#pianist screaming hours

[sweepinguptheemeraldbar]

"Falk is totally a Tumblr Sexy Man."

- My friend Ray, after I told her about Powerwolf Tumblr

[littlebirdygirlywriting]

Tyler Owens thoughts as he’s standing at the altar, waiting for you to walk down the aisle 🥺

“Sorry, I’m Late”

Twisters Masterlist || Read the sequel here!

Prequel also available here!

Pairing: Tyler Owens x Fem!Reader

Summary: Tyler’s nerves begin to get the better of him when you’re late walking down the aisle.

Author’s Note: I literally squealed when I saw this request! Thank you so much for sending it to me! (Also, I apparently can’t limit myself to 100 words to save my life, so I hope these “drabbles” are still alright. 😂)

Warnings: Lil bit of fluff. Tyler Owens being a nervous wreck. I think that’s it. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Word Count: 563 (I said I couldn’t limit myself!)

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Tyler Owens, Tornado Wrangler, the guy who drives head-on into tornadoes for a living, was nervous. Swallowing past the tightness in his throat, he wiped sweaty palms against the fabric of his dress pants, eyes locked on the back doors of the church.

“Where is she?”

The soft murmur of guests whispering and shifting in their seats rang like a cacophony in his ears. The clock on the wall ticked, fifteen minutes past the hour.

“She’s never late—Boone, where is she?”

“Relax, T.” Boone, best man, dressed in a clean-cut navy suit and lavender tie, patted Tyler’s shoulder reassuringly. “It’s a wedding. Things go wrong, the bride shows up late. It’s nothing to be worried about.”

Against everything screaming within him, Tyler nodded. You were probably just late. You wouldn’t leave him here, standing at the altar with his heart on his sleeve, his hopes for the future balanced precariously on a twist of fate. Would you? His eyes never left the sanctuary doors.

“He’s going to be freaking out! Lily–” You reached your hand out, bouquet of flowers horizontal in your grasp. “Lily, he needs to know why I’m not out there.”

“It’s a wedding,” Lily mumbled through a mouthful of pins as she attempted to hide the blooming coffee stain soaking through the layers of your dress. “Nobody expects it to start on time.”

“But I’m never late!” Panic flared in your chest, heart racing against the confines of your ribcage.

You knew it was likely a culmination of caffeine and jitters causing such an intense reaction, but you didn’t care. Tyler needed to know you were coming….

“There!” Lily chirped. “You’re good, let’s go.”

“I’m going to go find her.”

“No, T!” Boone grabbed his sleeve before he had a chance to step forward, placing himself between Tyler and the room and leaning in close. “Tyler, listen to me. That girl is head-over-heels for you. Whatever’s going on in your head… it’s wrong. She is coming. You got it? She’s gonna be here soon.”

Tyler released a long, shuddering breath, gaze landing on the solid barrier of the closed sanctuary doors.

“You got it, T?”

Tyler tore his eyes away from the door and met Boone’s.

“Yeah.” He breathed again, steadier this time. “Yeah, I got it.”

“Good!” Boone patted his arm and stepped beside him again.

The pianist began playing. All eyes turned to the back of the church, and Lily stepped through the creaking doors, lavender gown matching Boone’s tie and a small bouquet of baby’s breath in her hands. She nodded slightly at Tyler as she placed herself on the bride’s side, then faced the aisle.

The music seamlessly shifted into the bridal chorus.

Floating through the back doors, illuminated like an angel come down to earth, you entered the sanctuary.

Tyler couldn’t take his eyes off you as you walked down the aisle, a graceful smile curling your lips and nothing but love spilling out of your eyes. Your dress swished and flowed around you, serving as a background to the delicate piano.

Stepping down to meet you, Tyler grasped your hand, tears pricking the backs of his eyes. Your smile turned to something softer, and you nudged his shoulder gently with your own, leaning in close before you stood together at the altar.

“Sorry, I’m late.”

Tyler smiled, squeezing your hand. “I was never worried.”

[youaremystar1024]

ATEEZ GOLDEN HOUR PART.2

...how am I supposed to react to this... 🥵🥰

YOU CANT LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!!! The group photo too... Sir, feel free to step on me (Im such a whore for them 😬) This will definitely be the soty!!

Ot8 Ateez hard thoughts under the cut

♡: overstimulation, use of sex toys, punishing, finger/tongue-fucking, oral, makeout, sub!reader, tattoo

------------------------♡------------------------

The way Hongjoong watches you from across the room as you fuck yourself on the sex machine he bought you. He grabs your hair, revealing the "captain" tattoo under your chin. Joong loved that tattoo specifically because everytime he eats you out, he makes your back arch beautifully as you display yourself for only him to see. He doesn't let you cum until tears spill down your face due to overstimulation

They way Seonghwa demands you to undress yourself and kneel in front of him. He presses your breast with the tip of his shoe, rubbing your sensitive, puffy nipples with the rough material, which makes you a whiny mess right before him. You're always trying to get caught...such a horny slut for mommy...

The way Yunho pumps his thick and veiny fingers into your tight hole, making you throb and pulsate around his digits. Even his fingers alone can send you close to your climax, but this is always just the beginning...He preps you so you can take his cock like the perfect cockslut you are for him

The way Yeosang holds you down and ties your hands together with his neck tie. After removing the tie, you can see his angry veins covering his neck. He admires your figure and showers you with his sweet kisses. He would give you gentle licks along your pussy, savouring the taste that belongs to only him

The way San stares at you hungrily as you suck his length at a fast pace. You swallow him so good as if you were made for each other. San can't take the pleasure anymore, then he bucks his hips and fills your insides full of his delicious load. He kneels down and attach his lips to yours, sharing his taste through your swollen, pink lips.

The way Mingi spreads your legs open and groans at the sight. He traces his fingers along your core like a pianist. He dives into you and tongue-fucks you for the rest of the night, making you gasp for air. Hearing you scream his name sends confidence down his shaft, making him harder for you

The way Wooyoung makes you sit on his face as he eats you out like a meal. You love it when his nose presses against your sensitive clit. He slaps your ass and leaves a trail of his marks along your thigh. Wooyo would get so pussy drunk as the mixture of your arousal and his saliva drip down his face.

The way Jongho stands above you, examining which toy to punish you with. He would give you loving kisses while sliding the vibrator along your wet folds. He teases your clit continuously and makes you clean up the coat of arousal on his fingers.

[mika-no-sekai-blog]

Song carried on breeze

(Part 2)

Word count: +1800

Summary: Azriel invites the famous pianist to a city tour, ending up showing her his most favorite spot

Warnings: none

@azrielappreciationweek Day 6: Song of the wind Dividers by @tsunami-of-tears

Part 1

On the agreed day, at the agreed place, Azriel waited for Allison. He was quite nervous, constantly smoothing his clothes, wings rustling behind him. He spent hours in bath, washing every centimeter of his skin and especially wings that were quite dusty lately, and even longer in the closet choosing clothes for the day. He didn't want to look too polished nor too casual. This day was very important to him, even small mistake was unforgivable. He didn't want to be too pushy, but if he was honest, Allison's music wasn't the only thing he was genuinely interested in.

"Does it really look casual?" he whispered to the shadows and they answered, gently touching his shoulder.

"Don't worry, boy. You look great. She will certainly like it."

"But doesn't this shirt scream: It's date? Or this trousers? She accepted only because it's a city tour."

"The reason why she accepted is debatable, but calm down. Everything is fine." The shadows rolled and swirled around him, trying to put him at ease.

"What about hair? Messy? Overdone?"

The shadows pushed a few unruly dark strands back. "Perfect! Don't be nervous. That lovely female will be smitten by the city as well as by your charm and appearance. Yesterdays she couldn't take her eyes off of you. We noticed."

Azriel rolled his eyes. "You are mistaken. She-"

"She's coming! Be natural and relaxed and everything will be fine."

The shadows slowly swam forward to welcome Allison, gently caressing her hands. She looked lovely in light blue dress, her long hair styled into a complicated hairstyle. Azriel's heart stuttered at the sight of her, the breath hitched. Dreamy smile tugged corners of his mouth, before he scolded himself. He mirrored her kind smile and went to meet her.

"Hi," his voice was husky, so he cleared his throat. "You look beautiful."

"Hi," she giggled as she took him in. "You look good, too. Are they always so friendly?" She offered her index finger to the shadows and they immediately wrapped around it. "So lovely!"

"They are very curious, but if it bothers you I can call them back."

"Nonsense! They are adorable."

Azriel's smile grew wider. It didn't happen every day that someone liked his shadows, even calling them adorable. His family was used to their presence and cool touch, but strangers tended to shiver and inched from their reach.

"Are you ready for the tour?"

She stepped to his side and looped her arm through his. He didn't expect it and went rigid, holding his breath. His eyes immediately fell to his scarred hand without glove, her soft perfect flesh so close to his damaged one. She paid no attention to that though.

"Now I'm ready," she blushed.

He inhaled deeply to shake off some of the tension, heart in his chest racing for life.

"So let's go." He sounded breathless.

Allison pressed even closer to him as shadowsinger was leading her to the first place on his list. As a musician, there was no doubt she would fall in love with the Rainbow at first sight. The lights, the colours and the atmosphere of the place immediately captivated her. Her big eyes shone with joy and wandered all around, the questions about different shops and galleries seemed to be endless. Azriel patiently answered all of them, his eyes never leaving her face. She fascinated him. Despite of her calm exterior, she was just as expressive, spontaneous, lively and breathtaking as her music.

Slowly proceeding, they moved to the best cafe in the city with iconic view to catch a breath and refresh. Then passing through the biggest market place, Azriel took her to the most beautiful garden with thousands of blooming flowers and trees that was part of the city's biggest gallery. Azriel wanted to show her much more, but the time was merciless. When they left the gallery it was already evening, dim lights shone like stars above them.

It was time for the dinner, so he took her to his favourite restaurant where he had reserved the best table. The restaurant was located on a hill, its terrace offered a perfect view of the city with flowing Sidra river beneath. There was no better place to end the tour.

Allison sparkled with joy as they ate, the praises and the thanks for showing her such beautiful places seemed to have no end. Her gaze was switching between him and the view, unable to resist and wanting to see the both.

When they finished the meal, Azriel wasn't ready yet to take her to the hotel and say goodbye. He needed a little more. During the day her hand gradually slid down his arm until they walked hand in hand. Leaving the restaurant her small hand naturally grabbed his bigger one, almost shyly they strolled down the street in the silence. She seemed to be just as reluctant to say goodbye as he was. Suddenly he got an idea, his legs came to stop. She glanced up at him with a quiet question.

"There's one more thing I'd like to show you, but.. Are you scared of heights? Do you trust me?"

Her red lips curled up into a smile. "Even with my life," she whispered into the night. "And I'm not sure whether I'm scared or not. I've never been so high to get scared yet."

"That's great because the next place I want to take you to, is up there," he pointed to the star-studded sky with the full moon.

Allison only nodded with shining eyes and stepped closer, giving him permission. Azriel swept her into his arms. She was even lighter than he thought. His heart stuttered at the feel of her warmth, her delicate scent filled his lungs. If he died then and there, he would die a happy male.

Her arms wrapped around his neck, fingers lightly touching ends of his hair, playing with them.

"I'm ready to see this beautiful city through your eyes," she sighed, not knowing yet that the city wouldn't be the most fascinating aspect up there. But she noticed the hint as soon as Azriel's wings rustled.

The huge wings spread behind his tall figure, wide and majestic, strong and beautiful. At that moment Azriel changed. His features relaxed, all tension completely gone. His lips curled into a soft smile, the most genuine one he showed her so far. A long sigh left him, almost a moan as gentle evening breeze caressed sensitive membranes.

He flapped his stiffened limbs, testing them and stretching, muscles on his back danced under the tips of her fingers like strings. Something wild, untamed and beautiful awoke in depths of his eyes that sparked in dark. Hazel colour melted into warm honey, liquid gold whirling in his eyes, mesmerizing her.

Azriel looked at female in his arms with one-sided boyish grin, slightly bent his knees and shot to the sky. The flight was steady, his movements so smooth that Allison felt like floating. The silence of the spring night was disturbed only by soft flapping of leather wings.

Cool air brushed through his hair, playing with the dark strands and Azriel closed his eyes. Flying was a freedom, the only reminder that there was something really magical in this world. It meant everything to him. The day he would lost this ability, would be his last. He couldn't live without this, without this feeling. He never shared it with anyone, but he guessed that his brothers felt the same way. All Illyrians had to feel this way otherwise the wings wouldn't be so sacred to them.

He gleamed with joy, steadily rising to the night sky. When he flew, everything seemed to be possible. Sometimes he liked to imagine that if he wanted, he could touch the shiny dots scattered all over the sky or even the moon itself. For him, flying was as breathing, natural and irreplaceable.

He got so lost in his feelings that he almost forgot about the female pressed against his chest. He opened eyes to check on her, finding her gazing back at him. Her eyes were wide, reflecting the stars above them, full lips slightly parted.

"Are you enjoying the view?" he teased her. Even his deep voice reflected the great change in him, suddenly gaining a velvet undertone.

He felt her body tensed in his arms, knees pressing together, but she only scoffed. "Very much so," she replied, her voice trembling.

"Scared? Should I fly lower?"

"No, this is perfect."

"In such case, you should look around," he suggested softly, the blush creeping up his neck.

It was the very first time someone gazed at him like that, let alone someone he was attracted to. His mouth went dry and there was that tickling sensation in his lower belly. He didn't need to check to feel how hard he was. He only hoped that it would fade away before she noticed his scent. Through the thin material of her dress he could feel her heartbeat, throbbing as fast as his and he instantly felt at ease. It was good to know that he wasn't the only one affected here.

Even if only for a short time, he allowed himself to dream and hope.

Allison reluctantly did as he suggested, her breath hitched. The darkened city spread below them in all its glory. Thousand of lights flickered in the windows of houses of residential areas. Cafes, restaurants and shops scattered in its center shone like torches in the maze of streets. Even from up above they could find the Rainbow that shone the brightest among them. The gardens did light up shows during this season to attract visitor and especially couples in love. The blooming trees looked like puffy cotton clouds from above. And amidst all this, glimmering Sidra meandered serenely like milky way in the sky.

"It's.. incredible," she whispered, her voice full of emotions as her fingers dug with urgency into his flesh and he wished that it would leave a permanent mark on him. Suddenly she started to hum a melody.

Goosebumps rose all over Azriel's body, tears stinging his eyes. He didn't need to ask to know that it was a completely new composition inspired by the beauty of night Velaris below them. But then she turned to him, her gaze locked with his as she continued. This song wasn't only about the city, it was also about him. His lips parted and first tear rolled down his cheek. When she finished, she leaned closer and gently pressed her lips to his.

Azriel's heart stopped for a moment or two just to start pounding hard later. He hesitated only for a brief second before his lips moved, kissing her back. A groan vibrated through his chest as she lightly bit on his bottom lip, breaking the kiss.

"I think I'll call it Song carried on breeze."

[nochukoo97]

muse; chapter one

pairing: biker!jungkook x pianist!reader

summary: the first time jungkook meets you, the prelude to his interest in you; you take notice to jungkook’s significant presence, he’s in your mind as you play your étude

word count: 2k+

masterlist!

prelude;

You’re trudging down a dark alley at 11pm at night. Normally you would never let yourself walk through this alley when it turned dark, but your teacher just had to hold you back for another two hours to perfect your recital piece.

You could walk the safer route, one that was closer to shops that opened for 24 hours, where there was light and a few wandering souls. But it would have taken you a good half an hour longer to walk that route, you weighed your options and decided that making a run through this alley was a better choice.

How wrong were you for thinking that.

Now you find yourself cowering under the tall stance of a man, his cigarette smoke blowing onto your face as you cringe at the smell.

“So, what brings a pretty lady here tonight? Are you looking to get kidnapped?” The man above you chuckles, looking back at who you presume are his friends. They only look at him as if what he was doing was normal, as if they were used to him always doing this.

You’re clutching on tightly to your binder of sheet music, the only other thing you had brought with you besides your phone.

“No, I just wanna go home,” You pick up the courage to spit back at the man, not wanting to let yourself simply give up and fall under his control.

“Damn, we’ve got a spiteful one today,” He laughs, taking a drag from his cigarette.

“Don’t need to act so tough baby, you won’t stand a chance fighting against me,” He leans down, whispering into your ear as you feel his hot breath blow onto your neck. You want to die.

As he leans down, you get a better view of his friends, making eye contact with a man, piercings clad his eyebrow and lip, his short sleeved shirt revealing a tattoo sleeve.

He looks at you as if impressed, an amused smile on his face as he nudges his friend to look your way.

You decide it's the perfect time to jerk your knee upwards, causing the man leaning on you to groan, stuttering back as he clutches his crotch.

You don’t take notice of a loose sheet music that falls out of your binder.

“Hah, Minjae, looks like you got a tough one today,” The tattooed man’s friend laughed at him, as Minjae, now you know his name, scowled at the guy.

There’s five people standing against the wall, most of them have a cigarette in their hands, you notice.

Minjae slowly gets back on his feet, and you decide it's time for you to make a run.

You’re sprinting off before anyone can catch you again.

“Hey! Come back!” You can hear his voice echo through the alley, but you’re far too quick to let the man catch you.

Jungkook chuckles to himself, watching Minjae groan as he fails to catch you.

“Jeon, taking an interest in her?” Taehyung nudged the man, who brushed him off.

But he wasn’t wrong, Jungkook did find you amusing.

“I’m gonna go back,” He grumbles, stomping on the cigarette to put it out. “Got to go to work early tomorrow,”

“Or you just want to see that girl, you never leave later than 12am, Jeon,” Jimin calls him out.

Jungkook only sends him a warning glare before he gets on his motorcycle.

There’s a white piece of paper that stands out from the dark concrete of the road, he picks it up.

Prelude in C minor.

etude;

Maybe you should have learnt your lesson the first time you ran through this alley. But it was in the middle of the night again, you didn’t want to go home any later than it already was.

Maybe you were also curious to see if the tattooed man would be there.

But instead you find yourself being dragged into the corner right before the entrance of the alley, you scream in shock at the sudden pull.

There’s a hand pressed over your mouth, muffling your scream.

Great, you’re getting kidnapped today, how smart of you to try to walk down this very alley yet again.

“Keep quiet if you don’t want to get caught by him again,” There’s a deep voice next to your ear, it’s different from Minjae’s voice. You don’t recognise it, but you can’t turn around to see who it is, the arm wrapped around you restricting your movements.

You take notice of your surroundings, you can see the entrance to the alley you were meant to go through. Who the hell stopped you?

You look down, the hand over your mouth following the tilt of your head. Tattoos? The arm around you has a full sleeve of tattoos, there’s an orange flower that stands out to you.

Tattoos, Shit. It can’t be him right? He was Minjae’s friend, why would he prevent his friend from preying on you if it seemed so normal to the rest of his friends.

But you were proven wrong when you managed to turn around, the familiar face that stood out to you that day, his lip piercing reflects the street light next to you.

His eyes stare down at you, scanning your face.

“Why are you- Why did you do that?” You have a million questions to ask the man before you, you don’t know which to start with.

“What do you mean why? Then am I supposed to watch you possibly get harassed by that dick?” He scoffs, why were you being ungrateful when he practically saved you from trauma?

Jungkook’s amused you didn’t even thank him immediately. Normally he wouldn’t even bother giving the girls Minjae creeps on a glance.

But maybe because this time it wasn’t anybody else, it was you.

Maybe he was interested in how you fought back Minjae instead of cowering under his stance, like what everyone else was.

He noticed you because you stood up for yourself, it seemed as though you were almost fearless.

“Aren’t you his wingman or something? You’re meant to side with him,” You frown at him, he lets his arm around you slack next to his body.

“Don’t ever say that again, I fucking hate that dude, I’m only hanging around him because he helps me pay my rent,” Jungkook sighs, he reaches into his pocket to light a cigarette.

When the smell of the smoke reaches you, you scrunch up your nose in disgust.

Jungkook notices your expression, waving his hands to dissipate the smoke in the air.

“Why do you smoke, you’re killing your lungs slowly,” You frown at him, he lifts the cigarette near his mouth to take another drag but pauses when he hears you.

“So concerned for me?” He smiles at you teasingly, as your eyes widen,

“What? No, I just, It’s just a fact!” You’re stuttering out a response, can’t even keep composed under his gaze.

“M’kay,” The man in front of you muses, he drops the cigarette to the ground and stomps on it with his boots.

There’s a moment of silence, before he speaks up again, “Why did you even think about running through there again?”

He’s right, it’s because you’re so desperate to get home quickly you would risk getting kidnapped rather than walk a little more.

“It’s just a faster route to my apartment, there isn’t any bus service near here so I can’t take a bus either, the other way to walk is a whole thirty minutes more, and I don’t want to waste my time,” You fiddle with the hem of your skirt, the weight of your bag becoming evident, as your shoulders slightly ache.

“Think smarter, risk your life or walk an extra half an hour,” He nudges your forehead lightly with his finger, tutting at you as you stumble back a little at the light touch.

“Don’t scold me,” Jungkook watches you pout at him, he chuckles to himself and reaches his hand out to ruffle your hair.

You’re pretty cute for someone who had been so fiesty before, Jungkook likes this side of you.

Shit. Your ears become warm at his touch, they’re red by now for sure.

“Can’t promise you I won’t run through that alley again though, sometimes time is crucial too you know?” You laugh in response, as he raises his eyebrow.

“And a little bit of thrill and adrenaline to end my day isn’t too bad,” You add, laughing to yourself as you kick the rock next to your shoe.

“Oh? So you’re depending on me to come and protect you every time you do so huh?”

“Maybe?” You smile sheepishly up at him, he only shakes his head and smiles back in response.

“Have you seen Jeon? Where the fuck is he?” There’s a loud voice that echoes from the alley, you can’t make out who it is from how dark it was, but it seems as if the man before you knew who it was.

“Fuck, we gotta go, follow me,” He grabs your hand before you can protest, you feel his calloused yet warm hand envelope yours, his rings make contact with your hands, the coldness contrasting to his touch.

You could get used to this.

After turning the corner, Jungkook rushes over to the black motorcycle parked against the wall.

“What! I am not going on that,” You cross you arms as you stare at the Harley Davidson in front of you.

“Come on, if Minjae comes out and sees me with you he will quite literally chop my fucking head off, maybe yours too,”

Your eyes widen at his words, you want to live to see tomorrow.

So you comply with the man, whose name you don’t even know yet, but he slots his helmet over your head, it’s a little big and makes your head bobble when he lets go.

“Sorry if it’s a little heavy and big for you, I don’t carry a spare helmet with me,” He explains, head tilting slightly to clip the helmet.

“It’s fine, but what about you?”

“I’m okay, you’re precious cargo so I need to make sure you have proper protection,” He smiles, patting the top of the helmet as you choke on your spit, flustered by his words.

“Type in your address on my phone,”

He hands you his phone, you notice the edge of the screen slightly cracked, before quickly typing in your address and handing it back to him.

“Hold on to me tight, if you don’t wanna fall off,” He shouts over the loud sound that blasts when he starts the engine, you nod and obediently wrap your arms tighter around him.

“Thanks for sending me home and saving me,” You hand him his helmet back as he smiles sweetly at you. Your stomach feels funny.

“No problem, I’ll keep a lookout for when you decide to make a run again,” He laughs, making you roll your eyes at his words.

It’s silent for a while again as you both look at each other.

“Jungkook,” He stretches out his hand

“Huh?”

“I’m Jungkook, thought you should know my name if we were going to see each other often,”

You shake his hand, giggling a little by the awkward gesture

“I’m ___,”

“Pretty name,” He muses, now he has a clear view of your extremely red face as you chuckle nervously.

“I’ll go back into my apartment and you should probably go back to your friends before they come here and find you, goodnight Jungkook, see you soon?”

He nods back at you, “See you around,”

You shut the door, after entering your apartment, immediately settling in front of your piano, telling yourself you’d play this one piece and quickly go to bed.

Étude Op.25, No. 4

You can’t help but reminisce what had just happened, it feels as if his hand was over your mouth again, his arm was around you. You felt safe in his embrace, you wanted to run through that same alley a million times to meet him a million times more.

Jungkook was your muse, your drive to play this piece, Étude.

[dragonnarrative-writes]

I had an idea and nothing to do with it so I'm sharing it: Pianist!Reader who becomes a neighbour to Gaz and Soap.

Soap: demands Reader plays Flower of Scotland at all hours of the day

Gaz: slips classical music suggestions under the door, denies having done this

Soap: battles that bitch Karen at 1A who complains about constant noise by assembling and disassembling guns As Loud As Possible

Gaz: goes with Reader on the long, ardous quest to buy a new piano (is armed with a bag that contains three water bottles, snacks, tissues, random collection of sheet music stolen from Reader, a notebook and pen, a recorder, measuring tape)

Gaz and Soap and the rest of the 141: somehow get dragged into carrying a fucking baby grand up five floors of stairs with Reader screaming at them DON'T DROP THIS PLEASE THIS COSTS MORE THAN MY ENTIRE LIFE LOOK OUT FOR THE CORNER DON'T SCRATCH THE WOOD!!!!!

Ghost: about murders Reader. Gets piano up the stairs instead.

A BABY GRAND, ANON??????

------

You aren’t going to pull your hair out. You’re not. You’re so stressed you’re almost not breathing, but you can be calm. So calm. You’ve never been so calm in your-

The big guy, Simon, grunts and shifts his weight, and the bulk of the piano tips, ever so slightly toward the wall.

“Please-”

“If you ask me to be careful one more time,” he grunts up at you, before you can say anything else, “I will throw this thing back down the stairs.”

Above Simon, Johnny and Kyle are looking more than a little winded. They’re so close to the apartment, just half a flight and a couple of meters of hallway. You have faith that they’ll make it. You have to. It’s not like they can stop. You’re trying not to hover, at the top of the stairs, but it’s so fucking hard.

A firm hand takes hold of your elbow and draws you away, toward your door. You try to resist, but John, the other man you met today, is guiding you away.

“Let’s clear the hall so that they have the space they need when they get up here.”

Something gives an ominous thump behind you, and you try to turn back. “But-!”

“Nope,” he says, clamping both hands on your shoulders and marching you away.

[natashaslesbian]

First Position

From the ‘Tiny Dancer’ series

Summary: Natasha takes you to your first ever dance class, unfortunately it doesn’t go well

Word Count: 1.2k

Parings: (Little/Kid Reader x Mama Natasha)

Angst/major fluff/comfort

Warnings: none I think :)

————

“Alright baby girl come here let’s get you ready” Natasha called as you came bolting towards her. Today was your first ever ballet class, you were so excited! You had your new pink leotard on and your mama had your tutu packed up and ready to go in your little dance bag. “There we go beautiful” Natasha said as she placed the last pin in your bun “you wanna go get your shoes” you shot out of the room quicker than Natasha could blink. You burst into your room and picked up your ballet shoes. “Got them mama!” You said with a beaming smile as you returned “oh baby girl I meant your outside shoes, your sneakers?” You were so cute, so eager to get to dance class that you forgot you’d need outdoor shoes first. “It’s ok” said Natasha as she came down face to face with you to help you into your ballet shoes “I guess mommy can always carry you” you giggled as Natasha tickled your tummy and hoisted you up into her arms

You couldn’t sit still the entire car journey to the studio, you were shaking with excitement. Natasha was in awe of you, her grown up little princess all ready for her first ballet class. Your mommy had shown you photographs of when she used to dance and you decided straight away that’s what you wanted to do. Natasha protected you from the truth of her formal dance training but she was made up she would get to see you flourish just like she did in a much happier and safer environment. You had imagined for weeks what your first class would be like, the teacher, the pianist, the other kids. The car pulled into the parking lot and you tried your hardest to wriggle out of your booster seat. You had dreamt all last night about this very moment. “Mama! Mama! Come on!” You beamed up as your mommy opened the car door and helped get you out. “Ok, ok let’s go!” Natasha said as she carried you into the building.

The second your mama put you down you were off, running over to introduce yourself to all the other little ballerinas. Natasha smiled as she watched you patter away on your little feet, she introduced herself to Miss Taylor (a highly recommended ballet teacher) and left you in her trusty hands. You waved to your mommy as she left the room to work on her latest mission report. She listened to the classical musical flowing from the studio and tried to push away the lingering anxiety of her memories. You were completely safe and she knew that - but she still insisted she stays just outside the room. You are here entire world and she would lay her life down to protect you from any harm.

The hour raced by, Natasha completed her mission report and got started on some reading assigned by Fury. The other parents arrived gathering outside the studio doors; peaking their heads through the windows to get a glimpse of their dancing angels. Natasha packed up and waited for you to come running and tell her all about your first ever dance class. You were the first one out and rushed into your mamas frame. She curled into you and asked if you had a good time but when she felt you shake your little head and pealed you from her body, she was heartbroken to find tears streaming down your face “oh my darling” she said as she came down to your level “what happened y/n/n?” You began crying your little heart out and Natasha scooped you up right away “wan-wanna go home!” You cried “alright sweetheart let’s go” Natasha said as she carried you back to the car.

Once you were safely strapped in your car seat, Natasha passed you your favourite stuffie in the hopes it would calm you down. But you didn’t want widow bear, you wanted your mommy. You started to scream and kick, just wanting to be held. “Ok, ok, ok” Natasha cooed “come here baby” she said as she pulled you back out of the car and into her arms. She sat with you in the passenger seat, stroking your hair and whispering soothing words, until you grew tired and fell fast asleep. Natasha was devastated, you had never cried yourself to sleep. She knew you must be really upset and was desperate to get to the bottom of it.

You woke up an hour later, tightly wrapped up in your mamas arms. “Hello beautiful” Natasha said gently helping you wake up “did you have a good sleep?” You nodded and buried your face into your mommy’s neck. Natasha spent a few minuets bringing you out of your sleepy state before she spoke up again “do you wanna tell mommy why you were so upset after ballet class?” You began to tear up again at the memory and Natasha gently shushed you. “Other girls were- were meanie” you whispered. “what did they say baby?” Natasha was furious “they laughed…at me because I could-couldn’t do the spins well” you hiccuped through your quiet sobs “an-and one of them said I was stupid. Am- am I stupid mama?” Natasha’s heart shattered at your question, she looked down into your teary y/e/c eyes and lent down to place a kiss on your forehead “oh y/n you’re not stupid. You’re not stupid I promise, it was very wrong of them to say that darling. Don’t you listen to them ok, you’re not stupid babygirl, you are very very smart and such a special little girl. I am so proud of you y/n/n” you smiled at your mommy’s words but didn’t quite believe them after what the girls had said at dance class.

You spent the rest of the evening being pampered by your mama with cuddles and chocolate treats and all your favourite movies. Natasha got you wound down for bed with a bubble bath and the softest pair of pjs that you owned. After tucking you into bed (Natasha’s bed that you begged to sleep in tonight) your mommy pulled out the big book of fairytales to read you a bedtime story, it was one of your favourite parts of the day. “Mama?” You interrupted half way through the classic tale of Goldilocks. “Yeah?” Natasha said, pausing her reading “can I go to ballet class again?” Natasha was surprised by your request “you wanna go again baby?” Natasha asked “yeah, wanna try another time” your mommy smiled, you were the bravest little girl. Natasha was so proud of you “of course you can go again, but I think we should find you somewhere else to dance, yeah?” You nodded and agreed with Natasha. You were glad you wouldn’t have to see those mean girls again. “Alright then, now you get some sleep” said your mama as she laid a final goodnight kiss to your temple “I love you so much tiny dancer” you leaned up and gave your mommy a kiss on the check, your way of telling her that you loved her too.

Once you were snoring softly, Natasha crept over to her computer and began searching for another place for you to dance at. She found a small club called ‘Main Attraxion’ and decided she would get in touch with Emma, the owner, in the morning. After leaving herself a reminder on a little sticky note, Natasha climbed back into bed with you and pulled you close to her chest. You subconsciously wrapped your tiny arms around your mamas neck and the two of you slept peacefully in each others arms.

————

Another little story from the Tiny Dancer series. There’s a few little sprinkles of details from my dance background:))

- Astara🩷

[sentientsky]

"I forgive you." It came out like a blood clot—like an artery dripping gore—like an oil spill. Crowley felt his shoulders rise, fall, fall, fall. The air between them hummed, the tension of six thousand years turning every atom electrified and silently screaming. Breath shuddered out of him, human and terrible and hollowing. He had never been more grateful for the swallowing darkness of his glasses, for the way they hid the centuries of pre-emptive grief and wicked terror. The air was suffocating, the once familiar bookshop turned catacomb.

And then, hating himself for it but seeing no other way forward, he spoke the words aloud. "Don't bother". And then he was out in the middle of Soho and the breeze was harsh against his too-warm skin. Stepping out into the sun felt like rising to the surface of some great ocean—the gasping, desperate feeling in his lungs, the sudden crash of noise. A woman across the street called for her wife. A car horn. A dog barking. Laughter, cruel and far-off. He pulled breath into lungs that didn't need it, winced as he felt slivers of cold drive into the soft flesh of his throat.

So that was it; five and a half million years of want and need and burning, aching somedays, cyphered pleas for "our side". All gone in the space between shaking half-breaths and a kiss still seared against his lips.

Fuck it.

He'd ruined it the first time, had forced them both to look directly into the sun, to face the thing they'd been dancing around for the better part of six millennia. He could do better—would do better. At a music café some years ago, a human had been playing the piano—something soft and slow. A jazz number, if the demon remembered correctly. But the remarkable thing wasn’t the song itself, but that they were playing it with their eyes closed. Aziraphale had pointed this fact out to Crowley, excitement lilting in his voice (even then, the sound had thrilled him, sent a stab of warmth through his heart). It was only after the final note reverberated through the room that the artist opened their eyes, blinking in the sudden rush of stage lights. Aziraphale, ever the music connoisseur, approached the musician. The pianist had explained that, for them, reading music never came easy. Rather, they learned by touch, by the way the keys felt on their fingertips. In fact, the only way they could play a song was with their eyes closed. If they watched their hands as they played or thought too hard about their next move, they got confused and tripped over the notes. Muscle memory, they’d said.  It was muscle memory—the galactic familiarity of finding the space between seconds and prying—that guided Crowley now. He hadn’t done it since Not-Armageddon, but it came easily to him just the same. Time, you see, operates kind of like sound, like music; it loops and sways and carries forward in waves. If you know where to look (as the demon did), you can disrupt the flow, send it back towards the shore. 

And this was what Crowley did now. Drawing his hands through the ripples of minutes and seconds and hours and millennia, time stilled around him. It was natural. Easy, like breathing or sleeping. Or loving Aziraphale.  Slowly, the world turned backwards; humans retreating from whence they came, cars driving in reverse, the wind blowing in the opposite direction. If Heaven had taken notice of their "half-a-miracle", Crowley expected them to be able to see this from every edge of the universe. He likely only had one shot at this.

The world aligned itself once more, and time returned to its regular, steady gait—a rubber band snapping back into place. Something hummed in Crowley’s chest. Something bright and burning and the shape of a neutron star.  Hands shaking, he reached for the handle of the bookshop and pushed. The bell above the door rang, clear and and too-loud in the morning air. Aziraphale whirled around, a trembling half-smile on his face. Oh. Oh, somebody, this was going to be harder than he thought. It felt like all the oxygen, all the courage, had been punched clear out of him "Crowley!" A beat, a shuddering breath. "Angel". He pressed his still-trembling hands into his pockets and strode forward. "Oh, Crowley, dear, I've been looking for you. I have excellent news." His stomach did a little flip, something deep within him growing hollow and fearful. "We have to talk," he managed to choke out around the heart still lodged in his throat. "Yes, I quite think we do. I have something to tell you." Aziraphale strode forward, all grins and beauty like a flickering star, all plasma and heat. He could practically feel the agitated warmth roll off of his angel. Crowley shivered. "I just met with the Meta—” "No. Wait," the demon held up a hand, pausing the rushing torrent of Aziraphale’s words. "Just let me say my thing, please." "My dear boy, just—oh, what is that lovely human expression—"

"Hold that thought," Crowley muttered. His eyes burned behind his glasses. Aziraphale looked pleasantly taken aback.

"Yes, how did you know? I—" "No." The angel's eyebrows crinkled in confusion. "No?" "No," he repeated, enunciating each letter with perfect clarity. He was going to do it right this time. He was going to keep him from leaving. He could be good. Right? "I’m gonna speak, and I want you to listen to me without interrupting, m'kay?" Words were building in the basin of his sternum now, pushing up on his airways. He was going to have to say it outright this time; no more waltzing around this frenzied galaxy of emotion. Willing his hands to steadiness, he pulled his glasses from his face, and tucked them into the collar of his shirt. Aziraphale's breath seemed to catch for a moment, meeting the ferocity of the demon's gaze head-on. A deer in headlights. And then, "Crowley, I really—" (Eons hurtled through his mind in a split second, the serrated knife's-edge of want like a being all its own. Aziraphale in the garden. Aziraphale in the tavern, on the cliffside, on the West End stage, in the Bentley, in the bookshop, in the very marrow of Crowley’s bones.) "I love you," he rasped, ichor writhing in his veins.

There, he'd said it., said it fully and completely, without so much as flinching. It was the same love he'd expressed for the past several thousand years in a million little, unspoken ways: an ox rib, a revolution, a church, a burning bookshop and the bottom of a glass and a lost best friend. A yellow Bentley, a lifetime of tethering his life to Aziraphale's, of trailing after him like a moth to flame—like a dog to its owner. "I love you," he pushed on. They were both looking directly into the sun again, Crowley urging them to stare straight into the heat of it all. The words were spilling out of him now, a heaving, thrashing current falling to the bookshop's hardwood floors. "I love you and you can't go to Heaven." Aziraphale froze, pupils blown wide and unblinking, for just a moment. Tension stretched out like a thread between them. And then he pulled in breath like a drowning man (who wasn't really a man at all), and tears were gathering in the corner of his eyes, and oh god, he'd made his angel cry. Fear and guilt and horror slammed into him at a million kilometers an hour and left him halfway between dizzy and nauseous. His fingers tensed at his side, desperate to do something, fix what he'd so obviously broken. Heaven would be on the front step any moment. It was too late, wasn't it? It was always too late. "Crowley—what?" Aziraphale breathed, mouth twisting into a brutal, terrible, heart-wrenching sob. Crowley ached, panic lancing through him like a knife. "I—I really, I can't. You could come with me." He stepped forward, moving to place his hands on the demon's shoulders. Crowley leaned into the touch, almost unconsciously. "Don't go," he croaked, tears beginning to prick his own eyes once again. This time he didn't reach for his glasses, didn't try to hide his fear. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right. And then Aziraphale could hate him and his desperate, hungry, reverent love in the aftermath. "Don't go where I can't follow. Please".

His angels blue-grey eyes searched his own, and the weight of his gaze was impossibly heavy, pressing down on his chest like a river-smoothed rock. "Crowley, please. I don't understand. The Metatron said—" His palms found the sides of Crowley's throat, thumbs resting gently on the side of his jaw. Crowley sucked in a breath. "Angel," The scent of earl grey—of old books and soft tartan chairs. Aziraphale's hands were shaking. "I know what the Metatron said," he intoned, soft as rainfall. "You can't go. It's not—they won't change. You're better than that." "But you could be an angel. With me," he murmured, soft thumbs running across sharp cheekbones. "Be my second-in-command." "Don't want to be. Want t' be an us," he felt tears—traitorous, burning tears tip over the edge of his lashes and fall against his face. "Crowley, darling, please." A beat. "I love you." The bottom of the world dropped out from under him in that moment. Aziraphale loved him. He loved him and he'd said it aloud and now it was out there in the world and it was as though every nerve on his body was on fire. His angel pushed on, "Truly, I love you. I need you with me. Please, come with me. We can do good, I know it." He could never say no when his angel asked something of him. Especially not when his kind, gentle hands were holding him like something good, something precious. Especially not when Aziraphale had just admitted to needing him, had injected the word with so much warmth he thought his all-too-human heart might beat clear out of his chest. But there was a first (technically, second) time for everything. He drew in a heavy breath, and tilted his head, breaking his angel's hold on him. Aziraphale's hands—now empty, still shook. He made a soft whimpering sound, and Crowley ached to kiss his fingertips, banish the fear. But instead, he looked up towards the ceiling, to a God who was not there—who maybe had never been there at all. He felt the Heavenly Host drawing near, a sense of hollow emptiness, the scent of absence. This was the time of last-ditch efforts, of holding his heart out and hoping Aziraphale might take it as it was, bruised spots and all. "I can't. I won't. I need to be here, on Earth, with you." "Crowley, please. I don't think you understand what I'm offering you," he huffed. A residual shard of anger stabbed at him then, and he turned his gaze sharply back to the angel before him. "Oh, I understand perfectly well, angel. I'm fairly certain I understand better than you do." Aziraphale's mouth drew into a thin line, tears welling fresh in his eyes again. And still, Crowley ached. A beat. Something in the angel shifted, then, turned on its edge—the walls beginning to go up again, and it was just like it had been not fifteen minutes ago. He was watching the same moment play out over and over again; some cyclical, torrential nightmare. "I would like you to come with me, but," Aziraphale paused, voice breaking in the middle. "But I'm leaving, with or without you." And there it was, like it was predestined. Despite the love, despite the want, despite every shared bottle passed between them, every half-accidental touch and glance and whispered word—despite the way he would’ve let Aziraphale run a sword through his chest... It wasn't enough. It was never enough. They were re-enacting their old magic trick, right there in the bookshop, this time with Crowley staring down the barrel, letting Aziraphale pull the trigger. Aim for my mouth, but shoot past my ear. Aziraphale wasn't shooting past his ear. His bloody ribcage felt as though it might splinter apart. Wingbeats in the distance, a grief wide enough to drown the sea. Crowley reached down, pulled his sunglasses from their resting spot against his clavicle. And then the hunger in his eyes was once more hidden, and he was walking towards the door like a man headed to execution. "Crowley—" Aziraphale nearly keened, the wall crumbling for a split second. Without turning, Crowley said the only words he could think of. "I forgive you."

[lu3ky777]

Makoto knew that Shuichi was too much of a pussy to ever do anything to Kaede. So when Makoto goes to Kaede's music room and sees that her rear end is exposed to him from picking up some music sheets she dropped. He decides to rearrange her organs with his massive cock and rearranging her pussy and a hole that Shuichi never touched, her asshole.

Makoto came into the music room to listen to Kaede's music… but he got a front row seat to her sizable ass, she was reaching for something way underneath the piano and was completely mooning Makoto. Makoto knew Shuichi didn't really satisfy Kaede, at least not in ways he could~ so that's the justification he used when he walked over and spanked Kaede with his ENORMOUS lucky rod getting hard as he let it hang out of his pants. “Hey! What the-” Kaede was alarmed as she turned around quickly to see it face first, that huge cock and Makoto smiling sweetly.

Makoto groped Kaede's tits madly as he made out with her, it was surprisingly easy to make Kaede forget Shuichi. Though she was more focused on Makoto's now fully erect mass of cock, she had stripped down to her panties and bra while Makoto had gone shirtless. “Makoto maybe we should head to my room or-” SMACK another spank to her ass from Makoto who was oddly quiet “We’re doing it here because this is where you made me hard ok?” Kaede nodded as Makoto ripped off her panties and pinned her to the ground for the mating press of her life.

Makoto was ruthless as he fucked her hard and fast making the pianist scream melodically like Sayaka so often would for him~ Maybe Makoto had a thing for musical girls? He wondered if he should talk to Ibuki, or maybe even Hiyoko since she was a dancer~ Hell why even stick to the arts? Makoto's ravenous hunger made his imagination go wild as he imagined what he COULD do as he slammed Kaede's pussy into his own cock stuffer. Kaede's pussy was forever turned into Makoto's, but he had one more present for Kaede~ SPURT as he came inside her, filling her womb with more cum than Shuichi had in his many times of fucking Kaede. Each drop was more fertile than Shuichi's whole load~

Makoto pulled out of Kaede still rock hard, Kaede however was lost in pleasure as cum cascaded out of. Makoto picked up Kaede who drunk like leaned against the piano as Makoto began to tease her ass. “Makoto- Shuichi never used that sp-” SMACK to her ass as he began to fuck her ass rapidly “That's the point, I need to stretch out both of your holes~” Kaede was a drunken mess again slobbering all over the top of her Piano which she would have to clean later. Makoto kept slamming her ass for a couple hours till he finally gave up his load inside her, watching her lean over the piano and use it to catch her breath. Makoto however had simply pulled up his pants and left… well not before taking a picture and giving that ass one more SPANK

Later that night, after Makoto had gotten done fucking his girlfriends Sayaka and Kyoko, he had gotten a text from Kaede with her showing her nude ass next to a sleeping Shuichi with his tiny cock out with a caption that read “I just got done with this boy, will you show me how a MAN does it~” Makoto knew he wasnt nearly done fucking that night~

[staruwhite]

One of the perks of the port mafia being such a big organization is the fact that there's space for anything inside that building.

And if you're the Demon prodigy... Well, let's say you can have a bit of a say in what to use some rooms for. Being Mori's golden child meant privilege, even if Dazai didn't use any of them. Living in a container in the middle of nowhere, preferring to use his hard earned executive pay to drown the sorrows in alcohol with Oda and Ango instead of getting some other place to live, not being close with almost anyone. That's the demon prodigy everyone knows. The monster they all feared.

Mori would try to keep him happy. Evil expects evil from others, and he knew what Dazai was capable of. The moment you're in his sights, you can say goodbye to your family. And yet, he seemed sure that Dazai had no emotions. It wasn't humanly possible for that to happen. Then again, he was never considered human in the first place, was he?

In the end, not taking into account Dazai's feelings would be what led Mori to lose him.

But not right now, at least. Not today.

Today, all that happened is that he made a request. For the first time, he decided he wanted something.

Deep inside, Dazai prayed for it to not be destroyed.

Mori would comply. He gave him what he wanted and, as he asked, promised not to tell anyone who was it that asked for it. Not like a mafia leader's promise was to be trusted, but it was all Dazai had.

The piano arrived shortly, finding its place in a mostly empty room. One away from most common places in the building, as Dazai requested. Sooner than later, rumours spread of a piano room that suddenly materialized. Dazai feigned ignorance, keeping up his usual mask in front of everyone. No one should know, after all, that the demon prodigy could have a heart.

Chuuya kept hearing about that "mysterious piano", his curiosity growing. By the time he had an hour to spend by himself and go check it out, it was already 3:30am. Most workers left to go home, and, being honest, the building with this little light seemed almost eerie, like he shouldn't be here. Much less in the part no one ever even goes to.

His thoughts were interrupted by a sound. A soft touch of piano keys in the silence of the night. One that Chuuya wasn't ready to hear. He stopped in his tracks and looked at the closed door in front of him.

He was told the piano was in the room behind it, maybe it was true after all, but the sound of the soothing melody behind the door was enough to keep him there.

Who was playing? He took a step back, being as silent as possible, not wanting to disturb whoever was letting their heart out with that music. Instead of going in, he sat beside the door and tried to think.

Not like he knew everyone in the mafia... But he did know quite a few people, and none of them were pianists before joining, or even know how to play the piano as far as he knew. Not Kouyou, or Hirotsu, or...

It couldn't be him.

It was true, no one knew anything about Dazai's past. He could've been a pianist, maybe. Hell, if he's the demon prodigy then maybe he's also a music prodigy?

But it can't be him. Chuuya scratched that thought as he closed his eyes. That Mackerel is too annoying for something as calming as this. And even so...

The music grew louder, Chuuya's eyes widened. Whoever was in that room was pouring their soul into every note, drop by drop. He wondered if they'd ever run out of it. And that was all the reason he needed.

Someone as closed off as Dazai wouldn't just scream their heart out like this. Someone like him shouldn't be able to make Chuuya's heartstrings resonate, or make his breath falter with a mere sound.

Though this was no mere sound in Chuuya's ears. Someone was dying in there, and he felt no right to interrupt.

Just as it grew louder, the music went back to a softer sound. The calm after the storm.

Maybe they weren't dying. Maybe they were coming back alive.

His thoughts were interrupted by the faint sound of someone at the end of the hall. His eyes shot towards the noise and he stood up. There was something telling him that, whoever it was, they shouldn't be here. No one was allowed to listen to this.

Was it a wave of protectiveness? Jealousy that others would also be able to listen to a stranger's heart? He didn't know.

What he knew, however, is that other people wouldn't be as gentle as he was with it. They'd go in and find out who it was. And even if Chuuya was dying to know, he was pretty sure the person inside didn't want anyone to interrupt.

He'd have to take the blame and hope they'd understand.

With a deep breath, he knocked on the wall behind him. As if alerting the one inside of something. Maybe he should've learnt morse code or something, but it worked. The person inside stopped playing abruptly, Chuuya mentally apologised and then left in a rush, using his ability to make his steps lighter.

Maybe he'd find out whoever that was some other day. Hopefully.

For the following day, he kept thinking back to that piano. It didn't really distract him, but the thought was constantly there. The feeling too.

He went back. Same place, same time. And to his surprise, the same song was being played. A smile found its way to his lips as the cycle repeated itself. He was pretty sure the person inside must know there was someone else outside, listening in, and in some way he did feel like he was intruding and should leave... But he didn't.

It became routine. A stranger playing the piano and Chuuya sitting outside, letting the music heal his tired soul even if for a few minutes. Then when someone would come, Chuuya would alert them and then leave.

He even started humming the melody by the third time he heard it. "They must like that one," he figured out. And unknown to him, he started humming it while out on a mission with the damn Mackerel.

Dazai on the other hand, was surprised Chuuya seemed so... Quiet. The redhead was usually loud in every sense, flashy and annoying. He found himself almost lost when his attempts to tease him were blocked by some wave of tranquility that the other boy was feeling.

That is, until he heard the humming. He didn't want to react, but he couldn't help it. He glanced at him, eyes slightly widened. And Chuuya noticed, of course.

Damn human emotions.

"What's with your face, mackerel?" Chuuya looked forwards again, focusing on where they were going.

"Didn't think slugs had enough culture to know Chopin," Dazai replied, looking away. "Where did you get that from?"

Chuuya made the connection in his head, but decided not to say anything.

"Chopin, eh...? You know the song?"

"Why wouldn't I? I'm obviously-"

"Which one is it then?"

Dazai was slightly surprised at the way Chuuya interrupted him. He was used to him sometimes speaking over him, of course, but those times were shushing him or screaming insults at him when he pissed him off. To be interrupted this calmly felt new, and in a sense, he didn't like it.

"Raindrops."

"Huh? That's the name? You're not messing with me, are ya?"

"Why would I mess with a tiny slug? You already have enough with being so small!"

Dazai kept trying to rebuild the facade. It wasn't completely working, but it covered the most vulnerable parts of him. Chuuya groaned.

A part of Dazai felt relieved. He was still the same Chuuya he knew.

They spent the rest of the mission bickering like they always did. Both of them knew now what the other would be doing late at night, but none wanted to speak of it.

By nighttime, back came Chuuya to the hall next to the piano room. He sat down and waited, a bit surprised that the song wasn't already started when he arrived. Did he mess up?

Now he knew who was in there. And now the one inside knew who was outside. Maybe the knowledge made them a bit more wary of what was going on?

Dazai looked at the keys in front of them, black and white like the world he's used to know, and sighed, making a choice. If he was going to open his heart to someone... At least, let it be Chuuya.

The song sounded... Different. Maybe it was the fact that Dazai's mind was screaming for him to stop before it was too late. Maybe it was the way his fingers trembled with each note.

Maybe it was how his heart ached more than usual today.

Bandaged fingers caressed each key as his bleeding soul was forced to pour it all out. All his hurt, sorrow and fears laid out for anyone to listen.

He knew only one person would, though.

By the end of it, he was looking down at the keys, hot tears falling on his hands. He quickly wiped them away when he heard a familiar knock, though this time was on the door.

Chuuya opened it, taking in the sight of Dazai sitting in front of the piano, the moonlight from the window creating the perfect silhouette. He closed the door behind him.

"I can finally see the piano. Looks expensive."

The silence grew tense, even if Chuuya tried to keep it light. Dazai stared at him and, for the first time, Chuuya saw a scared child instead of that monster everyone seems to know.

The eye that wasn't covered by bandages was wide, looking at Chuuya like a deer in headlights. He pursed his lips and sighed, taking a step forward as Dazai flinched back.

Chuuya stopped. He was used to this behaviour from when he was with the sheep. Sometimes kids with a lot of trauma would freeze like this, scared of everything, when something triggered them. Chuuya cursed himself for being the reason this time.

"Hey, I'm not gonna do anything weird. It's just me, idiot."

That seemed to calm him down, just a bit. Chuuya carefully approached him, step by step and with a soft demeanour, then offered a book. Dazai looked at it, methodically controlling his breathing.

"What's that?"

"Just take it..." Chuuya placed it on his lap and looked away. Dazai held it and caressed the cover. "It's... I keep a diary."

"Chuuya gave me his diary? What for?"

At that, Chuuya glanced at the piano, his gloved hand caressing one of the keys but not pressing it, as if he didn't know how.

"I'm no musician. Or artist of any kind. I've listened to your heart... But there's nothing I can give in return, so there. My diary."

Dazai looked up at him, his brain never thought the chance of an exchange like this with Chuuya of all people was possible, and yet here they were.

He offered the book back to him.

"It's not a fair exchange."

"Huh? What do you mean?" Chuuya retorted, his eyebrows knitted.

"You listened. I can't read it, I should listen too."

"The hell you want me to do? Read it like a bedtime story?"

"Don't read. Just tell me."

Chuuya froze.

From the first moment he heard him play, he had no choice in what to listen to. Everything was out in the open, so that's what he heard. Yeah, this time was different, but Dazai still chose to pour everything into it. And now that he was offered the same in return... He gave Chuuya a choice.

He could choose what to tell and what not to. What to show and what parts of his heart would be kept hidden. Even if he already knew what he'd do.

With a sigh, he sat down on the small bench, shoving Dazai aside to make room for himself.

"Where do I start...?"

During that night, they both gained more understanding of the other. They shared stories, laughs and sorrows. A deeper bond between them, one of unshakable trust.

Deep down... They both prayed for it to never break.

//hi hello hi!! I treated myself to some writing of an idea I had a long time ago, so here we are! I always thought Raindrops would suit Dazai so I had this thought. Hope you enjoyed! <33

[luneinary]

Heyooo for the questions perhaps a 12 with kaede:]?

as An Intermediate Level Ultimate Pianist myself . I think she would be one of those players to completely smash the keys out of anger whenever she misses a note . Not that it happens often , but one or two times she gets completely swept up in playing , hits a weird sharp note and someone from across the hallway is unfortunate enough to hear the ungodly screams of a musician that started practicing 15 hours ago and hasn't been seen outside of her room since

[sweepinguptheemeraldbar]

✨️Falk being Falk✨️

A compilation from Oberhausen, 18/10/24

He is having a thought!

Frolicking through the meadows

"Oh look! A squirrel!

"I am a literal GOD"

Bugs when you lift up a rock

He skedaddle away

"I am one with the keyboard and the keyboard is one with me"

"'Aight, imma head out"

Pyre content sold separately.

[astrophysicist-guitar-god]

'Freddie Mercury felt like a god. Then he started behaving like one,' by the man who signed Queen

By NORMAN J SHEFFIELD, Founder of Trident Studios where Queen first recorded // PUBLISHED: 17:00 EDT, 20 July 2013 | UPDATED: 17:16 EDT, 20 July 2013 (x)

NORMAN J SHEFFIELD on the amazing story of how one of Britain's best loved rock bands made it big

Freddie Mercury used to say there was no question in his mind that Queen would be a success

I was sitting in my office one day in 1971 when I got a call from my brother Barry down in the studio.

‘Norman, come down and have a listen to something,’ he said.

John Anthony, Trident’s A&R man, had discovered a band called Smile.

At the start, the lead guitarist was an astrophysics student from Imperial College called Brian May, the bassist and singer was an art student called Tim Staffell, and the drummer was a biology student called Roger Taylor.

It turned out that they’d now reshaped the band.

Staffell had been replaced by this little Indian-looking guy with a big, operatic voice and they had a new bass player.

John had asked for their demo. It was raw but there was definitely something there. I’d opened Trident Studios in 1968 in Soho.

Its cutting-edge facilities and happening vibe were attracting the greatest talents of the era, from The Beatles and Elton John to David Bowie and Marc Bolan.

The four guys who came into my office a couple of weeks later were an intriguing mix of characters.

Roger Taylor was a really good-looking kid, with long blond hair and charm. Brian May was tall with a mane of curls and a little introverted but clearly very intelligent. The bass player, John Deacon, was also quiet. I could tell right away that the fourth member was going to be high maintenance.

His real name was Farokh Bulsara. He was born in Zanzibar and educated in India. The family had immigrated to England when he was a teenager. He’d gone to Ealing Art College to study art and graphic design. He was also a gifted singer and pianist.

When he joined the band, he immediately gave himself a more rock ’n’ roll name: Freddie Mercury.

He was charming, acted a bit shy and reserved at times and spoke in quite a posh, mannered voice. When he relaxed he had a very sharp sense of humour and spoke at a hundred miles an hour.

Queen turned out to be every bit as good - and demanding - as we'd anticipated. Things had to be one hundred per cent right, otherwise they wouldn't be happy

They’d rightly decided to ditch Smile as their name. I nearly choked on my coffee when I heard their new one: Queen. The world wasn’t as enlightened then as it is today.

We were worried that it would be a real turn-off, especially given the band’s look. Freddie apparently had a girlfriend but we were pretty certain he was gay.

But the name wasn’t up for negotiation. I agreed to offer the Queenies, as we christened them, a loose kind of arrangement. There were times when the studio was ‘dark’, usually at 2am. So we said: ‘We’ll give you this downtime in the studio to see what you can do.’

They turned out to be every bit as good – and demanding – as we’d anticipated. Things had to be one hundred per cent right, otherwise they wouldn’t be happy. They’d spend days and nights working on the harmonies.

Arguments would start about the tiniest little detail. They’d start screaming, shouting and chucking things. Sometimes it would blow over in a few minutes, but at other times they would stew on it, not talking to each other for a day or two. They’d always sort it out, however. It wasn’t personal, it was about the work.

The more adulation Freddie received on stage, the harder he became to work with offstage

Freddie used to say there was no question in his mind that Queen would be a success.

‘There was never a doubt, darling, never,’ he’d say with an imperious wave of his hand.

The title of their first album was simply Queen.

Another suggestion had been Dearie Me, Freddie’s catchphrase, which was quite funny but the band were a hard enough sell as it was.

They spent ages arguing about the album sleeve. The front cover was a single image of Freddie on stage, with two spotlights in the background.

For the back cover the boys put together a collage of snaps of themselves.

Freddie had driven everyone to distraction fretting over whether he looked ‘gorgeous enough’ in them.

By the end of the year they were on the road with Mott the Hoople, but Queen were getting more encores and bigger cheers than the headliners.

They were due to go to Australia for a gig when Brian suddenly developed a really high fever. His arm had swollen up to the size of a football and doctors diagnosed gangrene.

At one point it was touch and go whether he would lose it. Luckily the crisis eased and he was allowed to fly.

However, the gig was a disaster. The local DJ introducing them had clearly taken against them because he introduced them as ‘stuck-up Pommies’. When they got on stage, the crowd turned against them, too.

The boys were mightily relieved when they got on a plane back to London. For some bizarre reason, the British press had been tipped off that Her Majesty the Queen was arriving at Heathrow. So when they saw four knackered musicians emerging through Customs, they weren’t too happy.

On their first tour of America, Brian’s health was deteriorating. Our worst fears were confirmed when doctors announced he had hepatitis.

The rest of the tour had to be cancelled. It was a disaster, professionally and personally. Then, when they came back to London in August, he had to have an emergency operation for an ulcer.

The opening track on A Night At The Opera attacked their management

But on October 11, 1974, EMI put out Killer Queen, from their third album, Sheer Heart Attack.

Within weeks it had given the boys the thing they’d most wanted – a No. 1 single.

As Queen hit the road again, this time as a headline act in their own right, it was clear they were on the verge of major success.

But the more adulation Freddie received on stage, the harder he became to work with offstage.

The tour came to an end at the famous Rainbow Theatre in London. The day before the gig, Freddie was being even more pedantic than usual.

‘Oh, stop being such a tart, Freddie,’ Brian said.

Freddie was outraged. He tossed back his head, waved his arms and stormed off in a strop.

When it was time for the soundcheck, Brian turned the mic on.

‘Freddiepoos, where are you?’ he shouted.

Freddie appeared immediately with a face like thunder. He flounced on stage, gave Brian a vicious look and then just got on with it. That’s what they always did.

In 1975 they went to Japan and found 3,000 fans waiting for them, all chanting the band’s name. It was like Beatlemania. Freddie had finally found the acclaim he’d craved all his life. He felt like a god. Unfortunately, he soon started behaving like one, too.

The more successful they became, the more agitated Queen had grown about money. One of the most heated rows came when John got married. In the run-up to the wedding he announced he wanted me to spring £10,000 (about £90,000 in 2013 values) for him to buy a house. I didn’t react too well.

Then Freddie demanded a grand piano. When I turned him down, he  banged his fist on my desk. ‘I have to get a grand piano,’ he said.

Norman J Sheffield: By the time I realised things were badly wrong it was too late

I wasn’t being mean. We knew there was a huge amount of money due to come flooding our way from Queen’s success. I explained that some of it was already coming in but the vast majority of it hadn’t arrived yet.

‘But we’re stars. We’re selling millions of records,’ Freddie said.

‘And I’m still living in the same flat I’ve been in for the past three years.’

The amount of money we’d invested in the band was huge.

We’d advanced them equipment and salaries right at the beginning and had continued to pour money into them for four years.

The fact the band owed Trident close to £200,000 (£1.75 million today) didn’t seem to register with Freddie.

I can remember the conversation.

‘The money will come in December,’ I said. ‘So wait.’

Then came a phrase he would make famous around the world in years to come, although no one would have known where it was born.

Freddie stamped his feet and raised his voice: ‘No, I am not prepared to wait any longer. I want it all. I want it now.’

By late 1975 I was hearing that they were making all sorts of derogatory comments about Trident.

Then I heard a track from A Night At The Opera called Death On Two Legs. The opening two lines summed up what was to come.

‘You suck my blood like a leech/you break the law and you breach’, then, ‘Do you feel like suicide?’ it went on, ‘I think that you should’. It was some kind of nasty hate mail from Freddie to me.

Soon Bohemian Rhapsody roared to the top of the UK charts and stayed there for nine weeks. A bittersweet moment, it came as news was beginning to leak that we had split from Queen.

We should have talked more. And I should have been more attentive to their feelings. By the time I realised things were badly wrong, it was too late.

In March 1977 the company settled with the band for the sale of all of its future rights, the rights to the old albums and the settlement of the management debt.

Freddie’s dream finally came true and he became a very wealthy man. When he died, no one was sadder than me. He may have been a monster to deal with, but he was also a genius.

I did see him once, in the years following our fallout, in 1986, when I took the family to their Knebworth concert. He was friendly, as if the rows of the past were forgotten. It turned out to be their last live concert, which meant I was at their first and last.

Years later, after his death, I went to the Freddie Mercury Memorial Concert at Wembley, where I saw the three remaining members being photographed.

John Deacon pointed at me and said: ‘And if it hadn’t been for that man we wouldn’t be here.’

Brian and Roger looked at me and nodded. That gesture went a long way towards exorcising the ghosts of the past. 

(Extracted from ‘Life On Two Legs: Set The Record Straight’ by Norman J Sheffield, out now and online from Amazon and in bookshops priced £14.95 for paperback, £7.49 for Kindle.

A limited-edition hardback is also available at £24.95. For more images, visit facebook.com/lifeontwolegs)

[noonaishere]

Music of the Heart [J.YH] - prologue | a long time ago… in a town far, far away…

“How was your violin lesson, honey?” Your dad asked as he looked up from the newspaper.

You shrugged. “Fine.”

You walked through the house and into your room, putting the violin case down where you normally left it next to your desk. You laid face down on your bed for a moment and sighed, the chastising from your teacher still in your head. ‘Lift your elbow!’ ‘These are the glissandos of someone who hasn’t practiced!’ ‘Do you think Paganini became the world’s greatest violinist with the amount of effort you put into it?!’

You grabbed your pillow and screamed into it.

“Hey.”

You sat up to find your brother, Intak, standing in the doorway.

“Mom said dinner’s ready.” He left.

You took your jacket off, threw it on the bed and went to the kitchen.

“I got a call from your violin teacher today,” your mom said as she placed the last plate on the table and sat down. “He told me you haven’t been practicing.”

You stared at your plate, wishing you were anywhere else. Swimming in the ocean near a shark feeding frenzy, perhaps.

“T/n?”

“I have been practicing.”

“He told me you haven’t been improving.”

“Honey, you need to practice.” Your dad added.

“Maybe I’m just not cut out to play violin then.”

Your dad sighed and looked to your mom for help.

“Honey, playing the violin will open up so many opportunities for you.”

You looked up at her.

“Take your father and myself for example: concert pianists and ballet dancers acquire a level of prestige that other jobs simply don’t have.”

“And what if I don’t want that kind of prestige?”

She scoffed. “Now honey, everyone wants that kind of prestige.”

You rolled your eyes.

“Don’t roll your eyes at your mother.”

You anchored your gaze onto your food since there wasn’t anything else you could do.

Your mom continued. “Your father has played concerts all across the globe, and I’ve danced all across Asia and Europe. I would have danced elsewhere too, if I didn’t give birth to your brother and you.”

You fought hard not to roll your eyes again. It was an age-old tale belonging only to her; that birthing your brother and yourself had ruined her waifish body and so she could no longer dance. An age-old tale that, to look at her, seemed to be a fabrication; she was about as thin as she was before she had either of you. The envy of most of the moms at your school because she seemed to never gain weight.

“Look at your brother,” your dad said. “He plays cello and he loves it.”

Your brother smiled at you.

“Well, I play violin and I don’t.”

“You understood the rules, honey.” your mom began. “You could choose between dance or an instrument, and you were kicked out of dance, so now--”

“Now I’m stuck with violin.”

“Don’t say it like that.” She said firmly. 

“That’s what it feels like.”

“You’re being disrespectful.” Your father reprimanded.

You turned to him with a blank expression.

“We have careers in the arts--

“Had.” Your mother corrected.

“Yes, honey, had. So did all of your grandparents. It’s in your blood.”

You looked back down at your plate. After getting yelled at by your violin teacher for two hours, you already didn’t want to eat. Now you just wanted to throw up.

“That’s why you need to go to violin practice. And that’s why you need to practice more.” Your mom said.

“If it’s in my blood, then why aren’t I just naturally good at it?” You looked up at your mom.

She chewed her food thoughtfully.

You watched her.

“Art is about effort, and passion--”

“--And about being forced to do something and not being allowed to deviate from the path someone else chose for you.”

She glared at you as she lowered her spoon back to the plate.

“Art is about not being able to experiment with style or form, it’s about being made to do something by someone else. Right?”

“When did I say that?”

“That’s what you’re telling me right now because you won’t even entertain the idea that I might want to play a different instrument. Or that I might not even want to be in the arts at all.”

She stared at you, expressionless. “Go to your room.”

The two of you locked eyes. She looked at you passively, the cold air of a parent who knew they would always get what they want because they are the one in charge. You? Your face was one of indignance. You knew that you were trapped. There was a world waiting for you outside your cage but you’d never see it as long as you lived under her roof. For a moment, you thought of saying something, starting a fight because it was the only thing you could do; at least you’d get to speak your mind.

You stood angrily, nearly knocking over your chair in the process. You stormed off to your room and slammed the door behind you. Before you could even make it to your bed, your legs gave out from under you and you collapsed, like a child in prayer your arms sprawled across the bedspread as your fingers came together and grasped the fabric in two fistfulls and you held on. Instead of calling on some higher power, you cried.

A few hours later, you were done crying your eyes out. The feeling of emotional release that crying provides already given way to feeling trapped again, and you knew that there wasn’t anything you could do. The only way to stop crying would be to change the situation you were in so you no longer had a reason to cry, and you couldn’t even do that until you graduated.

Because you could do nothing else, you lay on your bed listening to music. Contrary to whatever idea of you your parents had in their head, you genuinely liked music. You loved it. You were a true ‘music is my life’ child who used music as a way to ground themselves in nervous situations, listened to aggressive music when they were angry, and used it to change their mood from sad to happy.

You listened to songs over and over for hours as you deconstructed them in your mind, paying close attention to how they worked, what notes and chords made the listener feel what feelings, the use of metaphor and idiom the lyricists used to create a story. You liked so many different kinds of music. You didn’t like the idea of being the kind of person who only listens to one kind, if only because there was so many thousands of years of music that have existed throughout human history and it would be stupid to think that one band or genre that exists in the brief blip that is now could be the be-all end-all of human emotion and experience. Not listening to as much music as you possibly could would be a truly stupid decision, in your eyes. Humans have loved music since the first person realized they could make noise that was pleasing to the ears and share it with the other people around them; there was something sacred in that. Learning to make music shouldn’t be for - as your parents thought - fame and prestige. 

As you thought about how much you loved music and how much your parents just didn’t have the same mindset, a song you vaguely remembered adding to your playlist came on. A distorted bass note opened the song before sounding like it was spinning out of control into a flurry of electric guitar and drums, but the bass was still there in the background, stabilizing the song with its chunky, heavy sound. You picked up your mp3 player and looked at it, Around the World by the Red Hot Chili Peppers; it must have been one of the albums one of your few friends in band class let you rip from their cd collection like contraband, since your parents didn’t let you buy anything that wasn’t art music. Of the three kinds of music - art music, folk music, popular music - in your house you were only allowed to listen to one: art. Classical, baroque, romantic, opera: those were the genres that were permitted. The worst part was, there were movements and pieces that you genuinely liked, but all of it had been tarnished for you. You were a caged bird; the lines of the staff were the bars of your cage while the notes that rested on them were notes you wished to sing, but because you were not allowed to experience the emotion that would bring about song, they were meaningless.

You navigated to the album and played the rest of it. However you ended up with it, it had some amazing songs. Right On Time started with the weirdest sound you’d ever heard: a bouncy springy sound that you couldn’t identify. You got up and sat at your computer and entered a bunch of music terms trying to figure out what it was before just searching “RHCP Right On Time cover” and finding that, to play the song, the bassist was hitting his thumb against the strings and pulling the strings away from the instrument.

“Slap bass?” You said out loud, to no one.

It was so cool, and you loved the sound. Maybe you could play bass instead of…

No... No. You knew your parents would never let you play a rock instrument. There was no ‘prestige’, the thing most important to them. A word you had come to hate. 

Wasn’t the point of art to release your own creativity in a way that other people could experience it? Wasn’t the point of art to make others laugh, cry, think, and experience something? Wasn’t the point of making art to have a good time? For two artists who constantly extolled the virtues of art, their idea took on a decidedly commodified definition. Art wasn’t about creativity or pleasure to them, it was about physical and social capital. Even then, people in rock bands made millions of dollars and had fans who loved them. But you already knew what they’d say if you tried to make that point: that wasn’t the right form of social capital. It wasn’t the love from old money millionaires who could become your patron, throw all of their money at you, pay you to write or play things they want, put you up in the best hotels so you could play to a mere few hundred people at the fanciest concert hall. It was about the elitism. It was about being better than someone else. It was about accepting the cage because it was gilded.

Watching the cover over again, you felt something. Something that you had never felt for ballet or the violin. You wanted it. A sense of ardor that made your face flush and the heat rise from your neck. It was almost embarrassing how strong the feeling was. You had felt dead inside from the conversation at dinner and from crying afterwards, numbed by the idea that your fate was inescapable, but now your very being felt alight. Desire, tinged with anger. A conflagration of understanding what you wanted after having it kept from you for so long. It was just so cool.

You wanted to learn what he was doing, you wanted to play what the bassist in the video was playing, you wanted to be in command of such an instrument that could make noises so low you could feel it like a second heartbeat in your chest. But you could never have that. Not while you lived in your parent’s home, anyway.

You thought for a moment. You had birthday money. Actually, you had a lot of birthday money since your mom never let you have any of it. And you knew that she kept it hidden in her sock drawer because you snuck after her and saw her put it in there one year. She wouldn’t have had any reason to move it, right? And also…

It was your money.

You peeked into the kitchen and saw your mom cleaning dishes, your dad was in the living room watching the news, and your brother was in his room with the door closed. You snuck into your parent’s room and found the money exactly where you knew it was. You took a bunch of it out and put paper you had cut to the correct size in its place, hoping she wouldn’t notice. At least, she wouldn’t notice until your next birthday, and that was almost a year from now. That gave you a year to think of what you were going to say when she found out and screamed at you.

You calmly walked back to your room, and only exhaled once you closed your door and stood against it. Now, you could hear your heart hammering in your ears from the sheer panic of getting caught. You took a deep breath and looked around your room; you didn’t want to put the money in your wallet and risk losing it, so you needed to hide it somewhere she wouldn’t think to look. You opened your desk drawer: too obvious. Between the mattress and the boxspring: she’d see it when she was cleaning. You had it: you never pulled the bottom drawer of your dresser out all the way because it just had things that were only really for dressing up, which you didn’t do often. You could tape it to the underside of the panel the drawer above rested on. 

You wrapped the money up in some paper and taped it to the panel, far enough from the entrance that it couldn’t be seen. You tested this by pulling the drawer out, and found that it was well hidden. Step one: complete.

Step two: now you just needed to figure out a time when you could go to the music shop in the next town over. You couldn’t go during the week, so it’d have to be a weekend. But you also didn’t have a car and the music shop was pretty far away. You’d have to walk back with it. That was no problem, but what were you supposed to do with it once you brought it back?

You certainly couldn’t keep it at your house, your parents would kill you. 

But if someone could hold onto it for you…

  main cast | masterlist | next

Send an ask or leave a comment if you want to be added to the tag list! 🎵

[camisoledadparis]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … November 23

1876 – Manuel De Falla, Spanish composer, born (d.1946); Pablo Picasso is quoted as saying that he considered de Falla the shyest man he had ever met, "even smaller than myself, and as modest and withdrawn as an oyster shell ..." He was said to have been involved in a ménage á trois with composer Maurice Ravel and pianist Ricardo Viñes.

De Falla became close friends with Diaghalev and Massine, with whom he collaborated on The Three-Cornered Hat. It was, incidentally, immediately after the first performance of this ballet, that Massine announced his engagement to Lydia Sokolova, who had just performed the leading role, and was then dismissed from the Ballet Russes by the enraged Diaghelev.

1924 – The famed British-American anthropologist Colin Turnbull was born on this date (d.1994). Best known for this groundbreaking books The Forest People & The Mountain People, Turnbull was also one of the first anthropologists to work in the field of ethnomusicology.

Turnbull was an unconventional scholar who rejected neutrality. He idealized the BaMbuti and reviled the Ik, and described the latter as lacking any sense of altruism, in that they force their children out of their homes at the age of three, and gorge on whatever occasional excesses of food they might find until they became sick, rather than save or share. However, several anthropologists have since argued that a particularly serious famine suffered by the Ik during the period of Turnbull's visit may have distorted their normal behavior and customs, and some passages in his book make it clear that the behavior and customs of the Ik during the period he describes were drastically different from what was normal for them before they were uprooted from their original way of life.

Turnbull with MButi children.

In the US, he lived with his professional collaborator and partner of 30 years, the African American Dr. Joseph Towles, as an openly gay, interracial couple in one of the most conservative areas of the 1960s - rural Virginia.

During this time he also took up the political cause of death row inmates. After his partner's death in 1988, Turnbull, strongly affected, gave all his belongings to the United Negro College Fund. In 1989, he moved to Bloomington, Indiana to participate to the building of Tibetan Cultural Center with his friend Thupten Jigme Norbu, elder brother of the 14th Dalai Lama. In 1991 - 1992, he moved to Dharamsala, India where he took the monks' vow of Tibetan Buddhism, given to him by the Dalai Lama. He was then given a buddhist name.

He died in Virginia in 1994, aged 69. Both Towles and Turnbull died from complications of AIDS.

1926 – Roger Englander (d.2021) was an American director and producer. He won a Primetime Emmy Award and was nominated for five more in the category Outstanding Directing.

Born in Clevelend, Ohio, Englander attended Cleveland Heights High School where he studied piano, trumpet and French horn; he also conducted the school orchestra. He studied drama, composition and theory at the University of Chicago and graduated in 1945.

Englander produced all 53 episodes for Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts at CBS from 1958 until 1972. Earlier, he was the prop manager for Bernstein's production of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes at Tanglewood in 1946. He staged several of Gian Carlo Menotti's operas, including The Telephone and The Medium for WPTZ (Philadelphia).

Englander wrote Opera, What's All the Screaming About? in 1983. He also directed several episodes of Omnibus and produced episodes of The Bell Telephone Hour which earned him a Peabody Award in 1959.

Englander died in February 2021, of pneumonia at the hospital in Newport, Rhode Island, at the age of 94. He was survived by his long-time companion Michael Dupré.

1933 – The New York tabloid Broadway Brevities, under the headline "Fags Tickle Nudes," published an article warning that "Pansy men of the nation" were invading steam baths and turning them into replicas of the orgy houses in Rome at the time of Nero.

Joe Zee (R) and husband Rob Younkers

1968 – Joe Zee is a Hong Kong-born Canadian fashion stylist, journalist, and producer, known for Entertainment Tonight (1981), FABLife (2015) and Celebrity Style Story (2012). Zee served as creative director of Elle for seven years. He became editor-in-chief and executive creative officer of Yahoo! Style in April 2014. He resigned from Yahoo in June 2017.

Zee was born in Hong Kong and at the age of one, moved to Toronto where he grew up. He began working in fashion in 1990, at age 22, and ultimately moved to New York City enrolling at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

In the mid-1990s, Zee met stylist Lori Goldstein at an Allure party, and soon became her assistant.

He was described in a New York Times profile as a leader in the mass market and digital transformation of fashion: "a chatty and approachable ambassador of fashion who has aggressively thrust himself in front of hoi polloi using Twitter, blogs, v-logs and—most visibly—television."

Zee was a recurring character as boss of the reality series The City. He has also appeared on episodes of Ugly Betty, Mistresses, and General Hospital as himself. He was one of the co-hosts of the ABC daytime talk show The Fab Life.

In 2010, he made an appearance on Gossip Girl as himself.In 2015, he released his book That's What Fashion Is: Lessons and Stories from My Nonstop, Mostly Glamorous Life in Style. Zee is married to Rob Younkers, host of Logo TV's Secret Guide to Fabulous

1989 – On this date the Natural Bears Classification System was unveiled on a Usenet group. The NBCS or "bear code" is a set of symbols using letters, numbers and other characters commonly found on modern, Western computer keyboards, and used for the self-identification of those who self-identify as "bears" in the sense of a mature gay or bisexual man with facial or substantial body hair. This classification scheme was created by Bob Donahue and Jeff Stoner, and was based on the way in which star and galaxy classification systems used characteristics of an object to derive a classifying identifier.

The format of the NBCS is a sequence of space-separated descriptions that each take the form, "XMme" where X is a letter indicating some trait; M is an optional magnitude indicated by either a number or a sequence of + or - characters (the former are used for rankings that have a broad, but discrete range while the latter is used for more comparative measurements); m is an optional modifier such as "v" which indicates variability of the trait; and e is any extra (such as a parenthesized magnitude that indicates a range from the magnitude outside the parentheses to the magnitude inside).

The format includes physical traits such as "B" for beard density/length, "f" for body hair (or "fur"), "t" for height (or "tallness"), and "w" for weight. It also includes personality traits such as "d" for "the daddy factor" and sexual preferences such as "k" for "the kinky factor."

A sample bear code is: B4 d+c e+ f+ g++ k+ m w t+ r (+?)

Translation: Reasonably thick beard, definite Daddy, cub tendencies, (endowment) gets attention, above average fur, loves groping/pawing/touching, (Kinkiness) loves most things, (Muscle) some definition, Blue collar, average weight, tall, (sex) plays under special circumstances.

1998 – The Georgia Supreme Court voted 6-1 to overturn the state's sodomy law. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Robert Benham wrote, "We cannot think of any other activity that reasonable persons would rank as more private and more deserving of protection from governmental interference than consensual, private, adult sexual activity." Since the decision was based on the Georgia constitution rather than the US constitution, the decision could not be appealed.

2009 – On this date the city council of Charleston, South Carolina passed ordinances expanding the city's existing policy prohibiting discrimination in housing to include age, sexual orientation and gender identity. How important is this? In American history there is probably no other conservative city than Charleston. The Civil War was virtually born in Charleston and it is a city that was founded on the slave trade and the institutionalization of the most conservative, landowning families.

But that was then and this is now. Although the state is still a conservative hotbed, Charleston is a more cosmopolitan and urbane city. It also has a spirit of liberalism and openness. So this can only be seen as a sign of how far we have come.

The council also passed a public accommodations ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, disability, age or sexual orientation. Charleston joins a number of other cities in the south with comprehensive anti-discrimination ordinances including Charleston WV, New Orleans LA, Atlanta GA, Covington KY and Columbia SC.

2014 – In Brazil, the world's first largest same-sex wedding with 160 couples takes place in Rio de Janeiro. It was the fifth time mass same-sex weddings were held in Brazil. (The following year 185 couples married.) Claudio Nascimento of Rio Sem Homophobia (Rio without Homophobia) says, "It is an affirmative action to call attention to all of the achievements and challenges in the area of civil and human rights of the LGBT community." Brazil broke the Guinness World Record for the largest pride parade in 2009 with 4 million attendees. Same-sex marriage has been legal in Brazil since May 16, 2013, though it had already been legally recognized since 2004.

[nitrateglow]

Halloween 2023 marathon: 19-21

The Hands of Orlac (dir. Robert Wiene, 1924)

Concert pianist Orlac (Conrad Veidt) is excited to return from touring to the arms of his loving wife Yvonne (Alexandra Sorina) right before he suffers injuries in a train crash. While the accident does not kill him, it destroys his hands. His hands being key to his livelihood, Orlac despairs, but the doctors are able to graft new ones onto his wrists. All well and good, with one problem: the hands were taken from the corpse of a guillotined murderer, Orlac is uncomfortable with them from the outset, and once he learns of their origins, Orlac is becoming paranoid that the hands will influence him to kill. Driven to madness by his fears, will Orlac resort to violence?

The Hands of Orlac has a great premise and a great lead actor in the compelling, expressive Conrad Veidt. The atmosphere, though not as surreal as Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, is decidedly nightmarish and suffocating as the protagonist's paranoia consumes him.

If only the pacing wasn't the worst.

Like, there's slow pacing and then there's submerging your movie in molasses. Orlac runs almost two hours long and much of it is just dedicated to Veidt's very deliberated mannerisms and reactions. I love Veidt-- he was one of the greatest actors of the silent era-- but the scenes of him staring in horror at his hands and whatnot just go on forever and to no real benefit to the story.

And that's unfortunate because this is a very mature, subdued psychological horror film, more about inner conflict than external monsters or psychopaths (though the movie does ultimately have a villain). In some ways, it's ahead of its time: the urban gloom on display here foreshadows the film noir movies of the 1940s and 1950s. However, it's so slow that I had a hard time getting into it.

The Island of Lost Souls (dir. Erle C. Kenton, 1932)

Edward Parker (Richard Arlen) is having a bad week: his ship sank, the captain of the ship that rescued him doesn't like him, and now because of that he's been marooned on the Island of Dr. Moreau, a small bit of land not present on any sea chart. Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton) seems an amiable, jovial fellow, but what is to be made of the tortured screams in the night or the cowering, abused "natives" who seem to view Moreau as a god? Turns out, Moreau is trying to speed up evolution with his experiments on animals and he hopes to prove his creations can mate with humans by offering Parker his sole female subject, Lota (Kathleen Burke).

The Island of Lost Souls is quintessential pre-code horror, right there with The Most Dangerous Game and the 1932 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It's gruesome for 1932, dealing with vivisection, inter-species sex, and animal cruelty. Imagine any of THAT flying come the enforcement of the Code.

This is one of very few older horror movies I find genuinely unpleasant even if it doesn't outright show Dr. Moreau cutting up his experiments while they're still very much conscious. Screams are ever present on the soundtrack and they aren't cheesy horror movie yelps. The moans and screaming in this thing are chilling. The humid jungle atmosphere is also palpable, creating a sense of suffocating entrapment. As much as I love many of the classic Universal horror movies, they don't have that same sense of dread and evil this one still possesses.

The Penthouse (dir. Peter Collinson, 1967)

Crooked businessman Bruce (Terence Morgan) and his shopgirl mistress Barbara (Suzy Kendall) find themselves at the mercy of two thugs who break into the penthouse apartment they use for their adulterous liaisons. Tom (Tony Beckley) and Dick (Norman Rodway) are childlike yet ruthless, getting Barbara intoxicated while they tie Bruce up and make him watch. Or rather listen, because boy do these fellas love monologuing.... lots and lots and lots of monologuing.

Yes, the guy who directed The Italian Job made a home invasion movie. It also sucks. Like, oh my GOD, this was designed to torture me, I swear, and not in the way the filmmakers intended. It feels like a college assignment turned into a movie.

Okay, let me be nice first. Visually, this is of interest. Not the quality of the image-- the YouTube upload looks like it was dragged up from VHS hell-- but from what I can see of the compositions and the camerawork, this is a visually dynamic movie doing its hardest to make you forget the script is based on a stage play.

But that's impossible because this is one of those movies where the characters never shut the hell up. They monologue endlessly about Societal Ills and Important Class Themes, occasionally breaking up the lecturing with oddball criminal antics, pot smoking, and violence. It's like an attempt at a "hipper" (for 1967) and more intellectual version of The Desperate Hours, where an ordinary middle-class family is held hostage by criminals as motivated by class-based bitterness as they are by money or freedom. But holy crap, does. It. Drag. 100 minutes of dragging.

Admittedly, the dynamic between Tom and Dick is a little interesting. They're the types who finish each other's sentences and genuinely seem to relish each other's company as they bond over doing these terrible things. They were fascinating to watch when not burdened with pretentious monologues about how baby alligators being flushed down toilets represent society's outliers.

Martine Beswick shows up in the last section as the third accomplice "Harry." Other reviewers claim she brightens up the film, but her appearance is so brief and much ado about nothing at all that she didn't make watching this any more entertaining for me.

The Penthouse feels like a parody of the worst kind of "elevated horror," boring nonsense masquerading as a social statement. Parts of it are memorably bizarre, but there's not enough of that for me to recommend it.