortable celebrating your past success at this point in your career.

PETE: I think it’s actually not a change from our past. I love those records, but I never want to treat them in a cynical way. I never want there to be a wink and a smile where we’re just doing this because it’s the anniversary. This was us celebrating these random songs and we hope people celebrate them with us. There was a purity to it that felt in line with how we’ve always felt about it. I love ‘Folie à Deux’ - out of any Fall Out Boy record that’s probably the one I would listen to. But I just never want it to be done in a cynical way, where we feel like we have to. But celebrating it in a way where there’s the purity of how we felt when we wrote the song originally, I think that’s fucking awesome. PATRICK: Music is a weird art form. Because when you’re an actor and you play a character, that is a specific thing. James Bond always wears a suit and has a gun and is a secret agent. If you change one thing, that’s fine, but you can’t really change all of it. But bands are just people. You are yourself. People get attached to it like it’s a story but it’s not. That was always something that I found difficult. For the story, it’s always good to say, ‘it’s the 20th anniversary, let’s go do the 20th anniversary tour’, that’s a good story thing. But it’s not always honest. We never stopped playing a lot of the songs from ‘Take This To Your Grave’, right? So why would I need to do a 20-year anniversary and perform all the songs back to back? The only reason would be because it would probably sell a lot of tickets and I don’t really ever want to be motivated by that, frankly. One of the things that’s been amazing is that now as the band has been around for a while, we have different layers of audience. I love ‘Folie à Deux’, I do. I love that record. But I had a really personally negative experience of touring on it. So that’s what I think of when I think of that record initially. It had to be brought back to me for me to appreciate it, for me to go, ‘oh, this record is really great. I should be happy with this. I should want to play this.’ So that’s why we got into a lot of the b-sides because we realised that our perspectives on a lot of these songs were based in our feelings and experiences from when we were making them. But you can find new experiences if you play those songs. You can make new memories with them.

You alluded there to the 20th anniversary of ‘Take This To Your Grave’. Obviously you have changed and developed as a band hugely since then. But is there anything you can point to about making that debut record that has remained a part of your process since then?

PETE: We have a language, the band, and it’s definitely a language of cinema and film. That’s maintained through time. We had very disparate music tastes and influences but I think film was a place we really aligned. You could have a deep discussion because none of us were filmmakers. You could say which part was good and which part sucked and not hurt anybody’s feelings, because you weren’t going out to make a film the next day. Whereas with music, I think if we’d only had that to talk about, we would have turned out a different band. PATRICK: ‘Take This To Your Grave’, even though it’s absolutely our first record, there’s an element of it that’s still a work in progress. It is still a band figuring itself out. Andy wasn’t even officially in the band for half of the recording, right? I wasn’t even officially the guitar player for half of the recording. We were still bumbling through it. There was something that popped up a couple times throughout that record where you got these little inklings of who the band really was. We really explored that on ‘From Under The Cork Tree’. So when we talk about what has remained the same… I didn’t want to be a singer, I didn’t know anything about singing, I wasn’t planning on that. I didn’t even plan to really be in this band for that long because Pete had a real band that really toured so I thought this was gonna be a side project. So there’s always been this element within the band where I don’t put too many expectations on things and then Pete has this really big ambition, creatively. There’s this great interplay between the two of us where I’m kind of oblivious, and I don’t know when I’m putting out a big idea and Pete has this amazing vision to find what goes where. There’s something really magical about that because I never could have done a band like this without it. We needed everybody, we needed all four of us. And I think that’s the thing that hasn’t changed - the four of us just being ourselves and trying to figure things out. Listening back to ‘Folie’ or ‘Infinity On High’ or ‘American Beauty’, I’m always amazed at how much better they are than I remember. I listened to ‘MANIA’ the other day, and I have a lot of misgivings about that record, a lot of things I’m frustrated about. But then I’m listening to it and I’m like ‘this is pretty good.’ There’s a lot of good things in there. I don’t know why, it’s kind of like you can’t see those things. It’s kind of amazing to have Pete be able to see those things. And likewise, sometimes Pete has no idea when he writes something brilliant, as a lyricist, and I have to go, ‘No, I’m gonna keep that one, I’m gonna use that.’

On ‘So Much (For) Stardust’, you teamed up with producer Neal Avron again for the first time since 2008. Given how much time has passed, did it take a minute to reestablish that connection or did you pick up where you left off?

PATRICK: It really didn’t feel like any time had passed between us and Neal. It was pretty seamless in terms of working with him. But then there was also the weird aspect where the last time we worked with him was kind of contentious. Interpersonally, the four of us were kind of fighting with each other… as much as we do anyway. We say that and then that myth gets built bigger than it was. We were always pretty cool with each other. It’s just that the least cool was making ‘Folie’. So then getting into it again for this record, it was like no time has passed as people but the four of us got on better so we had more to bring to Neal. PETE: It’s a little bit like when you return to your parents’ house for a holiday break when you’re in college. It’s the same house but now I can drink with my parents. We’d grown up and the first times we worked with Neal, he had to do so much more boy scout leadership, ‘you guys are all gonna be okay, we’re gonna do this activity to earn this badge so you guys don’t fucking murder each other.’ This time, we probably got a different version of Neal that was even more creative, because he had to do less psychotherapy. He went deep too. Sometimes when you’re in a session with somebody, and they’re like, ‘what are we singing about?’, I’ll just be like, ‘stuff’. He was not cool with ‘stuff’. I would get up and go into the bathroom outside the studio and look in the mirror, and think ‘what is it about? How deep are we gonna go?’ That’s a little but scarier to ask yourself. If last time Neal was like a boy scout leader, this time, it was more like a Sherpa. He was helping us get to the summit.

The title track of the album also finds you in a very reflective mood, even bringing back lyrics from ‘Love From The Other Side’. How would you describe the meaning behind that title and the song itself?

PETE: The record title has a couple of different meanings, I guess. The biggest one to me is that we basically all are former stars. That’s what we’re made of, those pieces of carbon. It still feels like the world’s gonna blow and it’s all moving too fast and the wrong things are moving too slow. That track in particular looks back at where you sometimes wish things had gone differently. But this is more from the perspective of when you’re watching a space movie, and they’re too far away and they can’t quite make it back. It doesn’t matter what they do and at some point, the astronaut accepts that. But they’re close enough that you can see the look on their face. I feel like there’s moments like that in the title track. I wish some things were different. But, as an adult going through this, you are too far away from the tether, and you’re just floating into space. It is sad and lonely but in some ways, it’s kind of freeing, because there’s other aspects of our world and my life that I love and that I want to keep shaping and changing. PATRICK: I’ll open up Pete’s lyrics and I just start hearing things. It almost feels effortless in a lot of ways. I just read his lyrics and something starts happening in my head. The first line, ‘I’m in a winter mood, dreaming of spring now’, instantly the piano started to form to me. That was a song that I came close to not sending to the band. When I make demos, I’ll usually wait until I have five or six to send to everybody. I didn’t know if anyone was gonna like this. It’s too moody or it’s not very us. But it was pretty unanimous. Everyone liked that one. I knew this had to end the record. It took on a different life in the context of the whole album. Then on the bridge section, I knew it was going to be the lyrics from ‘Love From The Other Side’. It’s got to come back here. It’s the bookends, but I also love lyrically what it does, you know, ‘in another life, you were my babe’, going back to that kind of regret, which feels different in ‘Love From The Other Side’ than it does here. When the whole song came together, it was the statement of the record.

Aside from the album, you have released a few more recent tracks that have opened you up to a whole new audience, most notably the collaboration with Taylor Swift on ‘Electric Touch’.

PETE: Taylor is the only artist that I’ve met or interacted with in recent times who creates exactly the art of who she is, but does it on such a mass level. So that’s breathtaking to watch from the sidelines. The way fans traded friendship bracelets, I don’t know what the beginning of it was, but you felt that everywhere. We felt that, I saw that in the crowd on our tour. I don’t know Taylor well, but I think she’s doing exactly what she wants and creating exactly the art that she wants to create. And doing that, on such a level, is really awe-inspiring to watch. It makes you want to make the biggest, weirdest version of our thing and put that out there.

Then there was the cover of Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’, which has had some big chart success for you. That must have taken you slightly by surprise.

PATRICK: It’s pretty unexpected. Pete and I were going back and forth about songs we should cover and that was an idea that I had. This is so silly but there was a song a bunch of years ago I had written called ‘Dark Horse’ and then there was a Katy Perry song called ‘Dark Horse’ and I was like, ‘damn it’, you know, I missed the boat on that one. So I thought if we don’t do this cover, somebody else is gonna do it. Let’s just get in the studio and just do it. We spent way more time on those lyrics than you would think because we really wanted to get a specific feel. It was really fun and kind of loose, we just came together in Neal’s house and recorded it in a day. PETE: There’s irreverence to it. I thought the coolest thing was when Billy Joel got asked about it, and he was like, ‘I’m not updating it, that’s fine, go for it.’ I hope if somebody ever chose to update one of ours, we’d be like that. Let them do their thing, they’ll have that version. I thought that was so fucking cool.

It’s also no secret that the sound you became most known for in the mid-2000s is having something of a commercial revival right now. But what is interesting is seeing how bands are building on that sound and changing it.

PATRICK: I love when anybody does anything that feels honest to them. Touring with Bring Me The Horizon, it was really cool seeing what’s natural to them. It makes sense. We changed our sound over time but we were always going to do that. It wasn’t a premeditated thing but for the four of us, it would have been impossible to maintain making the same kind of music forever. Whereas you’ll play with some other bands and they live that one sound. You meet up with them for dinner or something and they’re wearing the shirt of the band that sounds just like their band. You go to their house and they’re playing other bands that sound like them because they live in that thing. Whereas with the four of us and bands like Bring Me The Horizon, we change our sounds over time. And there’s nothing wrong with either. The only thing that’s wrong is if it’s unnatural to you. If you’re AC/DC and all of a sudden power ballads are in and you’re like, ‘Okay, we’ve got to do a power ballad’, that’s when it sucks. But if you’re a thrash metal guy who likes Celine Dion then yeah, do a power ballad. Emo as a word doesn’t mean anything anymore. But if people want to call it that, if the emo thing is back or having another life again, if that’s what’s natural to an artist, I think the world needs more earnest art. If that’s who you are, then do it. PETE: It would be super egotistical to think that the wave that started with us and My Chemical Romance and Panic! At The Disco has just been circling and cycling back. I  remember seeing Nikki Sixx at the airport and he was like, ‘Oh, you’re doing a flaming bass? Mine came from a backpack.’ It keeps coming back but it looks different. Talking to Lil Uzi Vert and Juice WRLD when he was around, it’s so interesting, because it’s so much bigger than just emo or whatever. It’s this whole big pop music thing that’s spinning and churning, and then it moves on, and then it comes back with different aspects and some of the other stuff combined. When you’re a fan of music and art and film, you take different stuff, you add different ingredients, because that’s your taste. Seeing the bands that are up and coming to me, it’s so exciting, because the rules are just different, right? It’s really cool to see artists that lean into the weirdness and lean into a left turn when everyone’s telling you to make a right. That’s so refreshing. PATRICK: It’s really important as an artist gets older to not put too much stock in your own influence. The moment right now that we’re in is bigger than emo and bigger than whatever was happening in 2005. There’s a great line in ‘Downton Abbey’ where someone was asking the Lord about owning this manor and he’s like, ‘well, you don’t really own it, there have been hundreds of owners and you are the custodian of it for a brief time.’ That’s what pop music is like. You just have the ball for a minute and you’re gonna pass it on to somebody else.

We will soon see you in the UK for your arena tour. How do you reflect on your relationship with the fans over here?

PETE: I remember the first time we went to the UK, I wasn’t prepared for how culturally different it was. When we played Reading & Leeds and the summer festivals, it was so different, and so much deeper within the culture. It was a little bit of a shock. The first couple of times we played, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, are we gonna die?’ because the crowd was so crazy, and there was bottles. Then when we came back, we thought maybe this is a beast to be tamed. Finally, you realise it’s a trading of energy. That made the last couple of festivals we played so fucking awesome. When you really realise that the fans over there are real fans of music. It’s really awesome and pretty beautiful. PATRICK: We’ve played the UK now more than a lot of regions of the states. Pretty early on, I just clicked with it. There were differences, cultural things and things that you didn’t expect. But it never felt that different or foreign to me, just a different flavour… PETE: This is why me and Patrick work so well together (laughs).  PATRICK: Well, listen; I’m a rainy weather guy. There is just things that I get there. I don’t really drink anymore all that much. But I totally will have a beer in the UK, there’s something different about every aspect of it, about the ordering of it, about the flavour of it, everything, it’s like a different vibe. The UK audience seemed to click with us too. There have been plenty of times where we felt almost more like a UK band than an American one. There have been years where you go there and almost get a more familial reaction than you would at home. Rock Sound has always been a part of that for us. It was one of the first magazines to care about us and the first magazine to do real interviews. That’s the thing, you would do all these interviews and a lot of them would be like ‘so where did the band’s name come from?’ But Rock Sound took us seriously as artists, maybe before some of us did. That actually made us think about who we are and that was a really cool experience. I think in a lot of ways, we wouldn’t be the band we are without the UK, because I think it taught us a lot about what it is to be yourself.

Fall Out Boy’s ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ is out now via Fueled By Ramen.

[ateez-himari]

Hi bb!!! I missed you so much :(((( I've been busy with exams so I haven't been active alot, I just hop in every once in a while to check if you posted anything💓

How have you been? I hope work and uni aren't too tiring

I had some questionssss as usualll

First question is kinda emotional cause i did cry over this, what was hima's reaction of yeontan's passing I honestly love yeontan so much and the bond he had with tae was literally so cute, I hope tae's coping well it's not easy to lose a beloved pet

How does mingi's relationship smell like, I really hope this makes sense or else I'd sound stupid

Now after mingri went public are there any couple choreography that was originally with san that became with mingi?

You know when hongjoong is spitting bars and jongho be hitting his amazing highnotes? I was wondering if it's the same thing for mimi

Are there any companies that hima regularly produces for? Not signed under jusr regualr clients

Can we get some mimi and mr and mrs song interactions I love their bond they're so cute🤭😭

That's it bb have a great day/night keep yourself warm, ily💓💓💓

Also saw these and Immediately thought of hima in the ephemeral collection

Hi sweet!! I missed you too, I was wondering where you went 🥺 (I figured you had your own stuff going on). I've been extremely busy with work and exams (I had 2 so far and 3 more to go!) but I'm also working on a side project for Hima (you won't expect a certain part of this trust me hehe). I'll give you a hint because I'm so excited; It involves someone she's never been seen interacting with, all they have in common is knowing a specific someone

• Hima often brings the group's pets over to her dorm when she has some rest days and basically helped raise Yeontan & Bam so when Taehyung first delivered her the news (in person) it didn't register in her mind. Yeontan had severe health issues so she figured it was going to happen, but it didn't make it easier on her. Since the grief from the accident quite literally destroyed her (as she didn't know how to deal with it) she's trying to see the bright side of it; even though he had health problems he still stayed alive for 7 years and brought light into their lives. She did put all the pictures with him in a separate locked folder for now to help with the grieving process

We literally watched Yeontan and Taehyung grow alongside each other, he was even the first dog idol ever! Hopefully he's getting the time and space he needs to grieve on his own terms

• Their relationship smells like an early spring morning after light rain fell during the night, no humidity, low heat, with the slightest warm breeze. There's hints of freshly bloomed flowers and small notes of cotton perfume

• They didn't make any changes to the pre-existing choreographies or units since some things are rooted in lore (i.e. nyang-teez partner work), but they've been creating more interactions between the couple! (So the next comebacks will have a lot more MinAri choreography hehe)

• It is! At times she's harmonizing with Jongho but there's also many instances where she hits high notes while Mingi is rapping (due to the contrast in their voices). There was only one song where she did the background vocals completely by herself (Halazia) while performing

• Most artists who she produces for come to her on their own (since they're mainly soloists) but the few companies who can be considered regular clients are H1GHR MUSIC, KOZ Entertainment and HYBE Corporation. Her current contracts are with KQ ENTERTAINMENT, RCA Records and Taemin (not BPM Ent.)

• I'll try to write some when I get the time! I'll give you a little now though hehe; When they visited his parents on their time off, the two were bickering in the kitchen about the best way to cook fish - which the mom heard once she came back with groceries - and she immediately defended her future daughter in law. She scolded her son about listening to the woman of the house and when he complained to his dad, he simply shrugged and praised the young woman's cooking, saying (jokingly) that he would adopt her to be his own daughter if Mingi wasn't dating her

• These designs are so pretty! They would fit right into the collection too. I kind of imagined the clothes to be really flowy to replicate the way a butterfly flaps its wings but the jewelry to be really fragile looking (kind of like glass) to represent the Ephemeral nature of them. That top is so beautiful though wow-

I hope you're taking good care of yourself and get some rest between your exams 😘 Don't overwork yourself and remember to take breaks! As usual thank you so much for your questions Mina, love you!!! 🩷🩷

[xinfinityl0ve17]

It comes back around. That way we discover and grow together. We are also a mirror, and so are the people who come to watch. When you send out a signal, it doesn’t become one way.

The live tour "Ville de merveilles - Transparent Spiral" by MALICE MIZER at the end of last year had many surprising aspects. Among them fans who had previously associated them with a medieval image were amazed by the futuristic stage set and costumes, as well as the band's new side and the wide range of their concepts.

In this page we focus on the first half of the live show featuring a photo session with the debut of the futuristic costumes and move on to discussions about their vision of the near future from the live performance.

From the opening the two songs featuring synchronized dance by all the members were eye catching. Gackt, Mana and Közi stepped in a regular pattern while Kami and Yu~ki played the percussion wildly behind them.

Kami and Yu~ki joked, “We can do anything so it’s okay.”

It was a moment that reaffirmed that they are a group that can use any means of expression. First let’s discuss the concept behind each of their costumes.

Mana: “It was designed with the awareness of a near future era with something easy to move in.”

Közi: “Surreal and inorganic. I added a slit on the side to make it easier to move.”

Yu~ki: “I tried to incorporate my previous image with the top hat and tailcoat while adding a more inorganic feel.”

Kami: “...I forgot.”

Gackt: “I wanted to make sure it didn’t reflect too much light and liked the color scheme so i chose that material. I aimed for something androgynous that isn’t distinctly male or female and that’s how it turned out.”

Next, we’ll introduce their individual visions of the near future, not just as a band.

Gackt: “When asked what I would be like in 10 years i always give the same answer. It’s too bright to see. Some people might see it as positive others negative but in any case it’s too bright to see.”

Mana: “It’s a fine line between rosy and worst case scenarios.”

Közi: “I’ll swim. While scattering salt in the sulfur.”

Kami: “I’ll spread my wings. The end.”

Yu~ki: “I haven’t thought about it. I want to feel my current self and the thoughts of people so i want to live without worrying about it.”

Now, let’s talk about the concept of the stage. Mana explains:

“The stage set was a little different from the initial design. 'Ville de merveilles' means a mysterious city. To put it concretely, it’s a futuristic and mysterious city. The transparent spiral is a keyword. You remember the mark that was projected onto the stage at the opening, right? There’s a mystery hidden in that, but I can’t tell you its meaning. Actually there is an 'aha' moment.”

[buck-tick-stash]

Subrosa Tour 2025 Live House Report

(General information about preparing for and attending Buck-Tick live house performances here.)

Has their costuming ever been so uniform?!!

They've always dressed to a theme, but each costume was individually styled with different fabrics and textures. Sometimes the theme would be harder to see if not directly told. No matter the theme, Imai's selection was always flashy with a colors that challenged the set.

But now, a simple cotton print of the same pattern adorned them all. Each had their own style, of course, but the color and print were very evident on each member.

The back of Yuuta's jacket showcased the clearest example of the print: A bright yellow sun against a white and black background, with two black cats chasing each other around the diameter, and a Buck-Tick logo to the side.

Hide's came like a cross between a half-jacket and a stole, swing in the front and back on the right side of his body, clipped to his shoulder with a green strap.

Imai's were floating forearm cuffs held up by bright pink suspenders that showcased his guns. When he lifted his legs for kicks and dances, his calves could be seen in the same style cuff.

Toll's shoulders donned oversized leg-of-mutton sleeves.

After seeing setlists for the concert hall tours last year which omitted some songs, I was pleasantly surprised to hear all the songs from the Subrosa album. With the simpler staging of the live house, backgrounds to the songs were often simple geometric designs or just color. Gabriel no Rappa was probably the most intricate, showing rolling clouds racing through the sky. However, when the instrumental songs were performed, the movie visualizations were shown instead.

All the better opportunity to watch the boys themselves!

The show started softly with Hyakuman Naruta no Chiri SCUM, a single spot light on Imai singing, with each member given a light as the song went on, the audience rapt.

The mood swung sharply with Subrosa, as Imai called the audience to have fun and start bouncing.

When not singing or focusing on the synth keyboard, Imai readily moved about, dancing and kicking. For several songs, including Tiki Tiki Boom and Cream Soda, he would mug at the audience, sucking in his lips, wagging his tongue, or straight up flipping everyone off.

Hide took up much of Sakurai's antics, teasing the audience with the reach of his hand, shaking his hips or turning around fully to grab his own ass in full view of the front row.

Yuuta also came to the front several times to rock about, also turning to shake his own bum a bit, and even exciting the audience with a rub on Imai's shoulder. It was a particular pleasure of mine to watch him close his eyes to concentrate on Shinkeishitsu na Kaidan, as much of the mood of that piece comes from the bass.

Toll, as usual, kept his head down and in full concentration throughout the show, but I was delighted to catch him lip syncing a bit to Ignighter.

Speaking of, Imai sang his part as normal while the audience readily took up the chorus.

I'm sorry to say I don't remember which song it was, but during one, lasers sat in the air just over the band's heads, giving the illusion of them in a boxed-in space. (Reports from other audience members complain of getting them at eye level near the back of the venue, so be careful of that, depending on the venue layout.)

I thought I would be too distracted surviving the crowd to cry to Tasogare no Howling. Alas, sweat was not the only thing wetting my face. The entire audience was still for this one, and it almost felt like a praise and worship song, save for the lack of hands heavenward. For the instrumental ending, Imai absolutely shredded the guitar with full skill and rage. I was certain I was seeing a man wring every last drop of emotion into the instrument.

If it becomes possible, I hope to get a copy of this tour’s iteration of Cream Soda. The track of Sakurai’s vocals can be heard in the background, but it’s the instrumentation that struck me most, harder and darker than ever before.

I wonder if it’s a preview of what Buck-Tick 2.0 will be after this mourning period. 💓

[vampylily]

Transcription of Fall Out Boy's interview with Rock Sound

Since I was going to read the article anyways, I thought I'd transcribe in case it'll be more accessible to read for others. The interview with Pete and Patrick goes in depth on the topics of tourdust, evolving as a band, So Much (For) Stardust, working with Neal Avron, and more.

Thank you to @nomaptomyowntreasure who kindly shared the photos of the article! Their post is linked here.

PDF link here. (more readable format & font size)

article in text below (and warning for long post.)

Rock Sound Issue #300

WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE

WITH THE TRIUMPHANT ‘SO MUCH (FOR) STARDUST’ CAPTURING A WHOLE NEW GENERATION OF FANS, FALL OUT BOY ARE RIDING HIGH, CELEBRATING THEIR PAST WHILE LOOKING TOWARDS A BRIGHT FUTURE. PETE WENTZ AND PATRICK STUMP REFLECT ON RECENT SUCCESSES AND THE LESSONS LEARNED FROM TWO DECADES OF WRITING AND PERFORMING TOGETHER. 

WORDS: James Wilson-Taylor

PHOTOS: Elliott Ingham

You have just completed a US summer tour that included stadium shows and some of your most ambitious production to date. What were your aims going into this particular show? 

PETE: Playing stadiums is a funny thing. I pushed pretty hard to do a couple this time because I think that the record Patrick came up with musically lends itself to that feeling of being part of something larger than yourself. When we were designing the cover to the album, it was meant to be all tangible, which was a reaction to tokens and skins that  you can buy and avatars. The title is made out of clay, and the painting is an actual painting. We wanted to approach the show in that way as well. We've been playing in front of a gigantic video wall for the past eight years. Now, we wanted a stage show where you could actually walk inside it. 

Did adding the new songs from ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ into the setlist change the way you felt about them?

PATRICK: One of the things that was interesting about the record was that we took a lot of time figuring out what it was going to be, what it was going to sound like. We experimented with so many different things. I was instantly really proud. I felt really good about this record but it wasn’t until we got on stage and you’re playing the songs in between our catalogue that I really felt that. It was really noticeable from the first day on this tour - we felt like a different band. There's a new energy to it. There was something that I could hear live that I couldn't hear before. 

You also revisited a lot of older tracks and b-sides on this tour, including many from the ‘Folie à Deux’-era. What prompted those choices? 

PETE: There were some lean years where there weren't a lot of rock bands being played on pop radio or playing award shows so we tried to play the biggest songs, the biggest versions of them. We tried to make our thing really airtight, bulletproof so that when we played next to whoever the top artist was, people were like, ‘oh yeah, they should be here.’ The culture shift in the world is so interesting because now, maybe rather than going wider, it makes more sense to go deeper with people. We thought about that in the way that we listen to music and the way we watch films. Playing a song that is a b-side or barely made a record but is someone’s favourite song makes a lot of sense in this era.

PATRICK: I think there also was a period there where, to Pete’s point, it was a weird time to be a rock band. We had this very strange thing that happened to us, and not a lot of our friends for some reason, where we had a bunch of hits, right? And it didn’t make any sense to me. It still doesn’t make sense to me. But there was a kind of novelty, where we could play a whole set of songs that a lot of people know. It was fun and rewarding for us to do that. But then you run the risk of playing the same set forever. I want to love the songs that we play. I want to care about it and put passion into what we do. And there’s no sustainable way to just do the same thing every night and not get jaded. We weren’t getting there but I really wanted to make sure that we don’t ever get there. 

PETE: In the origin of Fall Out Boy, what happened at our concerts was we knew how to play five songs really fast and jumped off walls and the fire marshal would shut it down. It was what made the show memorable, but we wanted to be able to last and so we tried to perfect our show and the songs and the stage show and make it flawless. Then you don’t really know how much spontaneity you want to include, because something could go wrong. When we started this tour, and we did a couple of spontaneous things, it opened us up to more. Because things did go wrong and that’s what made the show special. We’re doing what is the most punk rock version of what we could be doing right now. 

You seem generally a lot more comfortable celebrating your past success at this point in your career. 

PETE: I think it’s actually not a change from our past. I love those records, but I never want to treat them in a cynical way. I never want there to be a wink and a smile where we’re just doing this because it’s the anniversary. This was us celebrating these random songs and we hope people celebrate them with us. There was a purity to it that felt in line with how we’ve always felt about it. I love ‘Folie à Deux’ - out of any Fall Out Boy record that's probably the one I would listen to. But I just never wanted it to be done in a cynical way, where we feel like we have to. But celebrating it in a way where there’s the purity of how we felt when we wrote the song originally. I think that’s fucking awesome. 

PATRICK: Music is a weird art form. Because when you’re an actor and you play a character, that is a specific thing. James Bond always wears a suit and has a gun and is a secret agent. If you change one thing, that’s fine, but you can’t really change all of it. But bands are just people. You are yourself. People get attached to it like it’s a story but it’s not. That was always something I found difficult. For the story, it’s always good to say, ‘it’s the 20th anniversary, let’s go do the 20th anniversary tour’, that’s a good story thing. But it’s not always honest. We never stopped playing a lot of the songs from ‘Take This To Your Grave’, right? So why would I need to do a 20-year anniversary and perform all the songs back to back? The only reason would be because it would probably sell a lot of tickets and I don’t really ever want to be motivated by that, frankly. 

One of the things that’s been amazing is that now as the band has been around for a while, we have different layers of audience. I love ‘Folie à Deux’, I do, I love that record. But I had a really personally negative experience of touring on it. So that’s what I think of when I think of that record initially. It had to be brought back to me for me to appreciate it, for me to go, ‘oh, this record is really great. I should be happy with this. I should want to play this,’ So that’s why we got into a lot of the b-sides because we realised that our perspectives on a lot of these songs were based in our feelings and experiences from when we were making them. But you can find new experiences if you play those songs. You can make new memories with them. 

You alluded there to the 20th anniversary of ‘Take This To Your Grave’. Obviously you have changed and developed as a band hugely since then. But is there anything you can point to about making that debut record that has remained a part of your process since then? 

PETE: We have a language, the band, and it’s definitely a language of cinema and film. That’s maintained through time. We had very disparate music tastes and influences but I think film was a place we really aligned. You could have a deep discussion, because none of us were filmmakers. You could say which part was good and which part sucked and not hurt anybody’s feelings, because you weren’t going out to make a film the next day. Whereas with music, I think if we’d only had that to talk about, we would have turned out a different band.  

PATRICK: ‘Take This To Your Grave’, even though it’s absolutely our first record, there’s an element of it that’s still a work in progress. It is still a band figuring itself out. Andy wasn’t even officially in the band for half of the recording, right? I wasn’t even officially the guitar player for half of the recording. We were still bumbling through it. There was something that popped up a couple times throughout the record where you got these little inklings of who the band really was. We really explored that on ‘From Under the Cork Tree’’. So when we talk about what has remained the same… I didn’t want to be a singer, I didn’t know anything about singing, I wasn’t playing on that. I didn’t even plan to really be in this band for that long because Pete had a real band that really toured so I thought this was gonna be a side project. So there’s always been this element within the band where I don’t put too many expectations on things and then Pete has this really big ambition, creatively. There’s this great interplay between the tour of us where I’m kind of oblivious, and I don’t know when I’m putting out a big idea and Pete has this amazing vision to find what goes where. There’s something really magical about that because I never could have done a band like this without it. We needed everybody, we needed all four of us. And I think that’s the thing that hasn’t changed - the four of us just being ourselves and trying to figure things out. Listening back to ‘Folie’ or ‘Infinity On High’ or ‘American Beauty’. I’m always amazed at how much better they are than I remember. I listened to ‘MANIA’ the other day. I have a lot of misgivings about that record, a lot of things I’m frustrated about. But then I’m listening to it and I’m like, ‘this is pretty good.’ There’s a lot of good things in there. I don’t know why, it’s kind of like you can’t see those things. It’s kind of amazing to have Pete be able to see those things. And likewise, sometimes Pete has no idea when he writes something brilliant, as a lyricist, and I have to go, ‘No, I’m gonna keep that one, I’m gonna use that.’ 

On ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ you teamed up with producer Neal Avron again for the first time since 2008. Given how much time has passed, did it take a minute to reestablish that connection or did you pick up where you left off? 

PATRICK: It really didn’t feel like any time had passed between us and Neal. It was pretty seamless in terms of working with him. But then there was also the weird aspect where the last time we worked with him was kind of contentious. Interpersonally, the four of us were kind of fighting with each other…as much as we do anyway. We say that and then that myth gets built bigger than it was. We were always pretty cool with each other. It’s just that the least cool was making ‘Folie’. So then getting into it again for this record, it was like no time had passed as people but the four of us got on better so we had more to bring to Neal. 

PETE: It’s a little bit like when you return to your parents’ house for the holiday break when you’re in college. It’s the same house but now I can drink with my parents. We’d grown up and the first times we worked with Neal, he had to do so much more boy scout leadership, ‘you guys are all gonna be okay, we’re gonna do this activity to earn this badge so you guys don’t fucking murder each other.’ This time, we probably got a different version of Neal that was even more creative, because he had to do less psychotherapy. 

He went deep too. Sometimes when you’re in a session with somebody, and they’re like, ‘what are we singing about?’, I’ll just be like, ‘stuff’. He was not cool with ‘stuff’. I would get up and go into the bathroom outside the studio and look in the mirror, and think ‘what is it about? How deep are we gonna go?’ That’s a little bit scarier to ask yourself. If last time Neal was like a boy scout leader, this time, it was more like a Sherpa. He was helping us get to the summit. 

The title track of the album also finds you in a very reflective mood, even bringing back lyrics from ‘Love From the Other Side’. How would you describe the meaning behind that title and the song itself?

PETE: The record title has a couple of different meanings, I guess. The biggest one to me is that we basically all are former stars. That’s what we’re made of, those pieces of carbon. It still feels like the world’s gonna blow and it’s all moving too fast and the wrong things are moving too slow. That track in particular looks back at where you sometimes wish things had gone differently. But this is more from the perspective of when you’re watching a space movie, and they’re too far away and they can’t quite make it back. It doesn’t matter what they do and at some point, the astronaut accepts that. But they’re close enough that you can see the look on their face. I feel like there’s moments like that in the title track. I wish some things were different. But, as an adult going through this, you are too far away from the tether, and you’re just floating into space. It is sad and lonely but in some ways, it’s kind of freeing, because there’s other aspects of our world and my life that I love and I want to keep shaping and changing. 

Patrick: I’ll open up Pete’s lyrics and I just start hearing things. It almost feels effortless in a lot of ways. I just read his lyrics and something starts happening in my head. The first line, ‘I’m in a winter mood, dreaming of spring now’, instantly the piano started to form to me. That was a song that I came close to not sending the band. When I make demos, I’ll usually wait until I have five or six to send to everybody. I didn’t know if anyone was gonna like this. It’s too moody or it’s not very us. But it was pretty unanimous. Everybody liked that one. I knew this had to end the record. It took on a different life in the context of the whole album. Then on the bridge section, I knew it was going to be the lyrics from “Love From The Other Side’. It’s got to come back here. It’s the bookends, but I also love lyrically what it does, you know, ‘in another life, you were my babe’, going back to that kind of regret, which feels different in  ‘Love From The Other Side’ than it does here. When the whole song came together, it was the statement of the record. 

Aside from the album, you have released a few more recent tracks that have opened you up to a whole new audience, most notably the collaboration with Taylor Swift on ‘Electric Touch’. 

PETE: Taylor is the only artist that I’ve met or interacted with in recent times who creates exactly the art of who she is, but does it one such a mass level. So that’s breathtaking to watch from the sidelines. The way fans traded friendship bracelets, I don’t know what the beginning of it was, but you felt that everywhere. We felt that, I saw that in the crowd on our tour. I don’t know Taylor well, but I think she’s doing exactly what she wants and creating exactly the art that she wants to create. And going that, on such a level, is really awe-inspiring to watch. It makes you want to make the biggest, weirdest version of our thing and put that out there. 

Then there was the cover of Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’, which has had some big chart success for you. That must have taken you slightly by surprise. 

PATRICK: It’s pretty unexpected. Pete and I were going back and forth about songs we should cover and that was an idea that I had. This is so silly but there was a song a bunch of years ago I had kind of written called ‘Dark Horse’ and then there was a Katy Perry song called ‘Dark Horse’ and I was like, ‘damn it’, you know, I missed the boat on that one. So I thought if we don’t do this cover, somebody else is gonna do it. Let’s just get in the studio and just do it. We spent way more time on those lyrics than you would think because we really wanted to get a specific feel. It was really fun and kind of loose, we just came together in Neal’s house and recorded it in a day. 

PETE: There's irreverence to it. I thought the coolest thing was when Billy Joel got asked about it, and he was like, ‘I’m not updating it, that’s fine, go for it.’  I hope if somebody ever chose to update one of ours, we’d be like that. Let them do their thing, they’ll have that version. I thought that was so fucking cool. 

It’s almost no secret that the sound you became most known for in the md-2000s is having something of a commercial revival right now But what is interesting is seeing how bands are building on that sound and changing it. 

PATRICK: I love when anybody does anything that feels honest to them. Touring with Bring Me The Horizon, it was really cool seeing what’s natural to them. It makes sense. We changed our sound over time but we were always going to do that. It wasn’t a premeditated thing but for the four of us, it would have been impossible to maintain making the same kind of music forever. Whereas you’ll play with some other bands and they live that one sound. You meet up with them for dinner or something and they’re wearing the shirt of the band that sounds just like their band. You go to their house and they’re playing other bands that sound like them because they live in that thing. Whereas with the four of us and bands like Bring Me The Horizon, we change our sounds over time.  And there’s nothing wrong with either. The only thing that’s wrong is if it’s unnatural to you. If you’re AC/DC and all of a sudden power ballads are in and you’re like, ‘Okay, we’ve got to do a power ballad’, that’s when it sucks. But if you’re a thrash metal guy who also likes Celine Dion then yeah, do a power ballad. Emo as a word doesn’t mean anything anymore. But if people want to call it that, if the emo thing is back or having another life again, if that’s what’s natural to an artist, I think the world needs more earnest art. If that’s who you are, then do it. 

PETE: It would be super egotistical to think that the wave that started with us and My Chemical Romance and Panic! At The Disco has just been circling and cycling back. I remember seeing Nikki Sixx at the airport and he was like, ‘Oh you’re doing a flaming bass? Mine came from a backpack.’ It keeps coming back but it looks different. Talking to Lil Uzi Vert and Juice WRLD when he was around, it’s so interesting, because it’s so much bigger than just emo or whatever. It’s this whole big pop music thing that’s spinning and churning, and then it moves on, and then it comes back with different aspects and some of the other stuff combined. When you’re a fan of music and art and film, you take different stuff, you add different ingredients, because that’s your taste. Seeing the bands that are up and coming to me, it’s so exciting, because the rules are just different, right? It’s really cool to see artists that lean into the weirdness and lean into a left turn when everyone’s telling you to make a right. That’s so refreshing. 

PATRICK: It’s really important as an artist gets older to not put too much stock in your own influence. The moment right now that we’re in is bigger than emo and bigger than whatever was happening in 2005. There’s a great line in ‘Downton Abbey’ where someone was asking the Lord about owning this manor and he’s like ‘well, you don’t really own it, there have been hundreds of owners and you are the custodian of it for a brief time.’ That’s what pop music is like. You just have the ball for a minute and you’re gonna pass it on to somebody else. 

We will soon see you in the UK for your arena tour. How do you reflect on your relationship with the fans over here? 

PETE: I remember the first time we went to the UK, I wasn’t prepared for how culturally different it was. When we played Reading & Leeds and the summer festivals, it was so different, and so much deeper within the culture. It was a little bit of a shock. The first couple of times we played, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, are we gonna die?’ because the crowd was so crazy, and there was bottles. Then when we came back, we thought maybe this is a beast to be tamed. Finally, you realise it’s a trading of energy. That made the last couple of festivals we played so fucking awesome. When you realise that the fans over there are real fans of music It’s really awesome and pretty beautiful. 

PATRICK: We’ve played the UK now more than a lot of regions of the states. Pretty early on, I just clicked with it. There were differences, cultural things and things that you didn’t expect. But it never felt that different or foreign to me, just a different flavour…

PETE: This is why me and Patrick work so well together (laughs). 

PATRICK: Well, listen; I’m a rainy weather guy. There is just things that I get there. I don’t really drink anymore all that much. But I totally will have a beer in the UL, there’s something different about every aspect of it, about the ordering of it, about the flavour of it, everything, it’s like a different vibe. The UK audience seemed to click with us too. There have been plenty of times where we felt almost like a UK band than an American one. There have been years where you go there and almost get a more familial reaction than you would at home. 

Rock Sound has always been a part of that for us. It was one of the first magazines to care about us and the first magazine to do real interviews. That’s the thing, you would do all these interviews and a lot of them would be like ‘so where did the band’s name come from?’ But Rock Sound took us seriously as artists, maybe before some of us did. That actually made us think about who we are and that was a really cool experience. I think in a lot of ways, we wouldn’t be the band we are without the UK, because I think it taught us a lot about what it is to be yourself. 

Fall Out Boy’s ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ is out now via Fueled By Ramen

[ghaazelle]

Alchemize your sorrow

⚛︎ Transmutation of energy is performed by everybody. It is transformative to transmute energy into another form, even magical. Some people allow it to destroy their lives, their relationships, and their own person. Like a chemical reaction, two reactants are added and they combine to form a completely different thing, which can either taste yummy or burn your skin.

                  We hear the world “alchemist” in movies, and we correlate it with a compliment, which is absolutely accurate. In simple terms, being an alchemist means you are put into a sh*tty situation, and you transform your feelings and/or reality into something of benefit to you and whomever you care about. 

⚛︎ I was watching Doctor who, and an episode about Vincent Van Gogh came about. I decided to invite my baby brother to watch with me(6 years old, but still my baby, and don’t tell him I called him that) Whilst his curiosity unraveled, he asked me “why are Gogh’s paintings so famous?”. I stayed quiet for a moment, taking in all of the dark stories I heard about his life and taking a look at the bright, peace-inducing and hopeful art he has created years before he took his own life. You would assume that a lonely, poor man with no emotional or social support would rather produce dark and miserable art. If he couldn’t avenge the universe for his miseries, he must have wanted to create heart-wrenching art, yeah? No. 

⚛︎ Van Gogh was an Alchemist, he desired to create for himself the life he wanted. For the hours of his day where he produced his art, he decided to manifest a world of brightness. His painting “Cafè Terrace At Night” displays his alchemy perfectly. He would draw the melancholic sceneries he saw in his hometown but would add life to them, and a spark of un-escapable happiness.

Subconsciously, we all know that alchemy Is important, and sometimes, it’s a method of survival. If the Palestinian people remained drowning in their miseries and losses every day without transpiring actions, they would’ve perished as a nation by now. Alchemy is Strength. 

Even something as mundane as baking a cake that ends up crumbling, instead of dwelling over it, you decide to make chocolate pudding out of the cake crumbs instead. Congratulations, You have alchemized your un-satisfactory situation.

⚛︎ What gives people inner peace is being able to perceive their own flaws, accept themselves despite of them, and if they can, they would alchemize those flaws into strength. For example, if a person is excessively emotional, to the point of misery and doubt and fear, they would celebrate the blessing of being able to feel. Despite the shadow of being a soul that carries their emotions on their sleeves, they’re offered the blessings of large empathy, creativity and presence in a world where connection is lost to screens and uneasiness.

Emotional people understand feelings. They become more emotionally intelligent by the day. To alchemize their situation, they will learn to put their shadow side to war. They would turn their anger into a piece of art, whether it be dancing or painting or playing chess, and when they cool down, they’ll calmly communicate their feelings, to themselves or others. If they feel insecure about their appearance, they would find out, intently, why? And despite of it, they will not cover their insecurity but allow it to be. And suddenly, they alchemized their insecurity from fear of being judged to confidence and poise, even if they still feel insecure on the inside.

⚛︎ Women often quote “ it turns me on when my man handles my attitude and manhandles me instead of arguing back or reacting”. Women find this attractive because men turn into alchemists when they manhandle their women and listen to her calmly when she’s reactive or bratty. That is because it is a strength that some of these men have. They can look at the bigger picture and understand that her emotions are getting a hold of her at the moment, and it is nothing but a passing moment, hour, or max a day. They understand that they are more rational than those problem. Some men start smiling and kissing their partners when they act bratty, or compliment her an extra little. If needed, these men will listen intently to her words during her episode and respond with reassuring responses to each of the points she made.

After that warm embrace of a man, I say a women would take a day max on a little issue that feels large in her mind because women indefinitely melt to being softly handled and listened to. At that point, the woman starts perceiving her initially horrible and “end of the world problem” as a little issue that is salvageable. At that point, she also is an alchemist. She turns her rage as appreciation and admiration for her man, that took her under his arms, with safety and patience. She shows and tells him that she appreciates him a little more, and acknowledges his strength. She reignites the passion in the relationship with her fun energy. With consistency, trust builds, and both the partner’s art of alchemy grows daily.

⚛︎ Both partners turn into alchemists since the man transformed his perception of her attitude into her need for care, and as a result, the woman transforms her negative feelings into an expression of calmness and appreciation for her man, which will make him feel respected by his woman and looked up to by her. She would feel safe, relaxed and optimistic again whilst he will feel victorious, respected and appreciated. They bond harmonically.

⚛︎ Alchemy is a choice, and an art to behold.

[softnsquishable]

Thanks to this lovely post, I have been able to transcribe the entirety of the new Rock Sound magazine interview with Pete and Patrick. Find the entire transcript below the cut!

WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE

WITH THE TRIUMPHANT ‘SO MUCH (FOR) STARDUST’ CAPTURING A WHOLE NEW GENERATION OF FANS, FALL OUT BOY ARE RIDING HIGH. CELEBRATING THEIR PAST WHILE LOOKING TOWARDS A BRIGHT FUTURE. PETE WENTZ AND PATRICK STUMP REFLECT ON RECENT SUCCESSES AND THE LESSONS LEARNED FROM TWO DECADES OF WRITING AND PERFORMING TOGETHER. 

You have just completed a US summer tour that included stadium shows and some of your most ambitious production to date. What were your aims going into this particular show?

Pete: Playing stadiums is a funny thing. I pushed pretty hard to do a couple this time because I think that the record Patrick came up with musically lends itself to that feeling of being part of something larger than yourself. When we were designing the cover to the album, it was meant to be all tangible, which was a reaction to tokens and skins that you can buy and avatars. The title is made out of clay, and the painting is an actual painting. We wanted to approach the show in that way as well. We’ve been playing in front of a gigantic video wall for the past eight years. Now, we wanted a stage show where you could actually walk inside it.

Did adding the new songs from ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ into the setlist change the way you felt about them?

Patrick: One of the things that was interesting about the record was that we took a lot of time figuring out what it was going to be, what it was going to sound like. We experimented with so many different things. I was instantly really proud. I felt really good about this record but it wasn’t until we got on stage and you’re playing the songs in between our catalogue that I really felt that.It was really noticeable from the first day on this tour - we felt like a different band. There’s a new energy to it. There was something that I could hear live that I couldn’t hear before.

You also revisited a lot of older tracks and b-sides on this tour, including many from the ‘Folie à Deux’-era. What prompted those choices?

Pete: There were some lean years where there weren’t a lot of rock bands being played on pop radio or playing award shows so we tried to play the biggest songs, the biggest versions of them. We tried to make our thing really airtight, bulletproof so that when we played next to whoever the top artist was, people were like, ‘oh yeah, they should be here.’ The culture shift in the world is so interesting because now, maybe rather than going wider, it makes more sense to go deeper with people. We thought about that in the way that we listen to music and the way we watch films. Playing a song that is a b-side or barely made a record but is someone's favorite song makes a lot of sense in this era.

Patrick: I think there also was a period there where, to Pete’s point, it was a weird time to be a rock band. We had this very strange thing that happened to us, and not a lot of our friends for some reason, where we had a bunch of hits, right? And it didn’t make any sense to me. It still doesn’t make sense to me. But there was a kind of novelty, where we could play a whole set of songs that a lot of people know. It was fun and rewarding for us to do that. But then you run the risk of playing the same set forever. I want to love the songs that we play. I want to care about it and put passion into what we do.  And there’s no sustainable way to just do the same thing every night and not get jaded. We weren’t getting there but I really wanted to make sure that we don’t ever get there.

Pete: In the origin of Fall Out Boy, what happened at our concerts was we knew how to play five songs really fast and jumped off walls and the fire marshal would shut it down. It was what made the show memorable, but we wanted to be able to last and so we tried to perfect our show and the songs and the stage show and make it flawless. Then you don’t really know how much spontaneity you want to include, because something could go wrong. When we started this tour, and we did a couple of spontaneous things, it opened us up to more. Because things did go wrong and that’s what made the show special. We’re doing what is the most punk rock version of what we could be doing right now. 

You seem generally a lot more comfortable celebrating your past success at this point in your career.

Pete: I think it’s actually not a change from our past. I love those records, but I never want to treat them in a cynical way. I never want there to be a wink and a smile where we’re just doing this because it’s the anniversary. Thai was us celebrating these random songs and we hope people celebrate them with us. There was a purity to it that felt in line with how we always felt about it. I love ‘Folie à Deux’ - out of any Fall Out Boy record that’s probably the one I would listen to. But I just never want it to be done in a cynical way, where we feel like we have to. But celebrating it in a way where there’s the purity of how we felt when we wrote the song originally, I think that’s fucking awesome.

Patrick: Music is a weird art form. Because when you’re an actor and you play a character, that is a specific thing. James Bond always wears a suit and has a gun and is a secret agent. If you change one thing, that’s fine, but you can’t really change all of it. But bands are just people. You are yourself. People get attached to it like it’s a story but it’s not. That was always something that I found difficult. For the story, it’s always good to say, ‘it’s the 20th anniversary, let’s go do the 20th anniversary tour,’ that’s a good story thing. But it’s not always honest. We never stopped playing a lot of the songs from ‘Take This To Your Grave’, right? So why would I need to do a 20-year anniversary and perform all the songs back to back? The only reason would be because it would probably sell a lot of tickets and I don’t really ever want to be motivated by that, frankly. 

One of the things that’s been amazing is that now as the band has been around for a while, we have different layers of audience. I love ‘Folie à Deux’, I do, I love that record. But I had a really personally negative experience of touring on it. So that’s what I think of when I think of that record initially. It had to be brought back to me for me to appreciate it, for me to go, ‘oh, this record is really great. I should be happy with this. I should want to play this.’ So that’s why we got into a lot of the b-sides because we realized that our perspectives on a lot of these songs were based in our feelings and experiences from when we were making them. But you can find new experiences if you play those songs. You can make new memories with them. 

You alluded there to the 20th anniversary of ‘Take This To Your Grave’. Obviously you have changed and developed as a band hugely since then. But is there anything you can point to about making that debut record that has remained as a part of your process since then?

Pete: We have a language, the band, and it’s definitely a language of cinema and film. That’s maintained through time. We have very disparate musical tastes and influences but I think film was a place we really aligned. You could have a deep discussion, because none of us were filmmakers. You could say which part was good and which part sucked and not hurt anybody’s feelings, because you weren’t going out to make a film the next day. Whereas with music, I think if we’d only had that to talk about, we would have turned out a different band. 

Patrick: ‘Take This To Your Grave’, even though it’s absolutely our first record, there’s an element of it that’s still a work in progress. It is still a band figuring itself out. Andy wasn’t even officially in the band for half of the recording, right? I wasn’t even officially the guitar player for half of the recording. We were still bumbling through it. There was something that popped up a couple times throughout that record where you got these little inklings of who the band really was. We really explored that on ‘From Under The Cork Tree’. 

So when we talk about what has remained the same…I didn’t want to be a singer, I didn’t know anything about singing. I wasn’t planning on that. I didn’t even plan to really be in this band for that long because Pete had a real band that really toured so I thought this was gonna be a side project. So there’s always been this element within the band where I don’t put too many expectations on things and then Pete has this really big ambition, creatively. There’s this great interplay between the two of us where I’m kind of oblivious, and I don’t know when I’m putting out a big idea and Pete has this amazing vision to find what goes where. There’s something really magical about that because I never could have done a band like this without it. We needed everybody, we needed all four of us. And I think that’s the thing that hasn’t changed. - the four of us just being ourselves and trying to figure things out. Listening back to ‘Folie’ or ‘Infinity On High’ or ‘American Beauty’, I’m always amazed at how much better they are then I remember. I listened to ‘MANIA’ the other day. I have a lot of misgivings about that record, a lot of things that I’m frustrated about. But then I’m listening to it and I’m like, ‘this is pretty good.’ There’s a lot of good things in there. I don’t know why, it’s kind of like you can’t see those things. It’s kind of amazing to have Pete be able to see those things. And likewise, sometimes Pete has no idea when he writes something brilliant, as a lyricist, and I have to go, ‘No, I’m gonna keep that one, I’m gonna use that.’ 

On ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ you teamed up with producer Neal Avron again for the first time since 2008. Given how much time has passed, did it take a minute to reestablish that connection or did you pick up where you left off?

Patrick: It really didn’t feel like any time had passed between us and Neal. It was pretty seamless in terms of working with him. But then there was also that weird aspect where the last time we had worked with him was kind of contentious. Interpersonally, the four of us were kind of fighting with each other…as much as we do anyway. We say that and the myth gets built bigger than it was. We were always pretty cool with each other. It’s just that the least cool was making ‘Folie’. So then getting into it again for this record, it was like no time had passed as people but the four of us got on better so we had more to bring to Neal.

Pete: It’s a little bit like when you return to your parents’ house for a holiday break when you’re in college. It’s the same house but now I can drink with my parents. We’d grown up and the first times we worked with Neal, he had to do so much more boy scout leadership, ‘you guys are all gonna be okay, we’re gonna do this activity to earn this badge so you guys don’t fucking murder each other.’ This time, we probably got a different version of Neal that was even more creative, because he had to do less psychotherapy. 

He went deep too. Sometimes when you’re in a session with somebody, and they’re like, ‘what are we singing about?’, I’ll just be like, ‘stuff’. He was not cool with ‘stuff’. I would get up and go into the bathroom outside the studio and look in the mirror, and think ‘what is it about? How deep are we gonna go?’ That’s a little bit scarier to ask yourself. If last time Neal was like a boy scout leader, this time, it was more like a Sherpa. He was helping us get to the summit. 

The title track of the album also finds you in a very reflective mood, even bringing back lyrics from ‘Love From The Other Side’. How would you describe the meaning behind that title and the song itself?

Pete: The record title has a couple of different meanings, I guess. The biggest one to me is that we basically all are former stars. That’s what we’re made of, those pieces of carbon. It still feels like the world’s gonna blow and it’s all moving too fast and the wrong things are moving too slow. That track in particular looks back at where you sometimes wish things had gone differently. But this is more from the perspective of when you’re watching a space movie, and they’re too far away and they can’t quite make it back. It doesn’t matter what they do and at some point, the astronaut accepts that. But they’re close enough that you can see the look on their face. I feel like there’s moments like that in the title track. I wish some things were different. But, as an adult going through this, you are too far away from the tether, and you’re just floating into space. It is sad and lonely but in some ways, it’s kind of freeing, because there’s other aspects of our world and my life that I love and that I want to keep shaping and changing.

Patrick: I’ll open up Pete’s lyrics and I just start hearing things. It almost feels effortless in a lot of ways. I just read his lyrics and something starts happening in my head. The first line, ‘I’m in a winter mood, dreaming of spring now’, instantly the piano started to form to me. That was a song that I came close to not sending to the band. When I make demos, I’ll usually wait until I have five or six to send to everybody. I didn’t know if anyone was gonna like this. It’s too moody or it’s not very us. But it was pretty unanimous. Everybody liked that one. I knew this had to end the record. It took on a different life in the context of the whole album. Then on the bridge section, I knew it was going to be the lyrics from ‘Love For The Other Side’. It’s got to come back here. It’s the bookends, but I also love lyrically what it does, you know, ‘in another life, you were my babe’, going back to that kind of regret, which feels different in ‘Love For The Other Side’ than it does here. When the whole song came together, it was the statement of the record. 

Aside from the album, you have released a few more recent tracks that have opened you up to a whole new audience, most notably the collaboration with Taylor Swift on ‘Electric Touch’. 

Pete: Taylor is the only artist that I’ve met or interacted with in recent times who creates exactly the art of who she is, but does it on such a mass level. So that’s breathtaking to watch from the sidelines. The way fans traded friendship bracelets, I don’t know what the beginning of it was, but you felt that everywhere. We felt that, I saw that in the crowd on our tour. I don’t know Taylor well, but I think she’s doing exactly what she wants and creating exactly the art she wants to create. And doing that, on such a level, is really awe-inspiring to watch. It makes you want to make the biggest, weirdest version of our thing and put that out there. 

Then there was the cover of Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’, which has had some big chart success for you. That must have taken you slightly by surprise.

Patrick: It’s pretty unexpected. Pete and I were going back and forth about songs we should cover and that was an idea that I had. This is so silly but there was a song a bunch of years ago I had kind of written called ‘Dark Horse' and then there was a Katy Perry song called ‘Dark Horse’ and I was like, ‘damn it’, you know, I missed the boat on that one. So I thought if we don’t do this cover, somebody else is gonna do it. Let’s just get in the studio and just do it. We spent way more time on those lyrics than you would think because we really wanted to get a specific feel. It was really fun and kind of loose, we just came together in Neal’s house and recorded it in a day.

Pete: There’s irreverence to it. I thought the coolest thing was when Billy Joel got asked about it, and he was like, ‘I’m not updating it, that’s fine, go for it.’ I hope if somebody ever chooses to update one of ours, we’d be like that. Let them do their thing, they'll have that version. I thought that was so fucking cool. 

It’s also no secret that the sound you became most known for in the mid-2000s is having something of a commercial revival right now. But what is interesting is seeing how bands are building on that sound and changing it. 

Patrick: I love when anybody does anything that feels honest to them. Touring with Bring Me The Horizon, it was really cool seeing what’s natural to them. It makes sense. We changed our sound over time but we were always going to do that. It wasn’t a premeditated thing but for the four of us, it would have been impossible to maintain making the same kind of music forever. Whereas you’ll play with some other hands and they live that one sound. You meet up with them for dinner or something and they’re wearing the shirt of the band that sounds just like their band. You go to their house and they’re playing other bands that sound like them because they live in that thing. Whereas with the four of us and bands like Bring Me The Horizon, we change our sounds over time. And there’s nothing wrong with that either. The only thing that’s wrong is if it’s unnatural to you. If you’re AC/DC and all of a sudden power ballads are in and you’re like, ‘Okay, we’ve got to do a power ballad’, that’s when it sucks. But if you’re a thrash metal guy who also likes Celine Dion then yeah, do a power ballad. Emo as a word doesn’t mean anything anymore. But if people want to call it that, if the emo thing is back or having another life again, if that’s what’s natural to an artist, I think the world needs more earnest art. If that’s who you are, then do it.

Pete: It would be super egotistical to think that the wave started with us and My Chemical Romance and Panic! At The Disco has just been circling and cycling back. I remember seeing Nikki Sixx at the airport and he was like, ‘Oh, you’re doing a flaming bass? Mine came from a backpack.’ It keeps coming back but it looks different. Talking to Lil Uzi Vert and Juice WRLD when he was around, it’s so interesting, because it’s so much bigger than just emo or whatever. It’s this whole big pop music thing that’s spinning and churning, and then it moves on., and then it comes back with different aspects and some of the other stuff combined. When you’re a fan of music and art and film, you take different stuff, you add different ingredients, because that’s your taste. Seeing the bands that are up and coming to me, it’s so exciting, because the rules are just different, right? It’s really cool to see artists that lean into the weirdness and lean into a left turn when everyone’s telling you to make a right. That’s so refreshing. 

Patrick: It’s really important as an artist gets older to not put too much stock in your own influence. The moment right now that we’re in is bigger than emo and bigger than whatever was happening in 2005. There’s a great line in ‘Downton Abbey’ where someone was asking the Lord about owning this manor and he’s like, ‘well, you don’t really own it, there have been hundreds of owners and you are the custodian of it for a brief time.’ That’s what pop music is like. You just have the ball for a minute and you’re gonna pass it on to somebody else.

We will soon see you in the UK for your arena tour. How do you reflect on your relationship with the fans over here?

Pete: I remember the first time we went to the UK, I wasn’t prepared for how culturally different it was. When we played Reading & Leeds and the summer festivals, it was so different, and so much deeper within the culture. It was a little bit of a shock. The first couple of times we played, I was like, ‘Oh my God, are we gonna die?” because the crowd was so crazy, and there was bottles. Then when we came back, we thought maybe this is a beast to be tamed. Finally, you realize it’s a trading of energy. That made the last couple of festivals we played so fucking awesome. When you really realize that the fans over there are real fans of music. It’s really awesome and pretty beautiful. 

Patrick: We’ve played the UK now more than a lot of regions of the states. Pretty early on, I just clicked with it. There were differences, cultural things and things that you didn’t expect. But it never felt that different or foreign to me, just a different flavor…

Pete: This is why me and Patrick work so well together (laughs).

Patrick: Well, listen; I’m a rainy weather guy. There is just things that I get there. I don’t really drink anymore all that much. But I totally will have a beer in the UK, there’s something different about every aspect of it, about the ordering of it, about the flavor of it, everything, it’s like a different vibe. The UK Audience seemed to click with us too. There have been plenty of times where we felt almost more like a UK band than an American one. There have been years where you go there and almost get a more familial reaction than you would at home. 

Rock Sound has always been a part of that for us. It was one of the first magazines to care about us and the first magazine to do real interviews. That’s the thing, you would do all these interviews and a lot of them would be like ‘so where did the band’s name come from?” But Rock Sound took us seriously as artists, maybe before some of us did. That actually made us think about who we are and that was a really cool experience. I think in a lot of ways, we wouldn’t be the band we are without the UK, because I think it taught us a lot about what it is to be yourself.

Fall Out Boy’s ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ is out now via Fueled By Ramen. 

[iamnotawomanimagod]

what a setlist!! and my thoughts below (spoilers for the FMLT tour):

I never EVER would've guessed "Darwinism" as the opener. I wasn't even sure it was gonna make the show at all. It feels like a slow starter?? The Tradition was kind of slow, too, so I guess it isn't that crazy.

I'm also very excited and surprised she was on the piano. Lowkey wondering if she was just faking lmao. Not that she can't play piano, she just very rarely plays an instrument and sings at the same time. (They've admitted themselves that they're not great at that.)

also a lot of HFK, maybe more than I was expecting. Only two songs from Manic (not counting Without Me, which I don't, since it was a standalone single first). I'm surprised at how much IICHLIWP made it, since that was the focus of the setlist on the last tour.

I was really surprised that Safeword and Hometown didn't make it. Plus a few others they mentioned maybe doing live, like Life of the Spider. I'm betting the setlist is going to change over time.

The debuts:

Darwinism, Arsonist, Alice of the Upper Class, Only Living Girl in LA

Oldies played for the first time in awhile:

Alone, Angel on Fire, Drive, Control

I'm watching some videos now, and it is a VERY different show from L&P. Choreography, dancers, special sets for certain songs, costume changes.

Kind of funny in retrospect, because at my L&P show she was like "I don't think the math is mathing with all the extra stuff so for this tour you just get me!" A huuuuge departure from that.

She's not using a held mic for a lot of it, her hands are free, which is understandable but also I'll miss the mic tricks and flips.

I think she's partially adjusting to make sure she can keep up her stamina. They're spending a lot of time sitting down or on the ground with the songs I'm seeing. Dog Years and Control in particular. And the ones they're not on the ground for, they're not running around all crazy like they frequently do.

I don't think that's a bad thing, tour is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. So if they made some choices to make it easier and more sustainable for herself, that's a very very good thing.

But tbh, overall...

It looks like an incredible show, but it also doesn't look like MY kind of show. They're playing a lot of songs I don't care for that much, and I'm just not usually into shows that have a bunch of crazy extras. I'm too used to rock/alternative shows where it's just the band, lights, and maybe some pyro. I definitely prefer a more stripped-back show where the songs and vocals and instrumentals can just stand on their own.

After seeing all of this, I'm not feeling as bad about not going. I think I'd have a good time, but it wouldn't compare to the L&P tour for me.

Also they're sticking to their guns about Dog Years being a sexy song, and the concept and design for that performance plays into that hard, and I'm just... ugh. It's their song, if they decide it's sexy than I can't exactly argue. But I first and foremost associate that song with suicidal ideation since, you know, that's what the lyrics are about. That was one of the songs I was most looking forward to, so knowing that's how it's being presented makes me a lot less excited to see it.

On the bright side, I'm very excited to see all the videos and what changes might be coming as tour continues!! That was only night one, who knows what else is in store! The L&P tour changed a lot over time.

[alianoralacanta]

Hi, Alianora :) I've been reading your essays and you're just brilliant! I was wondering about your F1 journey, and I wanted to ask how did you get into it, and what's your journey been like? I know you supported Jules and you support Charles too but I would love to know more.

Thank you for the kind comment, anon :)

I had, and still have, a much longer version of this. I'm not sure how 100% sure to answer the "What's your journey been like?" part but I will try. Please let me know if you're interested in particular bits of the longer piece (it's definitely too long to submit in one go). I'm a 3rd-generation F1 fan, and my parents tell me I watched some of the Mansell era with them, back when I was too young to understand what was going on. While I distinctly remember being interested in his move to Indycars, I don't recall these F1 races. I do recall the moment I decided to become a F1 fan. France 1993. I'd been playing football outside when it started raining. The living room had F1 on (my parents were obviously watching) and I was entranced by the multi-coloured pointy things and the fact the names were on screen. When I found out there were books about F1, that sealed the deal. I'm a bookworm and the intellectual side of F1 came through very clearly. (One of the books helpfully had a section on how much safety had improved since the early days, despite being written in 1980. This was a lot of the reason I didn't quit watching F1 in the immediate aftermath of Imola 1994).

Damon Hill was the first driver I supported - because his last name was short. Despite that unpromising selection criterion, he made me a very happy fan because of his intellectual approach and determination. The 18 months covering his time at Arrows (a near-backmarker team) and the half-season at Jordan where he scored absolutely nothing were when I learned the basics of how to handle being a fan during bad performances. Spain 1998 was when I started supporting my team. Damon Hill had retired from the race ten laps earlier when I suddenly heard myself saying, "Come on Ralf!" Followed by wondering, "Who's Ralf, apart from Damon's team-mate and Michael Schumacher's brother?" That was when I realised I'd been attracted by Eddie Jordan's bright and feisty attitude, combined with its non-nonsense racing crew. I've now supported Jordan through five name changes. Giancarlo "Fisico" Fisichella was someone I started supporting because I saw an interview after Spain 2001 that made me think he had a really interesting way of seeing the world. I think I was right :) I'm still supporting him in his Italian GT adventures and am happy he can now depend on Arthur Leclerc's help.

The following year, Dad and I went to Silverstone to watch F1 qualifying. The fan belt broke on the car but we still got there in time to watch the end of the last practise session, as well as qualifying itself. Dad participated in the infamous prediction quiz that he lost to Alex Albon (I think Dad got 1 position out of the 5 correct), and I discovered that wearing a yellow hat meant getting followed by half of Silverstone's flying insect population. None of this put us off returning for the whole weekend in 2009. In 2003, I discovered F1 forums. My first forum was Home of F1 and my second post (trying to explain why BAR's desire to present itself as perfect would annoy recently-dismissed driver Jacques Villeneuve) caused a minor flame war until I clarified that I did not think BAR was perfect. I've seen jokes about the reading standard on Tumblr; rest assured the generation of internet users before this one was just as bad. I also found a Jordan-specific forum that was much more chilled. There was one particularly gatekeepery user who looked down upon Jordan fans, but I managed to convince even that one (never learned the user's gender) to not deploy it against me or in my sight, because I always had a good logical takedown of the hole in the arguments employed for those attacks. Part of the reason I could do this was F1 Magazine, which helpfully provided practise in the form of its Tom Rubython columns. Every month, he would write a "take" on F1 and it was one's mission, as the reader, to find and pull the thread which made the entire argument unravel. (Not that Tom was ever aware that this was arguably the best use of his column).

I started supporting Tiago Monteiro when he joined F1 in 2005, because I liked his backstory; absolutely no interest in F1 until the second year of university, whereupon a friend invited him to a track day. He then substituted for an injured friend in an entry-level series. He ended up enjoying it so much that after he graduated with a degree in hotel management, he decided to take up racing and see if he could make a career of it. Which he did. Including a point at Spa of all places and being the only person who was happy at Indianapolis 2005. Now he's a regular podium-finisher in the 24 Hours of the Nurburgring. I started blogging in F1 (La Canta Magnifico Blog) shortly after Spa 2005, because the forum I was on split. I'd got friends on both fora and continued writing on both. The "new" forum wanted to get more people reading it. Initially there were four people writing, but I took the opportunity to start writing posts on other blogs and websites which interested me. The only ones which still exist are RaceFans.net (back when it was still one particularly devoted fan's blog) and a small forum called GP Wizard. Within six weeks, the other three had stopped writing their posts and focused their efforts on commenting on mine. Both fora sank in 2008. Although I have a number of posts from that time, it's not a full archive, rather a selection of highlights.

I spent a season as admin of the Jordan forum, the one that was Fisichella's last year in F1. This was also the year I managed to get onto the official Fisichella Forum (this was in the last years of drivers having fora they officially sanctioned). This gave me the confidence to help rescue the official Fisichella Forum when its management deleted it at the start of 2010 (apparently forgetting there were about 100 people still using it at that point and that they might appreciate at least a few days' warning to archive their writings!). I was a co-admin from 2010 until it ended in 2018, having spent the last three years as the sole admin with an audience of three people plus an ever-rising tide of spambots. I still have a penpal from that forum.

Jules Bianchi entered my awareness in 2010, because one of his jobs was clearly being prepared to be reserve Ferrari driver and a lot of Fisico's fans were initially annoyed because they thought that was Fisico's job. However, it was the way he did the Force India reserve job in 2012 that made me a fan. Here was someone who felt like he was completely embedded within his team, with a brilliant attitude, despite patently belonging in a much better position. I was sad when he didn't get the Force India position, but his adamantine willpower and gratitude went a long way towards making the Marussia/Manor team more than I think it had imagined being. Jules gathered together a group of friends who enjoyed being around that positivity and determination, several of whom made it to F1 in their own right. In September 2014, one of the journalists I respected the most about junior series observed that one of the youngest members of that group was doing very well in FRECA and displaying much of Jules' personality. I looked at the article and thought, "Well, I could spend 5 years waiting for this driver to go through the junior ranks and inevitably start supporting him in F1 - or start doing it now and enjoy the journey." With that, I started supporting Charles Leclerc and am very happy to have made that choice. Oh, nearly forgot to mention my solo F1-related trips: the annual visit to the Force India/Racing Point reception with goodies for much of the 2010s, visiting the Manor factory a few times during the short time in 2015 the F1 operation was based next to a steel merchant in Dinnington and the epic fail that was my trip to Hungary 2018 (so fail-y that I only found out who won a week later). Hope this helps.

[my-film-reel-world]

I Just Watched: The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

(Watched on Super Mar10 Day)

My first exposure to the world of Super Mario came about in around 2009-2010 when my parents gave me and my sister the Nintendo Wii for Christmas as well as two games that (I think) came with it: Wii Sports Resort and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I enjoyed playing both of them, but it was NSMBWii that drew me in the most. I was just so immersed in this unique, colourful, and vibrant world Mario, his brother Luigi, and the rest of the gang lived in. In fact, I adored that game so much that I went on a hunt for more Mario related games to play: Super Paper Mario, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Mario Kart Wii, Mario Party 8 & 9, the Mario and Sonic sports games, Donkey Kong Country Returns, and even New Super Mario Bros. and Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini Land Mayhem on the Nintendo DS, which I got for my birthday not long after my parents got us the Wii. I have such fond memories playing all those games. They are all so fun and exciting and, like I said, the world is immersive and beautiful, one that I would love to live in in real life if it were possible.

This Mar10 Day, I decided to do something a little bit different. Instead of playing the Mario games I loved and enjoyed since childhood, I wanted to watch a Mario movie. No, not the one from 1993 starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. I actually saw that film when I was really into the games and I remember being disappointed by it. The one I'm referring to is The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which came out in 2023, and...well...it’s certainly 100x better than the 1993 version, I can tell you that!

Whereas the 1993 version was filmed in live action and had a weird, dark, grimy Blade Runner-esque edge to it along with a confusing storyline, the 2023 version was CGI animated and had bright, colourful visuals and a storyline that's easier to follow as well as being more energetic and fun. It was also filled with Easter Eggs galore for diehard fans to spot, from the obvious to the cleverly hidden. This showed how much Illumination respected the Mario property; they've certainly done their homework for a lot of the moments in the film that related to the games. I'm impressed! I was a bit worried before going into it because, well...it's Illumination, and anything they make is usually braindead kiddie rubbish. However, I was pleasantly surprised with how the studio handled this film.

The animation was gorgeous; fluid and fast paced. Some scenes tended to be a little hyperactive, but for the most part, it was lots of fun to watch, especially regarding the action sequences. The characters looked perfect, like they all came straight out of the games, something the '93 version failed to capture. The voice acting was okay. I wasn't a huge fan of Chris Pratt being the voice of Mario, but it grew on me a bit by the end. I ADORED Jack Black's performance as Bowser; he was delightful in the role even though I'm not a fan of him as an actor. He expertly managed to balance Bowser's evil side and his charismatic side so well, which made him both intimidating and charming as a villain at the same time. The rest of the cast were fine and suited the characters they played well enough.

The thing that I thought was incredibly sweet was Charles Martinet playing the role of Mario's dad. For those who don't know, Charles Martinet was the original voice of Mario in the games and who just recently hung his hat up, so to speak, after 30 amazing years voicing the character. Towards the end of the film, when he said the line, "These are my boys!", it very nearly made me cry. Genuinely! Like, yes! These *are* your boys, the boys you have been voicing for 30 years across so many Mario games. What a lovely tribute! 🥹💓

Now for the film itself: It's interesting how Princess Peach isn't the one getting kidnapped like she usually does in most of the mainline Mario games, and it's Mario's brother Luigi who gets kidnapped instead. While some fans might not like this change, I personally have no problems with it. It also allows Peach to have some character development: She actually acts how a royal would act and she behaves like someone who has lived in the Mushroom Kingdom for a long, long time, so it's perfect. I was surprised when the film revealed a little bit of her backstory of how she came to the Mushroom Kingdom, but I was disappointed they didn't delve into it further. I really wished we could've explored that aspect of the story more. Maybe that's all saved up for the sequel, who knows?

I enjoyed the lovely, earnest bond between Mario and Luigi; it's handled and portrayed so realistically and beautifully. I really bought into their relationship because of that. It made the final battle with Bowser feel rewarding as a result.

Overall, The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) is a very nostalgic viewing experience that entertained me to no end. It may have relied mostly on spectacle and Illumination level humour more than telling a character driven story, but I had such a fun time watching it that I can't really be mad at it. I was grinning like an idiot the whole way through!

8/10

(Review also on my Letterboxd)

[lovelymindescape]

hi! i was wondering if i could get romantic male matchup for the hobbit and/or stranger things?

my pronouns are she/her

i'm enfp 7w8, leo

i'm 6'0 and have amber eyes, long gold blond curly hair and hourglass figure

i'm positive and upbeat person, i try to see the bright side in most situations

i'm friendly, energetic, confident, sarcastic, responsible, maybe a bit chaotic, cheerful and bubbly

i care about my friends and family a lot, and go out of my way to show it

i enjoy having fun and living life to the fullest

i'm very competitive and passionate person

i really like puzzles, riddles and crosswords

i love making people smile

i have morbid, dark sense of humor

sometimes i randomly say a weird obscure fact in the middle of conversation

i can play on violin, cello, piano, guitar, saxophone, harp and drums, i'm currently learning how to play on trumpet

i like poetry and sometimes i write a poem or two, also i'm writing my book

i'm ballet dancer since i was a kid and i love performing

i'm working on my own cartoon

i never quite grew out of the fantasy phase, and i'm still enamored with tales of changelings and witches

i work as illustrator for fantasy books and books for kids

i'm kinda struggling with taking rest, doing nothing, because there is always something to do, something new to learn, etc.

i'm afraid of stagnation

i overuse this kind of emojis→(⁠ㆁ⁠ω⁠ㆁ⁠)

my style is something between whimsigothic and cryptidcore

i love: collecting things, astronomy, tea, making and watching movies, forests, making jewelry, cooking, baking, d&d, horrors, animals, plants, gardening, traveling, art, history, world mythologies, learning new things, psychology, handicraft

sorry if it's too chaotic

i hope you have a fantastic day (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)

You sound like a very cool person to me <3 I had much Information to work with and it's not to chaotic

I ship you with

LINDIR

you are an elf of Rivendell

your like the good soul of the house

he had known you from the very beginning

one of your closest friends

after years you both had fallen for eachother , but tried to hide it

one day he was walking through the many of the floors to get a clear mind

when he came to your door he heard you playing music

he knocked , you let him in

you were a bit nervous since you were now alone with him but you just kept playin

this day he just sat there and watched you in an awe

after that , the next day dwarfes came to your home , since you good with instruments , you were there to "entertain" them

one of the dwarfs admired you from afar , that´s when Lindir got jealous

he realised he really loved you and he couldn`t keep it to himself anymore

after the dinner , he took you to a bit more silent place

you had a feeling what was coming so when he started talking , you just cut him of by wrapping your hand around his neck

since that day you were happy in a relationship

sometimes you do riddels or puzzels with him , sometimes he just watces you practice ballet or one of your instruments

you write eachother loveletters and poems

at night you sometimes just lay in his arm and he tells you stories or reads to you

he makes sure , that when your working you take a break , drink and eat enough and not overwork yourself

your dates are mostly just meeting maybe at a lake and you make jewelry, while he does some of his hobbies , or you maybe do candle drawing , so it´s mostly just craftdates , or you go out at night and watch the stars

so you got a very loving partner , who would do anthing with and for you

hey , i hope you like it . i´m sorry that´s it so short , i hope it´s ok

it was my first one so tell me if it´ ok and/or what i could do better

[merinarasauce]

Well, this is it, then.

It wasn't like Yaron hadn't... expected this. No-one on her father's side of the family made it to twenty revolutions. They just... wilted. To humans, they were remarkably long-lived, but any other member of her species would have a good thirty revolutions left.

She laid on the hot pavement as the humans shouted at her desperately, thinking to herself, what a fiasco this would be. Not only would her body have to be shipped to the nearest Jakta station for autopsy, they'd have to launch an investigation as per interstellar law, and then they'd have to transport her six hundred light years to her home planet so her family could bury her...

It was a shame. Really.

Yaron wasn't afraid to die. She'd had to confront the idea as a mere sapling, and she'd come to accept it. But still, knowing that the grieving process of her friends and family would have to be disrupted by lawkeepers, that broke her heart.

There was nothing to be done about it. She couldn't speak, couldn't move, so... she just let go.

~~~

Yaron came to with a raging headache, and she shot upright with an alarmed warble. It was so bright. There were tubes and wires running all over her body, and she felt a bandage taped over the left side of her torso.

A human in the corner wearing dull, stiff clothing yelped, dropping a tray full of tools. "Ambassador Yaron-!"

"What happened!?" she demanded, trying to stand. "Why am I not dead??"

"Please calm down-"

"Am I dead? Can't you tell me anyth-"

As soon as Yaron put her full weight on her feet, her joints gave out, and she crumpled.

Lying face-first on the ground, she cursed after a few seconds. "Is nothing simple with you humans?"

Yaron figured pretty quickly that this was a human hospital. It wasn't too far off from those built by her kind- clean, sterile, well-lit. It was much louder, that was certain. And cold.

The humans settled her back into the bed rather quickly, and as they ran some tests, someone in a white coat walked in and sat next to her. She had a round face and dark eyes, her hair pulled back neatly.

"Ambassador Yaron? I'm Dr. Nadia Mundell. I'd like to inform you about the surgery you received."

She extended a hand, which Yaron ignored, feeling sick. "Surgery? You mean- you cut me open?"

Dr. Mundell seemed a bit nervous at that. "Well- uh- it's not quite that simple. I assure you, it was a lifesaving procedure, and we took all possible measures to prevent infection."

Yaron groaned, lacing her fingers through the dense leaves on the nape of her neck. "Of course. Out of anyone, I had to be the unlucky machtarak who collapsed on the human homeworld...!"

The doctor raised a placating hand. "Let me explain what happened and what we did, alright?"

She was met with a huff and a grumbled "Fine."

Dr. Mundell reached over and took a clipboard from a nearby table, flipping through it. "We found out the reason for your collapse was an arrhythmia in your vascular heart. We performed an ultrasound scan- it's just reflected sound waves, completely harmless- and discovered a hard burl nearly blocking your aortic artery."

Yaron watched as the doctor showed her a black-and-white image, and though she didn't know much about anatomy, she could tell the bright white thing circled in red probably wasn't normal.

"It's likely your heart was working much harder than normal to maintain proper blood flow. And, thanks to your venous system, you likely didn't experience many symptoms beyond some mild pain now and again. Does that sound right?"

The ambassador just stared, dumbfounded. "...yeah, I- I guess so..."

"From what I can tell, you were probably born with a thin arterial wall, and micro-tears caused the burl to form. I know the Galactic Council finds it... uh, what did they say... barbaric. But in order to save your life, we had to remove it. Thankfully, it was a success. We'll have to keep an eye on you for a few days. I'd prefer if you kept activity levels fairly low while your artery heals and your heart recovers."

Yaron could barely process all this. Dr. Mundell spoke about it like it was normal. Like it was no big deal. Like causing harm to heal wasn't akin to the witchcraft of a thousand revolutions past. Had she not felt their blades simply because she was unconscious? Or was there more human insanity that she wasn't privy to? How, after opening their eyes to a universe of technology beyond their wildest imaginations, could the humans have known that their methods could still save lives?

All that came out of her mouth was a hoarse "Okay."

Despite medicine reaching its near pinnacle form, humanity still prefers to practice surgery. It is seen as barbaric, invasive even by other alien civilizations. One day, an alien diplomat collapses on human soil and wakes up in a bed with small stitches on their body.

[watchmegetobsessed]

OUR PAST SELF

A/N: its been foereverrrr since i last wrote for my fac family and im also celebrating 13k followers! im so thankful for all of you, i hope to bring you many more stories!!

PAIRING: husband!dad!Harry X Reader

SUMMARY: Reminiscing about what your past self would say if they saw you married with four kids.

WORD COUNT: 985

MORE FROM THE ANOTHER ONE UNIVERSE | SUPPORT ME!

“Babe!”

“What?”

“You have to see this! Come down!”

For a split second you consider ignoring your husband’s request that came from downstairs. You literally just settled down on the bed, opening your book you haven’t gotten to read all week. Chores are done, the twins are at Anne’s and Ellie peacefully playing in her room. You were supposed to have twenty minutes to yourself, maybe thirty if you’re lucky, but now it seems like you’ll have zero.

But then you think of the excitement you heard in Harry’s voice and you know you won’t be able to just sit and not think about what he got so worked up about.

“Coming!” you call out, placing the book back onto the nightstand where it will probably remain untouched for a couple more days.

Walking down the stairs you hear Harry’s song Satellite playing in the living room and it has you wondering what he is about to show you. But as you come around the corner the music cuts off and you find him with Leo in his arms. That little rascal is all smiles, showing all of his total of four teeth. He is the most adorable tiny gentleman with his curls and extra chubby cheeks. All your kids had cheeks that screamed to be pinched and kissed, but it seems like Leo got more of that gene.

“What’s going on here?” you ask, a smile already tugging on your lips.

“Come on, sit down. You need to see what Leo just learned!” Harry gestures towards the couch and you make yourself comfortable, watching him set the toddler down in the middle of the room. The coffee table has been pushed to the side, giving enough room to have a little dance party.

Leo watches his daddy with bright eyes as he grabs the TV remote and he starts the music again. Satellite starts playing and Leo giggles in excitement. Harry sits beside you, watching him proudly as he takes your hand in his, giving it a squeeze.

“Look, watch him now!” he points at Leo.

The song comes to the part where Harry usually does his iconic arm thrusts, the one that makes all his fans go crazy, because it gives an amazing view of his toned arms. But this time he is not the one dancing, instead, Leo is wiggling his arms that distantly resembles what Harry usually does on stage. It’s absolutely, ridiculously, whole-heartedly adorable, adding his giggles and how he bounces, your heart is bursting in your chest.

“Oh my God!” you squeak, grabbing Harry’s bicep as you lean into him, watching your son dance around to his daddy’s music.

“It’s so freaking cute, right?” Harry enthuses. Jumping to his feet he sweeps Leo back into his arms and starts dancing around, making him laugh even louder and there’s nothing sweeter than a baby’s laugh.

You watch them finish their performance and then they join you on the couch, Leo climbing over to you, settling on your lap. You brush his hair out of his forehead and kiss the crown of his head.

“Can you believe he’ll be one year old next month?” you sigh, snuggling to Harry’s side.

“Crazy, huh?”

“Mind-blowing,” you admit with a chuckle.

“You remember how it went when I told you I wanted another one?” he grins, poking Leo’s tummy playfully.

“Hey, you said you wouldn’t hold it against me!” you protest.

“I’m not, it’s just sweet how hesitant you were and now…”

“Now I couldn’t even imagine life without him,” you finish his thought, kissing Leo’s cheek.

“We’ve made some really awesome babies, huh?” he smirks, clearly so full of himself.

“Well, I did most of the work,” you purse your lips at him, not letting his head grow any bigger.

“You did,” he nods, smiling. “My awesome wife gave birth to four babies. That’s still so insane.”

“Crazy,” you hum, squeezing Leo to your chest gently. “What do you think our younger self would say if they saw us?”

“Like how young?”

“I don’t know. Maybe fourteen. What would fourteen years old Harry say if you told him you have a wife and four kids?”

“He would highfive me, because it means I’ve had sex at least four times,” he answers without missing a beat and you smack his chest as his laugh rumbles through it.

“You’re such a pig!” you tell him off, but then add: “And it’s just three times, because we have twins.”

“Damn, you’re right,” he chuckles. “But jokes aside… He would be shocked and… relieved.”

“Relieved?” you raise your eyebrows.

“I was afraid I might end up alone when I was younger,” he shrugs. “Marriage felt so distant and unattainable. But then came you,” he adds smiling and leaning closer he steals a quick kiss. “What about you?”

“She would be over the moon if she saw how hot my husband is,” you grin at him. “And she would probably ask what it looks like down there after four kids.”

Harry’s laugh roars through the room and Leo starts laughing too.

“I can assure her that you look stunning down there.”

“Oh shut up,” you poke your elbow into his side.

“What? I love your pu–”

“I swear to God if you say that word in front of our son, I’m divorcing you,” you warn him, but can’t stay serious when you look at his toothy grin.

“Oh, you wouldn’t leave the man who gave you the cutest babies,” he scoops Leo from your lap and walks back to the middle of the room. “Come on, Buddy. Let’s give mum a show,”

He turns the music back on and you watch them dance around and you could stay like this forever. You’re so loved and you have even more love to give to your family.

Yeah, your past self would be proud of you if she saw you.

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed and buy me a coffee if you want to support me!

[emerald-notes]

Noona! Please! Help! - Part 2

Fandom: BTS Characters: Younger Brothers BTS and Elder Sister Narrator Genre: A Little Dramatic and A Little Comedic Word Count: 1.3K Words Warning: Mention of other idols such as Lisa and Ryujin, tearing down clothes, breakdown, crying etc. Note: It’s a siblings AU story of BTS with the narrator as their elder sister. I tried to write something different from what I usually write about. I had fun making this. Hope it makes you feel good too. Happy Reading Everyone :)

Summary: Her little brothers can’t attend to a single task without her help. Be it a dance competition or asking out a girl for a date, they always seem to be finding everything too hard to go through without her by their side. ‘Our lucky charm’; that’s what they like to call her. But what if she turns out to be a misfortune in different situations in one single day?

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - More to come

Not Really the Best Dancer:

06:45 a.m. 1st September, 2015

I still have more than an hour before Hobi’s aka Hoseok’s dance starts. So, I decided to take a shower and apply some light makeup that would suit all the occasions I am to participate in. I had taken a day off work today. Because, I’m about to meet my seven little brothers, that too, at different times in one single day.

I make a mental note of my schedule and get out of my house (Sorry, it’s actually my granma's house) 10 minutes prior to Hobi’s dance. He is going to participate in the finale of the dance competition he had been practicing for for the last three years. Though a little nervous, I’m pretty positive he is going to win. I mean, why not? He’s the best dancer I have ever seen.

“Come here!” Hobi waves his hand while talking to me on the phone. I go straight to him pushing the crowd ahead of me.

“You should have hurried, Noona!” Hobi says with a pout, “I have to go change. The show’s starting.”

“Alright!” I tell him, “Go on, then. I’ll be cheering you on from the crowd. Are you nervous?”

“Nah!” Hobi dismisses the question with a slight wave of his hand and by putting a bright smile on his face, “Why would I be? I’ve got you.”

I take his hands in mine, clearly noticing the sweaty palms, “Fighting!”

“Fighting!” with a little shake of the hands he disappears inside the dressing room.

Lisa starts her performance with a loud applause from the crowd. I had watched some of the previous dance performances of others in the videos Hoseok brought home for me to see. But I don’t remember watching any of her. Watching her perform live in front of me makes me a little nervous. She has one of the best body controls. And it is definitely something to worry about.

The next participant gets as much cheers from the crowd as her previous competitor. Her name’s Ryujin and I had seen her collaborating with Hobi before. I liked that dance so much at the time. Now, I’m not really sure I’m liking her moves. Of course, she can dance. And that is exactly my problem.

Finally, Hoseok takes the stage as ‘J-Hope’ and the crowd bursts into loud screams from the enthusiasts. All my anxieties take some rest. But as soon as he starts to move along the beat, I feel like I’m holding my breath. As if that would ensure his perfect performance.

Everything goes smoothly until at a point Hoseok rips off his shirt; earning more screams from the audience. I’m shocked at the revelation. Is it a mistake? I mean, Hoseok would never do that. Once he had told me himself that he doesn’t like showing much skin. It’s the choreography that matters more to him.

But it seems like I’m the only one who’s confused. Others around me seem to be enjoying the dance along with that little distraction that he made. However, I gather myself just before the end so that I don’t forget to cheer and clap the loudest for my little Hobi.

There’s a thirty minute break before they announce the winner of the long one month competition. I check my phone and gasp.

Three missed calls from Yoongi.

I check the time. It’s already 8:48 a.m. Yoongi’s game starts at 8:30 a.m. I was supposed to be with him now. I look out for Hobi.

“You did great!” I compliment him hurriedly.

“Thanks but…” Hobi frowns.

“What’s the matter?” I take a closer look at his sweaty face.

“It’s just that” Hobi continues, “I feel like I made a mistake.”

My phone rings before I could tell him anything. It’s Yoongi again.

“Umm…” I hesitate before speaking, “I still believe you’re going to win. Hobi… Please don’t mind but… I really have to be somewhere now.”

“What?” Hobi looks up, “No way! Wait for the announcement at least. Please, Noona! You promised!”

“I promised I will watch you perform. And I did that. Besides, you didn’t mention the results will take that long to be announced. I have to meet Yoongi. Apparently he has an important match too.”

Hobi scoffs, “As if he’s the one playing.”

I can sense the anger rising within him. First of all, he’s upset about some mistakes that he made. Now that I’ve mentioned Yoongi, he’s definitely pissed. Hoseok never liked the fact that Yoongi bets money on basketball matches. According to him, “It’s a waste of money if you lose. And a waste of character if you win.”

“You can go if you want.” Hobi says finally, “It’s not even a huge deal.”

I know he doesn’t mean that. It is in fact a huge deal for him. My common sense tells me it is better to deal with an angry Yoongi than with an angry Hoseok.

I smile and pull him into a hug. He’s surprised by my sudden action. “What’re you doing?”

“Don’t worry!” I say, “Noona will stay so that you win.”

“Oh yeah!” Hobi hugs me back, “Then, I’ll definitely win.”

“I’ll be there as soon as it ends.” I yell at Yoongi through my phone because of the loud audience around me.

“Yeah, take your time.” Yoongi says bitterly, “Looks like Hoba is in need of some luck more than I do today. ‘Cause we’re already winning.” Then, he cuts the line.

I don’t have the time to think about his last remark. The three participants walk to the stage and the crowd cheers louder, as if it is even possible. I cheer for Hobi too, mentally praying to God that my little brother gets the fruit that he’s been nurturing for so long.

With some dramatic speeches and hearts beating up to our throats, the result is finally revealed. And J-Hope is not the winner.

Looks like Ryujin outdid the others this time and she is as shocked as I am to find it out. Both Lisa and Hobi are clapping with bright smiles on their faces. They are both bowing to Ryujin, who in turn is bowing to them. The flower bouquet is presented to her and the rest of the celebration goes on in blur.

I went backstage to meet Hobi. But I only see two girls hugging and complimenting each other. Hobi is nowhere to be seen. I look through the dressing room and he’s not there.

I decide to peek at the boy’s bathroom to check and I sigh in relief. Hobi is bending towards the basin, his hands covering the face while the faucet runs beneath.

“Hobi!” I call him softly.

“Please, Noona!” His voice cracks as he tries to speak, “Just give me some time. I promise I’ll be okay. Just some time is all I need.”

Contemplating on why it is hard for me to believe that he is crying out of failure, I find that it is because I had never experienced Hoseok openly displaying sadness before. He was always the ray of sunshine, the restless butterfly or the sweet smelling flower of our family. As if it is what’s expected of him.

Even right now, in such a vulnerable state of mind, he doesn’t seem to be trusting me enough to have confided in me. Instead, he’s willing to go through a breakdown all alone until he’s ready to smile brightly again.

I am dumbfounded. I feel like I need to tell him something, comfort him and let him know that he’s not here alone. I want to make him feel that it's okay to fail. That he’s still loved and that’s what should matter the most.

My phone rings in my pocket once again and Hoseok looks up from the sink. With teary red eyes he says, “It must be Yoongi Hyung. Don’t make him wait any longer. Just go. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” I ask, confused.

“I guess,” he sniffs, “I accept my defeat. Maybe, I’m not really the best dancer that you used to think I am.”

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