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spammreviews · 10 months ago

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13. House of Cards:

House of Cards fucking slaps. The central guitar riff is instantly recognizable and instantly

beautiful. This song has already hypnotized me before the intro ends, with its bright and colorful sound which still comes off as haunting and full of despair.

The first part of the song does so much with very little, and when the extra layers are added, the song never loses its sway, with the haunting guitar shrills and background vocals still being the central focus.

The song also has a very wonderful atmosphere to it, feeling like you’re floating underwater. The chorus sounds like hearing a machine screaming above the surface, and that just adds to the quality. Everything in this song is hazy and blurry, flowing like water, but it's executed with an insane precision, with every part fitting together perfectly. Even Thom’s voice flows like water. The song definitely goes on a bit, but that’s sort of the point, it feels like you’re floating along endlessly.

12. Reckoner:

Reckoner is a very danceable song, with the tambourine and little egg things being some rather unique productions for a Radiohead song. However, the addition of those extremely bright guitars add such a despondent quality. I also love how the guitar line morphs over the song, waxing and waning in its intensity, letting the other little pieces of the song come in.

I like the way Thom’s voice drifts. The way he holds the notes makes the end of every line kind of dissolve rather than simply stop. On half of the songs in In Rainbows, it feels like Thom is using his voice like it's a completely different instrument, and it has such a fantastic quality.

Also, the bridge where everything slows down and we get Thome doing that beautiful vocal performance that mixes just beautifully with those lush strings? That is peak Radiohead. The bridge feels like we have entered the eye of the storm of anxiety and stress, and we have that moment to contemplate before we are yanked back into reality. It is so extraordinarily satisfying when the song launches back into its full intensity.

Reckoner manages to feel simultaneously calm and agitated, probably through whatever is going on with the percussion, which is, once again, some of Radiohead’s best. This song also has that extremely wavy quality much of In Rainbows has, with Thome’s voice flowing like a river.

There’s also some subtle flourishes of distorted voices in the outro which are nice and kind of remind me of Karma Police.

In Rainbows is an album which is very interested in failures of human interaction, and Reckoner keeps up that theme with lines such as “Because we separate like ripples on a blank shore”. One could say this line is the singer saying that this division between human beings is what leads to his issues with relationships that are explored in “Faust Arp” and “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”.

This line being followed by the line “in rainbows”, for me, calls to mind a prism, taking a single beam of light and refracting it into a rainbow��or whatever it is that prisms do.

11. Nude:

The fact that this song was made by humans is astonishing. Unearthly doesn’t even begin to describe it, this song sounds like it came from another dimension.

It can be really hard to talk about a lot of the songs in In Rainbows because I don’t even know what is going on half the time.

A lot of songs on In Rainbows are about how abandonment leads to cutting oneself away from others.

“Now that you found it, it’s gone.” You can say that this “it” is a human connection, or a friend.

One can say that the narrator is basically just a paranoid voice in someone’s head. In fact, that makes a lot of sense, especially when you look at lines such as these,

“Don’t get any big ideas, they’re not gonna happen.”

“You’ll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking.”

If you’ve ever had self doubt, I’m sure you’ve had thoughts similar to these.

This voice also wants to make sure that the person it's speaking to knows the importance of the relationships the voice says it will never have, “You paint yourself white and fill up your nose, but there’ll be something missing”.

This person can listen to sad songs and spend ten hours making a list ranking all of them, but they’ll still need to talk to others if they want to have a meaningful life.

This song is equal parts tranquil and unsettling. It’s like the angels are singing, but the angels are going to kill us.

You could also say it sounds like there’s ghosts, or that strange beings are singing to you from deep within underwater caves.

Basically what I’m saying is that this song puts me in a trance unlike any other trance ever. It is the most beautiful thing of all time.

10. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi:

This is another song which feels like you’re floating in water. It’s also another song that is extraordinarily haunting.

Thom singing “Your eyes, they turn me…” is something that will haunt me until I am in my grave.

Weird Fishes/Arpeggi connects well to Nude. Firstly, it’s astonishing that both songs were made from beings of terrestrial origin and not something from outside our plain of reality.

However, this song connects to the themes of the previous song.

“Why should I stay? Everybody leaves, eventually”. The singer thinks.

That sums up fears of abandonment pretty perfectly.

However, the singer is conflicted. “I’d be crazy not to follow, follow you to wherever you lead…I follow to the edge of the earth and fall off”. The narrator is afraid that entering a relationship may lead to them getting hurt.

This is also one of Thom’s best vocal performances, as he’s using every part of his voice, moving between different tones and inflictions to get the most emotion possible.

Also, the drums. I don’t even know what the hell is going on with them.

I’ve talked before about how the best Radiohead song transports you to different worlds, and that definitely applies to Weird Fishes/Arpeggi.

9. Fake Plastic Trees:

The storytelling in this song is excellent, painting a portrait of a couple trapped in a repetitive and monotonous life.

“Green plastic watering can for a fake chinese rubber plant in the fake plastic earth that she bought from another man” Is such a perfect opening line. I love lines in songs like these where it sounds like phrases are being stacked on top of each other.

Also, the image of watering a plastic plant is a fantastic one. You could say it represents how the act of taking part in society is performative, you can say it represents her trying to foster a love she never truly felt for the broken man, you can say it’s about how she’s embraced the artificiality of her world- she can’t get actually feel the excitement which she thinks life should have, so she just sort of pretends. Of course, this artificiality means she’s never in danger of being hurt. She can numb her identity through routine and “get rid of herself”.

Of course, whatever it is, it’s unsatisfying, as it “wears her out”.

The whole song is about artificial sensations, I’d say.

This song has such a wonderfully dystopian atmosphere, something Radiohead would go on to use quite often.

I feel like I keep mentioning how emotive Thom’s vocals are, but this song is a perfect example of this.

I love the way his voices rises on, “He used to do surgery for girls in the eighties”

It was only my hundredth listen to this song that I noticed the quiet organ in the background when Thome sings “it wears her out”.

This song also makes fantastic usage of violins, overwhelming us with walls of despair.

I also think this song takes the alt-rock idea of extreme dynamics but uses it in a creative way. The song takes a while to truly erupt, with that intense, crackling electric guitar on the third verse. It feels like there are these emotions buried underneath the surface, and then they break out in this explosion of sorrow. The whole song is about being numbed, and the numbness…goes away for a bit, I guess.

8. Pyramid Song:

The opening piano of this song fucking floors me everytime I hear it. The use of electronics on this track is also absolutely fantastic, as they start out as a distant rumble which lurks in the depths of this song, but they gradually take up a bigger and bigger place in the song. At the end, they sound like the screams of the damned seeping through these cracks to hell.

The harshness of the electronics clashes beautifully with the strings.

Thom’s vocal performance in this song is extremely emotional, with his voice just oozing hopelessness.

Everyone talks about how the rhythm in this song is a pyramid, but so is the chord progression.

We start with F#, the tonic chord, and then we go to Gmaj7, the second chord in the scale, then we go to the seventh chord, A6, and then back to Gmaj7, and then back to F#. At this point, we’re only moving one whole step away from the tonic chord.

However, we then go further with Eadd9, the third chord.

It’s actually way more complicated than what I just said, but the point I’m making is that the composition here is genius.

However, none of this would matter if the song didn’t sound extraordinary, which it does. This song is filled with a yearning for some bright fantastical world only caught in brief glimpses. This pain is not just in the lyrics, but in every ethereal chord and note.

7. Exit Music (For A Film)

Augauaghhhhhh.

You’re listening to Exit Music (For A Film)

You hear those first guitar strums and think “Wow, this is the saddest thing ever.”

Then, Thom sings “Breathe…keep breathing” and you hear that chorus of background voices coming in and think “Wow, I was wrong, this is actually the saddest thing.”

Then, as Thom sings “sing us a song” we are introduced to those warbling metallic screams of the dead in the distance, but all of this is just buildup, because we get the greatest uses of drums in Radiohead’s discography with that extremely simple yet effective fill lifting us into the most soul crushing soundscape ever with those crackling electronics.

There’s so much fury in Thom’s voice as he sings “We hope your rules and wisdom choke you”.

But no, that’s not the most beautiful thing ever, it gets better, because then Thomas Jefferyork sings “NOWWW WE ARE ONE.” and everything goes from 100% to 150%.

The background vocals are back, the drums are going crazy, and there’s this giant wall of soul that is so full of despair and anger and angst and oh my god, it’s so amazing.

Then, once you think your heart can’t take anymore, we get that beautiful coda at the end. Goddamn. The way this song builds. Aaughaugh. Man. It’s just one uphill journey through pain and beauty.

Also, the lyrics are simultaneously soul crushing and hopeful in such a perfect way (I keep saying the word perfect). The way it views Romeo and Juliet through the lens of teenage rebellion is very clever (because that’s what the play’s actually about).

I love the way Thom slowly builds up tension in his voice over the course of the song.

6. How To Disappear Completely:

God, this song is so ethereal.

The rhythm guitar in this song makes me want to throw up and cry.

This song feels so vast and so empty (in a good way). It feels like you’re falling through an endless landscape of nothing.

I don’t even know how to talk about this song because everytime I listen to it, my soul and mind enter a different plane of existence.

The part where the drums and violins come in is a moment of extraordinary beauty.

This song is also tied with eighteen other songs for Thom’s best vocal performance. There is a control and a precision to his voice.

Also, all of the parts where his voice sinks up with the violins makes me want to cry.

This whole song is just the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. It’s fucking overwhelming.

5. Motion Picture Soundtrack:

This song opens with one of the most beautiful and despair-filled organs I’ve ever heard.

The song then builds on this foundation, slowly adding new instruments one-by-one.

The first instrument to be added is Thom’s voice, which is as great as ever. The open lyrics, “Red wine and sleeping pills”, immediately put an image of a depressed life into our head.

Thom’s voice builds in energy and intensity over the next few lines, as does the organ.

Then, there’s a pause, and Tum sings “stop signs” and those windchimes or whatever they are come in. It’s an absolutely mind blowing moment.

The beauty keeps on building however, as we also get the addition of those extremely haunting vocals.

The last line of this song, “I will see you in the next life” might just be the best closing line to a Radiohead album.

This song is basically tied with How To Disappear Completely. I think Motion Picture Soundtrack has a bit more hope in it than How To Disappear Completely, which is basically just complete despair.

That doesn’t make Motion Picture Soundtrack better than How to Disappear Completely, but I think that means I like it a bit more.

4. Paranoid Android:

You like Paranoid Android, I like Paranoid Android, everyone likes Paranoid Android. Unless you don’t, which is fine, but I’m not inviting you to my birthday party.

I guess we should start with the beginning, with that great use of ⅞ time, giving the song this bizarre, skin crawling texture to it, enhanced by how creative the guitar lick is.

This part of the song gives us some of Radiohead’s most creative lyrics. “Please could you stop the noise, I’m trying to get some rest, from all the unborn chicken voices in my head” is a perfect introduction to this world Radiohead is building.

The first part of this song already has enough atmosphere and tension to carry an entire album.

However, the song then erupts into this frenzy with its second movement. The guitar work is nigh impossible to not bang one’s head too. I especially love Thome’s delivery of the lines “Off with his head, man. Off with his head, man.”

But that’s not even the peak of this song epicness. The third part of this song is one of the most beautiful things ever, slowly building up with these overlapping vocals. Thomas the York Engine is so confident with his voice, just letting it fill up the entire sonic landscape.

Then, there’s the fourth part, which actively sounds like a bunch of computers malfunctioning, or a bunch of robots attacking you. The frustratingly sudden end is also perfect.

I also like the little boops at the beginning, the computer voice you can vaguely hear in the background towards the beginning, the way the synths interact with the grumbling guitar, and the way Tommy Boy sings “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat’s there?”.

I also like what sounds like a motorcycle starting up during the beginning of the second part of the song.

This song is basically a never ending torrent of musical ideas, transporting you into a different dimension, a surreal and dark sci-fi landscape filled with man-mind horrors beyond our comprehension.

Radiohead loves songs with a dystopian feeling, and this is peak dystopia. It’s also just fun.

3. Wolf at the Door:

The song begins with this arpeggio which is filled with dread.

The slamming drums give images of a dark urban environment, if that makes any sense, which I assume it does.

It sounds dystopian, as much of Hail to the Thief does.

Great songs can transport you to different places, and the world this song transports you to is some sort of bizarre mix of 1984 and a fairy tale.

There’s a strange calmness to Thom’s voice as he sings the opening lines, as if he’s reading a news report. However, as it goes on, bits of anger and desperation enter Thom’s voice. This anger grows till he’s practically spitting the words.

That’s when the electronics enter.

The chorus slaps. It has a perfect vocal melody,and the “speeding up” of the singing gives panicked vibes. The way Thimble York’s voice goes up on “Calls me up” gives me chills everytime.

The bridge, the part where Thom sings “Walking like giant cranes with my X ray eyes”, is a moment of vicious anxiety and apocalyptic dread.

This whole song is flush with brilliant musical ideas.

It’s explosive, apocalyptic, and catchy as hell. The bombastic drums and striking vocal melodies grab you by the face, kick you in the teeth, steal your credit cards, et cetera.

The scattered imagery in the lyrics feels traumatic, like this is all flashing through someone’s head as they’re being beaten up.

Every line carries a weight to it. Despite that, the song never feels melodramatic and over the top. I believe every emotion the song tries to sell me. That’s because the song understands dynamics and how to build up. It doesn’t throw everything at you all at once. It goes through different phases, building up momentum which thrusts it into different areas.

2. Life In a Glass House:

Life In A Glass House perfectly captures the experience of being in a frustrating situation, but not able to articulate your frustration because “someone’s listening”. If you’ve ever gone through times when you’re really stressed out, and you want to scream, but you’re also too self conscious to do that, then you can relate to this song. Basically, this song captures the college experience despite not being about college. I say that because I’m in college now. Immediately after writing the first draft of this, I had a class where the instructor said there was an important assignment due in two days that he forgot about on Canvas, and I thought to myself “This is exactly how Life In A Glass House” feels.

The way Thom Yorker’s wavers, almost matching the trumpets at the end, gives the song a fantastical texture. Oh yeah, the trumpets. They make this song. That moment when they first come in is one of the most satisfying moments in, like, all of music. The trumpets capture the anxiety and stress of the song, sounding so choked and anguished.

There’s a sense of perfectly structured chaos to this song. The blaring of the trumpets seems so random, but it fits together perfectly with the rest of the song. That makes sense, as that’s how stress feels, you have these random bursts of anger and frustration.

The song also has a feel of patheticness to it, especially with the trumpets. Despite being intense, they also feel kind of meek and fearful, which fits perfectly with the song. The narrator is afraid of others judgment, but they hate themselves for that, as the lyrics seem to mock the entire situation “Your royal highness says…”

Also, Thom The New York Times gives an awe inspiring vocal performance, with the way he goes from a stressed panic “Once again…we are hungry for a lynchiiiing!” to calm despair “That’s a strange mistake to make…” to utter desolation “You should turn the other cheek…” in just three lines is stellar.

This song is also a great example of build-up, as well as tying the build up into the message of the song. The whole song feels like slowly letting out this intense anger in these pained bursts before it all completely unravels into this mess of chaos. The way the trumpets leap and soar is overwhelming, feeling like you’ve just had a panic attack at a party. The song stays at this peak for just the right amount of time before settling down with that one last, “But someone’s listening…” and a trumpet providing the perfect punctuation to this powerful parade of pain.

This song is about feeling awkward, it’s about being uncomfortable in your own skin and in reality and wondering if anyone else knows.

I also haven’t even mentioned the piano in this song, which is soaked with a feeling of bluesy despair that fits in perfectly with the rest of the song. I don’t know how, but every instrument in this song is communicating these feelings of paranoia and despair perfectly.

The song captures these very specific vibes through the lyrics, the composition, and the instrumentation, baking it into every aspect of the song.

Videotape:

From those first sorrowful piano notes, Videotape is one of the most beautiful songs ever. I am not over exaggerating in the slightest. It’s such a simple chord progression, but through the use of syncopation, it's one of the most beautiful foundations of a song ever. The use of emphasis means that every measure is its own mini descent into despair. You could say it’s like we’re losing our touch with reality with every chord.

Thome’s voice seemingly blends together gentleness and intensity, making every lyric feel like a punch to the face. The way he says “I know today has been the most perfect day I’ve ever seen.” sends shivers down my spine, and I can not explain why. The lyrics are like the rest of the song in that they’re stripped back but extraordinarily efficient, with every sentence having a purpose. Even when Thom repeats the words “the videotape” twice it feels necessary, placing emphasis on the words and giving it this echo-y feeling.

The way the drums are used is just beautiful. There are no drums for the first minute and a half. When the drums first appear, they are just a small dash of chaos. However, they slowly take over the song, until all we are listening to is this unstable drumming.

You could say it’s representative of the narrator of this song dying, slowly being overtaken by a primal abyss.

Also that “Oooooooo” sound that Thom is making is so incredibly haunting. It literally sounds like a chorus of ghosts.

This is just a fantastic song, I wish I could say more, but it’s hard, because so much of what this song is doing is impossible to explain. This song feels like the culmianthe of the entire album, all of that color and brightness and beauty and unstable rhythms all put together into one burst of painful beauty.

I can’t explain how this song affects me the way it does, or even what that affect is beyond the words “Pretty music is sad, it makes me sad”.

Radiohead Ranking

Here is a Rating of all of the Radiohead songs, from worst to best, and I mean all the Radishead songs, not just the album tracks.

162. Palo Alto:

This is a song from OK/NOTOK

It might have Thom’s worst vocal performance.

His voice is grating and obnoxious, making him sound like a sarcastic 8 year old. The mockery in his voice is reminiscent of one of the worst tracks off of Pablo Honey.

Everything about this song is brash and overdone. The electric guitars are over-the-top and also terribly mixed, being about five times as loud as Thom’s voice. The chorus to this song makes me want to vomit because we get these very simple, very distorted guitar parts just punching us in the face. There’s an impact on every beat, and it sucks.

All of the electronics are similarly obnoxious and over-the-top as they randomly jump in and out of this song. I suppose the idea is that this song is chaotic and everything, but the electronics are also mixed way too high, so they always take over the song for the five seconds when they appear.

The idea of this song is that in society, we’re all busy all of the time, and that sucks. The song basically just says that. It’s not subtle.

It also doesn’t go any deeper than that. It’s extraordinarily surface level.

It also seems more like its mocking all of us who are in the predicament of living in modern society then it is at being angry at society or feeling bad for living in society.

The song’s called Palo Alto and it mentions California, but it then does nothing with that.

There are a million songs and movies and TV shows and books about California, and Radiohead couldn’t think of one thing to actually say about Palo Alto- possibly because they are British and they’ve probably only been to California while on tour. Trust me, I’m from California. I’ve been to Palo Alto. There are things to say about it.

For one thing, the traffic is awful. Actually, that’s all of California.

Maybe this song is actually about traffic, as it makes me feel the same feeling that I feel when I’m stuck in traffic.

This whole song is just so extraordinarily on the nose in every aspect.

Did I mention how shitty this song sounds? The different instruments do not mix well together. It’s like the band members recorded all of their parts in different rooms and then slapped the recordings on top of each other.

The song starts off sounding extraordinarily messy, and it never stops sounding like it.

Everytime I listen to this song, I get a fucking headache.

Fuck this song. It is practically unlistenable.

161. Planet Telex (L.F.O. Remix):

This is an unnecessary remix which is just grating on the ears. The synths are obnoxiously shrill and the chaotic mixing gets old after two seconds. This song is what electronic music sounds like to people who don’t like electronic music.

The drumming to this song is also obnoxiously simple, with an impact on every beat.

This song also makes it so that the only lines are “you can crush it” and “Oh”.

It gets so tiring so very quickly.

This whole remix is basically what electronic music sounds like to people who don’t like electronic music.

160. How Do You?:

Somehow, Thome Yorke’s voice sounds annoying on this track, coming off as really whiny, especially on the choruses. His voice is too nasally, too on the nose, and while he’s trying to sound angry and pissed-off, it comes across as disingenuous.

A very big problem is that the vocal melody is really happy, but Thom is singing it in a really angry way. This makes his vocals sound even more disingenuous.

The whole song doesn’t seem to know what emotion it wants to be. I didn’t know why it felt so confused, so I did some looking up.

According to ultimate guitar.com, https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/radiohead/how-do-you-chords-58358

The chord progression on the intro is just “Amaj7sus2 A” on repeat. That’s a simultaneously very simple chord progression and a very complex one. It only has two chords, but one of these two chords is a rather jazzy chord, especially considering that it is being played on these very distorted guitars. When a chord like that is being played on a really distorted guitar, it will often sound very sludgy.

The chord progression on the verses is “A E F#m” , a pretty happy sounding chord progression, but the way the distortion is used makes it seem like the band wants it to be angry.

The chord progression of the chorus is straight up bizarre, going “G Dsus4 A5 A” You don’t usually go from a sustained chord to a power chord in music. This probably explains why the chorus sounds especially strange. Sustained chords build tension, and 5 chords do the opposite. It’s also a circle of fifths chord progression, which means that D and G and A and D have the same relationship, and that relationship is a boring one.

However, despite having a very unique composition, this song somehow manages to sound extraordinarily generic, which is impressive. I think that’s because of the way the chords are used, using a boring beat and boring dynamics. The band is just going through the motions of standard grunge, without any sense of what emotion they’re actually trying to convey.

Also, the lyrics of this song are just plain inane. “And he was a stupid baby, turned into a powerful freak” sounds like something a teenager would say in a shitty 90’s kids cartoon.

While Radiohead has many lyrics which are confusing in an intriguing way, the nonsensical nature of these lyrics just comes off as stupid,

“He’s a dangerous bigot, but we always forget.” What? Huh? How?

Also, that line comes right before, “And he’s just like his daddy.” I never want to hear Thom say the word “daddy” again.

I think the point of that line is to be mocking, as is the entire song. I don’t like that. Presumably, the person being mocked is the anonymous jerk the lyrics are describing, but when you hear a man yell in a snarky tone for two minutes, it sounds like he’s being snarky at you. Also, the song is very unspecific about why this person sucks. He’s a dangerous bigot, but we don’t know how he’s dangerous or who he’s bigoted against.

This song is garbage in every way.

159. Thinking About You:

After years of shitting on Pablo Honey, music nerds across the globe have been re-evaluating the album, with many coming to the conclusion that it’s “not that bad”. Now, I can appreciate people changing their minds. However, I’m here to take a stand and loudly proclaim my own opinion, Pablo Honey is that bad. This is the fifth song on the album, and by the time I get to it, I’m already sick and tired.

Anywhoo, this song is laughably dull. The rhythm guitar is so boring and generic, and for most of the song, we’re only listening to that and Thom’s singing, which is also pretty uninteresting.

And the lyrics? Whoo, boy…to start off with, “thinking about you�� seems like the name of a parody of a pop song. Moving on, the lyrics lack the interesting imagery, the creativity, or the specificity which one wants in a song. The narrator says he’s thinking about someone, but why? What’s so appealing about this person? Also, why should we care? I can’t empathize with the narrator because I barely understand what’s happening. He broke up with someone, and this person is now more successful than him, even though it’s unclear what they’re successful at. The song is uninterested in actually telling us the story it is trying to tell. As such, it’s completely empty.

Not only that, but the lyrics are about a breakup, but nothing about this song communicates any form of sadness or anger. The composition doesn’t have any emotion, and Thom sounds pretty bored. While we assume the narrator of this song is sad about the breakup, we never see that in anyway. It’s not like “True Love Waits” where great pain is taken to describe how the narrator believes he is wasting his life and how hard it is to find hope.

Also, this song has a reference to masturbation in the lyrics, “Still see you in bed, but I’m playing with myself”.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, that’s just something I wouldn’t expect of a Radiohead song.

However, somehow, even the reference to masturbation in this song is generic.

Other than that oddity, you can listen to just five seconds of this song and instantly tell everywhere it's gonna go. I don’t know what else to say, because I forgot everything else about it.

Oh, also, the hook in this song sucks, it’s barely a hook.

158. Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors:

I suppose I can congratulate this song on its artististry, but I don’t know what the artistry to making the worst sounding piece of music ever is. The way the vocals are high pitched makes it sound like you’re listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks on drugs. The layers and layers of distortion and bizarre effects just feel like the band was messing around on a music editing software for a few minutes.

157. Transatlantic Drawl:

This is a track off of the Pyramid Song Ep.

This song is shit. The guitar gives me a headache.

Every instrument in this song is shrieking and sobbing and it’s just awful. There are all of these sounds whose origin I don’t know and I don’t care to find out, as they all sound like a drill very close to my ear. This song sounds like multiple drills near my ears.

This song starts at 100% and never lets up except when it does, randomly, in the middle of the song, where it suddenly becomes an ambient track. That part is…actually really cool. It’s eerie and weightless and it makes me feel like I’m an astronaut floating through space without a tether. I love the way it occasionally sort of fizzles, it’s really cool. It sounds a tiny bit like Treefingers or untitled off of Kid-A.

I feel like these two opposing halves average out to a D.

156. Faithless the Wonderboy:

This is a song included as the B side for Anyone Can Play Guitar.

The verses of this song are calm and acoustic.

However, when we reach the chorus, electric guitars suddenly jump in.

I think Radiohead were wanting the song to kind of explode into this frenzy. However, the choruses are not very frenetic. Also, the addition of the electric guitars is so abrupt, it sounds more like a jumpscare.

It also doesn’t help that the vocal melody of the verses are really repetitive.

In terms of lyrics, this is a song about a kid who’s jealous of other kids who have nice stuff, and also I think he’s being pressured into doing drugs but he “Can’t put the needle in”. The chorus is just Thom saying those words over and over again, so I assume there must be some sort of point to them.

The outro to this song also lasts too long, as it’s basically just a minute and a half of a pretty dry and uninteresting guitar solo that’s devoid of any real energy.

155. Stop Whispering:

I kind of like the pre chorus to this song, where Thom sings “there’s nothing to say and there’s nothing to do”. The vocal melody is actually kind of nice, and Thom sounds alright.

However, that’s the only really nice thing I can say about this song. The rest isn’t even a generic grunge song, it’s a generic song, with uninspired instrumentals and a limp and watered-down hook which feels like it was bought off Walmart. The lyrics are so vague and uninteresting. The vocal melody everywhere other than the pre chorus is boring. The guitar solo in the middle is fun and energetic, but it also sounds like a million guitar solos I’ve heard before, and it’s also weirdly short, so it doesn’t even get the chance to build.

This song also does something a million songs have done before, slowing down as if the song is going to end, only to then spring back into action. Now, that’s been done amazingly before. However, the problem is that at this point, I just want the song to end. The part where the energy increases is supposed to be exciting, but it just feels hollow, as the excitement seems disingenuous. Thom barely seems to even care. He’s yelling in this part, but there’s no emotion in his voice. The guitar is loud and distorted and fast, but you need more than that for an exciting guitar part.

This song is also five minutes long. Now, that wouldn’t be a problem, but, as I previously stated, it sucks.

154. Coke Babies:

With the name “Coke babies” you’d assume that this song would be silly. It’s not.

In fact, other than the name, this song is just nothing. I would say that the lyrics are little more than random strings of words, but that makes them sound too interesting. They’re “Easy living, easy hold/ Easy teething, easy fold”.

The instrumentals are basic and boring, except for the guitar which has some sort of effect applied to it that makes it sound like a car is speeding right next to you. It sounds awful.

153. Killer Cars:

This is an early B-Side.

This song would not be notable if it weren’t for how loud and distorted it is. All of the beauty we would expect from Thome’s voice is gone as he screeches about cars.

The song is devoid of energy or any sort of musical ideas.

The hook is not even really a hook.

There’s this whole wall of sound thing going on with this song. That can work in some contexts, but with this song, it just means that everything mixes together into a tasteless mush.

This is not a song which is fun to headbang to.

Also, like many other early Radiohead songs, this one is too over-the-top.

However, the guitar solo has a fun, very angry energy to it.

152. Inside My Head:

Inside My Head is a B-Side off of the Creep Ep.

The vocal melody is barely a melody. The sound is extremely generic, with a pretty generic guitar solo.

The lyrics of this song are about how the narrator is thinking about a person.

It feels like half of the lines in this song are just filler lines.

The rhythm of this song makes it sound almost like a new wave song, and that does not work well with Radiohead.

Also, at this point, Thom had not worked out what to do with his voice, being way to nasally.

151. Million Dollar Question:

This is a B-Side off of the Creep Ep.

It’s another blandly composed song with no real musical ideas other than LOUD.

The lyrics of the song are about not wanting to go to work. It’s not exactly a profound statement.

150. I Can’t:

I can’t think of much to say about this song.

The chorus of this song…yeah, sure. It’s nice, I suppose. It almost has a breezy quality to it.

However, the whole song gets very tiring very quickly.

It’s got the same problem as other songs on Pablo Honey: uninspired composition and production, instrumentals lacking in creativity, dull lyrics, a lack of actual energy, angst that doesn’t feel genuine, and almost bored vocals. There’s no musical ideas.

149. India Rubber:

This is an early B side.

The drumming here has an interesting rhythm to it, even though it sounds too high in the mix at points. There’s also some extra percussion in the form of what I’ll just say is some maracas.

The biggest problem with this song is that I don’t know what it’s trying to do. It’s too harsh to be pretty, too abrasive to be pleasurable, and too low-energy to be fun.

I also hate the outro, which features someone laughing. I can’t explain why. It’s just so out of left field. Also, the laugh is an annoying laugh. This outro also sees a bunch of weird atonal meddling that feels kind of purposeless. I don’t know what the point of it is.

148. Maquiladora:

Uninspired, generic rock off of the High and Dry/Planet Telex EP.

Thom’s voice is annoying and there’s a lack of syncing with him and the guitars, as the two gain energy at completely different points.

147. The Gloaming (3.33333 Remix):

This song is the Gloaming, but with the electronics turned up to extreme levels, making it sound like a large amount of machines are misfiring in my near vicinity while a 100 Gecs sound blares on a busted-up radio.

146. Lewis:

This song is off of the My Iron Lung Ep, and it has Radiohead’s worst lyrics.

It’s about a man named Lewis who is about to kill himself. At least, I think it is. We get the lyrics “Don’t do it, don’t jump”.

The song doesn’t seem all that sad about this.

Honestly, other than that, this song doesn’t sound all that awful, even though it does feel messy, with these extremely frenetic guitars and drums all fighting for attention.

145. Kinetic:

Despite being a very weird song, it still feels kind of calm, mostly because it lacks all energy.

It’s kind of repetitive and lacking in any emotions. It sounds more like an electronic jam session than a song.

144. Bones:

The problem with Bones is that it comes immediately after Fake Plastic Trees, which is a hard act to surpass. However, it would still suck anyways. In that way, it’s basically the Andrew Johnson of Radiohead songs.

Bones is a basic grunge song. Now, it may appear that I dislike grunge, but I don’t. However, Radiohead’s approach to grunge always feels so unexciting, and most of their grunge songs don’t really want to be grunge songs. Good grunge songs have this specific energy which exists even during the slowest of moments. However, Radiohead usually doesn’t have that energy, so they always sound unenthusiastic. There are a few exceptions, but Bones is an example of them failing.

All of the beauty one from Thom’s voice is gone and replaced by him yelping erratically. It sounds so annoying, especially when he squeaks, “WHEN YOU’VE GOT TO FEEL IT IN YOUR BONES!”

The guitar work just sounds sludgy, and the lyrics are just nothing. They’re probably about something, but I don’t care enough to think about it.

This song sounds like it’s trying so hard to be edgy and cool and harsh, but it just comes off as childish. This whole song feels like what goes on in a 14 year old’s head when…something.

Maybe that’s why it sounds like Thom’s voice is cracking violently.

143. Melatonin:

This is a song off of OK/ NOTOK, and it’s called melatonin because it puts you to sleep.

This song is too ethereal and too spacey. It’s massively overdoing it with the dreamy synths, I can barely hear Thome. The reverb and the effects layered onto the synth just make it feel way overproduced. It’s too ornate and too pristine. Where’s the edge? Where’s the tension? Where’s the emotional power?

Oh, also, the drums don’t fit in with this song at all. They’re mixed in very strangely, making it sound like Phil just randomly started drumming.

Lastly, Thom is singing kind of weirdly on this song, sort of pausing between each word. He. Sounds. Like. This.

142. Planet Telex (Karma Sutra):

This song is trying to sound “Indian”-esque with the sitar and the drumming.

Instead, it ends up sounding like a Gong song if they sucked. It feels very cheesy.

I don’t like the effects on Thom’s voice.

There’s a part where I think this remix is trying to have a hook, but it just sounds like the song is randomly and abruptly changing what it sounds like.

This whole remix is pointless.

141. I Promise:

Yaaaaawn.

This is a track off of OK/NOTOK

The rhythm guitar is extraordinarily boring. The march-like drumming is rather unique, but it gets old extraordinarily quickly. The vocal melody is really simple, and so are the lyrics in general. The lyrics are basically the narrator saying that he’ll be better, and that’s not something that I find very interesting.

That’s fine, but it’s just that the whole song has so little going on in it. The part with the organ and the strings near the end is very pretty, but at that point I was ready for the song to end.

One of the other biggest problems with this song is that it has no real build or hook or anything, so it just kinda ends up feeling very dull and empty. It’s repetitive, that’s what it is.

The only thing which threatens to break up the monotony is the part with the strings and the organ, which serves as the climax of the song. However, it starts very quickly and goes away just as fast. It also really doesn’t communicate any kind of emotion, it just sounds sort of pretty.

140. Dollars and Cents:

The intro to this song sounds like “Knives Out” played very quietly. Then, we get this violin which sounds, for lack of a better term, too loud. Thom, for some reason, is deciding to sing as quietly as possible. It sounds like he’s holding back, never really letting his voice actually soar. There’s a part near the end where different tracks of him singing are stacked on top of each other, and it just sounds like a giant mess. The whole song feels kind of messy, like a bunch of random ideas are just being squished together, with the violins and synths and drum and guitar and vocal harmony just stepping on each other instead of working together. There’s no sense of structure or movement. It goes from semi-ethereal one moment to semi-harsh the other moment, with no real rhyme or reason.

That could have worked to create a storm of storm-like affect, but the vocals sound so muted, as does the guitar, so the whole song feels restrained.

This song has no core, no central musical idea or instrument holding everything together. It’s like a cookie baked without eggs.

What were they even trying to do with this song? Were they hoping to have some sort of atmosphere or vibe, or were they wanting it to be funky and danceable? I don’t know, because the song just doesn’t do anything. It feels…kind of half-assed. I’m sure Thom put a huge amount of effort into the vocals on this track, but I can’t tell because his singing is so reserved and so emotionless. I don’t think even he knew what kind of emotion this song was supposed to express. Also, there’s some vocal affect placed on his voice which buries any human aspect that could arise.

139. I Am Citizen Insane:

This is just harsh and grating electronics for 3 minutes. If you like that sort of thing, then you’ll love I Am Citizen Insane.

138. Pop Is Dead

This song doesn’t suck. I like the beginning with the cool jazzy guitar and the sweet vocal melody.

Then, the drums kick in, and man oh man are they way to loud. It’s another case of Philip putting emphasis on every beat, and it sounds utterly atrocious. The rythm guitar is similarly abrasive and over the top.

However, the whole thing is over-the-top, so brash, so absurd, it’s kind of funny. The lyrics are bizarre. It’s like the band is making fun of pop music, but also they just are not.

The only complaint this song leverages against pop is that it is “dead”, and it don’t even explain why it thinks that.

137. Feral:

Much has been said criticizing the sound of “The King of Limbs”, which I must admit, is an album with an awesome title. While there are many compliments to be given to “The King of Limbs”, Feral pretty much embodies all of the negative aspects of the record. There is simply too much going on.

The drums stacked on top of each other feel…well, Feral, but they also sound like a bunch of random nonsense, like a bunch of people who don’t know how to play drums are randomly improvising. Now, this couldn’t be further from the truth, the drumming is very precise, with all these crazy polyrhythms and everything, but that’s what it ends up sounding like. While this song is technically impressive, it’s too technical, losing any chance of communicating some sort of emotion. All of the weird stuff going on with the looping and the effects just feels like one giant mess. There’s no emotionality to this song, no sense of atmosphere, because it's all lost within this massive jungle of weird noises.

The sad fact is, there’s such a thing as being too complex. Sometimes, having a strong key center can mean your song fits in well with a vibe because the audience’s ears can recognize the song as minor or major or phrygian. However, if your chord progressions sees you going from an Emaj7#4 to a F7b2 to a F#m7, then the song is just gonna sound like nothing (that’s the chord progression for Aja by Steely Dan by the way, I was too tired to look up the chords to this song).

C-:

136. How Can You Be Sure?:

This song is kind of bland. The drumming is boring, and it takes up most of the space in the mix, as is the rhythm guitar, which is devoid of any interesting texture. The vocal melody is uninspired, and Thom is doing nothing with his voice.

There’s also an organ in this song, but you can barely hear it and it’s bland and emotionless anyways.

The hook in this song just doesn’t work.

This whole song is just devoid of emotionality or atmosphere.

The lyrics are this usual generic breakup song routine.

This song also has an outro which is way too long, and serves no purpose at all.

135. Where Bluebirds Fly

This song is similar to I Am Citizen Insane (being from the same EP) but the electronics at least kind of create a sense of atmosphere. It does sound a bit like the band aren’t just randomly improvising and are attempting to create a cohesive song.

It still hurts my ears, however.

135. Fast Track:

The weird, sharp, hissing quality of this song is, at the very least, unique. It sounds like hell, and I hate listening to it, but I have to admit that it sounds awful in a way which no song has sounded awful before. The sound is also a lot more calm and a lot less shrill than the first half of Transatlantic Drawl

Fast Track also does imitate the vibes of commuting in a city fairly well, with the random voices coming in and out and all these sounds coming and going like people and vehicles passing us. There’s a whirlwind quality which I have to commend the song for. I still don’t like listening to it.

134. Molasses:

This song has a weirdly ragtime quality to it. There’s no piano, but the electric guitar sounds like it’s playing a classic ragtime quality, and Thom’s kind of bouncy vocals add to this.

As a result of this, the song sounds whimsical in an annoying way.

There’s also whatever happens after the end of the two verses. There’s this intense drumming and weird electronic riff.

The biggest problem with this song are the lyrics. The first line is, “Shake hands.” Okay, that’s a good line. The next line gives us, “Genocide”. Oh, well, that was a turn. Then, the line after that is “Molasses.” What? Huh?

Also, they say the word genocide twice in the same song. The first time it doesn’t even rhyme with anything, and then the second time it is rhymed with “fat houseflies”.

This whole song is just a shit post.

132. You:

The opening guitar line to this song is actually quite pleasant, and I like the way it continues a bit even after the other shrieking guitars come in.

The guitar work overall on this song is actually quite fun, with a great sense of energy.

Thom’s vocals are definitely not his best. He sounds like he’s putting on a voice and also holding back in a lot of places. Even the part where he lets out this sort of yell feels a bit underwhelming.

The guitar bit which serves as the hook to this song is also quite nice the first time you hear it, but by the third chorus, it’s just tiring.

The lyrics to this song are also pretty plain, not really saying anything.

Overall, this song isn’t bad, but it’s also pretty disposable.

131. Backdrifts:

The electronics in this song are kind of boring. They’re repetitive, emotionless, and hollow sounding. As such, this song has no sense of atmosphere. It just sounds like a lot of crinkling and cracking and glitching.

I wouldn’t mind it that much if the song was short, but it goes on for almost six minutes, and I’m tired of it by the third minute.

This is also another song where Thom’s vocals are too muted and reserved.

Also, this song has no sense of dynamics, never increasing in intensity or volume. It starts out as one emotion, and then never changes the emotion.

130. Up On The Ladder:

This is a track off of In Rainbows Track 2.

Yawn. Musically, this is a very boring song. The electric guitar is dry, repetitive and uninteresting. It also does not mesh well with Thome’s vocals at all. The backing synths are also pretty bland, sounding like free stock audio you can put in a home sci-fi movie. That made no sense. Whatever. You see what I’m saying.

Lyrically, this song is weird, referencing Doctor Who. Other than that, they’re just as boring as the rest of the song. Not only do they say very little other than “I’m not happy” they’re devoid of any interesting imagery or worldplay or anything to make them remotely memorable.

129. Hunting Bears:

This song is just some simple guitar playing with a really weird and harsh distortion effect added to it, at least, I think it is.

I guess it serves as an inter-whatever…but like, does it? Amnesiac could have gone from Dollars and Cents to Like Spinning Plates, and it would have been fine.

129. Paperbag Writer:

This song is cool before the electronics kick in, as there are some unsettling strings and unique percussions that create a sinister atmosphere.

However, all atmosphere is lost when the electronics come in, as they have this very annoying snapping quality that I do not like. They are also way too loud.

The guitar also sounds like a robot farting.

128. We Suck Young Blood:

Perhaps I’m being too harsh on this song. It does sound…well, nice. The chord progression is very pretty, and the piano playing has an ethereal quality to it (get ready for me to say the word “ethereal" a bunch more times). However, this song is a one trick pony sonic-wise, and this trick gets old very fast. We begin in this hazy dream-like state, we continue in that state, and then we end in that state. It doesn’t help that Thom is singing liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis throooooooooooughout. It takes him half a minute to say a single line. It gets even worse by the end because Thom begins to make his voice all scratched up. He sounds like he’s trying to impersonate a vampire when he says “We want the sweet meat”. It is extraordinarily silly.

Also, the clapping feels very cliched.

Not only that, but this song hasn't aged well politically, at least for me. There’s nothing wrong with the messaging, the entertainment industry does take advantage of young people. However, the whole vampire thing connects this song with weird, anti-semetic conspiracies which have recently entered the public eye. Obviously, this was not intentional, and it’s really not the band’s fault, nor the fault of the song.

It just makes it hard for me personally to connect with the actual message Radiohead wanted to send, especially because the song doesn’t say a whole lot more than “The entertainment takes advantage of young people, draining them, and this is kind of like vampires.”

Not only is this a message we’ve heard before, the song relies so heavily on this one metaphor and one observation, never making an attempt to explore it further. Also, the vampire/leech for society/entertainment industry/the government/capitalism is an extremely common metaphor.

“We Suck Young Blood” is sort of a poor man’s “Welcome to the Machine”, a song wich doesn’t just stay on one metaphor and then drain it of all that it’s worth (see what I did there?).

The final result is that “We Suck Young Blood” is a rather tedious song to get through, backed up by lackluster lyrics.

127. The Gloaming:

While the Gloaming is impressive from a technical standpoint, it’s still a rather dull affair. The backing beeps and bloops don’t communicate any real emotion. Not only that, but the song keeps feeling like it will build up to something, but it never does. Yeah, the band keeps on adding more instruments into the mix, but this never makes it feel like the song is increasing in energy or intensity, the song just goes from feeling empty to feeling messy, probably a result of all of the rhythmic shenanigans occurring. It’s definitely commendable that Radiohead were able to make this piece, but I generally skip it when listening to Hail to the Thief.

Actually, let’s talk about Hail to the Thief.

The Head of Radio is consistently interested in portraying emotions, and Hail to the Thief fits into that. While many of the songs are about investigating why certain political issues exist, many of the songs also capture what it feels like to experience these issues, like in “Wolf at the Door”.

The problem is, this means that their thoughts on politics can be rather vague, with it being unclear exactly what Radiohead dislikes. Something a song writing teacher told me was that good songwriting is specific, and I think that applies to this album, and also specifically this song.

Let’s look at OK Computer for a second. That album cites specific details about living in modern society which paints a specific portrait. There is a job that slowly kills you, and there’s a pretty house with a pretty garden.

Now, let’s look at this song. It makes the point that we should be aware of the problems, “Your alarm bells should be ringing”, and there is bad stuff happening right now, “It is now the witching hour.”

And, that’s about it.

The Gloaming doesn’t say anything specific, and as such, its lyrics ring hollow for me.

Also, the best Radiohead songs are the ones who exist in their own worlds. Some songs on Hail to the Thief fit that description. Most notably, both “Wolf At the Door and “2+2=5” both take place in these surreal dystopian fairy-tale worlds.

However, songs such as the Gloaming are definitely lacking in the world building department. The Gloaming doesn’t seem to be taking place in any reality at all. There’s very little imagery, and there really isn’t any sort of atmosphere.

Essentially, The Gloaming just sounds hollow and meaningless, especially in the context of the album it is on.

126. Meeting in the Aisle:

This is another song from OK/NOTOK.

Similarly to We Suck Young Blood, the gloomy and ominous vibes of this song are quite nice, but soon get tiring.

The way the various instrumentation all fades together has a cool ethereal quality, but there are many moments near the end where the mix gets too crowded, and all of the colors just turn to mush. Obviously, they were trying to go with a crowded sound, but the crowded nature messes with the emotionality.

Still, when the song isn’t too hazy, it is quite pleasant to just soak up all the various sad instrumentation going on. Does it kinda just sound like hold music? Yeah, but it’s pretty hold music, and it also has that nice dystopian quality to it.

125. Morning Mr. Magpie:

This song has the same problem as Feral. Once again, I can appreciate what the band were trying to do, and all of the effort and technical skill which went into making this song. However, once again, this song just comes off feeling like a mess, and a repetitive one at that, with the loops making it feel like we keep on going in circles through this weird haze of noise. There’s no human aspect to this song.

This song also starts out very weird and is consistently weird throughout, making it all blend together.

I guess the idea is that all of these loops are trance-like, but they don't feel like that to me. They just bore me.

There’s so much going on in every single second of this song, I just become numb to everything by the ten second mark. I have the same problem with Moulin Rouge.

124. Little by Little:

This King of Limbs song is a little less cluttered than Morning Mr. Magpie, so I guess that’s nice. Also, the almost out-of-key sounding guitar is a neat touch, and the percussion is some sort of instrument that I don’t think I’ve heard before.

Also, it’s usually at this point in my King of Limbs listening that I get a headache. My brain is already chaotic enough, it does need the sonic equivalent of ten shots of espresso.

123. Gagging Order:

This is another B-Side from the Hail to the Thief era.

The acoustic guitar has a sweet, clean sound to it as a result of the simple composition.

However, this song is just Thom’s voice and the acoustic guitar. Despite that, Thom is doing his usual soaring vocals, and they kind if clash with the very intimate guitars.

Also, the lyrics are about nothing, and they aren’t even pretty nonsense. I suppose the vocal melody is much more important, but the melody is pretty basic. It feels like Thom thought of a nice guitar bit and then quickly slapped some lyrics to go along with it.

124. Anyone Can Play Guitar:

The lyrics of this song are one of the more interesting on Pablo Honey, I guess. It’s about wanting to be famous (I’m assuming) and the cult we have around famous rock stars.

It’s also kind of funny that Thom says he wants to be Jim Morrison, a singer who did not play guitar.

However, musically, it’s just whatever. The melody is fairly catchy, I suppose, and the guitar backing is rather unoriginal but still enjoyable. The guitar solo is also fun even if it doesn’t communicate anything.

125. Ripchord:

This song is alright. The lyrics are about the failure of missing out on life, realizing there’s no way out after you’ve jumped from the plane. That’s something fairly interesting.

The drumming on this song is also quite nice, with a fun frenetic energy to it. Thom also seems to be having some fun with his vocals, especially during the chorus.

Plus, the guitar is gleefully angsty and melodramatic in a way that feels rather untethered.

There’s a rather unconstrained feeling to the instrumentals, which I suppose is neat.

Unfortunately, it still feels pretty basic.

120. Sulk:

The beginning of this song has these very dystopian sounding fan- sounds that mix in very well with this guitar bit that sounds straight out of a midwest emo song.

However, after that, the instrumentals don’t do anything interesting, instead being rather repitive. As such, the chorus of this song is lacking in any sort of hook.

The very crunchy guitar solo is fun, even if it sounds like it could be the guitar solos to a million other songs.

The song is about being sad and how that sucks.

The lyrics are repetitive and unsubtle in that very early Radiohead way. The song never goes beyond that singular idea of being sad, nor does it explore this idea in any way.

119. The Bends:

Why did they make this song the title track of The Bends? No, seriously why? I genuinely do not know, because this song is just so…eh.

It’s your standard grunge song, something which wouldn’t be out of place on the previous record.

The lyrics are also really simple, as “Oh, oh my baby’s got the Bends, I know” not being exactly Pulitzer-worthy material. I’m really glad that he felt the need to tell us that he knows.

Also, there’s the line “The planet is a gunboat in a sea of fear.” Wait, are aliens attacking us?

But, what is this song about? Well, it’s about that feeling when you’re stressed and unhappy and you don’t like what is going on.

It’s not that deep.

There’s so little to talk about with this song.

118. I Am A Wicked Child:

This is a B-Side from the Hail to the Thief era.

This is a rather cynical tongue in cheek song, very indicative of the nineties. This sarcasm is kinda cute, but also kinda annoying with how on-the-nose it is.

117. Bloom:

Remember everything I said about the other King of Limbs songs? That applies here.

However, I like the reverb on Thom’s vocals. Also, the bridge in the middle of the song is, dare I say, quite haunting, mostly because of Thom’s very pretty humming. He’s a great hummer. The beginning of the section reminds me somewhat of MK 1.

The end of that section is also fantastic, as it has a horn section. I fucking love horn sections. This horn section is drenched in reverb and all sorts of other effects, making it sound extraordinarily ethereal.

However, it’s still not worth it.

116. Yes I Am:

This is one of the most interesting sounding songs on the Creep Ep.

The band are actually playing off each other very well, with the use of drums in this song being especially pleasant.

Also, this song does have a build in it.

There’s a sense of constrained energy to this song which I quite like, with this energy slowly being released over the course of this song.

Thom’s vocals in this song actually have some emotion in this song.

Also, this song has two guitar solos. The first is definitely not anything new, but it does a very good job of communicating this very specific kind of anger which is within this song. The second is also definitely not anything new, but it is rather technically impressive and also distinct among Radiohead guitar solos, sounding kind of like a solo you’d expect from a hair metal song. It works well as a culmination of the build-up the song was working on.

The lyrics are pretty simple, about hating someone.

This song isn’t great, but there’s nothing it really does wrong, and the beat is rather fun.

115. Stupid Car:

I’m starting to suspect Radiohead dislikes cars. Or, perhaps they like using them as metaphors for modern society, like how The Great Gatsby does.

Anywhoo, this song is off of the Drill EP.

It’s very basic. It rhymes “car” with “far”. Comparing this song to The Great Gatsby is giving it way too much credit, as it’s more so using the car as a metaphor for a relationship that is going downhill… at least, I assume it is, with lines such as, “You put my brain in overload. I can’t change gear.” It’s not exactly brilliant writing.

However, you can’t say that Thom’s voice in this song isn’t pretty with the way it soars, and you can tell he’s trying very hard. However, the problem is, the vocals in this song are much more energetic than the rest of the instruments, which are just a rhythm guitar.

Still, it’s nice to listen to Thom belt his lungs out.

114. Planet Telex (Hexidecimal Remix):

Why are there so many remixes of Planet Telex? This song takes Planet Telex, a pretty fun yet quite average alt-rock song, and adds a bunch of effects which makes it sound very spacey.

It also extends the intro into the territory of “too long”.

Also,Thom’s vocals don’t mesh well with the electronics, making this song feel very disjointed.

This remix is just kind of boring. There’s so much going on, but none of it is interesting, so it all sort of fades into nothing.

113. Supercollider:

At seven minutes and one second, this is Radishhead’s longest song, and it’s a single they released in 2011.

Does it earn its length? No.

The electronics are repetitive and hollow, and

it’s got that weird rhythm that a lot of the King of Limbs songs have.

Also, despite being seven minutes and one second long, the song never really goes through any different phases.

The lyrics of the song are not even worth talking about.

112. Vegetable:

The clean guitar work on this song is fun, I suppose.

At this point while listening to Pablo Honey, I’m just so tired of the album. Every song in this album is so similar.

Lyrically, Vegetable is about being tired of not letting oneself get angry. I suppose that’s fairly interesting.

111. Prove Yourself:

Man, they really like songs with instructional names.

Unlike other songs off of Pablo Honey, this song sees Thom actually put some emotion into his vocals.

This may just be a result of me listening to this song on an iphone, but I think the electric guitar may be too high in the mix during the chorus, as it kind of steps over Thom’s vocals.

Still, that guitar is quiet fun, as is the crunchy electric guitar solo. I also appreciate that the electric guitar changed tone and distortion levels during this song. That’s kind of the bare minimum, but oh well.

110. Worrywort and 109. Fog

These two songs are off the Knives Out EP.

They are both nothing songs. The electronics aren’t grating, but they also have no real effect at all.

These songs seem to be trying to go for some sort of atmosphere, but they’re too sparse and too chill to create one.

There’s a tambourine in Fog. That’s the only really interesting detail.

108. Pearly:

Despite being an OK/ NOTOK song, this would not sound out of place on The Bends, as it’s a pretty simple heavy rock song. It’s a good time, and I really like the way Thom’s voice is layered on top of itself, but it’s still not anything stellar.

This song does have some very fun, very frenetic drumming in it.

Overall, I could definitely see enjoying this song while listening to it in a burger joint with a big bar.

107. The Butcher:

This song is the B side to Supercollider.

Thom says the word “bitch” in this song, which I think is new for him.

It also stands out because this song had that King of Limbs sound, with the unstable rhythm, haunting humming, and unearthly electronics. It is for this sound, and the weird juxtaposition with the lyrics, that this song is this low.

106. Fitter Happier:

It’s kinda hard to judge this song, as it’s not really meant to be picked apart on its own. Within the album, it serves its purposes. Everything I can critique about it is sort of the point. Yeah, the robotic voice is creepy, and yeah the music concrete is not nice on the ears, and yeah, don’t call me a pig. I guess I can critique it on the grounds of being very on-the-nose in a way that feels a bit…Reddit-y, I suppose. I know that’s a silly thing to say, since this is Radiohead of all bands, but that is the way it comes off. Yeah, society treats us like farm animals, what else is new.

However, at the same time, whatever. If we could only use completely unique metaphors, then 99% of all writers would be out of a job.

I like the line “No killing moths or putting boiling water on ants.” I can’t believe they don’t let us torture insects. We truly do live in a society.

I do think some of the weirder instructions serve well to spice up the otherwise very unsubtle lyrics.

105. These Are My Twisted Words:

This is the most Radiohead song Radiohead made. I don’t wanna say it’s like a parody, but it kinda is. It’s not bad, it just does what so many of their other songs do, the lyrics are despondent, Thome’s voice is high, the music is ethereal-ish. The only problem is, it doesn’t do any of this in a unique way. The lyrics aren’t anything special, and the song never figures out what it wants to be about. I guess it’s about songwriting and making music itself, but it doesn’t say anything about the process. Thumb York gives a nice vocal performance, but he’s not doing anything stellar with his voice, just singing in his unique way. The music does have a nice quality, but you can also find this quality by searching “ambient music for a rainy day” on Youtube.

104. Packed Like Sardines In A Crushed Tin Can:

Packed Like Sardines is a song with a lot of desperate elements which combine together to make nothing.

The song ends up feeling extraordinarily repetitive, with no change of mood or sense of building up or anything. The lyrics are also extremely forgettable, and Thom’s singing is way too reserved in this track. It sounds like he’s asleep, and the synths are also just as loud as he is, so his restrained vocals are buried.

However, I can admire the uniqueness of the song, as I really can not think of a single other song that sounds exactly like that. Despite that, the song just feels like nothing more than a novelty.

103. Myxomatosis:

Myxomatosis is another song which just ends up feeling mostly hollow. The main guitar riff is pretty cool, but it gets tiring fairly quickly, as it’s not cool enough to be repeated a bazillion times, and once again, it’s pretty devoid of emotion. It also does sound a bit like a robot fart, and when the buzzing electronics are on top of it, it just sounds messy. When you pile distortion on top of distortion, then it sounds scratchy, and it really, really clashes with Thom’s vocals. By the end of the song, I was really sick of the electronics, which just gave me a giant headache.

The best parts of the song is when the guitars cut out and we only hear Thome’s voice and the drumming, as the drumming is quite nice. Unfortunately, those moments are few and far between.

Also, this might be one of Thome’s most middling vocal performances. It’s too nasally, and the way he says Myxomatosis is almost, dare I say it, annoying.

The lyrics…eh. They feel like a bunch of random ideas thrown together. Myxomatosis is reportedly a disease in rabbits, in case you were wondering.

The band also sound like they’re trying too hard to be edgy, as they’re basically saying “Oh, I’m a dangerous animal, I have a disease, I’m rapid, I’m going to attack you.” It reminds me of late-era Green Day lyrics, especially because it feels vaguely political, but it doesn’t really say anything or provide any insight into any issue. It just uses phrases like “used in a photo in Time magazine” which seem like they’d be political. However, there’s no actual point being made. Perhaps Radiohead is expressing something, but I don’t know what they’re expressing, and I don’t really know what emotion they want us to feel.

102. Planet Telex:

“You can force it, but it will not come.” Is a very Radiohead-esque opening line.

Anywhoo, the guitar work on this song sticks out, using all sorts of effects to create this very chaotic feeling.

I also really like the part where we hear a piano play, and the echo used is similar to the one applied to the guitar.

However, everything other than that is just “eh”.

C+:

101. Lurgee:

This Pablo Honey song might actually be good. Both the vocals and the instruments actually manage to communicate an emotion. The guitar solo is definitely lacking energy, but that was definitely unintentional, as it works to create a feeling of despair.

100. Blow Out:

Blow Out is a pretty neat tune. Of all the Radiohead songs, this one sounds the most like a bossa nova record. There’s definitely a rather unique texture which sets it apart from the rest of the songs on Pablo Honey. Not only that, but the composition actually sounds interesting.

It’s also the most interestingly produced song on Pablo Honey, with multiple recordings of Thom’s voice being placed on top of each other. This is something that Radiohead would go on to do all of the time.

Unlike many of the other songs on that album, Blow Out actually has a vibe and an atmosphere.

Not only that, but this song also has some surprises, namely the ending, which has this guitar bit that sounds like ten thousand ghosts shrieking. It’s pretty cool.

It’s still not all that great, with the lyrics feeling rather flat and Thome’s vocals feeling stiff (I think that’s the best way to describe them, as it sounds like he’s holding back, hitting all of the notes, but not injecting much emotion into them).

The song’s lyrics are worthwhile, if rather one noted. They’re about feeling like the sadness in your life is inescapable. It doesn’t say that in the most interesting way possible, using a metaphor of turning everything into stone, but at least it’s saying something specific and unique.

99. A Reminder:

This is an interesting song off of OK/ NOTOK. The beginning uses field recordings and mixes it with these glistening ambient sounds.

It’s very pretty.

Then, the guitar, drums, and Thon’s voice are added on to that, and at that point, the song starts to feel messy.

The lyrics to this song are about how Thom wants this song to be a reminder of how he was once “cool” and full of energy and joy. Okay…that’s a neat idea, I guess.

The song also has a very abrupt end which is weird after its very languid beginning.

98. Electioneering:

It’s fine. There’s nothing Electioneering does wrong. The percussion with the…I think it’s a cowbell? Has a very playful quality I like, which matches with Thome’s almost mocking vocals and the kind of lullabye-esque vocal melody. The guitar line also has a really nice stinging quality to it. It feels harsh and angry, but also kind of euphoric and silly.

However, like… whatever. These elements are nice, but not memorable in any way. Plus, the lyrics don’t do much for me, as they don’t say a huge amount. The smartest observation is the “When I go forwards, you go backwards, and somewhere we will meet.” Like, yeah that’s what happens, society is moving ahead, and a lot of the young folk have progressive ideas, but we keep on getting these people with reductionist policies, and we then have to meet them in the middle. That’s something people don’t talk about a lot, and it’s said in a simple and eloquent way.

However, nothing else in this song says a whole lot. Yeah, politicians lie. That’s not a unique statement.

Also, parts of the song are just the band listing a bunch of political terms, and that’s not political satire. What about voodoo economics? What even is that? Okay, I looked voodoo economics up, and it’s something George HW Bush said to mock Regan’s economic policies. Okay. That’s not very meaningful. That’s not meaningful at all.

Also, while I complimented the way the cowbell matched Thom’s vocals, it does feel like the rest of the song does not match with his vocals. The guitar’s sound is so much more energetic than Thom on the verses, and even during the choruses, it still sounds like the band are recording from different worlds. Also, the cowbell does eventually go away. :(

This does add to the rather messy quality to the song. The band doesn’t really sound all that in sync, and it’s just overwhelming. I suppose that’s the point, but it gets tiring very quickly. My ears don’t know what to focus on, so all of these elements mix together into a glop.

97. Sit Down, Stand Up:

The album “Hail to the Thief” is notable because of how much repetition there is with the lyrics. Now, this can work, like with 2+2=5, where it sounds like a chant. It’s reminiscent of “The World is a Ghetto”, another very furious and cynical album.

Also, in today’s information age, it can feel like the same buzzwords are being yelled at us repeatedly. The repetition sells the feeling of being overwhelmed by issues.

However, sometimes the repetition can just get tiring, especially in the beginning of this song. It’s rather low energy, so it doesn’t feel like a chant, nor does it have the feeling of being overwhelming

However, I don’t dislike the beginning of this song. It has a dystopian, robot-like atmosphere, and the inclusion of the sparkling Christmas-y bells somehow manage to fit in well. I also really like the build up in the middle of the song. It sounds like a giant alien spaceship is slowly casting a shadow over the entire song. Yes, that is the metaphor I’m using.

Of course, that buildup then sends us to Thom repeating “the raindrops” over and over. I don’t know what the meaning of that phrase is, and I kind of don’t care. I think the idea is that the vocals are just another instrument being used here.

We also get this insanely frenetic drumming and squealing synth, and it feels like aliens are pouring out of the ship and shooting at us.

Despite being cool musically, super frenetic drumming like this gets tiring very quickly, just look at The King of Limbs. The overwhelming nature of it means that I soon just grow numb.

It definitely doesn’t help that this part of the song lasts for a minute.

Maybe it’s just because this song comes immediately after 2+2=5, another song which starts off with a dystopian atmosphere and then explodes into violence. However, everything Sit Down, Stand Up does, 2+2=5 does with much more creativity and power, as I’ll talk about later.

96. Separator:

I feel like the drums in this song are too loud, and they kind of take over the rest of the song. Despite being very interesting rhythmically, the drums get rather tiring.

This whole song is not really anything spectacular. There aren’t any musical ideas that I find particularly interesting, and it doesn’t make me feel anything.

I suppose the lyrics or some of the most colorful on King of Limbs like with, “Fallin’ off the giant bird that’s been carrying me” but it’s still not anything to write home about. A lot of the lines feel like they’re just filler, like with “If you think this is over then you’re wrong”.

It’s fine if the lyrics have no discernible meaning, but it would be nice if they’re still interesting.

That’s a problem I have with The King of Limbs overall, it’s an album that seems kind of uninterested in saying anything.

Obviously, there’s that vague feeling of sadness throughout the album

“So why does this still hurt?” (Bloom), “Now you’ve stolen all the magic/ took my melody” (Morning Mr. Magpie),

However, it’s rarely concerned with dissecting this sadness. Occasionally, it will dive into the reason for the despair, like with “Routines and schedules, a job that’s killing you” in (Little by Little). However, that’s a “No Surprises”-esque line in a song which is definitely not “No Surprises”, as that line is the only line in the song about the idea. The rest is just abstract lyrics, “The last one out of the box, the one that broke the seal”. It’s not even very pretty abstract lyrics.

There’s a lot of references to relationships throughout the album, “You’re mine” (Feral). However, nothing is ever said about relationships.

There’s two exceptions to this.

The first is Lotus Flower. “There’s an empty space in my heart where the weeds take root” is a line which actually seems to make a specific statement: the absence of meaning in my life leads to my vices growing.

The second exception is “Give Up The Ghost”, as I suppose you could say it’s about being afraid of entering a relationship for fear of being hurt.

95. Like Spinning Plates:

The story behind this song is cool, as it’s I Will being played Backwards.

It’s a cool concept.

The song definitely has an atmosphere, that atmosphere being a sense of haunting dread, soul-crushing horror, and unexplainable pain.

I don’t enjoy listening to it, but I don’t think it's meant to be enjoyed.

Thome’s voice when he says the title does have a certain unexplainable quality to it, as does the rest of the song.

94. Permanent Daylight:

This song is off of the My Iron Lung EP.

The guitar riff in this song is nice.

However, there’s a weird vocal effect on Thom’s voice that mutes it and makes it all garbled up.

Other than that, I don’t have anything to say about this song. It is a well-put-together piece of music that did not bore me.

93. Bulletproof (I Wish I Was):

“The Bends” is too long. It’s not the longest radiohead album or anything, it’s only 49 minutes. However, there are songs on it that didn’t really need to be on it.

Bulletproof (I Wish I Was) is an example of this.

Not only that, but this song comes after “Just” and “My Iron Lung” which are both very high energy, so it feels like a sudden plunge.

This isn’t a bad song, but it is very low-energy, and very languid.

In terms of positives, I like the sparkling guitar and overall breezy quality of the song, and Thom is doing his usual routine with the vocals.

It has everything you’d come to expect from a Radiohead song.

92. Staircase:

This is a B side from 2011.

It has a very nice bass which is fun to tap one’s feet too.

There’s a rather chaotic quality to it which is fun.

The violins are also a nice touch.

91. The Amazing Sounds of Orgy

This song is going on in all sorts of directions. The percussion is crazy, Thom is singing in the key of “existential dread” and the whole thing sounds like I assume the Phantom Zone sounds like.

This entire song is scary

The effects on Thom’s voice scare me. The reverberation on the drums is spooky. The quick screams of organs send shivers down my spine.

This song is about capitalism, I suppose. I guess it is the rich people who are having an orgy, and we are forced to listen to their amazing sounds. We truly do live in a society.

90. Bangers+ Mash:

The opening to this In Rainbows Part 2 song sounds like the kinks “You Really Got Me Going” mixed with Bodysnatchers.

The coarse guitars and drums in this song are instantly gripping, and they fit Thom’s yelping delivery, but they lose their grip pretty quickly. In fact, all of this song really gets tiring pretty quickly. As nice as the guitars and drums are, they’re pretty repetitive.

The only time when this song changes up is during the bridge, which is honestly kind of annoying. The backing gets chill, but Thom’s vocals stay the same way, and it just feels jarring. They also add other bits of…something during the bridge, making it feel messy, and also, this song does that thing where the music abruptly cuts off and starts again, which is kind of a pop song cliche, despite this not being a pop song.

89. 15 Step:

15 Step is kind of an underwhelming way to begin In Rainbows. That electronic...thingee..is repetitive and gets old very quickly.

Also, the cheering crowd of kids is very random and adds nothing to the song. Seriously, what was the point of the cheering kids?

Also, the lyrics are kind of “meh”, not really saying much.

However, I do like how we get the line “you reel me out and then you cut the string.” This si because in Videotape, we get the line “And you are my center when I spin away.” These lines are basically opposites.

Not only that, but the last part of this song feels extraordinarily messy, with the vocals and the guitar and the electronic thingee stepping over each other.

88. I Might Be Wrong:

Out of all the Radiohead songs, “I Might Be Wrong” sounds the most like a “Black Keys” song. It’s got this slick, rock and roll riff and a danceable beat.

However, it’s also just kind of empty. There’s no real sense of atmosphere or mood, and there are no musical moments in it that I find memorable.

I don’t have anything else to say, because there’s nothing else to talk about.

#radiohead

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pricemarshfield · 2 years ago

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teeth

[Image ID: an image of a woman with an open mouth and her hand on her face, reflected in a mirror, colorized purple and with the text “teeth” edited over it. End ID.]

Pairing: MC x Poppy

Rating: E (minors DNI)

Summary: An MC/Poppy smut-with-feelings fic, or: the MC/Poppy-only remix of cooler than me. Chapter 5 of 8. Requested by @ohmycheesencrackers.

Word Count: 5390 for this chapter, 25241 for the full fic so far.

Warnings: Dom/sub, possessiveness (they are both into it and communicating that they are into it).

Created For: @anyfandomfluffbingo (aftercare), @anyfandomkinkbingo (fingering), and @badbitchesbingo (free space).

The chapter’s a little too long to host on Tumblr, so read chapter 5 on AO3 here, or the full fic from the beginning here.

#anyfandomfluffbingo #anyfandomkinkbingo #badbitchesbingo #queen b fanfiction #poppy x mc #my fics #fic: teeth #playchoices #queen b #mc x poppy #poppy min-sinclair #bea hughes #oc: daija hughes #s: line me up with hypnotizing colors #request #ohmycheesencrackers

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rainy-autumn-day · 4 years ago

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10 Books to read this Autumn & Halloween🍁🍂🍁

1. Dracula by Bram Stoker

This start of beautiful season off with something classic and a little scary.

The name of Dracula brings to mind visions of vampires, stakes, garlic, and crucifixes. Yet, when you read the novel, it becomes self-evident how twisted modern vampire fiction now is. The vampires in this classic story are not meant to inhabit the roles of heroes. Instead you go back a few hundred years when men and women believed truly that the vampire was a real immortal, cursed to quench his undying thirst with a living mortal’s blood. The very idea of a blood drinker should, therefore, inspire the image of a villain and that is what the titular character of this novel is. A villan you can’t help but keep reading about.

2. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Another story that is perfect if you want something that will keep you up at night like it did for me when I read it last year.

There is scarcely any comfort to be found in this book, only an ancient, arcane horror. Ten people receive a mystery letter from someone they don't know that indicates they should come to a remote island. Why would they go????? After arriving, they try to figure out the connection between all of them while waiting for their mysterious host. After coming across a cute little poem about how ten little indians die, they decide they will wait it out until the next morning when the ferry comes back to take them home. But it will never come! Each guest suddenly dies matching the line from a poem. It really keeps you on the edge of your seat.

3. THE BONE WITCH BY RIN CHUPECO

A story about a young witch just fits so well with this season, but this story is not about a teenage witch =just flying around on a broom. No it’s far darker than that. When Tea accidentally resurrects her brother from the dead, she learns she is different from the other witches in her family. Her gift for necromancy means that she’s a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized by her community. But Tea finds solace and guidance with an older, wiser bone witch, who takes Tea and her brother to another land for training.In her new home, Tea puts all her energy into becoming an asha—one who can wield elemental magic. But dark forces are approaching quickly, and in the face of danger, Tea will have to overcome her obstacles…and make a powerful choice.

4. Night Film by Marisha Pessl

This story opens in October on a cool evening with a blood chilling scene, it’s really everything you could hope for on a autumn night.

Night Film opens on a cold, cursed October evening, when Ashley Cordova, a young women full of potential, is found dead in a warehouse. Police rule her death a suicide, but investigative journalist Scott McGrath isn't so sure. From that inception point, Scott McGrath enters the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley's life and death, and comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive cult-horror film director Stanislaus Cordova--a man who hasn't been seen in public for more than thirty years. For McGrath, another death connected to this seemingly cursed family dynasty seems more than just a coincidence. Though much has been written about Cordova's dark and unsettling films, very little is known about the man himself. Driven by revenge, curiosity, and a need for the truth, McGrath, with the aid of two strangers, is drawn deeper and deeper into Cordova's eerie, hypnotic world. The last time he got close to exposing the director, McGrath lost his marriage and his career. This time he might lose even more.

5. Autumn by Ali Smith

Ali Smith's lauded Seasonal quartet, a series of four novels rooted in a different time of year, kicks off with Autumn there we watch as love is won, love is lost. Hope is hand in hand with hopelessness. The seasons roll round, as they always do.

6. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I can’t tell you how many times i have read this beaful story in my life buti wants have it one my list to read at last once a year and i find it fits so well in to the amazing season that is autumn with The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring

7.I Know Who You Are by Alice Feeney

This story is haunting and it will stay with you after you read it.

It's dark, twisted and unpredictable until the very last chapter keeping me on the edge of my seat from the very beginning. You are met with the unknown as you meet Aimee Sinclair, an actress who after coming home, she realizes her husband is missing and after that you are sent on a wild ride to find him.

8.Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Another classic. I have always found that that reading about a world now gone is so very perfect for autumn, as we watch the leaves we had watch grow turn colors and fly away from us.

Little Women is a beauty told story with each of the sisters seeks out a different form of happiness: Meg wants to marry, Jo wants to be a writer, Beth wants to care for her family, and Amy craves material success. We get to live their world as we following the lives and loves of the four March sisters and their mother as they mature from youth through adolescence and adulthood.

9.Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

If you love gothic horror, this one is for you. It has the same feeling as Jane Eyre but way creepier and set in 1950’s Mexico.

The atmosphere is perfect for the season, a debutante heads to a creepy countryside house, after receiving an ominous letter from her newlywed cousin, and finds the dark secrets that lie within the house and its occupants.

10.The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

A suspenseful and eerie mystery told via dual timelines all surrounding a rundown roadside motel and the secrets lurking that captivated a woman so much that she went missing in the 1980’s and now have caught the attention of her niece 35 years later. If you love a good mystery mixed with timeline jumping this a perfect one for you.

Bonus

11.The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

Handmaid’s Tale meets Salem: Born of rebellious feminist resistance by a girl who is branded as cursed because of her mother’s sins and facing the dark powers to make definite and concrete changes at the dystopian, puritanical, secluded society consisted of hypocrisy, ignorance, illogical and unfair laws.

This is another terrifying, fist clenching, soul shivering, mind crushing, heart pounding, forehead sweating, edgy, spooky, bleak, dark journey take you to the dark woods to face the four witches are ready to haunt you in your dreams and place a quite irritating thoughts inside your brains.

#reading #read #Halloween #autumn #books

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visforvengeance · 3 years ago

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EZ Reyes // The Devil and I

S M U T

Requested by: no one :)

Notes: i’ve been missing my boys. i wanted to write for them but i had no idea what to write about. soooooo here’s something for ez bc i love him sm

Warnings: reader is BLACK. in the song he says, “i’m strong, i’m beautiful, and black,” for some reason i thought this would be perfect ez. also reader is a stripper. cursing, smut (dry humping), some uh colorful language. lower case intended. i wrote this in like an hour. so like 18+ but like i was 17 once so. i like lazily proofread it?

Song

she placed her heel on the bench as she attached the thigh high stockings to the garter belt. she tightened the strap on her heels and checked herself out in the mirror. the loose curls in her hair fell past her shoulders, stopping at her waist. damn, did she look good. the stage manager came in to let her know that she was on in 10. she began preparing herself for the dance.

she’d heard that the local motorcycle club was going to be in tonight. she��d never interacted with any of them, but she was very fond of a certain EZ Reyes. she saw him around sometimes and they were never able to keep their eyes off of each other. maybe tonight a bond will form between the two.

the slow music of Charlie Wilson’s song began playing and the lights turned dark red. she came out and walked to the pole, her hips swaying from side to side. she looked at every man in the crowd as they stared back at her, hungry and wanting to just eat her up. her eyes connected with EZ’s as he watched her move against the pole. he was intrigued. he followed her every move, not wanting to miss a thing.

he sat right in the front at the foot of the stage and their eyes never lost each other. she wasn’t dancing for anyone else but him, and his surroundings drowned out as she hypnotized him with the sway of her hips. and the curve of her breasts. and the way her brown skin looked so soft. he studied her like he’d study his math homework. he noticed every scar and imperfection on her. the mole in the center of her back, the tattoo on her hip. the way her eyes never left his and his never left hers.

she danced in the never ending rain of money. EZ saw the way the men threw it at her and he quickly realized that she was everyone’s personal favorite. it made him angry and possessive. and she picked up on the way his jaw flexed as he looked around. so she turned her attention to the other Reyes man next to him. he smirked as he stroked his beard and leaned more into the chair.

Angel was having a good time and this beautiful woman was giving him all of her attention. the night just got better and better. not for EZ, though. as much as he wanted her only for himself, he couldn’t think because she just looked too damn good and this song was really enhancing the vibe she was giving.

when the song was over, she collected her dollars and blew a kiss to the crowd as they whooped and hollered. she was back in the dressing room, putting away her things when the manager came and said someone wanted a private lap dance. she knew who it was that wanted it. she was going to have him wrapped around her little finger, it excited her.

she weaved through the men, flirting with them and taking even more of the cash they slid into her strings. when she entered the led lit room, he was there with his elbows on his knees, waiting. she made her way onto his lap and smiled. “hello, stranger.” he pulled his eyes from her tits and looked into her eyes. “hello, stranger,” he smirked.

“we finally meet again. my name’s Edyn.” he nodded as he placed his hands on her hips. “is that your real name?” she started grinding her hips against his and her lips ghosting over the skin of his neck. “no, you’ll have to find that out later.” later? he was looking forward to it. she got up from his lap and swung herself around the pole. the attention he was giving her made her feel playful. she spoke up over the music, “tell me about yourself, sugar.” he started with his name, and then when he joined the MC. he struggled to string words together because of the way her ass moved and the way she teased him.

when she thought he’d had enough of her fucking around, she stood in front of him. she looked like a god, the way the lights shadowed behind her and her hair hung around her face. “what do you want from me, baby?” he didn’t speak, so she gave him what she wanted. she straddled his lap and trailed her lips along her neck. she stopped in case that wasn’t what he wanted, but how his head was thrown back and the bulge in his pants that grew by the minute made her keep going. she ground herself against him once again, causing him to moan.

she grabbed his chin, pulling him towards her. their lips connected and the feeling of euphoria speckled in their chests. she pulled away with his lips between her teeth. “is this what you wanted, EZ?” EZ wasn’t the kind of guy to be submissive to a woman, but she makes him speechless. he simply nodded. she gave him a sinister smile and began kissing him again.

their hands felt like fire against the other’s skin. EZ kissed along her neck as he forced her hips to move against, creating a pleasant sensation for both of them. his hands found their way to her tits, giving them a squeeze. he squeezed and rubbed at her nipples as she moaned.

she continued grinding, faster as their orgasms approached. she was dripping wet and ruining the underwear of her outfit. their arousals seeped through their clothing, making a mess. the worry of having to explain it to the boys wasn’t on EZ’s mind right now. what was on his mind was how fucking good this felt. they basically dry humped each other like virgin teenagers, but shit, it was heavenly.

her thighs began to shake as her orgasm rushed through her, he followed suit and moaned as he came. their foreheads touching as they caught their breath. she got up to go grab a pen and paper, writing her number down for him. she handed it to him, saying something along the lines of ‘we should do this again, sometime.’

when they left the room, the MC had already gone. and the club was significantly less full than before. she walked him to the door where they said their goodbyes with a kiss. she smiled to herself as she walked back to the dressing room. that was the start of something good and she couldn’t wait.

#Mayans MC #mayans imagine #mayans fx #ez reyes #ezekiel reyes #angel reyes #ez reyes imagine #ez reyes x reader #JD Pardo

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night-unfurls-its-splendour · 3 years ago

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Every Emma Woodhouse Ranked and Rated

With all my reviews of all the period-set adaptations now finished, I'm beginning my series in which I rate and rank each interpretation of all the principle characters, starting with our girl Emma!

Now I wanna be clear--I am not rating the actresses that played Emma. I am rating how the character was handled in general in each adaptation. The actresses are a factor, but they're not the sole factor, since the writer and director have as much, if not more, to do with how the character ends up in the finished product. So without futher ado, let's rank...

“Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her….

“The real evils indeed of Emma’s situation were the power of having rather too much of her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself; these were the disadvantages that threatened alloy to her many enjoyments.”

NUMBER 5: 1972

Portrayed by: Doran Godwin

Age at time of filming: 28

Clocking in as the oldest actress to play Austen’s famously TWENTY-ONE year old heroine (at the ripe age of 28), Doran Godwin also snags the coveted position as inhabiting the worst portrayal of the character (in my personal estimation) to date.

Just about everything about this interpretation of Emma Woodhouse is bad, from her seemingly automated recital of her lines to her all-too-intense, wide-eyed, hypnotic stare. The 1972 portrayal of Emma highlights all the character’s worst qualities while also failing to convincingly communicate her good qualities, such as her caring nature. The script is equally to blame for the awfulness of this interpretation, adding unnecessarily cruel and condescending lines, including one where she negs Harriet for being sad after Elton’s marriage, and then forces Harriet to come with her to meet the new Mrs. Elton, when Emma in the book did her best to shield Harriet from exactly that kind of situation.

Godwin couldn’t pass for 21 if her life had depended on it, and the worst part is that the script actually states Emma’s age, so she seems like a bit of a crazy spinster, preying on the naïve Harriet. Whether it’s her intent to bathe in Harriet’s blood to keep herself young, or to bake her into a pie is up for debate.

Rating: 1/5 Half-finished portraits

NUMBER 4: 2020

Portrayed by: Anya Taylor Joy

Age at time of filming: 23

I thought long and hard about this. This movie is a modern period drama phenomenon. It’s gotten so many people into Jane Austen and satisfied long-time Austen fans by giving them an interpretation they never dared hope to see. It’s a gorgeous film.

But I don’t like this interpretation of Emma Woodhouse. Though Anya Taylor Joy is one of the youngest actresses to play Emma (only two years older than the character) she’s played with a careful stiffness that perhaps shows us a glimpse of the Lady Catherine she might turn into without swift intervention. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and this isn’t a commentary on Anya Taylor Joy either—her appearance or her acting ability—but I just don’t like her as Emma. And she’s not the sole problem, she turns in a solid performance, she’s a good actress, but something about this characterization is just off-color to me. Anya Taylor Joy plays a great mean-girl; but I think that’s one of the reasons why they thought she’d be a good choice for this role, and it’s one of the prime reasons I don’t think she wasright for it. Emma is a deeply flawed character and, of course, the biggest turning point in her story comes as a result of a thoughtlessly mean remark to someone who has only ever shown her deference, hospitality and gratitude.

All that said, Emma is not, at her core, a cruel person. Emma has gone all her life thinking condescending things about Miss Bates but it’s only when Frank comes along and validates her less kind commentaries that she actually starts to voice them in search of validation from a peer.

The problem with this in the context of 2020’s Emma Woodhouse is that Frank hardly gets a look-in in this adaptation. Emma’s relationship with him is severely underdeveloped and the actors don’t have enough chemistry to pull it off in the limited time they’re given. The result is that Emma appears to cross a line just to cross it, and it pushes Emma’s character from thoughtless to out-and-out frigid.

Still better than Doran Godwin, since she's identifiably human.

Rating: 2 1/2 / 5 Half-finished portraits

NUMBER 3: 1996 (MIRAMAX)

Portrayed by: Gwyneth Paltrow

Age at time of filming: 24

Despite the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow was an appalling casing choice for Emma Woodhouse (I will be forever salty that they passed over Joely Richardson), and I know there are some who will think me, at best, crazy (sacrilegious, at worst) for ranking 1996’s interpretation of Emma higher than 2020, I actually feel that solidly in the middle is right where this version of the character belongs.

There’s so much wrong with this Emma: she swings from mature to bizarrely infantile at the drop of a hat, much of her script is genuinely tragic, Gwyneth can’t convincingly portray Emma's social naiveté, her accent is overwhelmingly nasal and impossible to listen to, just for starters.

And yet… I don’t hate her. I don’t like her particularly either, but even though much of the dialogue re-working butchered Austen’s prose, there are a lot of things McGrath seems to have gotten right about Emma’s character. Her relationship with Knightley feels comfortable and playful, and, while Emma of the book probably doesn’t really care for Harriet Smith in the spirit of true bosom friendship, I believe she does care about her and wishes to spare her (further) pain. She shows exasperation with Harriet while still being patient with her, which is very much in the spirit of the book. Her concern for Harriet at the ball feels real, and her contrition at Box Hill following Knightley’s rebuke, while not profound, at least feels like contrition and not self-pity.

Perhaps, given the soft-take that the Miramax version is, it shouldn’t be surprising that the biggest faults in characterization rest on awkward writing and the biggest triumphs highlight Emma’s better side. It’s not a very in-depth take on the character, but it at least, is an adequate one.

Rating: 3/5 Half-finished portraits

NUMBER 2: 1996/97 (ITV)

Portrayed by: Kate Beckinsale

Age at time of filming: 23

Those who’ve read my reviews of each adaptation of Emma might be surprised to see ITV’s portrayal of the title character sitting so high on my list. To be frank, it’s a distant second, and she may have stolen the number two spot only because she’s played by Kate Beckinsale and not Gwyneth Paltrow.

In truth, I see a lot of parallels between 1997’s Emma and 2020’s. Both actresses were 23 (or thereabouts) when they played the role, both have extremely childish moments, and both crumple down and burst into tears that don’t feel entirely genuine after Box Hill.

So why is 1997 on the good side of the number 3 spot and 2020 isn’t? I’m not precisely sure. I think it may be because Andrew Davies (and/or Diarmuid Lawrence) at least understood the scale of Emma Woodhouse’s wealth and status. This Emma feels sufficiently self-important, a bit haughty, sure—but she’s also believably naïve. You feel her isolation, you understand her caring relationship with her father, and she’s not as patently rude to Robert Martin compared to the 2020 version (she at least acknowledges his presence when he meets Emma and Harriet in the lane).

Grudging though this favorable placement may be, I can at least acknowledge that Emma herself is the least of my problems with this version, and even though Beckinsale’s acting is a bit sketchy at certain points, she also has some truly great moments, especially her interaction with Robert Martin at the end of the film. This portrayal is consistent, and Emma’s better qualities aren’t overpowered by her negative ones.

Rating: 4/5 Half-finished portraits

Number 1: 2009

Portrayed by: Romola Garai

Age at time of filming: 26

And in a shocking twist—I’m kidding this is neither shocking nor unexpected to anyone who knows me or has read my blog/reviews of the Emma adaptations. Am I totally biased? Probably. I don’t care, this is a completely subjective list. Here, finally—my first and true love as Emma Woodhouse—is Romola Garai. I suppose it’s also not surprising that the first actress I ever saw in the role would still be my favorite a decade on. I just love everything about this interpretation of the character. She rides the very difficult line of being bright, caring and intelligent, while also being completely naïve and lacking in social savvy (in her own age-group at least), coddled, and painfully sure of her own self-importance.

Even though Garai was 25 or 26 at the time (far too old for the character—almost as old as Doran Godwin) her energy and charisma are enough that she’s able to carry it off convincingly. Everything about this Emma screams youth, and when Emma’s child-like social ignorance is her most prominent characteristic, it feels authentic and natural. Equally authentic are her emotions—her love for her family, her dynamic with Knightley, he exasperation, patience, and concern with Harriet. Most of all though, this Emma seems to experience the most maturation in the last quarter of the story. Box Hill really feels like a turning point—not just a chastened young woman, but a true coming-of-age moment. Emma faces a reckoning here that begins a chain reaction culminating in her realization of her feelings for Knightley, and everything from the writing to Garai’s performance conveys the magnitude of this shift in Emma’s life.

This version of the character seems the most… complete to me. Somehow, between Romola Garai’s vibrancy, Sandy Welch’s screenplay and Jim O’Hanlon’s direction, this interpretation takes an extremely divisive character and helps the viewer understand just why everyone in Highbury loves Emma Woodhouse.

Rating: 5/5 Half-finished portraits

~~~~

If you liked this, check out my rankings of Mr. and Mrs. Weston

#emma woodhouse #jane austen emma #jane austen #period drama #emma 2020 #emma 2009 #emma 1996 #emma 1972 #romola garai #kate beckinsale #anya taylor joy #gwyneth paltrow

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kpop-zone · 4 years ago

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Twice reaction to their s/o flirting with them post wisdom teeth removal

A raspy groan automatically escaped your mouth once you slowly felt yourself regaining some consciousness. You’ve had one hell of a dream. It even almost felt like you were physically able to feel its effects. Your whole face felt numb and your eyelids were heavier than ever. Maybe you should get some more sleep?

“Y/N?”

The sound of someone calling your name, however, interfered with your plan as your urge to see the face to this angelic voice was bigger than your desire to fall back asleep. With difficulty, you opened your eyes, feeling how the bright light seemingly burned your retina. After blinking a few times though, the silhouette of a person leaning over you became clearer and clearer until you were able to admire her beautiful face.

“Whoa.”

Once again, your mouth was faster than your brain and you gasped in awe. Were you still dreaming?

“Is this a dream?”

You asked dumbfounded while staring at the woman in front of you.

“No, Y/N. You’re in a dental clinic.”

The woman giggled in amusement and you hummed pensively. That would explain why your face felt like it didn’t belong to your body. It didn’t explain though why the most stunning human being on this planet was watching over you right now.

“If all the nurses in here look as pretty as you, this must be heaven?”

You probed bluntly, not knowing where this sudden confidence was coming from, but knowing that you had to try everything to keep this enchantress by your side.

Nayeon

Nayeon stared at you dumbfounded for a second before bursting in laugher. The nurse had warned her that you could need a while to regain consciousness, but she hadn’t expected you to turn into another person.

“What’s so funny?”

You mumbled, having difficulty to open your mouth.

“Are you really trying to flirt with me?”

Nayeon choked out between laughter and you pouted sulkily.

“Why not? I’m a bit battered right now, but I’ll bounce back in no time and then I’ll take good care of you. A girl like you deserves someone who is willing to give you the world!”

It was a little hard to understand you, but you didn’t fail to transmit the sincerity of your words, causing Nayeon to pull herself together. She admired your determination, so she decided to play along.

“Do you really think you can pull someone like me?”

She smirked while sitting down on the edge of your bed and leaning forward in order to reduce the space between the two of you. Nervously, you gulped, looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights, but then you nodded slowly, managing to make Nayeon grin. Who would have thought that you could be so flirtatious?

“Well then I hope you’re going to keep your word.”

She whispered before pressing a gentle kiss on your cheek, knowing that her gesture would probably give you a heart attack. You needed to know though that she was the bigger flirt in your relationship...

Jeongyeon

“What?”

Jeongyeon asked while staring at you in confusion, wondering whether she had misheard your mumbling.

“I’ve said that this is my first time meeting an angel.”

You slurred while grinning proudly, causing Jeongyeon to scoff in disbelief. Where you really trying to woo her right now? With cheesy pickup lines? Not being able to contain herself any longer, she cracked up and doubled up with laughter.

“Oh my god, Y/N. I’ve always known that you are an idiot. But wow, you’ve really managed to outdo yourself this time.”

She sighed once she had calmed down a bit and you screwed up your face in confusion.

“Do we know each other?”

You stuttered, looking like a helpless, disoriented puppy, causing Jeongyeon’s expression to change in an instant. Suddenly, she felt bad for you, so she looked at you fondly with a smile playing on her lips.

“We sure do. But don’t worry about that now, you’ll soon feel like yourself again. I’ll get you some water, maybe that’ll help you to wake up. Don’t move, Casanova.”

She warned you jokingly before leaving the room to get you something refreshing to drink. In her mind, your cheesy pick-up line still played on repeat and she giggled to herself as she walked down the corridor to the water dispenser. She would make sure that you wouldn’t forget about this incident that quickly.

Momo

“Hold up...what did Y/N just say?”

Nayeon asked from somewhere behind Momo, the mockery clearly audible in her voice, but Momo couldn’t manage to avert her gaze from you. A blush had risen to her cheeks and she shyly smiled to herself. She didn’t know why she was reacting like this, after all the two of you had been dating for years already, but somehow you were still able to flatter her with ease.

“Y/N...”

Momo giggled while slapping your arm lightly, causing you to smirk, obviously pleased with her reaction.

“Don’t be shy. Your blush makes you look even more beautiful. Red really is your color.”

You winked, causing Sana and Nayeon to burst into loud laughter, making Momo’s blush turn into an even darker shade of red.

“Now I know how Y/N was able to woo you so fast.”

Nayeon snickered and Momo shyly looked to the floor.

“Shut up...”

She mumbled in embarrassment, but Nayeon only smirked. Her eyes glinted mischievously, and it seemed like she was just getting ready to tease Momo some more, but before she had the chance to, you suddenly piped up again.

“Wait what?! I already wooed you?”

You gasped in shock, managing to make Momo laugh.

“Yes, Y/N.”

She stated before burying her face in the crook of your neck in hopes to hide the blush that was still glowing brightly on her cheeks. She wasn’t so sure who would be more embarrassed after today...you or her?

Sana

Sana giggled happily when she heard such a flirtatious remark coming from you. Usually, you always made fun of her penchant for cheesy things. But today the roles seemed to be reversed.

“Heaven? What does that make me then?”

She asked with one eyebrow raised, hoping to see more of this sweet side of yours.

“The angel of my sweetest dreams.”

You grinned dazed, causing Sana to laugh loudly.

“Ah Y/N, you are so adorable!”

She squealed before gently cupping your face, having to resist the urge to squeeze your cheeks.

“Please...have you looked into the mirror today? Your face is the peak of adorableness.”

You retorted and Sana blushed shyly. She wasn’t used to you being such a flirt.

“Stop, Y/N... you’re making me flustered. Don’t you know that you don’t need to win my heart? It’s already yours.”

She smiled before intertwining your fingers, managing to leave you speechless. Amused, she guided your hand to her lips and kissed your knuckles. You didn’t seem to have expected your advances to be successful and stared at her with an open mouth, causing Sana to giggle smugly.

“Good, so my charms are still working too.”

Jihyo

For a second, Jihyo was taken aback by your bluntness, but then she figured that you were probably still high on your anesthesia. Amused, she chuckled while leaning closer to you.

“Heaven? Is that so?”

She asked rhetorically and you immediately nodded your head vigorously, causing her to surge forward to steady your head. The doctor had told you to avoid rapid movements like this today.

“Your eyes are so beautiful. I swear if they keep shining like that, the sun has to find another galaxy...”

You mumbled mesmerized while staring deeply into her eyes as if you were hypnotized. One compliment after the other gushed out of you until one of the cotton rolls that was supposed to stop the bleeding in your mouth fell out, causing Jihyo to gasp. She had to shut you up somehow...

“I will kiss you if you manage to be quiet for fifteen minutes.”

She blurted out and your eyes almost popped out of your head in shock. Nevertheless, you weren’t shy to agree to her proposition.

“Everything you want.”

You mumbled instantly and Jihyo giggled to herself.

She wouldn’t have deemed it possible for you to be even more whipped for her than usual. But she wasn’t complaining...

Mina

“Nurse? Don’t you know who I am?”

Mina asked, not knowing whether she should be amused or concerned.

“Do we know each other?”

You replied puzzled, causing her to chuckle shyly.

“Yes we do. I brought you here with Sana. Don’t you remember?”

She smiled softly before pointing at Sana who had kept her company while waiting for you to wake up. Neither of their faces seemed to be familiar to you though and you only looked at her apologetically.

“No, I don’t. I’m incredibly sorry. A pretty and kind person like you doesn’t deserve to be treated like this. Maybe I can make it up to you some time? And invite you for dinner?”

You suddenly grinned cheekily, causing Mina’s jaw to drop. Embarrassed, she started to blush and looked at Sana.

“Did Y/N just ask you out?”

The older asked dumbfounded although she seemed to be visibly amused.

“Yes, I did or are the two of you dating?”

You sounded seriously worried and Mina could see by the smirk on Sana’s face that she had some mischievous plan, but Mina wouldn’t allow one of her members to tease you in your miserable state today.

“No, we’re not. I would love to go out with you.”

She blurted out and you smiled widely, making her blush even more. Hopefully, you would soon regain your full consciousness again because she didn’t know if she could bear any more of your flirting.

Dahyun

Dahyun raised her eyebrows in disbelief. Were you challenging her? Did you really think that you could beat her at her own game? You were clearly not in your right mind yet; cheesy pickup lines were her expertise after all.

“It must be! Because I’m standing in front of an angel right now!”

She gasped exaggerated before smirking when she saw your puzzled expression.

“I can’t believe that worked...”

You stuttered surprised by the success of your pick-up line, causing Dahyun to laugh in amusement.

“I was simply defenseless against your charms...”

She sighed as she sat down on the edge of your bed and you stared at her speechlessly.

“What now? Will you take me out for dinner?”

Dahyun groaned impatiently when you didn’t manage to utter single word in order to tease you and your eyes widened in shock.

“Yes, yes of course!”

You exclaimed panicked while trying to sit up, but Dahyun was quick to stop you.

“I was just joking, Y/N! Please lay down. You can take me out on a date some other time.”

She giggled while pushing you down with force, panicked that your wound would open again if you would put too much pressure on it.

“Promise?”

You asked with a pout on your lips, making it hard for Dahyun to hide her amusement. But she drew a serious expression and held out her hand for you to shake.

“Promise.”

She stated soberly as if you were wrapping up a business deal and you shook her hand while a big grin spread on your face.

“This is the best day ever!”

You cheered and Dahyun scoffed. Hopefully you would still remember your invitation when you weren’t high anymore.

Chaeyoung

“Nurse?”

Chaeyoung chuckled in amusement once she realized that you were still high as a kite and the smirk on your lips faltered.

“You are my nurse right?”

You mumbled, having difficulty to keep the cotton rolls in your mouth.

“Do I look like your nurse?”

Chaeyoung laughed while pointing at her baggy jeans and knitted cardigan, causing you to study her outfit intensely before realizing your mistake.

“Who are you then? Oh and are you single?”

You asked bluntly and Chaeyoung needed to hold her belly that was starting to hurt from giggling too much. She couldn’t believe how different you were from your usual self. This was a great form of entertainment for her though...

“I am not.”

She replied to tease you and you creased your face in annoyance.

“Such a shame...Is your partner treating you well? Because I can guarantee you that I would fulfill your every wish.”

You didn’t seem to want to accept your defeat and Chaeyoung shook her head in amusement. Your persistence was charming; she had to give you that.

“Well that is true, you do that.”

She smiled after deciding to stop teasing you and you frowned in confusion. She didn’t feel like explaining you your whole life story though, so she simply plopped down on the chair next to your bed and winked at you cheekily.

“Rest a bit now, jagi. Everything will soon make sense again.”

Tzuyu

“I-I’m not your nurse.”

Tzuyu stuttered shyly after you had managed to make her blush with your sudden advances.

“You aren’t?”

You asked dumbfounded and Tzuyu shook her head slowly.

“No, I’m um...”

She looked around as if she was about to spill a secret before clearing her throat.

“I’m your girlfriend.”

As soon as her word had left her lips, your jaw dropped, causing Tzuyu to wince. You weren’t even supposed to talk. She was sure that opening your mouth that far couldn’t be good for you.

“My girlfriend?? How did I manage to pull a goddess like you??”

You yelled and Tzuyu quickly stumbled forward to press a finger on your lips to shut you up. Embarrassed she looked at the door, expecting a nurse to appear any second in order to scold you for your loud behavior. But to her delight, the two of you remained the only persons in the room, so she removed her hand from your face again while avoiding your gaze shyly.

“Yes, I am your girlfriend.”

She repeated herself and you gaped in awe.

“Really? Because this is simply too good to be true. If this is just a prank, it’s not funny. My heart is literally jumping out of my chest right now.”

You looked at her suspiciously and Tzuyu had to smile because of your adorableness.

“Really.”

She assured you before reaching for your hand to give it a light squeeze. Finally, you seemed to believe her words and you started beaming from one ear to the other.

“I’m the luckiest living being on this planet!”

You yelled once more and Tzuyu buried her face in her hand in defeat. Hopefully, you would soon go back to your normal self, because she had no idea how to keep you in check right now...

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descendantofthesparrow · 4 years ago

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One-shot - Harry Hook x Reader - Colorless - soulmate au!

i made this cuz i was having minor writers block from rewrite and wanted to do a soulmate au oneshot. enjoy!

He had never believed it, the idea of soulmates. Someone who made in the stars just for him? That would love him no matter what? Someone he would love till the end of his life? Someone perfect to him in every which way?

Yeah right, he was not that dumb to believe something like that, villains didn’t get happy endings, or someone to love.

They didn’t need it, or deserve it.

His father's world had been black and white since he was born, he had been told that color erupted around him the first time he stepped onto a ship out on the open seas, but Harry wasn’t inclined to believe him after the 30th time he had asked what the color of something was and his father refused to answer.

Some days he looked out across the strait of Ursula to see Auradon, wondering if he did have a soulmate and if they lived there.

Somedays he dreamed of someone with a laugh that sounded like the soft bells you would hear in those Auradon commercials around the holidays, not the ones he would find that sounded like a little metal ball hitting against cheap plastic.

Sometimes he would dream that he was on a large great pirate ship, walking along the deck with someone as they sang a sea shanty with the most beautiful voice he had ever heard, he akined it to a siren that sang to sailors about their deepest loves and wishes.

Deep down he knew it was dreams of his soulmate, hinting to him so he could find them easier. But he had already convinced himself that he didn’t have one, so he did his best to ignore those dreams.

He never thought that he would be proved wrong.

When he kidnapped King Ben and informed Evie, Jay, and Carlos about the deal Uma wanted to make with Mal. He didn’t expect to look behind Carlos as see a flash of color in a pair of eyes he had sworn he had seen in his dreams.

He ignored it, turning and walking back to the crew and escorting King Ben back to the ship. It didn’t mean his mind wasn’t on those curious sparkling (e/c) eyes for the entire night.

The entire day leading to the trade for Ben, he saw flashes of (e/c) everywhere, a bead on Bonnie's bracelet, a cloth hanging from the clothing lines, a shimmer from the sea below the revenge.

He forced himself to think that it was a fluke, that those hypnotic eyes hadn’t been the ones belonging to the one that would be called his soulmate.

He threw that out the window when he was chasing after Ben and slammed into someone, his mind screamed at him to drop his weapons and catch them before they hurt themselves, he listened. His hook and sword clattered to the deck as he wrapped his arms around their waist and tugged them back on their feet.

Their colorless hair bounced a bit as they shook their head to clear their frazzled mind and looked up, Harrys breath stopped as the (e/c) eyes looked into his, the world now exploding into color.

Time froze as the two newly found soulmates started into each other's eyes, Harry's grip around their waist tightening as he started to look at them. Soft looking (h/l) (h/c) hair, blush tinted (s/c) decorated with (freckles, scars, beauty marks, whatever), (chapped, scarred, soft, plump, thin) lips agape as they stared back at him.

His soulmate��was everything the stories had said. They were perfect to him, truly made in the stars just for him.

As time resumed, Harry flinched a bit as he heard the frustrated screams of Uma and Mal. He looked up, gritting his teeth as the traitors and Ben backed up near the tunnel, calling out for someone's name.

(y/n)…that was his soulmate's name.

“Yeh have ta go” he whispered to them, releasing his grip on their waist and sliding it up to their shoulders, giving them a reassuring smile when they protested “we’ll see each other again, I promise…I’m Harry” they stopped, whispering their name back before grabbing one of his hands and pecking his palm, turning and running towards their friends, glancing back at Harry the entire time as the core four and Ben made their escape.

Harry gingerly picked up his weapons, starting at his reflection in his hook. So that’s what his mother meant when his eyes had reflected the colors of the sea. He hooked his hook on his belt and went to sheath his sword, watching as the red fabric he had tied to his sword handle fluttered in the wind.

He sighed, rolling his neck and watching as Uma stormed off, watching as her colored hair flew around her as she took the long way around the wharf to get to the other side of the tunnel. He had always told her that her hair was beautiful, but now he knew he had never lied.

He perked up as his soulmate walked on screen, wearing a crimson dress/suit with delicate details on the chest that reached down to their waist. His brow twitched as some of the crew booed at his soulmate and chucked food at the screen.

(i made three of these so be prepared)

He ignored them, keeping his eyes on his beautiful soulmate. Their sparkling (e/c)s looked straight at the camera, looking as if they hoped they could see him through the lens.

They looked away a moment later, tuning and walking onto the ship for cotillion.

Every time the camera panned over them during the main event, Harry felt his heart flutter, just wanting to hold them in his arms again.

When Uma turned into the giant cecaelia, the water from her emerging from the sea had destroyed the cameras, cutting off the crew from watching her take over, and Harry from seeing his soulmate.

He cursed to himself, wishing he had told Uma of (y/n) before she left Uma wouldn’t accidentally hurt her.

All he could do now was wait.

It was two years before he saw his soulmate again, only getting glimpses of them through a cruddy screen, but their eyes always seemed to shine through the fuzzy and fading tv.

He and Gil snuck up behind the unsuspecting core four, leaping through the closing gap of the barrier and for the first time, stepping outside of the prison they called home.

“We did it!” he and Gil hugged each other for a moment before remembering the vks next to them, who were staring at them bewildered and apprehensively.

“uh, hey guys~!” He sang, giving a small wave before turning to Gil and gesturing towards the other end of the bridge “we were just coming for a wee visit~!” and to see (y/n) but they didn’t need to know that.

As he and Gil tried to push past the core four, Carlos and Jay pushed them back, Harry growled a bit and shoved Carlos, the younger teen bumping back into Mal and making her drop the small blue crystal in her hand.

“hey-hey!!” as she ducked down to grab it, harry swiped down with his hook and then threw his arm to the side, sending the crystal into the sky and dropping down into the sea. “no!” Mal screamed, stilling as a large turquoise tentacle reached up and grabbed it.

Uma rose from the sea, Harry and Gil looked at each other as they realized their captain and friend had returned “Drop something~” Uma purred, the tentacle holding the crystal opening to show it to Mal.

“It can't get wet, give it back before it goes out!” Uma cackled at Mal's plead.

“Uma?!” Harry and Gil yelled, the sea witch looking at them with a smile and wave.

“that’s my name~!” moments later she ducked back under the waves, Mal screaming out another objection.

The water rose up in a tunnel, rising higher than the broken bridge the vks were standing on. It burst out, spraying them with water.

Harry and Gil looked back over the edge, looking for their friend “hi boys~” they spun around, Harry grinning and holding his hook up as Uma grinned back at him.

He cackled as he walked toward her “welcome back~” Uma’s smile diminished for a moment as Gil looked at her with sad eyes.

“Uma, you swam off and forgot all about us” Mal scoffed, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms.

“yeah, planning a revenge no doubt” Uma laughed a bit, stepping away from her boys and giving a nasty smirk to Mal.

“it's not all about you Mal” Mal seemed surprised and appalled at the comeback “I was looking for a hole in the barrier, to let everybody out?” she turned back to Harry and Gil, who grinned at her “and you know what I found boys? It’s way better out there than we thought” she walked a bit closer to them, an excited spark in her eyes. “there's this thing that looks like a furry rock, called a coconut. And fish so big you can dance on their backs!” Uma looked back at Mal. “and they’ve been keeping it all for themselves~” Harry clicked his tongue in disappointment, shaking his finger a bit.

“Whatever, Uma I need that to break a spell” Mal held her hand out as if expecting Uma would just hand over the crystal with just her word.

“Cast by sleeping beauty’s daughter Audrey” Carlos continued, watching as Uma pursed her lip in fake concern.

“so, the good guys the bad guy huh?” she let out a soft laugh “well I might not give it back, just to see what happens~”

“Uma it's not the time for games, people’s lives are in danger!” harry felt his heart stop as an image of (y/n)s body came to mind, unable to move as darkness swirled around them. He shook his head, forcing his mind to pay attention to what was happening right in front of him.

“Guarantee me, that every single villain kid who wants too, can get off the isle” Mal glared a bit and shook her head.

“I can't do that” Uma just gave her a ‘really bitch’ look and walked towards the edge of the bridge.

“can't do that huh, well how bout now!” she held her hand over the edge, dangling the crystal between her fingers.

“Deal!” Mal yelled, a satisfied smirk growing on Uma’s face as she watched Mal panic “Deal.” Uma faked a stumble, Evie calling out her name to stop her from dropping the crystal.

“Uma!” Uma looked over to Evie with a satisfied look on her face “her word is good” Uma stepped away from the edge, bringing the crystal to her face and glancing from it to mal before shaking her head

“I’ll still keep this, for the time being,” Mal scoffed, crossing her arms again “because if you think I trust you to save the world on your own, think again” Uma turned back to Harry and Gil, a wide grin on her face “this is a job for pirates!”

And with a ‘friendship’ suggestion from Evie, the vks were off to Auradon in an attempt to save it.

Another two hours, finding a courtyard of sleeping students, fighting spelled suits of armor, and then finally being sent off to find Ben, Harry was…bored.

He, Jay, Carlos, and Gil had been walking for thirty minutes through the enchanted forest but had noticed the colors around him had started to brighten, unlike they were on the isle.

‘the farther you are away from your soulmate the duller the world will be’ he remembered his mother telling him when was a babe, and it proved to be true after he met (y/n) and when they left the isle was dull again, he could see the colors but they were so drab and grey that it felt like he never found them at all.

He glanced down at his hook, smirking as his ocean blue eyes seemed to awaken with color again, the grass below him fading into that fresh green he had only heard about, looking up to see Jay and Carlos’ colors standing against the earthy tones of the forest.

He was close to his soulmate, he had to be, all he had to do now was find them as he promised.

If only a cursed beast Ben hadn't interrupted him. Jay pulled his arm out of the way, Harry spinning on his heel and sending a right hook at beast Ben's face and yelping as he turned and leaped at him.

Jay grabbed his jacket and forced him to bend back and leaned Harry towards himself, Harry spun himself back around, standing just behind Jay.

“yeh need some serious nose adjustments!” Harry snarled, flinching back as Ben roared. Ben looked between him and Gil, and snarled, leaning back on his haunches and about to leap at them.

Harry and Gil stepped back as he leaped forward, reeling his claws back to slash when a silver hilted cutlass flew between them, sticking into a tree just next to them.

The boys turned, Harry's world exploding into bright color again as he laid his eyes on (y/n). then his breath stopped as he looked at their clothes. A black button-up shirt, unbuttoned down to the middle of their chest, black ripped pants that had belts and buckles on the right leg, tall dark brown worn boots, multiple necklaces hanging between the open sides of their shirt, silver and gold rings, leather bracelets, and red and black skull stud leather fingerless gloves. “wow” Harry croaked, taking another step back as Ben swiped at (y/n).

They ducked under the swipe and ran towards the silver hilted cutlass, flipping it in their grip and blocking a couple of swipes from Ben's claws. Within moments they trapped Ben down on his front claws, raising their brow as a sharp dark object caught their eye.

They quickly ripped out the object out of Ben's paw and leaped back as Ben roared in pain and swiped his claws up “Jane now!” (y/n) called, backing up near the boys and looking at Harry, a smile growing on their face.

Suddenly a spray of water hit Ben, a soft glow and sparkles appearing as the beast form shrunk down into Ben's human form. Jay ran forward to go help Ben as (y/n) and Harry stared at each other.

The world around them blurred away and it seemed like it was just them. Gil looked between them and smiled, turning to go join the boys and Jane as Harry and (y/n) stepped closer to each other.

“I told yeh we’d see each other, again didn’t I?” Harry hummed, letting out a soft chuckle as (y/n) bit their lip and nodded.

“yeah…how’d you get off the isle?” Harry shrugged, looking down at (y/n)s hands and wanting to hold them.

“Malsy and the others wanted ta get the crystal or whatever n’ Gil and I took the chance to escape” (y/n) giggled, smiling at him.

“well, I’m glad you took the chance” Harry smiled back, eyes glancing back and forth between (y/n)s eyes and their lips.

“Harry, (y/n), come on, we’re heading back to Evie’s place” Gil forced them out of their little world, scaring (y/n) a bit as they snapped their head to look at Gil “sorry, but we’re leaving now” Harry sighed, closing his eyes a bit and nodded.

“Alright, we’re coming”

Uma blinked in surprise as she stared at Harry and (y/n)s intertwined hands “alright I missed something and I would like to be told what I missed” Harry looked around, sighing in relief as Gil entered the back room they were occupying.

“um, so yeh remember when we were fightin’ the others over Ben ‘n the wand?” Uma slowly nodded, her eyes glancing from their hands to (y/n) “um, well, um….yer hair is turquoise” Uma stared at him as if he was insane before it hit her.

“no.fucking.way~!” Uma squealed, a bright grin blooming on her face. Her hands flashed up to cup her cheeks “aww how cute!...why am I talking like this? Why can't I stop?” Uma continued to talk in a high pitched voice, looking from Gil to Harry slightly confused.

Harry snorted a bit and covered his mouth, looking away as Gil just started to laugh “you sound like you ate a lot of that balloon stuff” he chuckled.

“inhaled, you can’t eat helium Gil” (y/n) supplied, giving a soft smile to the sea three “I’m glad you approve Uma”

“Why wouldn’t I? you’re his soulmate. If I didn’t approve, I’d look like an asshole” Uma laughed “even if you are an Auradon kid, I can tell you’re one of the cool ones” Uma gestured to (y/n)s skull-themed clothing items, such as the gold coin necklace with a skull in the middle.

“oh” (y/n) snorted “that, yeah, I’m technically an Auradon kid I guess, but I’m different for one reason” Uma, Gil, and Harry looked at (y/n) with raised brows “I’m the descendant of the two most legendary pirates in the world~” Harry's eyes sparkled in excitement, tightening his grip on (y/n)s hand and bringing up, forcing (y/n)s attention to him.

“Who are they?” (y/n) giggled at his enthusiasm.

“Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner.”

Harry's jaw dropped, and he just stared at (y/n) for a minute “wh-why is he staring at me like that?” (y/n) chuckled, slightly unnerved with the look in Harry's eyes.

“he’s just happy that you have such bomb ass parents” Uma laughed, patting Harry’s back and walking out of the room with Gil “yall get to know each other better, we’ll be with the others”

(y/n) nodded, looking back at Harry and reaching up to cup his face. He shook at the touch and blinked, a smile replacing his awed look “yeh are so damn cool”

(y/n)s cheeks turned dark at the compliment “so um-“ they quickly thought of a way to turn the attention off of them “do you have any siblings?”

“aye, two sisters, Harriet and CJ, Harriet’s the oldest and CJs the baby” (y/n) smiled and took Harry's hand again, leading him to the window seat in the room and making him sit.

They sat down next to him and continued “I have an older brother, his name is Henry, and a soon-to-be sister-in-law, Carina. Um, what's your favorite food?”

“oooh battered fish fries, Uma makes really good ones”

“I’ll have to try them sometime.”

(y/n) watched with sad eyes as the limo with her soulmate drove back to the isle, twisting the ruby ring Harry had given them before he left.

It was slowly losing its color the farther the limo got.

“I’m sorry (y/n)” Ben muttered, trying to comfort them as they both watched the limo drive off “If I knew…I would have invited him to Auradon a long time ago”

“there's no point in saying that now” (y/n) muttered, shrugging off Ben's arm and walking back inside the dorms, ignoring the tears that were trailing down their face.

(y/n)s heart pounded as their shoes slammed against the bridge ground, just across from them as Harry, who was running straight towards them.

“Harry!” (y/n) screamed, feeling tears once more burn at their eyes and stream down their face. Harry screamed their name back, opening his arms as they finally reached each other and held onto (y/n) tightly, picking them off their feet and spinning them around.

“I’m here love, I’m here”

(y/n) pulled back for a moment, staring into Harry's ocean blue eyes, before they grabbed the lapels of Harry's jacket and pulling him in for a kiss.

Harry hummed and tilted his head, his hands drifting from (y/n)s hips up to their face, gently brushing his thumb against their cheek.

“I think our (y/n) is in good hands” Elizabeth hummed, watching from the Auradon side as her child was finally reunited with their soulmate.

“I think so too” Will muttered back, grabbing onto Elizabeth's hand and pressing a kiss to the back of her knuckles.

Harry pulled back from (y/n) and looked down, grinning at the black and red outfit they were wearing “I like yer look”

“Thanks, I got inspiration from my soulmate” (y/n) laughed, pressing a kiss to Harry's cheek and pulling him to Auradon.

-end-

hoped yall liked it, personally some of it went pretty fast but i was just trying write something to warm up instead of making everything make sense lol

permtaglist

@queer-cosette @sephiralorange

@lunanight2012 @daughter-of-the-stars11

@musicarose @remembered-license

@random-thoughts-003 @descendantsobsessed

@rintheemolion @thecaptainsgingersnap

@imtryingthisout @verboetoperee

#disney descendants #harry hook x reader #harry hook descendants #harry hook #harry hook imagine #Descendents #descendants #oneshot #soulmate au #black and white world till you meet your soulmate

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ladykatakuri · 2 years ago

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Meet Bug and Flea

So, in one of my one shots I wrote about the Batch, I introduced an OC named Bug. Not long after that I also came up with an OC named Flea, though not mentioned in this story, he was a part of the Batch. Yes, I know that neither survived and I do feel for them. But, it also opens up the opportunity to think about the group as young cadets and what they went through on Kamino, before they were sent out into battle. That is where these two OCs I came up with fit in.

I can not draw for the life of me, so the small introduction is all words and nothing more. But I hope you can just imagine them as they are when you see this and leave it to your imagination to add something more to them and how they look. To me they are Bug and Flea, lost brothers of the Batch.

Meet my TBB OC`s Bug and Flea.

They both have thick, black curls with an undercut. And both, like their brothers from The Bad Batch, have the same skin tone as the DNA donor Jango.

Bug has one dark coloured eye and one golden coloured eye. Something that made him stand out from most of the clones on Kamino already, the fact that he is in fact part of The Bad Batch also ensured his standing as an outcast among them. Through intensive training, he has become well muscled and well versed in using different types of weapons. His specialty however is very different when it comes to dealing with enemies ( and sometimes friendlies ).

Bug has been specialty is interrogation and so he has been trained in using his words as a form of mental manipulation and in a sense the power of suggestion which is close to a form of hypnotism. This training and his way with words has allowed him to "bug" people into giving information about various subjects and has been a reason for others to bully him or even torment him when they felt subjugated to his abilities. This is also how he has acquired his name, Bug.

Flea has a scar on his chin from colliding with a door while running, something the others, especially Bug, enjoy bullying him with at times. His specialty is speed which has been cultivated by extensive training of both stamina and musculature. This ability allowed him to run with immense speed on the battlefield, combined with fast reflexes and weapons use he not only would be able to relay messages when comms were jammed, he was also fast in taking out enemies and moving along enemy lines to gather intel. Because of his abilities and special training he was rather on the lanky side with well defined muscles, especially in his legs.

Both Bug and Flea donned the Bad Batch armor in its usual color scheme with only one difference. Bug had a small green bug on the side of his helmet to honor his name and Flea had the word speed in aurebesh on the side of his boots.

Tagging people because, why not lol

@imabeautifulbutterfly@chaoticvampirejedi@hellothere-generalangsty@cyroku@reluctant-mandalore@uponrightful@zinzinina@saradika@galacticgraffiti@ashotofspotchka@dindjarindiaries@dinbeskarbaby@djarrex@djarinsbeskar@rowansparrow@photogirl894@rigelmoonshine@rigel-the-moonstrider@nahoney22@loth-wolffe@neon-junkie@bobafetts-princess@cyarbika@charnelhouse@zoeykallus@kin-rokku@jgvfhl@honestly-shite@here-comes-the-moose@dindjarindiaries@firstofficerwiggles@fictional-men-ruin-lives @ladysongmaster @lozalot @moonstrider9904

#My TBB OCs #tbb #Bug and Flea

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shyrose57 · 3 years ago

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Oooo maybe some real life plants! but they are .. off somehow, I think that the end should mostly keep its dull very color drained vibes so the colorful things just seem more. So the greens are so gray you could barely call it green, and for subsitute water? Maybe liquid magic. Becasue this place has to run off of magic, they are floating over a void...

SPACE WHALES! Flying Rays, JellyFish! A lot of deep sea horrors fit very nicely into space horrors (and wonders bc I'll cry if the whales are mean :( ) and would do nicely to fill the endless stretches of just void with no land in sight. and Anglerfish... maybe not a fish, or floating in the void like the others but something land bound that uses a hypnotic lure? It lures you in with the feeling of safety and home. There is a reason that the abandoned cities where off the ground :)

Anyways floating over a void, the end (in my head canon) is the source of all magics in Mc (all the planes are connected and it diffuses into the other dimensions, but it is SATURATED in everything in the end, the dragon is pure magic, a manifestation of the end itself, so a lot of things there are magic or sustain themselves on magic (things that stay there (live over generations n stuff our group is fine) get warped by it which could be how over world plants got in there and established themselves, they would not survive in the over world any longer, the sun would kill them, their roots would thirst to death on water. they have magical properties, some of them glow. ) Though there are a lot of End Native plants too (the trees that are only trees when you stretch the definition, that thing that Moves, and has what you could only call teeth but it is not an animal, so it must be a plant) Oooooo maybe the warped fungus ;) I mean everything in the nether is terrified of it, so maybe it doesnt really belong there, and hitched a ride on fleeing endermen

A lot of things glow, (its how we have those stars in the end, they are creatures off in the distance, and whenever the wastelands that stretch on for miles give way to not-trees or shrub-lands, something is gonna glow, which gives the areas eerie shadows that make the wide vulnerable wastelands they came from seem safer than whatever is found in there. The magic running in the rivers sometimes spill out into the abyss and dissipates to start the cycle anew. Things lurk everywhere and kind things are few and far between. The End is full of Life, and That Is Horrifying

Endermen are nomadic and travel in haunts (Im taking this from Human Error :D), and are generally friendly until you look into their eyes (Eyes are windows to the soul, how can they bear to look at you? You are so bright, so Warm. It Sears their eyes, It Burns their very being. Stop looking, It Hurts. Stop Stop Stop-) They are willing to trade and talk Enchanting (So All 3 Dimensions have a Sentient Race :DD) and are very magically inclinded. A lot of mages are endermen or have ender blood in them. The end is very deadly, and Haunts keep eachother alive because their death could mean death of the group (they are very close knit and that leads to very protective (what Im saying is when Tubbo gets back his Husband is going to smother him and fret over one of the 3 members of his Haunt (Tubbo, Michael, and Tommy :) )) when One finds themself without a haunt, many try and find safety in the other dimensions as they will not survive alone in the end.

( I Have more ideas, but the more I think the more I make more and I already think im dumping a lot, so sorry if I wrote too much. I tried to break up the text wall to to make it easier)

Oh, that's a good idea! Mainly dull colors-especially for the more dangerous plants, they'd need to blend in to catch their food. I feel like there'd be some more colorful ones though-the chorus fruits are pretty saturated, after all. Maybe purple colors are brighter, and others are more dull? Or no?

So many space creatures, oh gosh. There'd be very few grounded ones, with so much of the End being void, so sea-based creatures are definitely a good call. That'd be so pretty too?? And we've gotta blur the line between space wonder and eldritch horror for at least a few of them, of course!

The jelly fish are absolutely huge! Massive and glowing through transparent skin, they mainly hang out far from the islands, being mistaken as stars, and their tendrils glow so faintly you can only see them up close. From a distance, they're beautiful, but up close they're terrifying.

Flying rays the size of horses that can be used to cross the void between islands like striders for lava?? Flying rays that's tips fade into an abyssal black so deep it looks they merge into the void? Flying rays with a possible relation to phantoms? Seeking out the sleepless, but only watching, merely drawn to lure them to sleep with the mesmerizing patterns that run along their bodies.

Space whales!!!! Titans so ancient and old, parts of their bodies are overgrown by End islands and forest, making them for all purposes, living, breathing islands. Magic so deeply tied to them that even when they pass, they remain afloat, creating graveyards of still islands, that even still seem to breath when stepped upon. Gentle giants in that they are untouched by anything, and so curious of the new wonders the void welcomes.

A thing that stalks the islands it inhabits, singing out a call that seems ripple across the starry expanse-it sounds like love and warmth and understanding, and it says i love you, the universe loves you, in the same way the poem must rung in your ears, must nestle under your ribs. Love, love, love, it croons. Except then you get too close, and it catches you, and the sound is empty and hollow, and it's grip is tight, and nothing leaves it's arms or island alive, drained of life and magic.

Safety is only in that it is bound to the land, and no creature dares approach it, instinctively knowing of the danger. The islands that even the stars avoid...

Magic dragon?? Yes! Manifestation of the End?? That means it must somehow know how to take the appearance of one. Maybe smaller little space dragons, that play among the bones of the long-gone giant ones. The Ender Dragon isn't as large as they might've been, but it mimics the appearance as best it can-I wonder why. How long has it had that egg, again? How long has it waited for it to hatch?

So we can totally have some of the minecraft plants end-ified! Ooh, and since some adventurers probably brought them there to maybe try surviving in the End, there'd be things like crops and weeds and grass, long mutated as they grow along the ruins of what might've been a home once. E N D M O S S. It glow.

Warped fungus!! But more! Because this one wouldn't have ever been to the Nether, never mutated in such a way. It's home, but somehow, it still feels so very alien to those that look upon it. Maybe no orange?? Orange is Nether-color. Darker blue, or more purple-ish, possibly.

Everything is luminescent. The things that aren't are much more dangerous than the things at are, don't stare into the dark for too long-it might start looking back, and trust me, you don't want that :).

The Endermen Know they are not supposed to be here, even if the newcomers do not Stare with all of the heat and warmth and burn. One may bear the Wings, and two may speak their language, but they are too soft, and colorful, and bright, but not glowing. They are Outsiders, and Outsiders must go home.

Because nothing good comes from those that stay-how do you think that thing knows the universe's lullaby?

They ally with the four, if only to save themselves, but the Outsiders grow on them. Maybe they will visit, but the Outsiders must stay out.

(Ranboo does not let his Haunting out of his sight for awhile. Tommy and Michael too yes, but mainly Tubbo and Phil. They could have strayed too far, they could have not come back. He doesn't Know in the same way the others do, but even he is aware of what he could lose, and what could become)

(Tell me A L L of them, I beg of you)

#So Past The End We Went AU #dream smp #dream smp au

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fruityutas · 4 years ago

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strike to the heart

taglist ~ @puppywritings , @xiaojours , @svchengss , @prettyjaems

part of @du0tine ‘s 21 ways to kill your lover collab

unstable!yangyang x psychologist!reader

not proofread

wc ~ 5k

genre ~ angst, ttiiinnnyyy fluff, thriller

warnings ~ the following writing is FICTION and has very heavy and unsettling themes like murder, suicide, and toxic relationships. if these themes are triggering or otherwise uncomfortable to you, do NOT read this story. there are also themes of religion.

synopsis ~ you were the best of the best, no one could bring an end to your golden career until he came along

note ~ i based yangyang’s personality in this off of his turn back time persona, making him very obviously mentally unstable. the plotline is based loosely off of harley quinn’s origin story, except of course, the reader dies. i also used the concept of purgatory in this story.

i realize that purgatory is apart of various religions, and i hope i made use of it in this story in the way it is intended to be portrayed as. i am not familiar with the subject, as i am non religious and have been for many years, so if i wrote anything that was disrespectful, please let me know and i will educate myself more on the topic. please note that if i do write something disrespectful, i will not be changing the writing in any way, unless necessary, because i feel that changing/erasing the mistake prevents anyone from seeing my growth as a person.

here is the link to the website i used to read up on purgatory -> https://historylists.org/art/9-levels-of-purgatory-dantes-purgatorio.html

your parents always told you to aim for first. probably why you’re here now. you sit in the chair, watching your life play on what seems to be a screen. you can’t tell either way, everything is stark white and blends into one. the scenes are the only thing providing color to your eyes. are you dreaming? no, no that can’t be. the last thing you remember is…pain. and betrayal. how could he do this?

he was a fucking criminal. he had no true love for you, you were his final act. how could you have been so naive? every thought came too fast, it made your head hurt. a noise brought you out of your thoughts. a tall man stood off to the side of the screen. his features were sharp, and he looked angelic. “you must be y/n. you must also be wondering where you are.” you struggle to find your voice, so you nod at the man. he gives a sympathetic smile and strolls over to you.

“you’re in purgatory. well, this is the judgment room. here your memories are played and the most influential ones are used to go to their corresponding terraces.”

“do i pick them out?” he shakes his head.

“no, the council does that. you just sit and watch.” you shift in your chair, the hard material uncomfortable against your skin. “don’t worry, i’ll be here while it happens. you can call me sicheng.” his voice was hypnotizing, calming your mind. you turned back to the screen, and what you assumed to be the first memory started to play.

a burst of yelling snaps you from your thoughts. looks like we have a new patient. it was like this everytime a new patient arrived. yelling, taunting, sometimes as far as physical assault. it was like the right of passage for ‘newbies’ as the currents like to call them. you leave your office to peek downstairs. this one is surrounded by four guards. that’s unusual. two guards was standard, why does this patient need four? a danger to himself and others i assume. i should ask joy if i can take him. you hadn’t had a new patient in months, and all your others were making such progress they moved to a new unit. one of your patients, named chittaphon, had been released back into society. you were one of the best, even at such a young age.

“joy! have you assigned the new patient to anyone yet? i’d like to have him.” you plopped yourself onto the couch in her office. her soft laugh brought you comfort.

“of course you can have him, i was probably going to ask you anyway. you haven’t been busy with any others lately. yukhei is moving to a new unit next week you know. you did good with him, he asked me to tell you thank you.” your heart aches at the thought of yukhei missing you, the boy had become important to you. you would sit and let him talk about his family, his friends, and even his - what he called - soulmate. he would always gush about them and their relationship. you never suspected he could have killed them in such the way he did, or that his ill brain would rewire itself into thinking they were waiting for him to get better and be released from the hospital. the day he found that out was burned in your memory, chairs being thrown and yelling from the entire floor. it broke your heart to see him in such a state, even more when they had to lock him in isolation for a week.

but things change and he got better, and now he’s moving up a unit. more yelling snaps you out of your little thinking session. you and joy peek out her office door to see the new inmate arguing with the guards. you sigh and head down the stairs, as much as joy protests it. one of the guards notices you and tells you to stay back, and that this inmate is dangerous. you shake your head at him and push through to get closer. the inmate didn’t look much older than you, albeit a bit taller than you. he was still yelling at the guards when you came up to him and cleared your throat. he rolls his eyes and turns to you to start yelling, but you shut him down with a stern look at a shake of your head.

“now, now, you don’t want to come in and be the hardass on the first day do you?” he says nothing, but the lack of arguing from him tells you he is agreeing. you tell one of the guards to follow you to his cell. it comes to no one’s surprise that his cell is in the lower level, it’s where all the worst patients stay. the guard that accompanied you stood directly outside the door of the cell, ready for any assistance. the inmate sat down on the cot provided but faced away from you. “are you going to speak to me?” he spares you a small glance, unwavering in intimidation, but it didn’t phase you. his face was young, yet it somehow seemed to be worn and exhausted. you wanted to open him up and see what his troubles came from, to fix him into a model member of society.

“wouldn’t you want me too huh?” his tone was annoyed and sarcastic. you stay collected and just nod at him. “why don’t we start with your name?” he stays silent. “if you don’t want to cooperate that’s perfectly fine but just know i’m the only one you can talk to if you want out of here.” you stand up and leave the cell, knowing that even though it didn’t look like it, progress was made. your last statement would sit with him until the next time you visit him, and he would talk eventually.

the screen fades away and into a new image. the only thing on the screen is the word ‘stubborn.’ you are confused as to what it means. sicheng makes his way over to you, his long legs making the distance short. “it corresponds to the first level of purgatory, stubbornness. although it wasn’t you who was being the most stubborn, it seems.” he snaps his fingers and a seat appears for him to sit. the screen lights up again and another memory begins to play.

“what do you mean he wants to see me? i just spoke to him this morning and he refused to say anything?” joy shrugs her shoulders exasperatedly. you sigh and make your way towards the lower level. the guard at the security door greets you with a nod of the head before letting you in. the inmate’s cell was at the end of the hall, dimly lit and dingey, with a slight smell of mildew. the underground location made for cold air and small windows, so there was never enough light in the place. as you made your way to your patient’s cell, a few of the other inmates down there whistled at you. they whooped and hollered to your dismay, bringing unwanted attention. you recognized one of them, guanheng was his name. he had been a patient of joy’s before she was promoted to her managerial position. no one else wanted to take him on, so they sent him down here to rot. you had expressed the idea of taking him, but joy wouldn’t have it. she simply said he was too unstable for anyone, and deserved to be down there. you disagree with her to this day, but she is still your superior and you can’t just go breaking rules just for your liking.

you knocked on the door to the cell, and a gruff “come in” came from the other side. entering the cell, you saw everything in disarray. “now, why is the cell in this condition?” he huffs and crosses his arms, almost in a cute way. you shake your head and continue in, shutting the door behind you. “are you going to tell me your name? i think it would help me connect better with you.” he looks at you with a blank stare. you don’t change your facial expression, remaining stoney faced. he sighs and starts muttering to himself, as if he was arguing with someone, before looking back up at you and finally speaking. “yangyang. at least thats what i’ve been told.” you hum lightly before asking him a few more questions.

“is it alright if i call you yangyang?” “yes” “alrightly then, do you remember anything from yesterday?” he ponders for a moment, his face going through a group of different expressions before he looks back to you. “i only know that i woke up and felt like hurting someone. but i can’t remember who or why. do you have any pens?” the last question catches you off guard. you hand him an extra pen from your coat pocket. he takes it eagerly and looks to your clipboard with expectant eyes. you tear a blank piece of paper from the back and hand it over. he immediately draws nonsense doodles, the paper quickly being filled. when he fills it, he flips it over to do the other side. “you can keep asking me things, you know. i like to draw, though i don’t know what. the other voice tells me to just make lines and things.” you’re jotting down notes when all of a sudden he throws the pen at you. it hits you square in the head, and you look up at him in surprise. he starts giggling and throws the crumpled paper at you. you remain calm as this can be a common occurrence among patients. his giggles become… unsettling very quickly, the tone and manner of them turning to a deeper octave. you slowly reach into your pocket to grab the help button, but you don’t press it just yet. yangyang stops his giggling and it becomes muttering. his words are difficult to make out, but you pick out a few, ‘kill’, ‘why’, and ‘forget’. you jot them down along with a note stating he was mumbling them in sentences that were not understood. “yangyang, are you hearing anything? do you know the other voice’s name if they have one?” he peeks out of his arms at you nodding. “they tell me that i shouldn’t have forgotten why i killed her.” you had notes on him that his previous institution gave to you, but you wanted to earn his trust by asking various questions. “who did you kill?” you knew he killed his mother, left her body hanging from the porch for everyone to see. the question cause him to tear up a bit. “i, i killed my mother. she just wouldn’t shut up, always nagging me about the house and bills, as if i could help it. she was a bitch.” “mmm, yes. but you loved her still, no?” he nods shakily as if he was unsure. “and did you forget why you killed her that morning?” another nod is sent to you. you keep taking notes on his behaviors.

you end the session on a positive note, telling yangyang that he did good today and that you’d be back tomorrow, but if he needed you to ask.

the screen once again went dark before the word ‘repentance’ appears. sicheng whips a pen-like object from nothing, grabbing your arm harshly to turn you towards him. “now, you might not like this next part but it has to be done. i have to carve five p’s into you somewhere. they aren’t permanent but it still hurts.” you panic slightly, trying to get away from his grasp.

“why?!” his face is stoic and cold, the seriousness setting in. you continue to struggle until he grips your face with vigor, causing you to stop moving. “stop. moving. it has to be done. now, where do you want me to do it?” you just point to your arm and look away as he does it. the pain is searing but bearable. “what is this for?” he makes the pen disappear before clearing his throat to speak. “for each of the sins that lead to your death, there is a ‘p’. the council shows a memory that corresponds to a sin, and you must figure out which one. if you get it right, you move one to the next one until the end, where you are allowed into heaven. if you get them wrong, you have another chance with a different memory. you only get two chances for each sin, though, and if you lose both of them a ‘p’ stays and it’s harder to get the next one correct. if you get more than two sins wrong, you spend 100 years here and then you are banished to hell. so please, be careful and choose wisely.” and with that he turns his attention back to the screen, as do you.

your appointments with yangyang were productive and you got to know him a lot better within the past few days. he hated dogs, they were too noisy and energetic for him. he really wanted to paint and draw all the time, so you gave him a few paint markers to decorate his cell with. when you had your next appointment, the walls were pretty full. he liked the texture of orange peels, he hated the taste. a lot of the things you learned intrigued you, why was his brain wired this way? you needed to dig deeper, and you knew you could. you had many awards and praises from seniors, your ego was swollen from it all. you took pride in your work, and you weren’t exactly humble about it. you would always brag to others about your accomplishments, and sometimes you made it a competition between you and your coworkers. joy was the only one that didn’t pay attention to it, she always let you go on rants about how you accomplished so many things this young.

the door to yangyang’s cell was the same grey color as usual, though on the inside, the room was filled with markings and random drawings the boy did. “yangie? what’s up?” he excitedly jumps from his spot on the bed over to the corner that the sessions took place in. two small chairs and a table were tucked in it, but it was cozy to you. a warm smile took place on your face as you sat in front of him. “well, today i really tried my best to not get angry with anyone like you said, and it worked! all i did was think about what you said to me and it helped so much. no one messed with me either.” there it is, the rush of pride in yourself. your ego is boosted, refilled for the day. you knew he could do it, with your help of course. you were the best in the field. “that is really good to hear, yangyang. i’m glad you remembered what i told you so you could control your emotions.” his hair bounced with each energized nod he gave you. you opened your clipboard and handed him a small stack of blank paper. “this is for you. now you have something clean to draw on again.” he took the papers excitedly.

the rest of the session was yangyang rambling on about how you were the only one helping him and how he really liked seeing you. you observed him and from time to time you’d write notes down on his info sheet. every time he caught you staring, he’d blush and look back at his drawings. a smirk carved into your face, and a wink was all it took for him to turn into a stuttering mess. you left the session that day glowing in confidence and pride.

the screen fades away, and you feel a tingling on your arm where one of the Ps is. sicheng’s voice whispers into your ear, “figure out what sin you just witnessed.” it makes you jump a little, but you quickly regain your composure. all you could think about was yangyang. but deep inside your inner conscious, you knew the sin here wasn’t about him. it was about you. “i have my answer.” sicheng gives you a small nod and when you turn back around, a dark and windy figure stands in front of you. a voice not belonging to you enters your mind. “which sin is it, y/n?” with a shaky voice, and sweating palms, you manage to garble out your answer. “it’s pride. i was prideful in my ways, never backing down from challenges that weren’t meant for me.” the dark figure nods before wisping away. the tingling returns to your arm, and as you look down at it a P swiftly disappears. sicheng’s footsteps bring you back up to the screen, which begins to play a new memory.

the continuous sessions with yangyang proved to be well. his condition was getting better, and he seemed to be taking well to the exercises you gave him. you were on your way to an appointment when joy came up beside you. “have you met with the new doctor yet?” you shake your head. “no, what’s their name? where are they located?” she tries to hide a mischievous smirk, grabbing your arm to stop your walking. “he is absolutely gorgeous! his name is kunhang and he’s actually gonna be on your unit, which means you’re training him since you are the best.” you chuckle at her enthusiasm, she’d always been trying to hook you up with people. she winks at you and runs off, probably to her next appointment. she’d conveniently stopped you in front of yangyang’s cell. you walk inside and see him on his bed pouting.

“what is wrong with you?” his eyes look up at you and shine with the beginnings of tears, worrying you. had the guards or an inmate said something to him? while you’re lost in thought he jumps up and pulls you on the bed with him, his arms wrapped tightly around you. you snap out of it and sit frozen in his arms. the feeling of butterflies in your stomach erupt and you know it’s because of the man in your arms. he lets you go and you stand up to fix your uniform. “what had gotten into you, yangs?” his pouting doesn’t go away and he speaks softly. “who is kunhang?” so that’s what he’s being clingy for. he’s jealous. “he’s a new psychiatrist here. i have to train him.” yangyang didn’t get rid of the pout on his face, and he didn’t let your hand go for the entire session. the jealousy he had even after you told him that nothing was going to happen between you and kunhang was noteworthy, though you didn’t specify why he was jealous on his chart.

the surrounding air had become cold, and you shiver harshly. sicheng sits beside you, tapping impatiently on the table. the shadow figure returns, and before it can speak you do. “the sin was envy. but why did you show me a memory of someone else being envious? i thought this was about my sins.” the figure doesn’t move from its spot. sicheng sighs and throws a stick at the figure, causing it to grunt. “that was unnecessary, sicheng. you are the reason for this sin. you let yangyang get attached to you, causing him to become jealous and protective of you. you may not have committed this sin, but you had the first hand in causing it.” you nod in agreeance, you had let him get close with you. too close, in your opinion, because if you hadn’t you wouldn’t be in this whole situation. it’s a bit ironic, you always told your coworkers to be wary of patients, yet here you are, stuck in purgatory because of one.

in the days leading up to your death, yangyang requested to see you nonstop, and he would ask so many questions about the outside world. what was surrounding the building, how many people were in the city. in hindsight, you should have suspected him to be trying to escape, but your mind was apparently on other things.

the last day you were alive, yangyang requested you only once. it was around eight in the evening, and this was going to be your last trip to his cell, quite literally. “are you ok, yangyang?” he nods and makes his way over to you. he might be younger, but his height is not small. “i’m just fine. but i wanna ask you something.” you nod to let him continue. “i’m planning to leave, and i want you to come with me.” the words come out of him in a hurry, but you catch them. a pit forms in your chest after hearing them. what in the world was he thinking? your job was important, and he still needed the therapy sessions you were giving him. “no, absolutely not. yangyang you can’t leave without proper check out from me and my superior. you know this.” he sighs in annoyance, grabbing your hand and dragging you to sit. “that’s not the type of leaving i meant. i mean we sneak out and never look back. we leave here and head north to my good friend ten’s house. he has this bigass mansion in the middle of nowhere, and we can lie low there for a while before going somewhere else and starting new!” you can’t bring yourself to say anything, the shock of how much he’d thought out this plan sitting heavy on your shoulders. the courage to say something before he thinks you’re agreeing with him bubbles up. “yangyang, under all circumstances, you and i cannot do that. do you know how many force tasks they’d send out for us? how much trouble we’d be in when they caught us? plus, you still need these sessions that i’m doing. the real world is harsh, and doesn’t take kindly to you. i wouldn’t want you or anyone else getting hurt.” his face contorts into sadness at your statement. he pulls you in for a bone-crushing hug, not letting go. “but i thought you loved me, don’t you want us to be happy together?” your blood runs cold at his confession. love was never on the table, the flirting you’d been doing was just to open him up to make it easier to talk. you knew you were taking a risk doing that, but never had you anticipated him to fall in love with you and think it was mutual. you separate yourself from him and walk to the door. “yangyang, are you being serious? you- you don’t actually think i’m in love with you, right?” his face falls, going completely straight. no movement comes from either of you for a good minute, the situation at hand causing hesitance. “you’re not? i just thought… you were.” you scoff at the boy sitting in front of you. “y/n, i don’t think you realize that i’ve already planned for this. we’re gonna have to leave.” you start to argue with him but a flurry of gunshots and screams ring out from all around you. you turn and pull the door open to see patients and guards frantically running about, a breach in the facility causing this. “jesus fucking- yangyang why in the hell would you do this!?” you turn to see him getting up from the bed and gathering a few items. “yangyang!” he doesn’t respond, only grabbing your arm and pulling you along with him. you’re too much in shock to resist the boy, and on top of that he’s definitely stronger than you. the run towards whatever exit he’s taking you to seems surreal. the amount of trouble you’re going to be in for this is astronomical. you can hear the words “you’re fired” repeating in your mind. outside the door is an alleyway that connects the facility to a power plant. it seemed like they’d had a breach too. yangyang really wasn’t lying when he said you’d have to leave to someplace far away. he drags you into the plant and heads for the large vats of chemicals. “yangyang where the hell are you taking us? what are you doing?” he glances over his shoulder at you, a deathly look on his face. “this wouldn’t have been in the plan if you had just done what i needed you to do. now you have to pay the price.” what in the fuck did he mean.

the vats were in sight, glowing and hot from the chemicals in them. your surroundings loud from combat, you’d assumed from runaway patients attacking. yangyang stopped in front of the largest one, looking down in it and smirking. he turns to a very shaken you, giggling like a madman. “i think you know what’s in store for you my love. you betrayed me! you gave me all the signs, and carelessly flirted, acting like you liked me.” tears were pouring down both of your faces, but for different reasons. the end of your life was staring at you, loud and proud, and you knew this. you had many goals in your life, and to see none of them get achieved hurt you. you take one last look at yangyang, who is inching closer. “i’m sorry for making you feel like that. i just hope that in the next life, you’ll be a normal person and get to experience life in a positive perspective.” he doesn’t seem to care, because as soon as he gets close enough to you, he grips your face and leans in. “and now, my love, you leave me with a kiss.” his lips lock with yours for a brief second before he shoves you hard, taking the breath out of you. you fall backwards into the vat, the acidic chemicals eating you. yangyang stares at you as you perish, the smile slowly dropping from his face.

one would think this whole tragedy could be easily resolved, but this was not a villain origin story, it was real life, and you were dead. yangyang knew what he had done was fatal, but make no mistake, you knew it was what he wanted. he did love you, but his brain was not the same as a normal person’s. the wiring was simply not supportive of any form of morals, no right or wrong could be detected. all he knew was that you were in the way of him getting out, and he needed you removed. so he did.

and as reality set in for him, yangyang realized that you were the only one who understood him. you were the one to listen to his problems and not look at him like he was crazy, to help him through the intrusive thoughts, and you did that all while loving him.

he breaks down, dropping to his knees at the harsh reality that you were gone forever, and no longer able to make him happy. the salty tears running down his face provided a blunt sting to the cuts and scrapes adorning his face. his shoulders shook with sorrow and his sobs were melancholic. yangyang can’t even think straight, all his mind is screaming is you. your name, face, your soft hair, warm skin, and the way you laughed at all his stupid jokes. he wants an escape from the voices in his head. the grate walkways that line the perimeter of the vats are loud with yangyang’s manic running. all he wants is freedom from his personal hell, he’s had to deal with people looking down on him all his life, saying that he was never going to be able to be normal, berating him for all the fucked up things he’s done, but never helping him to be a better person, always leaving him to rot in different psych ward cells.

gun. there’s one somewhere.

the one voice in his head that wasn’t screaming made him worry no less than before, but he knew to heed his own advice. it was the only coherent thought at the moment so what’s the harm. yangyang finds himself lost, and begins to get angry until he sees a guard coming his way. attacking him, he easily finds a gun and wrings it from the man’s grip before shooting him dead. the body slumps over and yangyang decides that he’d rather not die next to it. he is far too lost to try and get back to where he pushed you to your timely death, so he just runs until he finds a room. unlocked and unoccupied, he slips in and locks the door behind him.

the leather chair that he sits in is worn and comfortable. the desk has various papers scattered around, and the computer is off. yangyang takes one good look at himself in the reflection of the screen before pulling the trigger.

the judgement room is even colder than before. you sit in the uncomfortable chair, tears streaming down your face and sobs ripping through your chest. sicheng sits, unaffected by your pain. the shadowy figure appears in front of you, so close you can hear whispers of a large multitude floating out of it. “y/n, you must finish the trial. what was the last sin?” you try your damndest to compose yourself, wiping the tears and hiccuping. “i- he was…” “no, y/n. no excuses. what is the sin displayed here?” you didn’t need this figure up your ass about it, the answer was obvious. sighing, you look up at it, seeing it slightly resembles a man. “wrath.” the figure hums in response, moving over to show the screen again. in large font and bold letters, the word “repentance” is shown. “you have passed judgement, and you shall be going to heaven. are there any questions?”

#neowritingsnet #nshitty-frathouse #unfortunatus: inferno #nct #nct imagines #nct scenarios #wayv #wayv imagines #wayv scenarios #wayv yangyang #yangyang #yangyang x reader #yangyang scenarios

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pricemarshfield · 2 years ago

Text

teeth

[Image ID: an image of a woman with an open mouth and her hand on her face reflected in a mirror, colorized purple and with the text “teeth” edited over it. End ID.]

Pairing: MC x Poppy

Rating: E (minors DNI)

Summary: An MC/Poppy smut-with-feelings fic, or: the MC/Poppy only remix of cooler than me. Chapter 4 of 8. Requested by @ohmycheesencrackers.

Word Count: 5224 for this chapter, 19813 for the full fic so far.

Warnings: Dom/sub, mild painplay (negotiated ahead of time), MC having feelings for Poppy that she thinks are unrequited. (They are not.)

Created For: @anyfandomfluffbingo (spanking), @anyfandomangstbingo (rivals), @anyfandomgoesbingo (aftercare), @anyfandomkinkbingo (free space), and @badbitchesbingo (hair pulling.)

The chapter’s a little too long to host on Tumblr, so read chapter 4 on AO3 here, or the full fic from the beginning here.

#queen b fanfiction #anyfandomfluffbingo #anyfandomangstbingo #anyfandomgoesbingo #anyfandomkinkbingo #badbitchesbingo #poppyxmc #my fics #playchoices #queen b #mc x poppy #poppy min-sinclair #bea hughes #oc: daija hughes #s: line me up with hypnotizing colors #poppy x mc #minors dni #fic: teeth

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youshouldhavepaidattentiondad · 3 years ago

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Slow Descent: Chapter 3: Totally Wigging Out, Man (Why Don't You Take a Chill Pill?)

Day 3 entry for @hatchetober

Prompt: Fear

Ao3

Early morning sunlight streams through the big picture window. Arlen sits at his kitchen table, sipping from a mug. There may be a lot of coffee shops in Hatchetfield, but he prefers tea. He sets the mug down with a soft clack. The blank pages of a notebook stare up at him. He ignores them in favor of staring at his phone. He had sent Duke a text right when he had woken up and only received silence in return.

With a resigned sigh, he reaches for a pen. He supposes he can do some writing while he waits. As soon as he touches the pen, his phone lights up. He snatches up the device instead, quickly opening his most recent text. It's from Duke, but all it contains is an address and a time for later that afternoon. Arlen frowns as he texts back see you then.

That afternoon, Arlen parks by the curb in what appears to be an abandoned subdivision. Again, he finds himself wondering exactly how big Hatchetfield is. Small towns don't have subdivisions.

As he steps out of his Corvette, Duke steps out of the station wagon parked in front of him. Duke nods in acknowledgement before he walks up the crumbling drive to an olive green house.

Arlen follows, glancing at the overgrown yard. "Who lives here?" He asks.

"Nobody anymore," Duke answers. He pulls a key out of his pocket and inserts it into the lock of the front door. The door creaks open and Duke walks inside.

That's sketchy.

Against his better judgement, Arlen follows him inside. A thick layer of dust covers the carpet, muting its brilliant real color. The walls are mauve and covered in pop art pieces and band posters. He swallows nervously at how many dead houseplants there are, their leaves dry and brown. The couch and armchairs are brightly colored, segmented into random geometric shapes. "Uh, so the 80's called-"

"And Miss Holloway always picked up," Duke says with a fond sigh. "Come on." He leads Arlen down a narrow hall, past a corded wall phone, and into an office.

Well, office might be a bit generous. There's various glass tables around, stacked with thick tomes and piles of loose leaf paper. One table has some sort of tray on it. There's a chintz couch in the middle of the room. On the wall to the right, there's a collage of some sort.

"What is all this?" Arlen asks in a low voice.

Duke takes a deep breath. "This is what Miss Holloway was working on before…" he shakes his head.

Arlen walks over to the collage, eyes trying to take in everything at once. There's newspaper clippings too faded to read. There's handwritten notes and sketches. There's Polaroid snapshots littered amongst them. One near the middle catches his attention. Carefully, he pulls it off the wall.

There's three people in the shot. In the middle is a young woman with teased red hair, wearing a denim jacket with pins and holding on to the arm of the man to her right. The man she's clinging to has a kind smile and a crooked jaw, but something in his eyes makes Arlen uncomfortable. On the woman's left is a clean shaven man with shoulder length hair, a cigarette between his lips and a watch on his right wrist.

He stares at the picture for several long moments before looking at Duke. "I am completely lost," he admits, "Please explain."

Duke sighs as he settles on the sofa, seemingly not caring about the dust. "You have to understand all this information is secondhand. There are parts I don't even understand." He takes a deep breath before looking at Arlen seriously. "Miss Holloway was a witch."

"... okay."

"I know it sounds insane, but she had this power. She could hypnotize people, enter your mind. I have no clue how she did it, but she did. She could probably even do more." Duke glances at the tray on its own little table. "Before she died, she told me there was a powerful entity at work, who had ill intent for the world as we know it. She said the entity's envoy was a man named Wiley, who wore all denim, like you said."

Ice cold fear pierces Arlen to his core. That would make sense, but does it really? "So what happened?" He asks as he walks over to the tray. It has a velvet inlay, with a knife shaped indentation, but it's empty.

"She said she had to fight Wiley and one of them would have to die." Duke lets out a shaky breath. "Her body was found in the Starlight Theater. The building had been closed for repairs. The work crew came in to find her body in the middle of the stage. They still don't know how it got there, the theater was locked when they arrived."

It feels like his veins are turning to ice. "So what does this Wiley bastard want with me?"

"I have no clue," Duke says.

That's reassuring. On a whim, Arlen flips over the Polaroid. On the back, in purple glitter ink, is written W. Cross, Me, J. McNamara, followed by a date some twenty odd years ago. There's a small heart next to Cross' name.

"Maybe this stuff can help though!" Duke suggests, "Maybe-"

Arlen cuts him off with a laugh. "If a literal witch didn't stand a chance against this guy, I doubt I do." He turns to walk out. "Thanks for telling me all this, Duke. Take care."

The entire drive home, Arlen feels numb. His head is swirling with thoughts, trying to connect the dots. Is any of this even real? Maybe Duke is fucking with him for asking about his dead friend. That's a possibility. Something deep in Arlen's gut tells him that's not what's happening though.

He parks in his driveway before climbing out, still holding the snapshot. It feels important, even if he's not sure why yet. Like writing an amazing piece of dialogue and not knowing where in the story you're going to put it.

He flips on the light as he walks into the house. He heads to the kitchen, turning on the light there as well. He puts the Polaroid on the fridge, keeping it in place with a magnet, before opening the fridge to pull out a hard cider. He twists the top off and takes a long drink before turning around.

His heart drops, ice cold fear creeping through his body at the sight of a green apple sitting on his island counter.

Note: *baseball slides across the finish line* I made it! Arlen Mercier is my original character, please do not use without my permission

#slow descent #hatchetober 2021 #hatchetfield universe #black friday #tgwdlm #starkid #fic #arlen mercier #duke keane #miss holloway

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dweemeister · 4 years ago

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The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953)

Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, remains best-known for his children’s books. The Cat in the Hat; Green Eggs and Ham; and Oh, the Places You’ll Go! are household names in English-language literature. Seuss’ bibliography overshadows his work in films, beginning with the adapted screenplay of his own book, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1943) – directed by George Pal as part of the Puppetoons series. During WWII, Seuss was heavily involved in propaganda films and the Private Snafu (1943-1946) military training films. After the war’s end, Seuss returned to writing children’s books, but also continued to write for movies. The Academy Award-winning animated short film Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950) benefitted from Seuss’ story work, and Seuss’ success there inspired him to write a screenplay for a live-action fantasy film. That screenplay – the unwieldy rough draft coming in at over 1,200 pages – was The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. The eventual movie, produced by Stanley Kramer (1960’s Inherit the Wind, 1961’s Judgment at Nuremberg) and directed by Roy Rowland (1945’s Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, 1956’s Meet Me in Las Vegas) for Columbia Pictures, would be Seuss’ only involvement in a non-documentary feature film.

Like many who speak English as their first language, Dr. Seuss’ books graced my early childhood. So integral to numerous children’s youth is Seuss that his whimsy, wordplay, and authorial stamps are easily recognizable. In that spirit, the cinematic record of live-action Seuss adaptations consists of the scatological Jim Carrey in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) and the visual nightmare that is Mike Myers as The Cat in the Hat (2003). Compared to the original works, both films are ungainly, casually cruel, and overcomplicated. Not promising company for Dr. T. But even taking into account the three animated feature adaptations of Seuss – Horton Hears a Who! (2008), The Lorax (2012), and The Grinch (2018) – and the fact that Columbia forced wholesale deletions from the rough draft script of Dr. T to achieve a feasible runtime, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T is arguably the most faithful feature adaptation to Dr. Seuss’ authorial intent and signature aesthetic.

In other words, this is one of the strangest films you may ever encounter. No synopsis I could write in one paragraph will ever capture the film’s bizarreries.

Little Bart Collins (Tommy Rettig) is asleep during piano practice and his teacher, Dr. Terwilliker (Hans Conried), is furious. His overworked, widowed mother Heloise (Mary Healey) intuits Terwilliker’s unrealistic expectations (Terwilliker wants to teach the next Paderewski) towards Bart’s piano skills and inability to concentrate. Heloise also appears to be quietly eyeing the plumber August Zabladowski (Peter Lind Hayes) and his wrench. With the lesson done for the day, Bart falls asleep again. This time, he dreams that Terwilliker is now the leader of the Terwilliker Institute, a pianist supremacy mini-state which is built upon five hundred young pianist slave boys (hence, 5,000 fingers) forcibly playing Terwilliker’s latest compositions. His mother is Terwilliker’s unwilling, hypnotized assistant and plumber August Zabladowski (Hayes is essentially playing the same character, but in a different world) is Bart’s only ally around. Together, Bart and Mr. Zabladowski must evade the Institute’s guards as they attempt to undermine Terwilliker’s plans for his next concert.

In its final form, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T is a muddled mess of a story. The analogues between Bart’s reality and his dreams are inconsistent, several would-be subplots never resolve (or at the very least develop beyond a basic idea), and the film’s initial lightness is subject to rapid mood swings that make this picture feel disjointed. Indeed, Seuss’ sprawling social commentary in his first draft – including allegories and themes of post-WWII totalitarianism, anti-communism, and atomic annihilation – is in tatters in this final product. The viewer will witness brief fragments of those ideas, remaining in this movie as the barest of hints of the contents of the original screenplay’s rough draft. Even now, Dr. T inspires psychiatric analyses and accusations that Bart’s relationship with his mother reveals signs of an Oedipal complex (to yours truly, the latter is too much of a reach). The grim nature of Terwilliker Institute renders Dr. T unsuitable for the youngest children. For older children and adults, try going into this movie without expectations of narrative logic and embrace the grotesque aspects that only Seuss could imagine.

If my attempts to describe this movie’s preposterousness through its narrative and screenwriting approach have failed, perhaps I can capture that for you by writing on its technical features.

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For its sheer narrative inventiveness – inconsistencies, abrupt tonal shifts, nonsense, and Rowland’s uninspired direction aside – The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T is nevertheless an ambitious film, and Columbia bequeathed a hefty budget to match that ambition. Much of that budget went to the film’s visuals. This is an extravagantly-staged motion picture, as nothing could do Dr. Seuss’ illustrations justice without fully committing to his geometric impossibilities: skyward ladders and improbable connections between rooms, an eschewal of right angles and straight lines, and architecture bound to raise the ire of physics teachers. One could compare this to German Expressionism, but Dr. T’s sets tend not to dictate the film’s mood nor are they subject to high-contrast lighting. Seuss went uncredited as the concept artist on Dr. T, and it was up to Clem Beauchamp (1935’s The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, 1952’s High Noon) and the uncredited matte artists to commit those visuals to the real world. Outside of animated film, Beauchamp and the matte artists succeed in creating twisted sets that seem to leap off the pages of Seuss’ most artistically interesting books. Some of the sets appear too stagebound, but the production design accomplishes its need to resemble a world borne from a fever dream (or, at least, a young pianist’s nightmare).

This movie’s outrageous costume design (other than Jean Louis’ gowns for Mary Healey, the costume designer/s for this film are uncredited) comprises absurd uniforms and two of the most ludicrous hats – the “happy fingers” cap (see photo at the top of this write-up) and whatever the hell Terwilliker dons in the film’s climax – one might ever see in a film. Most of the costumes are laughably impractical and ridiculous to even those without fashion sense. In what might be the tamest example, while working under Terwilliker, Bart’s mother wears a suit that is all business formal on the left-hand side and bare-shouldered, sleeveless, and nightclub-y on the right. The delineation of real life – which barely features in the film’s eighty-nine minutes – and this world of Bart’s dreams could not be any more unambiguous thanks to the combination of the production and costume design work.

The disappointing musical score by Fredrich Hollaender (1930’s The Blue Angel, 1948’s A Foreign Affair) and song lyrics by Seuss rarely connects to the larger narrative unfolding. Seven songs make the final print, with nine (yikes!) Hollaender-Seuss songs ending up on the cutting room floor. Seuss’ wordplay is evident, as are Hollaender’s melodic flourishes. Columbia, a studio not known for its musicals, assembled a 98-piece orchestra – the largest musical ensemble to work on a Columbia film at the time – for The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T alone. That lush sound is apparent throughout for the numerous nonsense songs that color the score in addition to the incidental score. It is unusual to listen to a collection of novelty songs orchestrated so fully. Listen to “Dressing Song: Do-Mi-Do Duds” and its complicated, seeming unsingable lines:

Come on and dress me, dress me, dress me In my peek-a-boo blouse With the lovely inner lining made of Chesapeake mouse! I want my polka-dotted dickie with the crinoline fringe For I'm going doe-me-doe-ing on a doe-me-doe binge!

The rich orchestration seems to hail from a more lavish film. But too many of these songs are scene-specific, and rarely does Hollaender utilize musical quotations from these songs into his score. “Get Together Weather” is delightful, but it seems so isolated from the rest of the film; elsewhere, “The Dungeon Song” exemplifies a macabre side to Seuss seldom appearing in his books. Nevertheless, Hollaender is able to demonstrate his playfulness across the entire film, none moreso during any scene with the bearded, roller-skating twins and the “Dungeon Ballet”, in which the music complements stunning choreography and fascinating props that recall the jingtinglers, floofloovers, tartookas, whohoopers, slooslunkas, and whowonkas from the Christmas television special How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966). Yet, Hollaender’s film score and the soundtrack with Seuss seems to demand something – anything – to tie the entire compositional effort together. Perhaps a song or some cue like that was cut from the film, which is ultimately to its detriment.

Hans Conried (who starred as Captain Hook in Disney’s Peter Pan several months prior to Dr. T’s release) stands out from a decidedly average Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healey – Hayes and Healey, in a sort of in-joke, were married. Conried’s performance as the sadistic, torture- and imprisonment-happy music teacher can be considered camp, but this is anything but “bad” camp. He throws himself completely into this cartoonish role, sans shame, complete with mid-Atlantic accent, and topped off with exaggerated facial and physical acting that fits this fantasy. As Bart, child actor Tommy Rettig (best known as Jeff Miller on the CBS television series Lassie) seems more assured in his performance than most child performers his age during the 1950s. His fourth wall-breaking asides seem more appropriate in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but Rettig makes it work, and inhabits Bart’s flaws wonderfully.

Columbia demanded numerous reworkings of Seuss’ script, leading to several reshoots – most notably the opening scene (Seuss opposed the conceit of Bart’s dream framing the film) – and a ballooning budget. Upon its release in the summer of 1953, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T bombed at the box office and was assailed by critics. A crestfallen Seuss, who could not stand the production difficulties that beset the film from the start of shooting, would never work in feature films again. He would dedicate himself almost entirely to writing and illustrating children’s books, with many of his most popular titles (including The Cat in the Hat, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, and Green Eggs and Ham) published within a decade of Dr. T’s critical and commercial failure. His hesitance to participate in filmmaking informed his reluctance to allow Chuck Jones to adapt How the Grinch Stole Christmas! thirteen years later. Animation suited his books, Seuss thought, and he would never again pay any consideration to live-action filmmaking.

The reevaluation of The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T has seen a rehabilitation of the film’s image in recent decades. Home media releases and television showings have introduced the film to viewers not influenced by the hyperbolic negativity of the film critics working in 1953. This is not a sterling example of Old Hollywood fantasy filmmaking, due to a heavily gutted screenplay, scattershot thematic development, and incongruent musical score. Yet, the movie’s surrealistic charms and Seussian chaos know no peers, even in the present day.

My rating: 7/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

#The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T #The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T.#Dr. Seuss #Roy Rowland #Peter Lind Hayes #Mary Healy #Hans Conried #Tommy Rettig #Allan Scott #Stanley Kramer #Frederick Hollander #Rudolph Sternad #Cary Odell #William Kiernan #TCM #My Movie Odyssey

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cherrypieships · 3 years ago

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the amusement park: chapter two

A/N: whew omg it’s been a while since I posted! Anyway I’m back and better than ever with part two, the finale of the amusement park!! This chapter includes a trigger warning for fake blood and cult mentions. It's a haunted house, so it isn't a real cult, but I'd rather be safe than sorry <3

Ship: davey jacobs x pepper simmons (s/i), featuring my best friend V and my gf Khourey and their respective f/os, race higgins and jack kelly!

Summary: When the sun sets on Canobie Lake park, the amusement park turns into a Halloween extravaganza, where Pepper and Davey find themselves paired up once more.

Once the sun had dipped onto the horizon, the last dregs of color fading from the sky as the stars came out, the group found themselves heading towards the sides of the park, where the haunted houses were set up. Mickey looped their arm through Pepper’s, pulling her close and pointing out the performers walking past; a clown with a chainsaw, a long-haired girl in a tattered hospital gown, a man wearing a pig’s head as a mask.

“So they basically walk around the park and try to scare people.” She explained, and nudged V so they could listen in as well. “But little kids sometimes wear these little glow-y ball necklaces, see? And the performers can’t scare them.” She pointed out a pair of kids walking past, both of their t-shirts illuminated by spiked plastic spheres attached to long black cords. Sure enough, the actors walked right past them.

Vi pushed their bottom lip out, turning towards Mickey. “That’s so fucking cute.” They cried.

Pepper smiled. It was pretty cute, and a good idea on the park’s part. “Do they wear them into the houses?” She asked curiously.

“I fuckin’ hope not.” Jack scoffed. “I wanna get scared, I’m not here to miss a good haunted house cause of some kid.” He smiled when Mickey swatted him. “What? It’s true!”

Mickey’s eyes rolled. “Yeah, but don’t be a dick about it.” They chastised, going to swat him again, and as their hand made contact, Jack snatched it and brought her fingers to his lips for a kiss.

Averting her gaze, Pepper felt something cold swirl in the pit of her stomach at the casual intimacy. She focused on the gum wrapper on the ground beside her shoe instead of whatever that feeling was.

V’s knuckles rapped against Pepper’s forearm, a gentle knock for her attention. “Hey, I gotta hit the bathroom, you wanna be my buddy?” They asked, though the raise of their eyebrows gave the impression that the question was simply a formality; there was no option.

Making the journey to the restrooms a short one, Vi didn’t even pretend they had to pee, instead moving to stand in front of the mirror and check their eyeliner. “So are you gonna make a move tonight?” They asked, voice quieter than usual.

Pepper sighed, of course this was the reason she was in here. “Dude, I don’t fuckin’ know.” She said, exasperation travelling across her features at even the thought of confessing her feelings. She’d talked a big game about it before, about how she loved Davey, about how she’d confess her feelings for him the second she got the idea he liked her back, but truthfully she was… well, she was scared.

Vi barely looked up from the mirror, but their expression softened. “Obviously you don’t have to,” they reassured. “But I bet that if you don’t at least ask how he feels he’ll never tell.��

Pepper rolled her eyes. “That’s because there’s-“

The door to the bathroom flew open and Mickey blustered inside, annoyance clear on their face. “Okay, how dare you two leave me alone with those idiots.”

V grimaced. “Oh shit, sorry. I just wanted a minute to see what was up with Pepper and Davey.”

Mickey’s lips pursed, eyebrows raising onto her forehead. “Oh shit okay what’s the deal?” They asked, moving closer.

Against her better judgement, Pepper leaned her head against the bathroom wall. “There’s nothing to tell! I don’t have any plans to tell him, and there’s no way someone who talks as much as Davey would have a crush on someone and not say something.” She looked pointedly at her best friends.

“That… is an excellent point.” Mickey acquiesced.

Vi lifted a finger. “Or! Maybe that’s the way you can tell that he does like you.” They moved toward the sink to wash the eyeliner remnants from under their fingernails.

“What?”

Mickey nodded. “Oh, no, I totally get it.”

“Get what? What are you talking about?”

V smiled, turning to put their damp hands on Pepper’s shoulders. “You just said Davey never shuts up.” Pepper nodded slowly. “He’ll talk to you about anything, right?” Another nod.

“But he never talks about what’s up between the two of you.” Mickey finished. “Literally, even if Jack asks, he brushes him off.”

Brow furrowed, Pepper turned back to Vi, who was grinning. “If you don’t ask, he’ll never tell.” They clarified, an echo of their earlier statement. “Don’t fucking focus on what he says, bitch, you have to ask about what he’s not saying.”

Terrifyingly, that made it click. Something welled up hot and thick in Pepper’s throat, hope or fear she couldn’t tell. Whatever it was, she wasn’t budging at her friends’ optimism. “You two are reading too far into this.” She countered weakly.

Mickey grabbed her hand, squeezed it a few times. “Listen, we’re not pressuring you.” They explained, and Violet hummed in agreement. “You don’t have to ask him anything or tell him anything, if you just wanna vibe tonight, that’s totally cool.”

Just like that, the tension melted from Pepper’s body, her psyche apparently pleased at being left alone for the moment. She looked between her friends, Vi’s warm smile and Mickey’s kind eyes, took a deep breath, and went back out into the park.

Back where the boys were waiting, the curtain to the first haunted house had lifted, and the line began to move. Jack waved them down with a smile, and they gapped into the line. He pulled the park pamphlet from his back pocket and flipped to the back, where the haunted house attractions were listed. “Okay so we started next to the big spinn-y thing. Which is… the cult one, The Culling.” He announced.

“Yeah, Jack.” Race deadpanned. “It’s on the sign.” He pointed above the line, which, sure enough, boasted the name of the site.

Jack swatted his friend with the pamphlet before tucking it into his back pocket. “I knew that.” He grinned, throwing an arm around Mickey’s shoulders and pulling them closer.

Davey nudged Pepper’s side. “Partners?” He smiled, offering his elbow as their group stepped up to the banister blocking off the entryway.

She ignored the wink that Vi threw at her, and looped her arm through Davey’s with a blush and a simper. “Hope we don’t die in there.” She mused.

He patted the hand she’d placed on his bicep, warm in contrast to her poorly-circulated own ones. “If we do, we’ll die doing what we loved.”

Her head tilted. “What’s that?”

“Kicking and screaming.”

Pepper crumpled into a fit of laughs as the employee lifted the bannister. “Have fun.” The woman at the entryway smiled, her eyebrows raising mischievously.

Race and V went first, obviously, Race throwing his arm across their shoulders and pulling them close. Mickey and Jack went next, Jack’s hand curled protectively into the back of her shirt as they ducked through the curtain. A billow of dry-ice smoke kicked out at her and Davey as she gripped his arm tighter, moving through the curtain and into a room flooded with red light.

There was a man in the corner, a pair of bloodied goat horns protruding from his head, who growled lowly at them as they walked past. Davey cast a look in his direction, following in the footsteps of his friends, and they heard Race scream further up ahead. Pepper laughed a little at that, the adrenaline beginning to swirl hot in her veins.

The next room was full of actors, at least a dozen kneeling frozen in mock prayer, and the woman to Pepper’s right let out a broken wail, making her jump. Davey’s hand came to grab hers again, this time his fingers tangling with hers. He was laughing gently at her fright, something that might have pissed her off if it had been anyone else.

They passed through a hallway full of strobelights and white walls painted with bloody handprints, the thrum of electricity the only noise for a moment, and Pepper opened her mouth to ask when the Cult Stuff would start, when a man wearing a decaying goat’s skull for a mask barrelled around the corner, making both her and Davey scream.

She curled into his side, awkwardly stepping on his shoe as she did, and watched the man with enormous eyes as he tilted his mask curiously at them. Davey laughed a little, and whether he was trying to laugh off his fright or genuinely enjoying himself, Pepper couldn’t tell.

They rounded the corner, careful of the actor who’d popped out at them, and turned into a room seemingly devoid of anyone, except for Mickey and Jack, who were giggling as they shuffled into the next room. The walls were tall and painted white, a hidden projector playing a black and white video reminiscent of those old war propaganda commercials. It was too loud for Pepper to hear anything properly, but she could catch snippets of the voiceover, “Join us in… the great and powerful… be afraid…” as the video flicked between church services, goats on farms, hypnotic black and white spirals.

Davey tilted his head at the screen. “Christians, am I right?”

Swallowing a laugh, she jutted her elbow into his side. “This is not the time, David.” She snorted, coyly tugging him closer by the anchor his hands provided. Fuck it, why not get close to him while she had the chance?

The end was in sight, she could see the cool blue light of the outdoors pouring in from the other side of the final room; one that was lined with pews, with a goat-headed preacher at the front, holding a black leather-bound book and screaming about the end of days. The church (cult?) -goers were in various stages of worship, some with their arms in the air, some reading their scripture, some sobbing towards the sky. A shudder ran through Davey, one so intense that she felt it in her own skin, and she wondered, briefly, what was so freaky about this particular scene that he-

SLAM

The actor in the pew she’d just passed closed his book with a deafening bang. She jumped, screamed so loud it felt like the sound had been ripped from her teeth, and didn’t realize she was shaking until Davey’s arm encircled her, speeding past the latter half of the room and out of the first haunted house.

Pepper swallowed a mouthful of fresh air, held it for a few seconds, and released it with a pleased laugh. She turned her face up to Davey’s, ready to ask him if his heart was racing the way hers was, when he cut her off, gripping her shoulders like she’d disappear. “Are you okay?” He demanded.

Her eyebrows pinched together, her smile melting at the way his eyes were blown wide. “Yeah? I-I’m fine?” She said, reaching up to grip his wrists. “What’s wrong, are you okay?”

Every hint of expression faded from his face. The fire left his eyes, his hold on her softening, his jaw and browline going slack at the realization. “Yeah, I… I thought he-”

Race’s hands landed on either one of their shoulders. “Hey, Jack wants to know if you guys wanna do the hotel one or the factory one next, we’re at a tie.”

Pepper turned to him, blinking back the heat in her cheeks. “Oh fuck, okay, we’ll be right there.”

There were four more haunted houses, each of them with a bit of walking distance between them. Davey didn’t release her hand until they’d cleared the last attraction.

---

Still reeling from the adrenaline rush of the haunted houses, the group made their way toward the back of the park where the Ferris Wheel resided. Violet and Race were skipping down the lanes, their laughter fluttering in the cool autumn wind. Mickey and Jack were walking in front of them, their pinkies linked as they recounted their haunted house experiences.

Pepper tried to ignore that Davey was still so close to her.

His voice broke her out of her thoughts.

“Which one was your favorite?” He asked, the back of his hand brushing against Pepper’s as they walked. He was looking down at her, nose all rosy and cheeks flushed. He wore autumn so well.

She pursed her lips as she thought. “The cult one.” She settled after a moment.

Davey grinned. “Mine too. Or the hotel was really good.” He turned to her once they reached the line for the ferris wheel. “Y’know, when that guy back there slammed his bible closed I thought he hit you.” His fingers twitched, like he was waiting to reach for something.

There it was. The reason for his earlier freakout.

Laughing lightly, Pepper shook her head, curls falling in her face as she tried to dispel any of his remaining worry. “Oh God, no. Isn’t that illegal, anyway?” She focused on the ferris wheel ahead of them, the eighty feet of blinking lights and rocky baskets that they’d be shoved into; anything besides the bewildering look that was back on Davey’s face. Ahead of them, their friends were being ushered into passenger cars. Jack planted a kiss to the side of Mickey’s head and whispered something into their ear that made them grin.

Pepper tried not to be jealous, and failed.

Beside her, Davey was rambling again. She tuned in right in the middle of his spiel. “It’s some kinda torture house, basically. They just wail on you for like ten hours, and they film it, too. You have to sign a waiver and everything, and it’s like, forty pages or something. I watched a video of this one girl who went there and she said-”

“You two all set?” The ride operator asked, her smile bright as she cut into Davey’s rambling.

He blinked, like he hadn’t realized how close they were. “Oh, um. Yeah, I guess we are.” He resolved.

They clambered into the rocky car and belted themselves in, waited for the attendant to lock their door, and began their ascent.

Immediately, Pepper felt the wind chill. “Holy fuck, it’s freezing up here.” She barked. Davey’s cardigan was warm, sure, but the cold air cut through it like a knife.

Davey turned to her and readjusted the way he was sitting, opening up his arms. “I know, c’mere.” He wiggled his fingers and everything and, well, how was he supposed to say no to that?

She scooted closer until her leg was pressed right up against his, and her upper body curled into him. They’d done this before, a million times, when watching movies or at parties when it got crowded, or when she asked him to read to her, and Davey, ever the wonderful companion, never complained-

Oh.

Oh, no.

That was what her friends meant.

Davey’s arms wrapped around her tight. Without thinking, her arm did the same. “Better?” He asked, pulling back to look down at her.

Pepper smiled with her heart in her throat. “Always.” She said, and looked up at him.

And there he was. The same Davey as always, with his pale skin and round hazel eyes, now grinning down at her like she had hung all the stars in the sky just for him. Here he was, and he was so close that their noses were almost touching. Not correcting strangers who thought they were dating. Holding her hand and giving her his clothes and sharing drinks with her. Here he was- and she was confused.

His mouth twitched, the way it always did when he was worried. “You okay, Pep?” He asked, quieter now.

A slow nod. “Yeah… just, um, thinking.” She responded. He opened his mouth, eager to ask more, but she cut him off. “About us.” She said, feeling bold now.

Davey’s eyebrows just about skyrocketed off his face. “Us.”

“Yeah.” Pepper’s hands were shaking, but she didn’t think she could stand another minute of this. All of her affections bottled up like a powder keg while he played with them so nonchalantly. “Davey, what are we?” She hoped the question didn’t come out as raw as it felt, but she could almost taste the blood on her tongue.

“Oh.” His shoulders dropped, and he looked away. His arms didn’t move from around her, but his eyes were flicking back and forth. “We’re… you’re… m-my best friend and...” He scrunched his eyes closed and took a deep breath. “You’re my best friend and... I’m so stupidly in love with you.”

Pepper sat up as the Ferris wheel stopped. They were at the top now.

“I know that’s a lot to throw at you, I’m sorry, but all day I’ve just been thinking about you and about how much it feels like you’re this missing piece of me, you know? Like every time I need someone you’re there, and every time I talk about you to anyone I get this big grin on my face. And then earlier when that lady said what she said, it just felt so right.” He’d been gesturing wildly with his hands until she grabbed them.

She pulled his hands into her lap, encasing them with her own cold ones. “Davey.”

He sighed with a wry smile. “You can tell me no, Pep, it’s okay. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Davey.” She tried again.

“And it’s not gonna ruin anything, I promise. I love you but that’s not gonna make me turn into an asshole, I still care about you as a friend.”

“David.” She grabbed the sides of his face in her cold hands. His jaw was tense. “I love you.” She said, plainly, the way you would state any other fact. The sky was blue, the Earth was round, and Pepper Simmons loved Davey Jacobs.

And for once, Davey- sweet, lovely Davey- didn’t start talking about love, or about basic heteronormativity, or fucking haunted houses. Instead, he leaned forward and kissed her.

Any great novelist, or even just your average writer, always compared a great kiss to fireworks. But this, Pepper thought, was better than any fireworks she’d ever seen. It was coming home after a long night. It was sitting by a fire on a cold winter day. It was years of sharing beds and writing texts in secret languages, of sitting at each other’s family dinners, of shared secrets and pinkie promises, playful teasing and pathetic yearning, all wrapped up in a soft press of lip to lip. It was Davey. Of course it was. In retrospect, nobody else had ever stood a chance.

Pepper was giggling when she pulled away from his lips. “I love you.” She repeated.

The lights of the amusement park were glittering in his eyes. “And I love you.” He was beaming, their foreheads tipped together. Then he started laughing, soft and slow and bubbly, as though he were savoring it. “Oy, we’re so ridiculous.” He said as the ferris wheel began to turn again.

She could’ve stayed there for days, looking at each of the freckles on his face like little star clusters in her vision. If there were ever a photo she could keep framed on the walls of her memory, it would be this; his smile, the ivory skin around his eyes crinkled as he laughed. She was laughing too. “Yeah, we are.” Her head leaned against his shoulder, a sigh escaping before she could stop it. “How long?”

There was a beat, and she knew Davey was thinking. “Um, four years maybe? It was the summer before junior year of high school, I know that much.” The thumb of his right hand, still around her, began rubbing at her shoulder.

Pepper sat upright, aghast. “Oh my God, you’re fucking with me.”

“I’m not.” He grinned.

“Holy fuck.” She snorted. “We could’ve been doing this for years!”

Davey poked her side, making her laugh in turn. “How about you?” There was the look in his eyes again, and this time she recognized it. Dreamy, warm, a little vulnerable.

“Senior Prom. Remember we slow danced together?”

The ferris wheel stopped again, this time with them at the back. “Yeah, holy shit. I was so nervous that night.” Pepper laughed, head tossed back. “I’m serious! I was so sweaty, I’m surprised you didn’t comment on it.”

“Your hands were like holding clams.” Another poke, this one less playful. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. We’re here now.”

A kiss landed on her cheek, warm in stark contrast to the biting cold. “I can’t believe this.” He was laughing. “I can’t believe you liked me back.” He said.

Pepper nuzzled her nose into his neck. “I know. I can’t either.” She rested her chin on his shoulder, looked up at him and sighed.

He turned back to her. “You know they’re not gonna leave us alone, right?” He asked, tilting his chin towards the baskets below them that held their friends.

“I’m aware,” she mumbled. “I mean, they did call it.”

His lips curled up into a wry smile. “I know they did.” His fingers found the long strands of her hair, wrapped themselves in them. “Race and V haven’t left me alone about you for like, two years straight.” He shrugged. “And oh my God, if I have to hear Sarah and Les talk about it one more time I’m gonna explode.”

Pepper’s jaw dropped. “Sarah and Les were teasing you?”

He scoffed gently. “Are you kidding? They tell me to shut up every time I talk about how pretty you are.” And yeah, maybe she should have expected that, if he truly had been in love with her since junior year of high school, but Pepper’s body reacted quicker than she could recognize, her cheeks going hot and nose scrunching as a smile broke across her features.

“Well,” She said as the ferris wheel began to turn again. “Lucky for us, we probably have some time to kill before we have to face them again.” She bit at her lower lip, glancing up at him and hoping he would catch onto her proposition.

And, since Davey had always been smart, he did. “You’re right.” He breathed, and then leaned down to catch her in another kiss, one that went on, well… a little longer than the first.

Later, they had to face their friends, red-faced and smiling as they admitted what had happened. They had to endure a good hour’s worth of teasing, V and Mickey taking the opportunity to deliver a few well-intended pokes to Pepper’s sides, and Race and Jack offering high-fives to her- well, she supposed he was her boyfriend now.

The two of them climbed into the backseat of Race’s mom’s minivan again, this time hand-in-hand and sharing warm laughter. Davey stole another kiss from her, giggly and content, and promptly leaned his head on her shoulder to get some rest.

She supposed everything else could wait.

#drop a like/rb if you read!!#thank you so so so much to everyone who read this i'm actualy really proud of it #shout out to V and Khourey #davey #olive talks #my fic #the amusement park

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