#see this scene would hit harder with take me to church on the background
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hauntingblue · 2 years ago
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Sad goodbye (you have to kill me) first time sex. What a moment
And I thought it was bad that mal was always in the trenches I never considered the fact that he could be 6 feet underground
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dramaticviolincrescendo · 4 years ago
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Okay, what are your thoughts on Ian's relationships? With his family, his boyfriends, and Mandy (since I think that's the only friend he's had)
Oh, no. Ohhhhhhhh, no. Now you’ve done it. You’ve asked about my dear, darling favorite character on the show. My love for one Ian Gallagher runs deep, which means this answer is going to run super long. The good, the bad, and everything in between—Ian Gallagher lives rent free in my brain and always will. I derive so much satisfaction from seeing Ian interact with other people, in whatever capacity that might be. I admire and aspire to the compassion he has shown for others over the years, even and perhaps most especially those who arguably haven’t earned it. He tries so hard to be good to people, and seeing their love for him manifest when he’s reached such lows where he can’t even fathom why the love of his life would want to be with him forever? That’s powerful.
So, yeah. I said I could write essays on these characters, and that’s exactly what you’re about to get: five hours and 6k words’ worth of my thoughts. (I am so sorry. There will be text walls.)
Let’s dive into Ian’s many and multifaceted relationships—his family, his friends, and his romantic pursuits.
Ian and Family
Ian told us where he stood on this in the very first season, and it set the standard for his character for eleven years to come. Faced with a prospect that others in his position could only dream of—not being Frank’s son and having a wealthy father with a functional, prosperous lifestyle mere miles away—Ian refused to buy into it. He refused to do what might have been objectively better for his future by seeking a relationship with Clayton. In that household, he would have had access to a better public school, more financial resources, a tutor to help him where he was struggling, and less urgency for him to work so that he could enjoy being a kid. When he got sick, he would have had access to better healthcare, too. Perhaps he would have had a better shot at West Point from that background than he did at home. But that’s just it: home was with his family, and he was very clear that they didn’t live in that nice house. All he wanted—all he wanted—was to be with his brothers and sisters. He has never referred to them as only half-siblings or half-cousins; he has never even used the words, “you’re not my dad,” on Frank. That’s his family, the people he loves most in the world, and he’s always been at his best when he’s with them and at his worst when he’s not. Let’s look at each of them:
1.      Frank: It is so striking to me that Ian doesn’t appear to hold the outright contempt for Frank that Fiona, Lip, and Debbie have exhibited at different points over the years. Aside from the handful of instances where they’ve gotten into physical altercations (which Frank always initiated) and kicking him out of the house on occasion, Ian is simply indifferent to him. But there are these moments, these brief glimmers of mutual attachment and loyalty, if those are the right words. In the scene where Ian famously doesn’t count to three before using the pepper spray on him, Frank starts saying how his New Gallaghers weren’t his real kids—that Ian is his real son, and Frank is his real father. It’s a passing thought uttered while trying to manipulate his way into the house that neither of them think much of, nor does the audience…until you remember that biologically, Frank isn’t his father, and he certainly hasn’t behaved like one either. Ian has more right than anyone to comment on that, but he doesn’t because Frank is his father. He’s the father that Ian idly hoped wouldn’t come to his wedding yet sat joking about with Debbie rather than getting pissed off that he was making out with some lady in front of everyone. He’s the father who sat at the table with them eating breakfast in 11x03 and claimed Mickey was the man in their relationship without Ian saying a word to him about it, and who Ian saw no issue with taking Franny to school when no one else could. In s4, as far removed from his family as he’d been for a while, Ian still went straight to the hospital when he heard that Frank was at death’s door. We focus so much on his attitude towards Monica because of how obvious it was that we frequently miss these tiny moments and their implications. It would take an awful lot of patience, compassion, and love not to write Frank off completely after all he’s done. Not necessarily our standard definition of love between a son and his father, perhaps, but a loving soul.
2.      Monica: I have actually written a pretty lengthy post about his relationship with her because while their shared mental illness definitely plays a role in his feelings toward her, that grew complicated far earlier than his diagnosis. The first time we meet her, we see that he has a visceral reaction to news of her presence. He runs. When Ian can’t process strong emotions, that’s what he’s done in the past. I happened upon an interview Cameron did just after the end of s1 where he mentioned something I had already been thinking: Ian’s age when Monica left is extremely important. He was a kid in s1, but one who could roll with the punches, sometimes literally. She left them two years before that. Ian would have been in middle school, roughly as old as Debbie was when she still called Frank “daddy” and forgave him for everything he did. It’s an awkward age that once again set Ian in something of a danger zone—too old to accept an excuse or no explanation at all, but not old enough to process the situation in a healthy way. And then she’s back all of a sudden with no warning. Ian doesn’t cry like Debbie, and he doesn’t typically get explosively angry like Fiona. He can’t deal, so he runs. He hangs back. He only speaks when he has to and compartmentalizes: Monica wants to take Liam, and they need to stop her. It doesn’t have to be about her leaving. They have a goal—he can focus on that. And then she’s back a year later, saying she’s here to stay while Fiona seems to take her at her word and Lip isn’t there to ground everyone. Ian tries so hard to behave like Lip would with his biting sarcasm and attempts to stay emotionally distant in a way that seemed pretty exaggerated for Ian, but he’s also dealing with a fresh wave of guilt over Mickey going to juvie—and Monica gets it. She’s the only person to acknowledge that he’s in pain and actively try to make it better. She’s the only one who really knows at the time, but that hardly matters. This poor kid, whose mother left him when he still needed her, has her standing in front of him and saying she’s sorry and listening when he speaks and taking him dancing—just the two of them. Embarrassing as it was and harmful as it could have been, she tried to facilitate his dreams when no one else wanted him to go into the military. She was there for him when he went AWOL. She came for him when he was arrested and even wanted to make a place for him in her new life, unrealistic as it was. This goes so much deeper than them both being bipolar. Ian’s comment about her parachuting into their lives in s7 wasn’t about Mickey or her role in them breaking up. He trusted her. He wanted her. He needed her. And she’d convinced him that she would be there—until she left. Over and over again. She was there for him and unintentionally took advantage of how desperately he still needed his mother. She made him keep loving her, and that’s both a blessing that has him crying into a voluminous man’s arms when she passes and a curse that wrecked him more than once.
3.      Fiona: The trust these two have for each other cannot be understated. Fiona has discussed things with Ian that she never brought up around any of the other kids throughout the entire series. In the pilot episode, she tells him about feeling needed and takes his opinion on the matter to heart. At the end of the season, he’s the one she talks to about the car because she can trust him to give her an answer even without speaking. In s2, she tells Lip that the two of them are her rocks, and we see that time and time again. That’s part of what makes their falling out over the church hit that much harder: it’s Ian and Fiona. The only time they’d been on the outs in any serious manner up to that point was when Ian was adjusting to his new reality and they were trying to find a balance between sister and caretaker. Otherwise, that bond of trust had never been severed—not until Ian literally sold himself only for it to amount to nothing in the end because she had no idea the lengths to which he’d gone to get that building. That damage gets mended, thankfully, but what a powerful period of time when those two were the only ones who’d never really been at each other’s throats. There is a downside to that trust, though. As I mentioned before, Ian was so responsible and put together when he was younger that Fiona didn’t think twice about his situation with Ned or that he ran away. Not even seventeen yet, and she was telling Debbie that she didn’t like his decision to leave but trusted him. That is one of the things I love about this show—even something like trust that we always prop up as an important factor in our relationships can betray us in the most unexpected ways.
4.      Lip: I won’t go into it here, but the relationship they share is something that means a lot to me on a personal level. It’s part of how I knew that Ian would become my favorite character pretty early on. The way he simultaneously admires and envies Lip, loves and is annoyed by him, relies on him and is desperate to pave his own path in the world—what a beautiful and accurate depiction of what it means to be a younger sibling. Lip is the first person to discover that he’s gay and openly accept him for it. (I think what he tried with Karen came from a well-meaning place even if it was horribly, horribly misguided.) Lip is the one who tries to get him into West Point, hate it as he does. He helps Ian when Terry is after him, takes care of him in the aftermath of the wedding when he realizes just how deeply Ian feels for Mickey, searches the whole damn city for him when he finds out that Ian is in trouble, gets him a job, leans on him in his own time of need… He’s not perfect. He slips up, just like Ian does. Some things break my heart, like Lip insisting that he’s earned his own space when his little brother is asking him for safe harbor or Ian thanking him for being his brother outside the prison. But they love each other so much, and I just… I can’t possibly put into words how much I love their dynamic.
5.      Debbie, Carl, and Liam: I’m grouping these three together because they’re further separated from Ian in age, so we see a lot of the same trends with them as a whole. Ian loves taking care of people. We know this. We also know that Fiona and Lip don’t typically want him taking care of them—they’re the ones who take care of him when he needs it, specifically Lip. With the younger three, however, Ian can be the Big Brother. He can shake his head in utter bafflement at Debbie’s obsession with holding her breath for two minutes, walk Carl through what he needs to go camping, and promise his baby brother postcards when he leaves. The difference here is that his relationship with them is so much less fraught with conflict. We don’t see him fight with Debbie, Carl, or Liam the way he has with Fiona or Lip. While Ian tends to be the voice of reason during conflicts overall, I think it’s also because he relies on his older siblings in a way that he doesn’t with his younger siblings, and the latter don’t tend to rely on him as much as Fiona or Lip as well. There’s a lack of tension in most of their interactions growing up because that pressure isn’t there. Perhaps this is where Ian’s age and standing in the family is a bit more beneficial: young enough to have people he can rely on while too young for anyone to really rely on him for more than his share of the squirrel fund.
Ian and Friends
I’ve seen it mentioned that Ian (and Mickey) not having more friends is bad or lazy writing. I tend to believe that that fails to take something into account that, admittedly, most of us don’t really have to think about: having friends is a luxury. It requires time and effort to cultivate friendships, especially lasting ones. As a kid, Ian spent a lot of his free time working or helping to manage one family crisis after another. Going AWOL, losing his health, struggling to acclimate to his illness, trying to find a new career path, spiraling into the Gay Jesus movement, going to prison, adjusting once again to normal life, getting married, a pandemic… I’m sure he’s had plenty of acquaintances over the years, but having a family to support and constant upheavals would have made it extremely difficult to really forge strong relationships with them. I think that’s part of what makes his relationship with Mandy so special and valuable to him: she’s sort of the same way.
When we met Mandy in s1, she had other friends. We saw her meet up with them and go shopping; she told Ian a story about how one was mad at her for not sharing her make-up. As the trauma in the Milkovich household reached its zenith for her in s2 and she started thinking seriously about getting out of there, we saw those friends fall by the wayside—all except Ian. He saw her and let her see him early on. That’s a level of trust and respect that nobody else in their neighborhood would have displayed, certainly not to her. But then there’s this guy who defended her against their creepy, perverted teacher and treated her like a human being, not an object. It’s no wonder she developed an obvious, unrequited crush and sought physical comfort from him occasionally. It’s no wonder she tried to repay the favor by giving Mickey a hard time in s3 and s4, misguided and rather uninformed as we know it was at the time. (It’s also no wonder that she went for the closest Gallagher to Ian, either, but that’s for another meta.)
And Ian… Ian is loyal to a fault. We have watched Ian cut out his own heart and let the blood drip down his arm to pool on the floor at his feet if it would make a damn bit of difference for the people he loves. Like Fiona and Lip, Mandy immediately accepted him for who he is and suggested an arrangement that would protect him as well as benefit her. That is enormous where they came from. To him, that had to feel like the ultimate sign of friendship: he could trust her with a part of him that he hadn’t even entrusted to most of his family yet. From that point on, she was on the List of People Ian Gallagher Would Do Anything For. Finding out about Terry and what had happened? He held a bake sale, of all things, to fundraise for her. Seeing that his brother—his best friend—was treating her like garbage? He put him in his place. Her boyfriend was beating her? He brought her home and made it his goal to find a safe place for her to stay, even if it ultimately didn’t work. She was going to move away from all of her meager support with that boyfriend? He didn’t just rally his own arguments—he brought in outside help with Lip, who he thought might tip the scales. It’s usually just a saying that true friends will help each other hide a body, but Ian literally tried to do that. Lucky for him, he has a good head on his shoulders and used it.
No, Ian doesn’t seem to have a lot of friends. We’ve seen that he has spheres of influence, if you will, and acquaintances that he can call upon when he needs them. (For example, the guys that helped with the preacher.) However, Ian has always struck me as a “quality over quantity” type of person. Being a soldier or an EMT isn’t lucrative, but they’re meaningful for someone who sees them as vehicles for helping people. Seeing more parts of the world than just Chicago has appealed to him in the past, but he seems perfectly content to carve out a spot for himself right here at home. Having only three best friends—Lip, Mandy, and Mickey—doesn’t seem like much of a hardship for him.
Ian and Romantic Pursuits
I hate to say that there were five, but from Ian’s perspective, there were. So, let’s talk about all five. Even though…there weren’t five. There was only one. We’ll save the best for last.
1.      Kash: The first of Ian’s perceived romantic pursuits that really wasn’t. I hope it goes without saying that I hate this man with the passion of a thousand burning suns. I hate him so much. However, their interactions taught me a whole lot about how kind and compassionate Ian really is—and how naïve. Of course, he would believe that Kash loved him. The man was buying him all sorts of expensive gifts, and that’s what we see on all the commercials and in so many movies, isn’t it? Grand gestures of affection through expensive gifts. Poor as they were, Ian still scraped together the money to buy him baseball tickets and CDs, convinced as he was that that was all part of what you did in a relationship. That desire to do things like a “normal” married couple in s11? Yeah, that starts here. Ian has always been a planner, and he’s always bought into certain stereotypes. We can see that here. What we can also see is Ian’s compassionate, kind, loving soul. He cares so deeply for other people, even ones that he doesn’t know very well, especially if they are living in circumstances that mean something to him. (For example, the mentally ill woman they tried to help at work and the shelter kids whose situations were so similar to Mickey’s.) Kash being a closeted gay man living in misery with a wife he didn’t love and two children he never meant to have clearly tugged at Ian’s heartstrings. Even after everything that happens, even though Ian behaves as though they’re awkward exes who just happen to work together, he still covers for Kash. He gives him that head start and takes it upon himself to break the news to Linda that he’s gone. He defends Kash to Lip when the latter finally says exactly what we all know: he was a pedophile who deserved to rot in prison for what he did. As with Fiona’s trust, Ian’s loving soul, compassionate heart, and desire for love outside his siblings are virtues that have done him harm in the past. This is one such instance.
2.      Ned: The second of Ian’s perceived romantic pursuits that really wasn’t. To be honest, I don’t believe that Ian would even characterize it that way. He seemed very aware that Ned was a distraction from his problems—from Mickey being in juvie, Monica falling into a depressive episode, the money in the squirrel fund being gone, Lip moving out, losing his shot at West Point, and getting denied for service due to his age. Again, though, Ian has always wanted to feel valued, and this rich dude was letting him stay in a fancy hotel room with anything he wanted readily available. This (disgusting predator) guy was giving him attention and a distraction with no strings attached. Then the complications roll in, and he’s once again faced with being the mistress to a closeted, married man. The difference here is that he’s not comfortable with it. He tries to tell Fiona twice, which is enormous for Ian when he has never been very good at communicating if it means burdening others with or even merely facing his own problems. But he tries to tell her. He rejects the GPS unit and tells Ned that he has a boyfriend, boxing him into a strictly sexual arrangement. (This, unfortunately, makes sense. It aligns with how Fiona viewed things: where Jimmy was concerned about it, she told him that it was “just sex.”) He is also visibly embarrassed to admit to Lip and Fiona what has been going on with Ned. By that point, Ian is a year and a half older and, while still scarred and warped in his views because of Kash, perhaps a bit wiser. Emotionally, he kept Ned at arm’s length most of the time. He used Ned not just as a distraction, but as a way to galvanize Mickey into taking their relationship a step forward. But Ian is still Ian, and Ian is compassionate to a fault. Ned played that card by asking if he could have a little understanding for a man whose life was falling apart. Sure, he can. He’s Ian, the Gallagher too empathetic for his own good at times. We know how that spirals out of control. It just goes to show that even when Ian was trying to maintain some emotional distance, his heart is simply too big and his perceptions too heavily impacted by the grooming he’d experienced with two different people by then, and so he [SPOILER ALERT] still feels enough of a connection to Ned after all these years to be mildly bothered that he passed away.
3.      Caleb: The third of Ian’s perceived romantic pursuits that really wasn’t. Ian’s relationship with Caleb strikes me as being similar to what he had with Ned. While more age-appropriate, Ian was very much using Caleb, just as Caleb was using him. That’s why it was so easy for both of them to walk away. Ian was in a difficult spot when they met. He was grateful to the firefighters who saved his life, but he had also just saved someone else at a moment when he was perhaps at his absolute lowest. That’s what he’s always wanted, isn’t it—to be a bit of a hero and help people? So, he’s understandably drawn there, first out of gratitude and then to be surrounded by very attractive gay firemen who helped people, saved his life, and invited him to be part of a function they were holding. But he made himself pretty clear from the start: he was interested in sex with Caleb. That was the draw. He still hasn’t come to terms with being bipolar and losing Mickey, but Ian has never not been with anyone for any extended length of time. That’s just who he is: he’s always sought some level of outward validation—from the army, Kash, Monica, Mickey, and so many others. We’re seeing him struggle with that now as he deals with the opportunities available to him as a mentally ill ex-con felon. So, he pursues Caleb as a distraction just like he did with Ned, only Caleb is a predator in his own right and can smell that his interest is coming from a place of weakness. He immediately (and initially unintentionally) preys on Ian’s desperate need for structure and order by insisting on a traditional date where Ian is very much out of his element and even goes so far as to instruct Ian on how to be intimate. It’s no wonder he mentions Mickey in these moments, as Mickey never wanted him to change, and Ian leans heavily (even slightly hyperbolically) into the fact that Mickey wasn’t a paragon of order and stability like Caleb outwardly appears. 
And I think why Ian puts up with it so long—being taught like a child, being used to upset Caleb’s parents, being paraded in front of his friends to make them jealous—is because he was getting something out of it too, just like with Ned. A stable place to live when their home ownership was in flux, a place away from his family when they weren’t providing the support he needed as he adjusted to his disorder, someone who validated his desires to help people regardless of their ulterior motives, and a physical distraction from his own problems. All of these parallel his relationship with Ned very closely. It was never going to last, of course. Ian is a strong person who temporarily forgot how strong he was because he forgot who he was, and Caleb didn’t want to be cared for—he wanted a project, like all of his sculptures. Being a project, being something that others see as needing to be fixed? That’s a hard no for Ian. It always has been. There’s a moment I love later in their relationship where Caleb tells him to turn off the lights when he goes out and lightly reprimands him for leaving one on the day prior. Ian is in a better place at that point, having regained a lot of his sense of self, and stares after him with indignation at being treated like a kid. He’s then lied to and cheated on, but I think that to mention those things to Caleb when they break up is to admit weakness on his own part—that he stuck with Caleb knowing that he was being mistreated, and Ian is not one to be called a victim. So, while we know from his discussions with Lip and Sue that the cheating and distrust bothered him most, he merely focused on Caleb lying about his sexuality, which removed a lot of the emotion from the situation—just like he did with Ned. It ultimately turned out to be a bad move since Caleb, being a skilled predator, made him question even his own sexuality in return, but we’re starting to see that Ian isn’t here to be someone’s toy anymore. Not an older, married man like Ned, but definitely not anyone his age either. I’m glad this pseudo-relationship happened because it showed Ian how strong he really was and that he could be in control of his own life. Sure, it destabilized him a little in the aftermath, but he worked through it. He leaned on his family, specifically Lip, who has always been his rock without the blurred lines that Fiona represented between sister/mother-figure/caretaker. Caleb is a garbage person, but Ian was the one who pulled the treasure from the trash, not him.
4.      Trevor: The fourth of Ian’s perceived romantic pursuits that really wasn’t. Trevor is perhaps the first relationship where we don’t see Ian dive in. Whether that’s because of his confusion over Trevor’s gender identity or the fact that he was really beginning to fully mature as an adult by that point (ostensibly finishing his education, getting a career, being fully self-sufficient, etc.), he tried to take his time and not jump right in. They hung out, talked around the neighborhood, and yes, engaged in some casual intimacy at the club. Again, Ian might not be in a full relationship, but he’s never without someone for long. At that point in the series, all he was missing was a relationship when it comes to traditional, “normal” goals for people to have. But Trevor posed a situation he’s never been in before since, while gay himself, Ian has never been very interested in activism or engaging in the LGBT community. It’s just not in his culture or environment, so to be faced with someone he’s interested in that challenges a lot of his views of gender and sexuality is something he takes his time with. Unfortunately, Trevor is younger than him and not quite as mature, not quite as experienced. He tells Ian he has plenty of friends and doesn’t need another, which is an ultimatum that has never really sat very well with me personally because I’m generally of the mind that if a person needs time and you really care for them, you’ll let them have that time. I’m not unsympathetic to Trevor: he’s been burned before and has his own trauma stemming from responses to his identity, so it makes complete sense for him not to be patient in this regard. He shouldn’t have to be—but then, Ian shouldn’t have to rush into anything he’s not 100% certain he wants either. That’s exactly what he does, though, because Ian does for others without thinking of the implications for himself a lot of the time. They make great friends, but they don’t make great partners. Trevor treats Ian similarly to Caleb in that he’s a bit of a project. Trevor educates him on the LGBT community and incorporates him into his ventures for the shelter without ever really showing much interest in Ian’s life or family, which suits Ian just fine because for as interested as he is in helping with the shelter and as attracted to Trevor as he is, he seems to know they’re not compatible. Ian, who has been having sex since he was far too young, takes a step back from it when they run into compatibility issues. (And pushes back on the pressure to bottom with some of his own—neither of them were in the right on that.) He doesn’t ask much about Trevor’s family or try to be part of his personal life. They sort of embody the “friends with benefits” stereotype: they hang out, they have sex, and that’s really all there is to their relationship. 
The reason Ian doubles down on trying to make it work isn’t because there was a future for them before Mickey broke out. It’s because he thinks he’s lost Mickey forever, he knows he’s lost Monica forever, and he’s not going to get the support he needs from his family when they couldn’t stand Monica and Fiona told him what he already knew to be true, namely that Mickey being an escaped convict would destroy everything Ian worked so hard for if he got involved. So, he does what Ian does. He needs that distraction—he needs to run from these strong emotions he can’t process, so he bottles them up and unfairly hopes that Trevor will provide some of that comfort after cheating on him with Mickey. (Had Mickey been released, I think they would have broken up. Instead, that was the first match Ian lit, but certainly not the last.) Now, the thing is, Trevor said at the start that he didn’t want to be Ian’s friend. He’s also younger and less mature in a relationship, which means he threw the concept of love out there prematurely, just like Ian thought what he had with Kash was love. The death throes of their relationship were a back and forth where Ian was spiraling and seeking comfort, and Trevor was providing some while keeping their relationship pretty amorphous. (Were they exes? Were they friends? Were they people who shared interests and danced around each other? Were they going to get back together? They never officially broke up—it fizzled and resurged, then fizzled for good.) Ultimately, whatever it was that they had couldn’t survive Mickey, Monica, or Gay Jesus. Trevor wasn’t prepared to deal with a full-blown manic episode, and based on his hands-off approach with involving himself in Ian’s life even before the Mickey-shaped bomb got dropped on them, it doesn’t seem like he really wanted to anyway. He did what he’s always done: prioritized his shelter, which I’m not deriding in the slightest. By that point, Ian was too far gone to care that he disappeared anyway. Had the situation been different and he was getting the support from his family that he needed, it doesn’t seem like he would have cared much there either.
5.      Mickey: Finally. Only took over five thousand words to get here. I’ll preface this with something that anyone who knows me from other fandoms is already well aware of, namely that I don’t do romance. Ever. Never been interested. The relationships I’ve always been most passionately interested in are platonic ones, especially “found families” and siblings, which is probably obvious from the other five thousand words here. Ian and Mickey are the first relationship I’ve actively shipped or written for in a fandom. They’re the first I’ve been invested in to this extent. As such, one of the biggest pet peeves I had when I first joined this fandom was the saying, “Ian fell first, Mickey fell harder.” These two wonderful dumbasses face planted on the concrete in front of the Kash and Grab in s1 and never recovered. I could go on forever about these two, but that particular wall of text would probably be too daunting for even the most avid Gallavich stan to traverse, so I’ll keep it fairly brief. As we can see above, Ian has a very strict sense of what he “should” want in a partner. Someone who is moderately successful in their chosen field, makes enough money to at least live comfortably, and typically does something that helps other people (a doctor, a fireman, a youth counselor). These aren’t passionate people. They’re not men who operate on instinct the way most of the people in his life have always had to by virtue of their social standing. They have life goals and opportunities that he envies, and Ian has a great deal of compassion for them when they hit a roadblock or things don’t work out. The amazing dichotomy of Ian Gallagher is that he straddles a line most people can’t between the rough neighborhood that has instilled in him all of his values/behaviors and the middle-class mentality of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and aspiring to more. Ian has always aimed for what Lip said wasn’t possible for poor people: being successful without having to scam or steal. But as I said way back at the beginning of this manifesto, the South Side is his home. His family is his family. And none of the people he’s been with personify the South Side quite like Mickey—they don’t personify home like Mickey. 
And I think that’s where the initial draw for Ian is. (I’m going to focus on Ian’s side since he’s who your question focused on.) The other guys look great on paper, and Ian’s brain says that that’s what he should aim for. We know better, though. We know that Ian has an enormous heart that belongs first and foremost to his family and their home. His heart says that this person—this dirty, rude, mean, violent person—is home. His heart says this person is everything about himself that he denies having, just like Ian was everything about Mickey that the latter declined to openly acknowledge for so long. I don’t like relationships built on “making each other better.” I really don’t. The wonderful thing about this is that it’s never been that way. Ian didn’t change Mickey. He’s exactly who he’s always been, but he’s grown past the fear of his own emotions and Terry’s response to them. He’s still a thief, a con artist, violent, and rude. Mickey didn’t change Ian either. He’s still rigidly conforming to certain stereotypes of what he thinks he should want, seeking structure (to his own detriment at times), and not a great communicator. The point for them is that they complement each other, not that they make the other a better person—not even that they bring something out of each other that wasn’t already there. That’s what Ian’s other relationships did. They made him shave off his edges so that he could fit a square peg into a round hole, and that’s not happiness. It’s simply what he thought he was supposed to do—what “normal” people did. 
With Mickey, he doesn’t have to worry so much about what is normal or acceptable. He doesn’t have to worry about whether or not his life is objectively “on track,” not until fairly recently. Mickey is the only person he’s ever been with who has accepted him for who he is, faults and strengths alike, without the underlying insinuation that he should be aiming for something else or pretending to be whatever the other person needs him to be in order to care for them. Kash needed an escape—Ian provided it. Ned needed a very specific brand of toy—Ian played that role. Caleb needed a project to feel fulfilled—Ian went along with it for a bit. Trevor needed someone who accepted him as he was but did things his way—Ian did that. To care for Mickey has only ever meant being himself because all Mickey ever really needed was him. Mickey didn’t need an escape from his home—his relationship with his family is more complicated than that. Mickey didn’t need to be saved from his upbringing—it’s what made him the person Ian fell in love with and who he is happy to be. Mickey didn’t need someone to change who he is on a fundamental level because unless it is going to get him into trouble and separate them, Ian never wanted him to. (Even then, it’s about what he does, not who he is.) And yes, I’m sure that there’s a level of excitement that Ian finds exhilarating where Mickey is concerned, but I tend to believe it goes a lot deeper than that. What he finds exciting about Mickey is what Mickey embodies about the South Side—about home. About his own upbringing, but also Ian’s. About Frank and Monica, his siblings, school, work, ROTC—existing and surviving in an environment where it’s not guaranteed that you’ll have money to keep the heat on this winter or feed your family. They spent the early seasons living in a constant state of fight or flight. They couldn’t afford not to. And there’s excitement in that. Look at how many people say that the first seasons are their favorite! There hasn’t been a huge shift in the quality or direction of the writing, just the trajectory of the characters. They’ve gotten older, and their problems have been different. It’s not about survival so much of the time anymore, but those are the storylines that excite us. For Ian, that exhilaration in the constant battle of survival in their neighborhood is sewn into the fiber of his being just like it is Mickey’s. He saw his home in Mickey before they truly fell in love, and when that followed, Mickey became home.
In Conclusion
Ian has spent his entire life looking for the “right” path only to realize that it was laid before him: his family, his small circle of friends, and Mickey. I love that that is coming full circle this season, where [SPOILER ALERT] marriage has almost made him regress a bit to that place where there must be a right way of doing things going forward, and slowly but surely, we’re seeing him loosen up.
Good morning. It’s Ian Gallagher loving hours.
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sweater-daddiesdumbdork · 4 years ago
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We Gotta Watch The Wet Bandits
Summary- 2k Me (calling him Mike) x Y/N. (Playing It Cool AU)  Beginning of the Christmas Season, and Mike is about to finish up a script. It's all just fluffy and such. No warnings. Written for @jtargaryen18​  30 Days of Chris. 
A/N- Part One, I will be writing a couple more chapters.  
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Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow... 
You hummed to yourself as you walked along the main street, bags in your hands, and taking your sweet time while looking in window displays. Of course California, it never snowed, and you had to say you missed it, which caused a bit of a sigh as you looked at a scene with the backdrop looking like a little New England town. Old church, a general store, horse and sleigh just about to enter a covered bridge, snowy covered hills in the background that appeared to have kids sliding. The one next to it was New York City, Rockefeller Center with it's big beautiful tree made you sigh a bit wistfully.  Mike always claimed he never want to see snow again after some disastrous ski trip his grandfather had taken him on when he was eight. But you felt that just about anything that happened to him when he was seven was ruined for him, due to being an abandoned boy and still trying to process his feelings. 
Mind getting away from you, you jumped when your phone buzzing in your hand startled you, tearing your gaze away from your dream Christmas and down to the phone to see Mike's picture flashing. Hitting the accept call, you tucked it up to your ear as you continue. This time heading straight for the car that was just another block up. “Hey Mike, I'm just finishing up. You need me to grab something before I get home?” 
You could hear clacking in the background, he was about a quarter of the way done from finishing his newest piece and at the stage where you would probably have to drag him to bed to get him to take a break. When he was close to finishing, he got lost into it trying to get it done. “You don't mind picking up dinner tonight? Sorry, I know I promised, but I'm so close to getting done baby. And you're going to love this one, I promise.” You roll your eyes a bit, but you weren't mad about it. 
“Alright, but the moment you're done with that, you're taking me out to that nice place over on 5th street. And what do you want?” 
“You mean that tie joint? You would make me promise to take you there. And uh... beef and broccoli. I can call it in.” 
“Yes, that tie joint. Besides, it's all in your favor. I might let you use that tie on me later.” Your digging for your keys and you can hear a stutter in the clicking of keys, making you smirk. You just knew he was thinking now of what he could do with that tie and had the biggest grin on his face. “And order me sesame chicken. Eggrolls to.” 
“You just had to say that, making me lose my train of thought!” Hearing him joked while you dropped the bags into the back and shut the door, you giggled into the phone. “Just keep imagining it, more incentive to finish.” You offer as an apology.
Hearing him resume typing. “You got a deal, ordering right now. Love you, baby, see you when you get home.” Once you returned the sentiment, he hung up and you checked the time, you had time to see how long you had to kill before food would be ready. 
By the time you got your bags stashed away in the spare bedroom, Mike pulling away from his small office space in the living room to attempt a few sneak peeks, you shooed him away and sent him down to the car to get the food instead, and was sure to strategically hide the few things you had gotten for his stocking when you heard him out in the kitchen. “Back, you got everything hidden so I can try to find it, Babes?” You are sure to click the door shut a little hard and sauntered into the kitchen to grab plates. “If you go looking I will know. I booby-trapped the entire spare room.” 
“Well fuck, don't threaten me with a good time Babygirl.” He teased while opening the bag, and pulling out the containers while you grabbed to plates. “I can and I will... you want a fork?” Grabbing spoons to plate the food. Mike unwraps a pair of chopsticks and clicks them together. “Nah, I got this, and I'm getting good at them.” 
Snorting in a laugh, you shrug and just bring over the spoons, picking up the second pair and fitting them in your hand. “I told you that you would, it's not that hard.” He reaches over with his and pinched your arm with it, and you jab back at him, the two of you teasing and poking at each other in retaliation, till Mike called a truce, letting you get the last poke in. “Harder then it looks Y/N” Popping open containers and scooping stuff out, he grabs a piece of beef in the chopsticks and holds it out for you, that you grab and chew while scooping out the rice. “Damn I love when you order beef and broccoli.” 
“I know, that's part of why I choose it.” Mike shrugs, taking some of the sweet chicken and plating it for himself. You pause with a furrowed brow. “Wait, you're not choosing it cause you want it?” 
“Well of course I do. But I just know you happen to like it to. Don't question what I do.” Unwrapping egg rolls from the wax paper, he set one on your plate, and you still looked at him with a hint of doubt. 
“What would you order if you're not sharing with me?” you question while grabbing the plates and handful of the sauce packets while proceeding to the living room, setting your two messy with piles of food plates on the coffee table. Mike followed along behind with two beer's, what's fast food Chinese without a beer to wash it down after all. “Beef and Broccoli... maybe generals tso's.”
You immediately wrinkle your nose at him, and he crashes on the couch next to you, handing you the beer. “See Weakling, why I don't order spicy food. You wrinkle your nose every time.” You push him back against the couch after sitting down the beer and move to straddle him, smirking as you pin his wrists down. 
“Weakling? Not me Stud, just cause I don't wanna burn my taste buds off.” He can't help but grin at you acting tough, with your pinkish cheeks still from the cold, and your hair up in a ponytail, giving you a more girlish look. Easily he could have taken over, twisted to pin you beneath him, and cover you in kisses, tickling your hips till you were begging for mercy. But you to know all his weaknesses, and that lets a mischievous daring look in your eyes in case he challenged you. Twisting his hips quickly, he toppled you over and breaking your hold, he tickled along your sides, making you squeak out, grabbing at his hands and weaving your fingers with his to keep him from trying to tickle you again. 
“You sure about that?” Mike asked as he hovered over you, leaning to catch your lips with his own, and you arch into the kiss. It was hard denying when he took over like this, you liked it. Flexing your fingers weaved with his, you sighed into the kiss, letting your head fall back and look up at him. “Okay fine, a little bit. But it is really hot.” Your nose wrinkled again and Mike kissed the tip of your nose, chuckling while pulling back, bringing you up with him. You curled at his side and reached to grab the remote, flicking through the holiday movies. “Next time that's what I'm ordering you,” you say as your searching. 
“And I don't want to see you claiming you can handle it when we both know you cant.” Of course, it was an empty threat, as if he could ever tell you no when you wanted something. Mike waited to see what you were picking, seeing as you were on a mission for something specific, as soon as you got to your movie, he groaned and you giggled, hitting play. “You do know this is the one movie I'm watching tonight with you, I gotta go finish the last couple of chapters.” You lean forward and grab the plates, handing him his, and curling back up against his side, drawing your feet up, the all too familiar theme song playing. “Yes I know, and you know it's a tradition for me to watch The Wet Bandits as the first Christmas movie of the year.” 
Twisting the chopsticks in his fingers to pick up his first bite, eyes focused on the screen. “What, no love for The Sticky Bandits?” Mike popped in his bite and chewed slowly while you were ripping into some duck sauce and pouring it onto your rice, offering him some that was denied with a shake of the head. “They are tomorrow night.” 
“Oh, okay... watching in order.” 
“Exactly, we can't watch New York before this one.” You scooped up some of your rice that was all sticky with sauce, licking your lips clean between chews.
Mike's gaze fell to the scenic picture, a large house, set in a great neighborhood, all decked out in white lights. “Is that what you want someday Babes?” he asked, and you tilted your head to look at him. “Mmmhh, no. Not like that. Right now I'm rather happy with our little apartment Christmas in Sunny California with Mallory and Samson getting tipsy and crashing on the couch, Scott trying to reenact A Christmas Carol, and Lyle redoing our tree. Which we have to get out of storage soon.” 
“I can get it next weekend, and I don't mean this year... like down the road,” Mike asked, and set his plate aside, clearing his palate with a swing of beer, and you watched the mayhem of the family rush out of the house, leaving behind Kevin. “One day maybe, but I'm not in a rush to make all that happen.” You wave your chopsticks towards the tv, all the parents looking traumatized. “Someday though. Although I picture it more like the Griswolds. Everything is messed up, but fuck if we still aren't having a great time at life” You chuckle while popping your last bite of eggroll and set it on top of his.
His arm lifted around your shoulder and your head rested on his chest. Mike's fingers trailed up and down your arm while watching the film. “Although I wouldn’t hesitate to go back for a holiday sometime.” You said it so absently, just finishing a train of thought, but Mike caught it. 
And with his newest work almost being finished, maybe sometime would be sooner rather than later. Brian had said that this was a well-anticipated script, and Mike had put his heart into this one. He didn't want to get ahead of himself, but he had high expectations for when it was going to be read. The thought stuck in his mind, once the movie was finished, food taken cared of, you turned to him after washing the plates. “I'm going to call it a night, don't forget to come to bed tonight.” You teased while giving him a slow kiss, and he nodded, rubbing his hands along your hips. 
“Just one more chapter and I will be in, promise.” dropping a kiss to your shoulder, and a nuzzle to his neck, you leave him to continue writing, and get ready for bed. Once Mike hears the door close, he's immediately on his computer, pulling up a search engine. 
He's groaning as most everything is the book for what he's looking for, but then one listing popped up, and he debates, his mouse hovering over the button. Should he jump on it or wait? He was very confident that it was good, that Brian would send it right out and it would be his payday. His finger itched to his the button, knowing just how much you would love this and not be suspecting anything like this. Without another moment's hesitation, you hit the okay button, and he got excited to tell you. But it was going to have to wait. 
Now, time to finish that script.  
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acequidwrites · 4 years ago
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Chaeyoung thinks being in love is probably a requirement for writing love songs.
Or, at least, having been in love once.
FANDOM: Blackpink (RPF)
PAIRINGS: Kim Jisoo/Park Chaeyoung, Jennie Kim/Lalisa Manoban (background)
Chaeyoung arranges Jisoo’s fingers on the guitar fretboard, and that feels like the beginning.
Jisoo is hopeless, can only make discordant sounds that hurt her ears. That’s okay, though, because Chaeyoung can play well enough for the both of them. She sings softly with the string melody and Jisoo thinks about how, in a different context, a movie, maybe, this scene would be romantic.
Jisoo thinks about Chaeyoung making music, writing songs. Love songs, sung at night, or on a date beside the Han River. It’s a picnic, it’s someone’s anniversary.
(It’s their job to sing for others, and it suddenly occurs to Jisoo that she can’t remember the last time someone sang for her.)
Chaeyoung plays guitar beautifully. Chaeyoung is beautiful.
Jisoo wonders if she’s ever thought this before.
~
When she was younger, just a nobody in Melbourne, Roseanne would play games with her church friends. Squeaky bike races to the music stores to gawk at all the new album covers: Big Bang, Super Junior, 2PM. 
Shoving at the window: Who’s your favorite? And, No, he’s mine! And, I’d move to Korea just to—
Roseanne, slipping past, stopping tentatively in front of the wall of guitars in the back, impossibly tall. She runs her fingers over the gloss on an acoustic model, dares to pluck one string. 
It’s in her, the bug, the urge to perform. An itch in her stomach nothing else can scratch. She receives the guitar for her birthday and doesn’t let it go.
Later, when Rosanne boards the plane in Melbourne and Chaeyoung steps off in Seoul, she will clutch the handle on her guitar case with a white-knuckled grip. She can feel it starting.
Chaeyoung strums and sings in front of the panel of YG Entertainment judges, and that feels like a start. She stands at the back of the group of young, nervously shifting girls in the dance studio she will come to know like home, and that feels like a start,  too.
A short, confident, older girl walks up to her with her palm outstretched and says Kim Jisoo, and that feels like something else entirely.
~
It’s not that sharing a room with Chaeyoung is hard.
Quite the opposite, actually. It’s easy.
Jisoo wakes up, and Chaeyoung is up. Jisoo goes to bed, and Chaeyoung is already sleeping. 
Occasionally in the mornings, Chaeyoung brings Jisoo breakfast. At night, Jisoo brings her tea. 
Jisoo never sets an alarm, because Chaeyoung always wakes her up if they have a schedule. Chaeyoung doesn’t need an alarm, because her body is set to what the world calls “a healthy sleep cycle,” and Jisoo calls, “freak time.”
Chaeyoung’s hair falls out a lot, the result of years of dyed and damaged roots. Jisoo will find long blonde hairs everywhere: her pillow, her clothes, her own head. Surprisingly, she doesn’t mind.
Jisoo plays games at night and Chaeyoung watches, sometimes, padding across the room to warm Jisoo’s duvet. Usually, she falls asleep there, bathed in the blue light of Jisoo’s phone, head on her shoulder.
Jisoo doesn’t mind this either.
~
Dieting is the worst, and not because of her own hunger. Jisoo thinks she could probably survive on rice and sunlight for like, ever.
No, dieting is the worst because when word trickles down through about seven layers of managers that they have a performance coming up, Chaeyoung shuts down. 
Not all at once; gradually, as the days crawl on and the gnawing pains start to hit all of them, Chaeyoung gets quieter and quieter.
Jisoo hates it.
“Chaeyoung-ah,” she says, the open bag of chips held out, “just have some.”
It’s the look in her eyes as she considers. Jisoo hates it. 
First, temptation. Maybe just one, Jisoo can see the words almost pass her lips. Then, rapidly: responsibility to the company, guilt for the thought in the first place, embarrassment at her own hunger, determination to stay strong.
“I shouldn’t,” is what Chaeyoung says instead, with a tight smile. 
Fake. Fake. Jisoo wants to wipe it off her face.
Lisa, sweeping through, snatching the bag out of Jisoo’s hand before she can react: “You’re skinny, Chaengie. Eat some snacks.” A crunch, to emphasize her point.
Even Jennie watches them from over the rim of a full-fat vanilla latte. 
Chaeyoung shakes her head, resolute, and leaves the kitchen instead.
Jisoo thinks about smuggling food and murdering managers.
~
Lisa and Chaeyoung are best friends, and Jisoo and Jennie are best friends, and Lisa and Jennie have always been something...more. And Jisoo sees this and knows what it means and doesn’t want Chaeyoung to feel neglected, so she tries a little harder. She plays pretend affection: part show to tease the others, part effort to strengthen her relationship with Chaeyoung. It’s funny and fun and light.
She learns Chaeyoung will blush at compliments, but cringe at aegyo. She prefers movies to dramas, but likes being outside over either. She cries easily but laughs easier, and believes anything anyone tells her.
Jisoo brings her a flower, and Chaeyoung presses it in a book. Jisoo buys her a guitar, and Chaeyoung physically can’t speak.
Jisoo plays pretend affection, and then one day she isn’t pretending anymore.
~
“What’s wrong?” Jisoo asks, because Lisa has been pacing up and down their living room for hours, sighing audibly and generally being mopey and dramatic, and Jisoo can only withstand so much.
Lisa emerges from the depths of her hoodie hood and casts a deeply miserable look to where Jisoo is (trying to) watch TV, and says, slowly, like the effort tires her:
“...What?”
Jisoo could smack her, really.
“I said, is something wrong?”
This is a mistake, clearly, because Lisa takes it as an invitation to sprawl onto the couch next to her and occupy as much surface area as possible. “So many things wrong, unnie,” Lisa whines, and Jisoo reaches over to pack a pillow over the younger girl’s face.
It’s not like Jisoo doesn’t know what the matter is.
The matter: Jennie filming a CF in Japan.
(The other, smaller, secret matter: Chaeyoung in the recording studio. All day, every day. And maybe, Jisoo is maybe getting just a little tired of it.)
“It’s so boring here alone,” Lisa cries, violently shifting position and ending with her head dangling off the edge of the couch and her feet scuffing the wall. This is code for I’m upset Jennie is gone, and, I miss her, and, Jisoo-unnie, you’re great, but you’re really not the person I want to see right now, and Jisoo knows this is the code because she speaks it right back.
“I’ll flip you if you don’t get your feet off the wall.” (I’m sorry Jennie is in Japan. She’ll be back soon. Tell Chaeyoung to stop working so hard because she doesn’t listen to me and she comes home too late and she isn’t eating enough and she’s tired all the time and she—)
Lisa sticks her tongue out. “Flip me, then.” (I miss her a lot and it hurts, I think it isn’t supposed to hurt but it does, and I miss her, and I don’t know what to do.)
Jisoo doesn't lift a finger, settles deeper into the cushions, makes a sort of scoffing sound, and turns the TV a fraction louder. “All the blood rushing to your head will make it explode,” she says, and there’s no malice in it.
We’re pretty pathetic, aren’t we?
Yeah.
~
Chaeyoung thinks being in love is probably a requirement for writing love songs. 
Or, at least, having been in love once. 
And she has no regrets about anything in her life until she sits down in a practice room with a pen in hand and tries to write, only to find that in the past ten years of training and schedules and performing, she’s never found time to meet a boy. So she caps the pen, and she uncaps the pen, and she tries to invent the feeling of love. 
She watches movies. She reads books. She reads poems. She watches couples outside the window and it’s so close she can feel it. She can see the shape of it, in flowers exchanged, in smiles hidden, hands clasped, words repeated, a billion different stories and none of them hers. Love is everywhere but in her brain, in her fingers, on her tongue.
She thinks about it so much the word turns foreign, meaningless. She traces the letters over and over at the top of the page, the only scrawl on the field of white. The light overhead is dim, but bright enough to see how bad she’s failing. Love. Sarang. The paper rips and ink bleeds through onto the table.
Chaeyoung is a songwriter – or at least, she wants to be – and she doesn’t want to fake it. Sometimes, she thinks about how easy it would be: take all the words she’s found through study, rearrange them, spruce them up and make them pretty and set to music, debut. 
Debut. Solo debut, isn’t that what she’s always wanted? Quoted lines bubble up in her throat. Bitter, artificial, but god, would it be so easy.
Then: Lisa will take Jennie’s hand under the dinner table. Or, Jennie will rest her head on Lisa’s shoulder after practice. They’ll smile together, quietly (and when has Lisa ever been quiet), and giggle about something no one else can understand – could possibly understand, when it’s a secret for just the two of them.
Everything Chaeyoung has memorized falls away. 
She is a songwriter, and she doesn’t want to fake it.
~
It’s Bangkok.
Or, Amsterdam, maybe. Paris, or back home in Melbourne. Chaeyoung knows there’s a stage and an audience, for sure.
(It’s Inkigayo, 2016.)
There’s a song — several songs? — she can’t remember which. It’s not like they have that many to begin with.
(Osaka? Fukuoka?)
It’s the four of them against the world, riding the high of the crowd. It’s hot, and the crowd roars, and confetti snows down, they’re breathing it in, and Chaeyoung doesn’t think it’s possible to come down from this, and it’s enough. It’s enough. 
She doesn’t need anything else. Not when Jennie is beaming and waving like nothing sharp has ever pierced her armor, not when Lisa is jumping and dancing and laughing loud enough to be heard across the stage without a mic, not when Jisoo, Jisoo—
(Gayo Daejun, 2018.)
Jisoo.
It looks like this: Jisoo, confetti in her hair — tall on heels, glittering dress — Jisoo, hands outstretched, catching paper, flowers, plushies from the fans— smirking for the picture — pose, peace sign, finger heart, pose — eyes shining, Chaeyoung has never seen that, someone’s eyes actually shine, it’s something that happens in fiction, in songs —
(Seoul. It’s Seoul, in the end.)
Jisoo catches Chaeyoung’s eye from across the stage and winks, or rather, attempts a wink and blinks clumsily with both eyes instead, an action caught by the cameras and mirrored in gigantic high-definition for the whole stadium; the crowd erupts into a frenzy and Chaeyoung hears none of it. Jisoo scrunches her nose and blows an air kiss instead and Chaeyoung finds herself laughing, expelling the butterflies beating against her rib cage, reaching out, snatching up the kiss and putting it in her pocket.
(Mine.)
She puts the mic to her lips and starts the post-performance speech and pretends a single thought isn’t winding like a ticker tape headline around and around her brain.
Jisoo is beautiful. Jisoo is beautiful.
Chaeyoung wonders if she’s ever thought this before.
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v-hope · 5 years ago
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Wedding gone wrong
Pairings: Kim Seokjin / Min Yoongi / Jung Hoseok / Kim Namjoon x Reader
Genre: Fluff, crack, suggestive maybe?
Request: Some of you have been asking for the hyung line for a while now so 😅 I provided.
A/N: Sorry it took me so long, bbs :( and I hope you like it, let me know what you think! 💕 You can find the maknae's one in my masterlist.
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Kim Seokjin
Ah, the garter toss.
It only took one of his friends to announce that was what would take place next during your reception for Seokjin's ears to turn completely red.
It wasn't like his mouth had never been in contact with your thighs, that was for sure, but having to dig his head inside your dress to take the garter off in front of all your guests? In front of your families? Yeah, that sure was something new.
And so, when a chair was brought up to you and you rested your leg on it, lifting your dress up a little bit, he couldn't help but to let out one of his signature laughs – one that sounded way more nervous than usual.
To make things even worse, a very sensual song started to play in the background, having you tilt your head back to let out a laugh at the sight of your flustered husband.
"Go on" you mumbled only for him to hear, "you've done way more than just this already".
With a roll of eyes that was followed by a glare, Jin's head disappeared under your dress, making goosebumps show on your skin at the tickling feel of his hot breath near your thigh.
Then, his teeth faintly brushed over your skin, catching the small piece of lace in between them to start pulling it down your leg. However, something along the way went wrong somehow, and he couldn't do it entirely, involuntarily letting go of it before he could even start bringing it down with him.
So, imagine how it looked from the guests perspective when they watched Jin's head move back up closer to the spot between your legs, and taking way too long to get out of under your dress.
"Leave that for the honeymoon and get out of there already!"
Well, Yoongi didn't hesitate to speak on everyone's behalf, causing everyone to laugh, whereas your husband and you were left there with burning faces.
"Yah!" Jin shouted immediately; your dress making his voice come out muffled. "You do it if it's so easy!"
"Kim Seokjin!" you scolded him, moving your leg to lightly hit him with it.
With everyone who was watching the scene display before their eyes laughing harder now, he decided to end his own suffering by just grabbing your leg and this time bite tightly down on the garter, managing to take it off in a matter of seconds.
"Good thing Yoongi didn't have to come do it for you" you taunted him with a smirk once he was back on your eye level and the rest of the people cheered in amusement.
He shook his head with a smirk curving up his lips before he leaned in to kiss the spot under your ear. "I think I'll just stick to taking off your bra".
That he had mastered already for sure.
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Min Yoongi
Even way before Yoongi proposed a couple of months ago, you had always enjoyed watching those silly videos of people who messed up their vows at their wedding, and you couldn't help but laugh every time. All they had to do was to repeat the priest's words, simple; yet they still managed to fuck up somehow. Good thing you were better than that and such embarrassing situation would never happen to you.
Or so you had thought.
Because, you see, when you're used to call your fiancé one specific way indoors just to mess with him, for you loved the way he would always roll his eyes claiming he hated it whilst the smirk on his face said otherwise, your mind kind of gets used to it and starts acting by reflex at some point. Add some nervousness to that and the final result cannot really be any good, can it?
So, when you were holding Yoongi's hands at the altar, glowing with happiness and being sure you would tear up anytime by then, and the priest asked you to repeat his words, there was only one way for things to turn out to be like.
"I, Y/L/N Y/N" he spoke.
Not taking your eyes away from your soon-to-be husband, you repeated: "I, Y/L/N Y/N".
Nailed it.
"Take you, Min Yoongi".
That's when things went downhill.
"Take you, Min PDaddy".
Awkward silence.
Yoongi's eyes opened wide, matching your own.
And then, as inevitable as it was, the whole church bursted out laughing.
And although you had laughed it out as well, you couldn't bring yourself to take your hands away from your heated up face. Yes, it was funny, but calling your significant other that in presence of not only his but your family as well, was most certainly something you wished you could erase from your memory. And everyone else's, at that.
Letting out another breathy laugh himself, as he was, too, pretty embarrassed by the whole situation, Yoongi pulled you up to him, allowing you to bury your burning face in his chest. "You do know my actual name is Min Yoongi, don't you?" he teased, earning a whine from you. "Do you even know who you're marrying?"
"Be thankful I didn't call you Min Sugarpie Honeybunch instead and you got to keep some of your dignity".
Well, he should know by now he's not marrying you only, but also your very delusional nicknames for him. And he wouldn't have it any other way.
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Jung Hoseok
He shook his head no the second you motioned with a tilt of your head to the shot that had been handed to you, moving his lips closer to your ear so he could whisper: "I've had enough for now, angel".
You bit your lip, looking around your friends who were all too caught up gushing before you could all proceed to down your drinks together. "I know, but you promised" you locked your pleading eyes with his, "they can't know yet, just man up and drink".
With a heavy, resigned sigh, he nodded his head, giving you the greenlight. So, right after everyone raised their glasses and gulped them down, you pretended as if you were about to drink yours, only to quickly turn around and have Hobi do it instead without anyone noticing.
And so he did. Reluctantly and already starting to hate the burning feel the alcohol would leave in his throat, but he did it. Just like he had done two other times already since the reception began and people started to demand drinks with the newlyweds.
Because, what other option do you have when you and your wife find out, only two weeks before the wedding takes place, that you're expecting a child? Some sacrifices would have to be made, like you not being able to neither drink nor go as wild as you had intended to, in every sense of the word… and Hoseok having to cover up for you throughout the night.
Telling people was an option, of course, but not one you particularly were very fond of. Not only didn't you want to make it public yet, but also you didn't think your respective families would be able to handle so many emotions for just one day.
So, he kept on drinking. It wasn't much, but it was enough for his lightweight self to reach a point he didn't ever want to see another glass of alcohol in his life.
"Okay, time for the toast!" Jimin was the one to propose after having asked for a microphone, standing up with his glass of champagne after everyone had been handed one.
Just one glance from you at your husband, who had been spacing out for the past couple of seconds, before eyeing the glass of champagne in front of you, was all it took for you to have him tilting his head in frustration.
"Ah, do it for your child, do it for your child" he mumbled to himself.
Only he had not quite mumbled, but said out loud instead for everyone to hear.
"Wait, you're pregnant?" Jimin, being the closest and therefore the first to hit realisation, spoke into the microphone without noticing.
And after everyone had gasped at your friend's blunt words, there was nothing Hobi could do besides staring at you like a scolded puppy begging for forgiveness.
"Please don't divorce me" he blurted out, having you roll your eyes in both annoyance and amusement. "Look on the brightside, I won't have to drink anymore and will actually remember our reception!"
Oh well, that was one way to put it. Although having both his mum and sister turn into a river of tears, ready to scold him for not telling them sooner, was not something you were sure he'd like to remember.
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Kim Namjoon
Your first dance as husband and wife had been something both you and Joon had been trying to mentally prepare yourselves for. Not only that, but you had also taken a few dance classes, you know, just to make sure you would not accidentally injury one another after one of you probably stepped on the other. It was bound to happen at some point otherwise.
So, when it was announced for everyone's information that you would be having your first dance right then, the two of you felt ready.
Walking hand in hand over the middle of the dance floor as everyone gathered around the two of you to witness such special, soul-stirring moment, you stood in front of your husband and placed your hands loosely on his shoulders, whereas his rested firmly on each side of your waist.
It was okay. Breathe. You could do it.
And then... the song started playing.
Not the waltz you had so beautifully and dedicatedly prepared, but no other than one of Namjoon's solo tracks. And no, not "Trivia: Love", which would've still been great given its message. No.
Expensive Girl.
Your hands let go of his shoulders just to bring them up to cover your mouth and muffle a laugh that had not waited a second to escape it – your head turning around along with Namjoon's towards where the music equipment was, only to find the maknae and the oldest of his hyungs behind it. And, in all honesty, you didn't know if it had been on purpose or not, for Jeongguk's lost puppy eyes didn't match Seokjin's mischievous smirk at all.
Ignoring that and the few gasps mixed with laughs coming from your guests, you focused your eyes back on your still stunned husband, wrapping your arms around his neck to make him focus his entire attention back on you.
"Such a heartwarming song, did you write it for me?" you teasingly fluttered your eyelashes, earning a roll of eyes and a cynical smile from him, later grabbing you by the waist again.
"Well, I do hope you take it off tonight, so…"
"It?" you raised your eyebrows in feigned dumbfoundedness.
His previous smile turned into a smirk. "Everything".
Just like that, right as he had gently tugged at your dress and your cheeks were burning, the song changed to the one you had originally prepared.
Either way, by that point, waltz or Expensive Girl, you were glad to just let go and stop worrying about everything being perfect, enjoying yourself instead in company of the man you had just signed up to be with for the rest of your life.
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thisbrokenmask · 5 years ago
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Too Sweet
Title: Too Sweet
Pairing: Hoseok x reader
Genre: I really don’t know for this one... very very light smut/fantasy? (If you think of something else pls let me know)
Warnings: very very light smut(?), mentions of blood, talk of addiction/obsession, brief mentions of alcohol
Word Count: 2.1k
Song inspiration: Boy Meets Evil
A/N: My second offering for @ficswithluv​ Bulletproof Bingo. My first offering seemed to get a pretty good response so far, so I thought I’d try for a second. It took me a lot of editing to finally feel like I’d gotten across the right feel and idea for BME that I wanted, so I hope you enjoy it! 
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The lingering tension that had taken up residence in Hoseok’s shoulders throughout the day began to melt away as soon as he felt the bassline vibrate up through his body, the volume of the club’s music blissfully deafening as it washed over him. Scanning the all-too familiar scene as his eyes adjusted, Hoseok could already feel the rest of his body starting to relax just at the sight of the mass of undulating bodies already filling the dancefloor, the relief quickly replaced by the itch to be among them. Rather than letting himself be pulled in, however, he made his way to the bar, setting himself down on a stool close to the dancefloor so that he could scan the faces of the night’s patrons. 
To anyone else, he probably looked like a dashing bachelor scoping out a partner to spend the night with him on the dancefloor and beyond. His dark hair was parted enough to the side for a perfect curve of hair to fall across his brow. The slivers of silver hanging from his ears flashed under the strobe lights and brought attention to the shadow caused by the sharp line of his jaw, under which sat an equally sharp white shirt collar. The top three buttons were undone, the material parted enough to draw attention to the column of his neck while teasing the start of the rest of his hidden torso, and his black blazer further encouraged wandering gazes by drawing the eye directly down his middle. The skin tight black trousers adorning his legs did nothing to hide their muscular stature that lay beneath, his thighs tense as he leant back against the bar, the glass of whiskey he’d ordered in his hand. 
He didn’t care much about the drink, just needed something to give him an excuse to sit here until he found what he was looking for. Numerous pairs of eyes sought to catch his attention, trying to lock gazes with him through the ocean of bodies on the dancefloor, but they were all ignored and soon drifted into the background of his search.
With each minute that passed without finding you, Hoseok could feel his heart rate beating that little bit harder inside his chest. You had to be here somewhere; you always were. He needed you to be here.
He was well aware that his behaviour was bordering on destructive, already having started to see that how he spent his evenings was affecting his daily life. His colleagues hadn’t missed how he fidgeted more and more each day, constantly drumming his fingers across the table or bouncing his knee under his desk. Even his manager had pulled him aside one day to check on him, concerned that his usual high level of work performance was losing its consistency, his numbers dropping noticeably every week. His friends were growing more wary of how he spent every evening here in Dionysus, to the point where even the bartenders recognised him now and knew him at least by face if not by name. He’d been on the receiving end of many a lecture berating what seemed to be his growing dependence on alcohol and partying, but he simply shrugged them off, knowing that it would be so much worse if they knew the truth. And yet, he still couldn’t find it in himself to care enough to stop.
Maybe he was obsessed, maybe he was addicted, or maybe you’d cast some sort of spell on him that kept him coming back. He didn’t know which reason was to blame but he did know that it didn’t matter, as long as he got to see you.
When he finally caught a glimpse of you, it was at the same time as when he took a sip and noticed that his drink had warmed in his hand. It had taken longer than normal to find you, his body feeling like it was burning from the inside out with desperation. 
You were across the room, your arms wrapped around another man’s shoulders as his hands pressed against the small of your back. Your hair was swaying across your shoulders with ease despite the humidity of the room, as if your skin was resistant to the sweat of the bodies around you, and your head was tipped back up towards the ceiling, your eyes closed. The expression on your face was one of both blissful peace and complete rapture, the bass that pounded around you like your call to prayer in what Hoseok now knew to be your church of sin.
This was your hunting ground and, with one final pour of alcohol down his throat, he abandoned his glass and rose from his seat to start his descent into your waiting clutches. He kept his pace steady as he gently wove his way through the crowd despite the way he wanted to run to you, teasing himself, dragging it out like he used to do to the women who threw themselves at him before he found you. He’d been like anyone else then, another soul that entered Dionysus with the intent of losing themselves for a night in the heat of a stranger and a dark club. He had greedily sought after his own pleasure in the arms of women he knew he would never call again, slipping from partner to partner between songs until he found the one who rolled her hips just right enough for him to take her home. 
He was halfway through the crowd before you noticed him, a delicious jolt shooting up his spine once your dark gaze locked onto his over the shoulder of the man in your arms. His hands remained firmly in his pockets as his shoulders gently parted the bodies in his way, the sea of limbs closing back together in his wake as he kept his eyes on you. He didn’t even feel the few attempts that were made to pull him from his course, inviting hands simply sliding off his body like waves breaking against the hull of a ship as he kept moving forward. 
He watched as you leant up to whisper something in your companion’s ear, your grin widening when you saw the flash of jealousy that Hoseok let slip across his face, before you slipped away from him and seemingly melted into the shadows. Jerking slightly as if waking from a dream, the man shook his head gently before turning to wander further back into the fray in search of a different dance partner. 
Hoseok knew this was you playing with him, enticing him further into your spider’s web by slipping through his fingers just when he’d gotten so close, flaunting the ease with which you could seduce someone else in front of him just to tease. 
“Hello, stranger.”
The playful lilt of your voice suddenly sounding in his ear nearly made his knees buckle underneath him, but still the irony of your words are not lost on him. You were hardly strangers anymore. He looked down to see your hands snake around his waist from behind, feeling your body pressing up against his back and holding back the wanton groan he felt building up in his throat at finally being in your arms again. His hands covered yours as they started to climb up and over his chest before slinking back down to skim along the line of his belt, your cool touch seeping through the thin material of his shirt to bring goosebumps to the surface of his skin.
Grabbing hold of the strip of leather at his hips, you spin him around to face you, his hands immediately finding the curve of your waist as if he is magnetised to you. He almost wants to cry just from feeling the exposed skin under his fingertips, the rush of endorphins he gains from this touch alone making him wonder if this is what the first hit of getting high feels like. He watches his own hands , enraptured as he slowly lets his fingers grip into your flesh. It’s almost as if he’s afraid you might simply disappear if he holds on to you too tightly, and yet he’s besotted with how your body seems to submit to his grip as he gradually builds up the pressure.
Your cold hands on his neck bring his attention back to your face, your dark eyes immediately locking onto his once more as your fingers gradually entangle themselves in the hair at the nape of his neck. Hoseok finds himself unable to look away from you, his brain scrambling to think of a reason why he would ever want to look at anything else ever again as you bring your body closer to his.
Hoseok has never felt a want burn so deeply in his veins as he does when he’s with you, with only a few layers of thin material to separate your bodies from each other. Your coldness in the building heat of the club is like finding an oasis in the desert, a blissful reprieve despite what he knows. He knows this oasis is tainted, deadly if he gets too close, but he always dives straight back in anyway. Every night he comes back to find you, barely able to contain himself until he feels your fingers pull at his hair to tip his head backwards, your lips ghosting over the pulse beating rapidly under the skin of his neck. His whines are hidden under the bass that continues to pound around the two of you as you let go, his face falling back forwards to look at you again. The salacious grin on your lips only incites him further, knowing this is you teasing him, like a lover edging him each time he feels his climax approaching only to rip away the promise of pleasure at the last second. 
You gently guide the two of you into the shadows at the edge of the floor as your fingers begin to lightly tug again, and Hoseok senses that you’re not in the mood to tease him for long tonight . It’s only once you’re both completely concealed that you pull his hair again in earnest, and while he is not a begging man, Hoseok can feel pleas beginning to push against the inside of his lips, desperate to be spilled out of his mouth and into your ears.
You once again tip his head back, your lips once again finding his pulse before they part, making way for your tongue to slip out and gently lap his skin as he shivers with anticipation. You never would have dreamt that someone like Hoseok would wander into your life, someone who is not only willing to keep coming back night after night but also seems to enjoy it. You smirk against his skin at the fortune that seems to have been bestowed upon you, knowing how precious a commodity he is. 
You can feel how the skin of his neck seems to be getting stronger with each visit as you finally allow your fangs to appear, scraping them against the sweet spot that you have come to love so much, and yet his skin breaks just as easily as it does every other night when you bite down during a heavy drop of the bass to hide the inevitable yelp that barely makes it past Hoseok’s lips. 
You never take more than you need to get you through another day, knowing that taking too much would make him too weak to return for longer than you can bear, yet you still make sure to take your time in order to savour every drop that you pull from his veins. It’s sinful, really, the way he gently writhes underneath your hands as you slowly drink from him. You know he enjoys it, the high that he gets from the sharp sting of your bite and the incomparable sensation of his own blood being pulled from his body, so you drag it out for his pleasure as much as your own, enjoying how he tastes just that bit sweeter when you do.
Hoseok feels his body sag slightly as you detach yourself from his neck, his eyes slowly opening again once the pleasure subsides. He himself doesn’t even know how or why he enjoys it so much, but he does. He supposes it’s the adrenaline rush, the close proximity to death invigorating, a feeling that he’s never felt before in his life and doubts he would ever be able to find again. 
With one last lingering swipe of your tongue against his neck to help ease the lingering sting, he feels your body disappear from his grasp. Opening his eyes, he just catches a glimpse of you before you disappear back into the crowd. You turn back to him, the way you run your tongue along your lips with heavy-lidded eyes finally pulling a groan from his throat, and then you’re gone.  
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yoshimickster · 6 years ago
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RWBY Volume 6 Episode 9 “Lost” Micksterecap-GET READY FOR THE FEELSBOMB!
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HEY EVERYBLOODY-sorry this one’s a week late, but honestly I think I’m gonna do that from now on as recaps are for catching up on something, and that’s hard to do the day-OF. Either way-LET’S GET TO CRYING!
THE EP STARTS-
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-with Mercury practicing his martial arts, while Emerald sits on the floor. I have two minds about this, is Emerald sitting in a gym while Mercury exercises, or is Mercury excercising in a living room? Either way its silly.
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Kay yeah, that boy’s practicing karate in a church, WEIRDO!
Onto the plot, Emerald asks Mercury why he joined up with Cinder and her and his response is basically:
Mercury: I ‘unno, I likes killin’!
Yeah I think its safe to say between the two of them, Emerald was the smarter henchperson.
Emerald than vents to Mercury about how much it sucks that Cinder, the only family she ever knew was gone, and how without her what their doing didn’t make any sense, to which Mercury comforts her in the BEST way he can:
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3:39
Mercury: Wake up all ready, Cinder doesn’t care about you!
Like I said, the best way HE can, so its PRETTY bad.
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3:54
AND ITS EMERALD WHO THROWS THE FIRST PUNCH-which bullet shoes blocks like a boss! Thus begins a good old fashioned-ANGST FIGHT!
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Mercury: I’m sorry you didn’t have a mommy who loved you, but i had a father who HATED me!
Somebody’s projeeeeeeeeeeeecting!
Also during the angst-fight, its revealed Mercury’s dad stole his semblance RIGHT after he unlocked it, and NEVER got it back...apparently! Kinda thought that bullet tornado thing he did in season 3 was his semblance but NOPE-all technique!
Right during the fight based on a mix of loose combat and Mercury saying how much he loves working for the Legion of Doom, whose there CREEPIN’ in the shadows and laughing like and Eldritch goblin?
4:46
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Tyrian: Oh yes, the world is mean, and I’m a big bad man now JUST like the others!
Emerald: Damn, he cut you quick.
Tyrian: I got one for you to!
Emerald: Dammit.
ALSO-is that a new mecha-scorpion barb? Look at YOU Tyrian, getting so used to multiple prosthetics, GOOD ON YOU!
Mercury tries to kick his ass for roasting him-
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5:06 AND-that goes about as well as you’d think. A little harder to kill than a harmless book dealer AIN’T IT MERC?!
Tyrian than gives them some...disturbingly legit advice.
Tyrian: What you WANT from this? Children, if you’re not LOVING what you’re doing, you’re in the wrong field!
Damn, that’s a disturbingly poignant point about happiness in the workplace from someone whose essentially a weird mix of the Joker and Mac Gargan.
Scene than ends with Mercury revealing he and Doctor Watts are going on a work vacation to Atlas, which you KNOW they’ll barely be able to sightsee while their there, work vacations can be the WORST!
A THEN CUT TO-
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6:26 ROOSTERTEETH-showing off how hard their background designers have been working this season! Now THAT is a nice park.
We see Team JNRS walking around, searching for the farmboy that Jaune terrorized last episode, as ya do!
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Jaune: This is all my fault, I over-reacted.
Saffron: I’ll say, you scared a 14 year old and punched a hole in my wall!
Jaune: I SAID I’ll get the spackle!
Saffron full of worry for her brother and his friends, tries to convince them to go to school in Argus instead of going on an insane mission that they can’t tell her about for fear of the mass public knowing there’s an ancient immortal witch bent on hitting a hard reboot on humanity.
Logically she can’t convince them, so Saffron decides to go pick up Adrien from daycare, Renora decide to get coffee, while Jaune decides to have himself a pity-sit-UNTIL-
8:08
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Jaune: HOLY SHIT-a leaf! That’ll look GREAT in my scrapbook!
Jaune than follows the leaf of destiny...and finds-
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...Pyrrha’s memorial statue...yeah, really can’t make a joke about that, its utterly sad. And JUST-when you thought this wasn’t enough of a feelsbomb what with the music-
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9:30 BAM-Pyrrha’s obvious mom/aunt/adult sister! And its just...such a beautiful scene, she mentions how she never wished she left Argus, but that she always knew what she wanted and-I’M NOT CRYING YOU’RE CRYING!
And the moment Renora come back with coffee-
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-she disappears. It actually makes you wander, did Jaune actually have that conversation, or was it all in his head, him trying to deal with the grief? The ambiguity makes the scene work VERY well.
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Jaune than tries to give himself yet another pity party but THANKFULLY Ren and Nora tell him he has to stop that. They say they love him to, and that they don’t blame him for Pyrrha’s death and URGH-so sweet! TOTAL feelsbomb yo!
They then decide to go back to the house-RIGHT BEFORE SEEING-
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-THE FORESHADOWING PLANE OF DESTINY! Man Jaune, you’re on FIRE with seeing things that lead to other things in the episode today!
A THEN CUT TO-
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-a PISSED OF Ruby! Give ya TWO guesses as to why!
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If you said “Adult chaperone who can’t get his shit together”-YOU’RE CORRECT! Is there a portable version of AA, because Qrow would logically need it with his travelling life.
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Terra: I’m sure this looks GREAT to the neighbors.
Sweet AntlerJesus do I feel bad for these women, they invite these people into their home, and they fill their lives with crazy spy plans, drunkles and punched walls, they all ready have a CHILD to care for, stop dumping your baggage on them!
And RIGHT as they decide to take a break from the search-AN OPEN DOOR REVEALS:
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OSCAR PINES-in very snazzy Huntsman clothes that he TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTALLY didn’t steal!
Everybody than logically jumps on him in happiness, asking where he was and how worried they were while NORA asks-
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Nora: What are you WEARING?!
PFFT-look at Ren’s face, he SO jelly!
Everyone just has a BIG apology party, Jaune apologizes for over-reacting, Oscar says its cool considering the gi-GANTIC stressbomb that is their lives, and even says he has dinner in the oven. Just a nice and warm scene that I’m sure NO-ONE will rui-
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Qrow: I’ma go sleep in drunken despair.
Ruby: YOU GET OFF THOSE STAIRS THIS INSTANT YOUNG MAN...dear god I’m more mature than my adult uncle.
Yang: DARK times.
Qrow than gives the basic Qrow speech about how screwed they are while JAUNE gives off his plan-
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Jaune: -we...STEAL an Atlas air ship?
Weiss: DAMMIT-I had a broken one of those LAST season, I should’ve saved it!
Yang: HOW-all I had was a bike?
Weiss: SILENCE FOR I AM WEISS SCHNEE!
Qrow than gives the same self-defeating speech we’ve heard the whole season where as RUBY ain’t havin’ NONE of that!
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Ruby: FUCK YOU OLD MAN-we are the young people and we’re gonna fuck shit up!
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Maria: BURN!
And that’s basically where the episode ends, a MAJOR feels bomb and a good set-up to one HELL of a heist next week. Hope you all enjoyed it, and I’ll see you NEXT WEEK on Micksterecap!
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willieowinsbury · 6 years ago
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i’ve decided to rank hozier songs because i can and i feel like it
22. sedated: this song is solid, but sort of plain. makes you nod your head along but no dancing or mouthing along. it sort of feels like an amalgam of every hozier song. doesn’t slap. its the c- of hozier songs
21. someone new: cute, but sort of like a middle song in a wedding. nobody really talks about it for a reason. makes you smile, but not very catchy
20. run: its haunting, but not a cool kind of haunting, more just gives you the creeps. the chorus is pretty good though, and the lyrics seem like something you’d hear in poetry, so it’s better than the other two
19. moment’s silence (common tongue): this is the first song on this list that is legitimately catchy. its a song you turn up on the radio, but not by much. its fun, its bluesy, got some catholic imagery. its good, but its not “wow!” good. c maybe c+
18. better love: this was written in a month, and it feels rushed. a bit too fast, and if hozier had more time, im convinced he would have slowed it down. its the first powerful, devotional, love song on the list. i’ve heard people don’t like the drums, but im convinced its the extra singers and violin in the background. im always a violin advocate, but you’ve gotta pick like two instruments andrew. its crowded, but its got that power so its higher than say, sedated
17. from eden: i know everybody loves this, and i agree its pretty good, but i think the song could’ve used some more haunting parts? way extra points for the bridge after the third verse, thats super cool. i’d give it a b
16. nfwmb: i legitimately really like this song. it hits all the points, haunting, devotional love, necromancy, comparing your partner to nature, low bass. its a great low and sort of dirty song that could have used some higher string instruments. theres nothing wrong with this song in particular, i just like the others better. again, a b
15. movement: idk how y’all feel about this one, its his newest, but its one of his building songs. the atmosphere is different, and the lyrics are sub-par for hozier, but something about it just goes so hard. b+
14. take me to church: this was his first hit, and we’re all tired of it by now, but giving it a listen again, if not for the overplayedness, it would be more like a 6 or 5, not 14. a solid jam. gets bumped over movement for pagan imagery
13. jackie and wilson: someone new if it slapped. super relatable and arguably more lesbian than from eden, which i will argue. i mean, seeing a woman across the bar and immediately imagining your future kids and house? and getting so caught up in it you don’t notice when she leaves? big dyke mood, also super fun and catchy. feels like spring cottage cleaning watching cartoons on a saturday morning. b+
12. arsonists lullaby: this song starts of as innocuous and gets darker. really feel the fire and brimstone and rage and power of idk. mental illness? pyromancy? anyway it makes you want to dance naked around the bonfire, like in that scene at the end of the witch. one of the few powerful dark hozier songs with a snare drum beat, our first a-
11. shrike: its bittersweet ending of a relationship, and he conveys the pain and love perfectly, and the irish accent is the best. feels like a song at the end of a movie when two people who maybe could have made it break up, and maybe one dies in a war or something. its beautiful and lonely, and vocals are really great on this one
10: angel of small death and codeine scene: this song sorta feels like the folk/blues version of an answering song to dangerous woman by ari. mood is loving a woman who’s bad for you but you just can’t help yourself. the guitar isn’t my favorite instrument, but i really like it here. would be very energetic and rockin at a concert, love
9: nina cried power: i love this one, and its powerful and full and angry and sad, but there’s something fundamentally hozier missing from this one. i love it, but it doesn’t give me that fantasy inducing feeling, which might be an artistic choice. either way, a-
8. in the woods somewhere: the haunting, soulful, fever-esque, version of run. its the mind of someone whos going mad, in the woods. its a top tier hozier song. the clapping that you don’t really notice until you are only paying attention to the song adds to the maddening atmosphere, as well as the low and slow bass. the harmony in the bridge is keening, and this is one of the first songs that really screams hozier for me
7. cherry wine: bringing back the bittersweet love aspect again that he seems to capture so well, hozier uses such beautiful imagery in this song, you feel as if you’re in a cottage, doing ballet barefoot at dawn on dusty wooden floors, doing housework. its desperate in a way no other hozier song has lived up to. its keeping up appearances, stroking a baby bird oh so carefully, grazing your fingers over unused fiddle strings. it’s sad, and bitter, and so full of love. the first a
6. it will come back: the heavy drum and guitar are reminiscent of classic rock, but slows down so quickly at points it leaves you delerious and determined. it’s a stubborn song, it sneaks up on you on how much you love it. its toeing some sort of line. its falling in love with a monster
5. like real people do: it’s loving each other knowing you aren’t going to last, secrets that you don’t want to know, wanting enough time as possible before you have to leave. its beautiful and sad, and the harmony adds so much, and the beat is slightly like a heartbeat, steady, and there, but so quiet you barely notice. makes you smile sadly, a rare occurrence
4. in a week: something about this one is so sad and it reminds you of the place you were born. or maybe thats just me, i was born in iowa. its the same message from like real people do with a twist. you don’t have much time to love someone. it builds and builds and builds and is a tangle of messes and complications, and suddenly is so so simple. its longing, its wishing you had more time, its the last kiss in a battle in slow motion. bared necks and prarie grass, this song is about dying in the place you were made. the simple beat and melody give this song exactly what it needs to thrive. a
3. foreigner’s god: this is precisely the opposite of in a week, about dying in a place you were not born. about not knowing who you are anymore, about pleading with god, any god to spare you, let you go home. the fast beat in the chorus isn’t chaotic, but angry and sad and begging. its grief in every form, guarded and raw, hozier makes you examine your choices with this one. the beat is pounding in a subtle way, and it goes so hard
2. to be alone: this is big top energy. smoky bars and big boots, and slightly western? it’s tantalizing, crawling out of your own skin, and pure want. it’s slow and yet loud in a good way. it’s hard to explain why i like this song, but it feels like a storm in your bones
1. work song: this one is actually my favorite song of all time. its got so much longing, and stubbornness, and hunger, and love. this is the devotion we all love from hozier, the power and the darkened eyes. this is the epitome of hozier, and it feels like your soul and i just can’t articulate with words what this song feels like, it would be five pages long, this is the %100, this is the a+. this song brings everything hozier has ever made you feel to the table, and makes you feel it harder
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onestowatch · 3 years ago
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Get to Know Groove-Pop Duo Balu Brigada [Live Performance + Q&A]
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Inspired by musical heavyweights like Frank Ocean and Gorillaz, Balu Brigada is all about experimentation. Their discography provides the perfect backdrop to any setting—from coastal road trips, summer BBQs, flirty dancefloor moments, and everywhere in between. The band is no stranger to performing, having toured around New Zealand numerous times, including treating an exclusive audience to an electric performance at Live Nation and Vodafone’s recent Ones to Watch showcase. 
In addition to delivering a standout show at our recent showcase, the duo has just released their latest single, “How It Would End,” the first song off their upcoming EP. The single is their debut release as a two-piece, with its bouncy synth hooks and groove-worthy melodies sure to get you up on your feet. 
On the eve of their first release as a two-piece, Henry and Pierre Beasley Zoom in from their parents’ rumpus room—the scene of many family jam sessions, which spawned their self-described “groove-pop” band Balu Brigada—to discuss archival footage, guilty pleasures, and which brother is the better mover. 
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Pierre: We’re actually at our parents house right now, because our houses are both equally too small to do anything in, but actually right behind us is a grand piano that used to be our grandfather’s. He was an orchestral conductor, so it’s a bit of a family heirloom.
If that piano could talk, what do you think it would’ve said to you during your piano lessons back in the day?
P: Try harder [laughs].
Henry: It would probably say, “Slow down!” as well, ‘cause I remember just getting frustrated. You know, you play something 100 times, badly, and you just wanna get it done so you play it faster but then that sounds even worse!
P: It was a classic case of your parents make you do piano lessons and you miserably endure them, and then I think we picked up our own instruments, that we did actually enjoy playing, from there.
When would have been your first-ever public performance? Did you put on shows for Mum and Dad when you were little?
P: Probably some church Christmas event or something, to be honest. We were brought up in the church, so I think my earliest memory of performing was being a little Elvis in a Christmas production, which, yeah, I wouldn’t like to see that footage back...
Could there potentially be footage out there somewhere?
P: Yeah [laughs] Some granny with VHS footage of me with my hair in some big, slicked-back mop or something.
H: Pierre and I have got a bit of an acting background as well, so there’s some horrendous clips that you can pull up of us on shows that I won’t name [laughs]. But you can’t take yourself too seriously; you’ve just got to be able to laugh at it.
Performing is in your blood though, isn’t it?
P: Yeah, Dad was a ballet dancer in his prime and he actually met our mother, who was an actress, in a musical. They spent the majority of their twenties performing and then Mum pursued a TV career until she started having us boys so, yeah! Performance is very much in the construct of our family, which has been really cool because we’ve got that support from our parents who also understand the life of a performer and understand the passion.
H: We just actually saw some archival footage of Dad in his Royal New Zealand Ballet days—it was quite a trip! That’s literally some of the first footage we’ve seen of him as a ballet dancer, which is wild because it was such a big part of his life. Obviously no one had a bloody iPhone back then to just record clips, but it’s a shame. I would love to see more footage of him dancing, because it was such an integral part of fostering our creativity as well.
Did you boys take ballet lessons when you were kids?
PIERRE: I did it for a few years and Dad’s always said, “Ooh, you would make a good dancer!” And still to this day he’s like, “You know, it’s not too late to become a professional dancer...” You didn’t though, hey?
H: Nah, I didn’t. Pierre’s definitely more the mover, which you’ll see in a few videos of ours. I’m kind of skulking in the background doing something minimal and then Pierre’s managing to find a dance move out of thin air, which I can’t quite fathom myself.
You both studied music at Auckland University [Pierre majored in jazz, Henry, pop]. Did you ever take ideas that you were working on for Balu Brigada into uni?
H: It’s kind of like the informal way we started the band. I was playing guitar randomly for other bands and didn’t really have a project of my own, but I was writing all these songs during uni, so I was like, “Okay, why don’t we try a song where I’m leading?” Previously, I’d just written for another project that someone [else] would front, so that’s when I enlisted Pierre and my other brother at the time…
P: Brother at the time [laughs].
H: [Laughs] He’s still my brother—he’s just not in the [Balu Brigada] project at this point—but that’s how we all got together and took our background of jamming in our parents’ rumpus room to playing my original songs, and then making it more collaborative along the way.
Did Balu Brigada originate as a four-piece?
H: Yes, there were a few versions. Sometimes we’d go with a three-piece because Pierre was underage, and couldn’t play the show, or sometimes we’d get someone to replace him for the shows that he couldn’t make. It was a four-piece for probably four years or so and then that transition [to two-piece plus live drummer] was in maybe 2019. That was a lot to do with the fact that the other two band members—they were invested in it, but also had lots of other plates to juggle, and Pierre and I have always been the core and the nucleus of the band, and so it was like, “Okay, this is our whole world, so let’s kinda scale this back. You guys can invest more into your lives outside of the band and we can just really home in on this thing.”
So it’s kind of like you two are Kevin Parker from Tame Impala, with extra band members brought in for touring purposes.
H: We’d love to draw that comparison! [laughs]
P: [Laughs] Absolutely! Yeah, the role that our drummer fills is less an actual band member and more a session musician, I suppose.
How would you describe your music to people who are yet to hear it?
H: I think our favourite description, or at least mine, is groove-pop at this current point in time. Would that be your choice of description?
P: I just go with the easy one: alt-pop. Groove-pop is also cool, but I dunno if you just made that up, or…
H: I definitely made that up.
P: [Laughs]
What was the last Balu Brigada single release and what’s your next scheduled single release?
P: So the last one we released was in October last year, it was called “Moon Man”, and our next single is called “How It Would End”. This is the first time that we are choosing to release a single when we already have [a new, as-yet-untitled EP] ready, so we can actually get some momentum with the project rolling out, as opposed to how we’ve done it in the past where we released a song and then we were like, “Oh cool, that went well, now we need to finish the next one,” which is a silly way to go about it if you want to get that momentum. So this time we’ve got a few things in the bank.
H: This is the first instance where we’ve been able to play songs live before they’ve been released, which has been quite exciting for us.
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Which songs off this upcoming EP have you performed live so far?
P: We’ve been playing “Number 1” and another song called “Favourite Clothes” in our most recent shows, and they’ve been going down well. Because we don’t have too many of those up-tempo, four-on-the-floor, driving songs, “Number 1” is a good one to just slot in there to hype-up the energy a bit.  
The entire EP is killer, but I reckon “Number 1” is my favourite song on there at the moment. It reminds me of N.E.R.D!
H: For sure! N.E.R.D is a massive influence and when I started that one off I was definitely conscious of, “Oh, is this too Neptunes or too Pharrell?” And then I was just like, “Nah.” We love that you’ve drawn that connection, that’s great.
Also, something about the overall vibe and the sparkling melodies throughout “I Should Be Home,” another standout track from the EP, called to mind The Strokes...
P: Yeah, I’ve been listening to a lot of The Strokes—especially their latest album—so that would make sense. I just think all of the melodies that Julian [Casablancas] hits are real nice.
H: I think because Pierre was listening to The Strokes so much that always bleeds into my listening habits, because we spend so much time together. I think that would have definitely been a subconscious influence, because it was definitely in line with what we were taking in at that moment.
Your previous way of working, drip-feeding one song at a time, reminds me of the Gorillaz’s Song Machine project, where songs were recorded and released separately before they were collated and released as a collection.
H: Yeah, for sure. I really liked that roll-out. It was cool, and obviously the featured artists on it are world-class, interesting, eccentric creatives in their own right. Gorillaz’ second [Song Machine release], “Désolé” [featuring Fatoumata Diawara] is my strongest memory of when I was living in Melbourne. I lived there for a few months and that song came out around that time, and I was like, “Woah!” I listened to it this morning, actually; it just rocks my world. Gorillaz are a massive inspiration in terms of how we like to think about music, eclecticism, and genre-mashing.
Given that part of your band name pays homage to the character Baloo (but with different spelling), talk me through your love for The Jungle Book.
H: That movie is a very nostalgic kick for us brothers…
P: Not the movie that was out a couple of years ago, the Disney one…
H: I couldn’t believe it when I found out it was from the ‘60s, hey! When you’re a kid and you’re watching that shit, there’s no differentiation that you can make between The Jungle Book and, say, Aladdin [released in 1995]. You’re just like, “The Jungle Book, man, it’s such a jam!”
Have any Balu Brigada songs been synced to a TV series or film?
H: Only in one very informal instance. I was actually on a show about six years ago called 800 Words and I think we had just released our third release and then I had a shoot day. The actor I was working with, Milena Vidler, was like, “Oh, I’ve gotta be listening to music in this scene, what shall I play?” And I told her, “We just released a song today!” And she said, “Well why don’t I play that!?” So that is literally the only sync we’ve got so far, but it was quite a serendipitous moment. To see myself on screen and then hear our band play as well was quite meta, a little in-joke or Easter egg.
Do you each remember what made you fall in love with music in the first place?
P: Abbey Road on vinyl. It was Mum’s. I would’ve been, like, 11. It blew my mind. It was the first time I got to know an album in full, and didn’t just know a single that was on the radio or whatever, and I just loved the way that album flowed and the musicality of it, and how it’s pop music but they were also experimenting. There’s just something about that album, which probably—when I think about it—is my favourite album of all time and made me want to do music.
H: Mum will definitely want the credit for that one; Dad’s got the Bowie records, Mum’s got The Beatles ones. This one is way less cool, but my answer is probably “I Miss You” by blink-182. Combined with “Ocean Avenue” by Yellowcard—that was my favourite song. I was like, “Yep, I’m a rock guy now. I’m a band guy. Take me as I am.”
P: [Laughs]
H: I couldn’t say that it’s my favourite song now, but I remember that distinction pretty clearly, being like, “Yeah, this is me now”.
Did you have any Yellowcard posters on your walls?
H: [Rotates webcam] I’ve got some nice Gorillaz ones over there, but no Yellowcard ones.
If you could choose any band to go out on tour with, who would it be?
P: I’d probably say Tame Impala, just ‘cause I’m a diehard KP [Kevin Parker] fan. But I don’t know if we’d be the right fit, though…
I can totally see you guys opening for Tame Impala – Balu Brigada would be the perfect fit!
H: I mean, my pinnacle artist is Frank Ocean and I love the idea of getting to tour with him, but, no [laughs]. I don’t think. So that makes Kevin Parker feel a little bit more attainable. I don’t think it would be too far-fetched, hey? I reckon we should link it up.
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kemuele · 5 years ago
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Never-Ending Survey: Kemuel || Elouan
Rules: Repost, do not reblog
Tagged by: @lightdevoid because you love me
Tagging: @ whoever wants to/finds it interesting!
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BASICS.
FULL NAME: Kemuel || Elouan Sauveterre
NICKNAME: Kem, K, Pigeon || Elou, El, 
AGE:  unknown, appears to be in 30s || 34 
BIRTHDAY: none, but like 12/9 || 9th Sun of the 6th Umbral Moon
ETHNIC GROUP: Archangel? That count? || Elezen Wildwood
NATIONALITY: n/a || Gridanian
LANGUAGE/S: all ancient/current languages to some extent, fluent in English/Enochian || Common 
SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Pansexual
ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Panromantic 
RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single
HOME TOWN / AREA: Heaven || Gridania, towards the outskirts that lead to Hawthorne Hut (East Shroud) 
CURRENT HOME: Earth, primarily Pacific Northwest in America | Travels a lot, but can be seen more frequently in Ishgard.
PROFESSION: Archangel due to created duties, whereas entry-level gigs to pay for his ‘human home’ || Sell sword Paladin, sometimes returns to being an errand boy or courier back in Gridania or other nations.
PHYSICAL.
HAIR: Umber, short on the sides with medium-length on top. 
EYES: Dark brown, flecks of gold seen when light hits them perfectly.
FACE: Large brows and lips, defined jaw and cheekbones with signs of stubble along his jaw and upper lip. || Same for all except stubble is minimal to none, and a long scar can be seen on his right cheek, extending from his jaw all the way to his orbital socket. 
LIPS: Full, with a pinkish-beige complexion. || Somewhat full, often found in a light smile.
COMPLEXION: Tan || Likewise tan, more on the warm scale of flesh with freckles spattered along his upper cheeks and the bridge of his nose.
BLEMISHES: None.
SCARS:  Scars litter his body in varying severity, with most concentrated on back and forearms. One long, jagged scar can be seen towards the ‘root’ of his left wing, just as it connects to his body. || Scars likewise litter Elou’s body in the same fashion, yet that long scar on his back is instead smaller, running from left shoulder down to mid-back.
TATTOOS: None
HEIGHT: 6′10″ 
WEIGHT: 230lbs 
BUILD: Broad shoulders, toned and pronounced muscles, with an overall build resembling that of the average rugby player.
FEATURES: Has three pairs of wings designated visible, yet only two does he show on earth. These wings all have blue eyes on them that see at different levels of light waves, referencing his true form. || 
ALLERGIES: None.
USUAL HAIR STYLE: Kept out of his face, combed towards the back of his head and given a little volume with the disheveling towards roots. Sometimes he’ll use clips as it dries to get that look.
USUAL FACE LOOK:  Pensive, with brown eyes looking around and lips pursed, sometimes his brow is furrowed due to concentration.
USUAL CLOTHING: Somewhat formal attire, primarily slacks and button-up shirts. He may wear a blazer or the like when he feels like it. || Armor, and heavy at that. When he’s taking a break from the sword, he can be seen wearing a tunic and trousers, as well as dark boots that cut off at the ankle.
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PSYCHOLOGY.
FEAR/S: Falling from heaven, deep waters, death, being forgotten || being forgotten, failure, betrayal, and deep waters.
ASPIRATION/S: To be better, make heaven and Father proud || Become a renown paladin and help others reach that level of dedication in their field, primarily tank or damage-oriented roles.
POSITIVE TRAITS: Loyal, kind, patient, intuitive, intelligent, caring, stubborn, hardworking/driven
NEGATIVE TRAITS: Stubborn, hard-working, self-sacrificing, lacking in direction (Kemuel), aggressive
TEMPERAMENT: Phlegmatic
ANIMALS: Dogs, Bears || Golden Chocobo
VICE HABIT/S: Anger, overworking to the point of detrimental consequences.
FAITH: Is a believer, given his own existence. || Not extremely religious, but aware and acknowledging of the Twelve.
GHOSTS?: Yes. 
AFTERLIFE?: Not for him.
REINCARNATION?: No.
POLITICAL ALIGNMENT: None
EDUCATION LEVEL: N/A? || Nothing advanced as a whole, except in the ways of the gladiator and paladin. He has basic knowledge in mending his clothes and developing armory/blacksmith skills.
FAMILY.
FATHER : N/A except by name, God || Anatole Sauveterre
MOTHER : N/A || Margeaux Sauveterre
SIBLINGS :  Too many to count || None
EXTENDED FAMILY: None
NAME MEANING/S: Helper of God || Light, Safe land
HISTORICAL CONNECTION?: He’s the archangel that, in old times, had guarded the gates of heaven, as well as act as a leading archon. He is also the archangel that has an army of twenty thousand angels dedicated solely for destruction, an apt tool in the early wars and the final ‘hurrah’ during the days of end. || Not quite, just suitable due to how beautiful sunlight can interact with the Black Shroud and its forests. 
FAVORITES.
BOOK: Can’t say for certain, but he has a feeling it’d be something like The Song of Achilles || hasn’t read too much, but Count Fortempt’s logs are interesting. Likewise with the Wondrous Trails in Idyllshire.
DEITY: He has no favorite, given his limited interaction with them. || His guardian deity, Azeyma the Warden
HOLIDAY: None in particular || Moonfire Faire 
MONTH: August || Eorzean equivalent
SEASON: Summer
PLACE: Eden || New Gridania
WEATHER:  Sunny with a cool breeze
SOUND / S: rain, leaves dancing in the wind, old hymns, thunder, laughter, metal hitting metal, shouts from war
SCENT / S: after an evening rain shower, sweat from sparring, metal and leather from armor, freshly brewed tea, and roses.
TASTE / S: warm, somewhat sweet like daifuku mochi or yams
FEEL / S: warmth, another person’s body against his own or in his arms, feathers, cotton fabric.
ANIMAL / S: Dogs and Grizzly Bears, as well as Golden Eagles || Chocobo
NUMBER: 20
COLORS: Gold, Copper, Umber, Cerulean
EXTRA.
TALENTS: Singing, swordsmanship, and leading.
BAD AT: Cooking, small talk in general, identifying romantic interest.
TURN ONS: Smiles, deep conversations, sparring, and loyalty.
TURN OFFS: Indecisive, overtly worried/anxious, untrusting, and lacking of faith.
HOBBIES: Reading, star gazing, visiting the sick (Kem more so than Elou).
TROPES: Lawful Good, Gentle Giant, Light is Good, Now Let Me Carry You
QUOTES:  “Loyal to the end, even when I may no longer stand or carry the sword of my creator.”
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MUN QUESTIONS.
Q1 : If you could write your character your way in their own movie, what would it be called, what style would it be filmed in, and what would it be about?      
A1 :  Name is tba, I suppose. Something like an action film, with intense fight scenes or fixation on the preparation of war? With lulls that offer character introspection and some more tender moments between characters, telling his story and duties as an Archangel in heaven, and then ending through his first steps on earth.
Q2 :  What would their soundtrack/score sound like?          
A2 : Gustav Holst- the Planets- Mars, Bringer of Wars, perhaps. 
Q3 :  Why did you start writing this character?        
A3 : I wanted to try my take at an angel, but not just some pretty boy with wings. I had the intent to make his ‘true form’ the regular appearance, yet the time it’d take to draw countless of icons and format it with my schedule/energy doesn’t work. I wanted to make an angel that believed to be good and just, even when his actions don’t necessarily reflect that. Kem’s a character that has yet to be his own person and live life for himself, but much rather, revolves 90% of his actions around God. 
Q4 : What first attracted you to this character?        
A4 : The idea that angels aren’t just these pretty faces that do good and are good no matter what. There’s a level of complexity to their nature, good derived from what God had deemed such rather than formed from their own mind. I wanted to explore the consequences of this isolated life of an angel, where any actions of independence happen to be discouraged and punished, likewise when orders are deemed immoral by an angel, too.
Q5 : Describe the biggest thing you dislike about your muse.
A5 :  He seems static. Fixed in his ways and never quite going to improve. It’s the biggest thing that I find hard for me to circumvent or get him into a new 
Q6 :  What do you have in common with your muse?          
A6 :  Reading, thinking, and general kindness as a whole? We’re both interested in learning yet Kem’s is limited to what texts and like are in front of him, compared to actively seeking that new information without ties to God/heaven. I tend to think before I speak, often times taking hours or days to truly reflect on my actions or general conversations before I can offer anything I deem ‘complete’.
Q7 :  How does your muse feel about you?        
A7 :  I believe Kemuel, given his character and such, may view me with some respect for my drive to work hard and do my best, but hold some concern over my mental health/background. 
Q8 : What characters does your muse have interesting interactions with?
A8 : Interesting? Well, there’s a lot. I want to start out with Fracturedsword’s Michael, as he and Kem are able to properly explore a healthy sibling dynamic and help each other up in their times of need. Making a thread revolve around their physical presence in one another’s lives, as well as the idea that men don’t have to be ‘macho’ or reserved in their emotions is truly nice to see! Likewise, lightdevoid’s Kurasa gives Kem’s FF14 verse a run for their patience. I like that we have this conflict in their current dynamic, making things like friendship harder to obtain but more rewardable in that regard. Likewise with wildborne’s tiger Queen, Skylar. She opens up a world of humanity and individualism that he had otherwise been starved of. The two share their respective worlds with one another, and then intertwine themselves in a world of their own making. One derived from a friendship and curiosity. 
Q9 :  What gives you inspiration to write your muse?    
A9 :  Hozier (see Sunlight and Church), Bastille (Icarus, Kindness, The Anchor), One Republic’s Native Album, American Authors’ Deep Waters, and summer sunsets.
Q10 : How long did this take you to complete?  
A10 : Too long, I got distracted and then stumped on some questions. Say, two days?
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heilewelt · 6 years ago
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„Let’s take a little drive around downtown Nashville and get to know each other” – An Interview with Arkansas Dave
This interview is one of my most memorable interviews I ever made. It took some mildly confused phone calls and a few minutes of running around in front of the Ryman in Nashville looking for a white car until I found “Arkansas” Dave Pennington and entered the passenger seat next to him. With a lack of parking spots, he drove us around downtown Nashville whilst answering my questions. I don’t remember what we drove by, keep losing my orientation in this town where I have only just arrived but I remember our conversation. I got to know him better, his music and roots. Now it’s your turn to meet learn more about Arkansas Dave. Enjoy! 
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Dörte: I know you grew up in a very little town in Arkansas and moved to Austin, Texas. How did change your songwriting when you moved to a bigger town with more music, less religion.
Arkansas Dave: That’s a good question. I think it impacted the songwriting tremendously just because I was around other musicians that were able to make me better. Being around other songwriters and more talented musicians than myself really pushes me to want to be a better songwriter and musicians and really help to shape what I’m doing right now. I think it impacted me a lot.
Do you have an idea what was the biggest impact?
I think just the overall experience of moving down there was impactful because it was just such a drastic change of pace to go from very small town to a proper large city that had people that were like myself. I guess the most impactful thing was just moving from one city to another. I write a lot about my personal life and my experience and all the experience I had from bands breaking up to friends dying and getting married and having children. So just life itself that happened since I moved to Austin very much impacted my songwriting.
How does “Chocolate Jesus” fit into this?
I think it was an appropriate choice - given the background where I grew up being very Christian right wing conservative. The idea of that song is about a little boy that wants to go to the candy store after church. The only reason he went to church was because of the candy after. When I went to church it was because I could play drums, got to play music. It really resonated with me whenever we chose to cover “Chocolate Jesus”. It’s just that metaphor of what it meant to be in church and the real reason why you’re going is not necessarily to worship god but to just to get what makes you feel closer to god. I told my grandmother that I go to church to play the drums because when I play the drums it makes me feel closer to god. Tom Waits wrote this song. I don’t think most people would pick a Tom Waits song, that song in particular but it worked and everyone likes the version. I hope Tom Waits likes it. I don’t if he heard it or not.
I really like it, it’s a good cover.
We actually did that in one take. I overdubbed the vocals. That was a lot of fun to record.
Someone told me once “First take is Jesus” citing James Brown, I think, because there is a special magic in the first take and then it gets lesser and lesser the more often you play the same track.
For the most part, yes. When I went down to Muscle Shoals to record the album, I never met those guys before. I walked in there not knowing what to expect. By the time we finished the album I felt like we were old friends and they were my band. They did a really good job of being able to capture that energy and vibe for having that live musicianship. The first takes are always very golden but sometimes they’re not. They didn’t know the songs completely. After the second or third take they were in it and they were hitting it so perfectly. I don’t think on the whole record there were more than 5 or 6 takes on any of the songs.
When I talked to musicians I found out that the albums I liked most were the ones where they took the early takes. I believe that when you play the songs to often, you start to think about it too much and that’s something you can hear. But I also know that it’s something special when you play with session musicians you meet for the first time.
It is. There is a sense of adventure in a way because the sessions musicians don’t know what to expect, the guys down at Muscle Shoals read charts. They were reading music charts rather than listening to the song and playing them by ear. They never even heard the songs. The only person in the entire group of musicians that heard the songs before the session was the guitar player and that was just so he could write out the charts for the rest of the musicians. I think you’re right, there is some magic to the first couple of takes in the studio because everybody is excited to play something new, so they got this adventures feeling of what is going to happen. It’s a lot of fun. I enjoy the recording process.
I learned the other day that session musician can adapt to your style very easily.
Yes, good musicians have that ability to read the room. If you never met me before you can pick up on my vibe – I’m old school, classic rock, not straight up Nashville Country. The guys really picked up on the fact that I’m a little different than a lot of the artists they work with. They adjusted to it really fast. It was a lot of fun making this album. I hope I get to work with those guys again. Nothing that I’ve ever done could compare to it, professionally. I’m very proud of it.
And you should be. There must be something going really, really wrong when you’re not proud of your work, especially when you’ve just released it.
Absolutely. You only get one shot at your first impression. I didn’t want to be putting out something that I regret later. I took my time and it took a while to make this album. I started demoing the songs in 2015 and didn’t get to go into the studio until 2016. At that time it took the better part of the year to get it all finished up, mixed and mastered and all that.
Did you play with other bands in between?
I just focused on the solo career at the time being. I’d love to play some shows with other bands. I also own a record label, I own a publishing company - my wife and I together that is. We just bought a recording studio. I’m kind of building my musical empire. The idea is to be a self-sufficient musician and own an artist friendly music company. I just want to write, play and record good music and out it out to the world so they can hear it. What’s  cool about it is that you meet cool people like yourself who come from all across the world to see us and it means a lot.
Nowadays it seems to be one of the best ways to do most things on your own, especially when you’re starting out.
It got a lot easier for sure but at the same time because of the accessibility and the ease makes it hard to break through like there is so much white noise. There are so many people who are trying to do the same thing that you’re doing.
What is the music scene in Austin like?
Well, it changed a lot. I love Austin. I’ve been living there for 12 years now. I always tell people I found my life, my wife, got married, got kids and started my life there. It changed a lot in the last 12 years but at the heart of the city it’s still a good city to be in. They still support live music. It’s just that there are so many new buildings and new construction going up and so much new money coming in from all over the world to the place that it changed the geography and the vibe a little bit. Geographically where everything is located is spread out now. It’s not as easy as going downtown and catching all the band in one area of the city. It’s all over the city now. You got your major festivals like SXSW and ACL and those are great festival but with those festivals growing as large as they have, it’s almost taking on its own culture for the times the festivals are on. When you come to Austin during the festivals it’s really not a fair assessment of the city because the city is really not like that the rest of the year. It’s relatively still a quiet small town because the music community is really small and really close knit. It’s a good music city. There is not a music industry per se. It’s a live music city. It’s a good city to see live bands. If you’re a musician it’s a good city to form a band. But when you’ve formed a band you’re going to hit the road. It’s extremely hard to make a living in Austin as a musician, like as a complete musician. 10 years ago the cost of living was much lower so you could play every day, like 4/5 times a week and survive. Nowadays most musicians in Austin have a side job. It’s tough but it just like any other competitive market. L.A. is no different, Nashville is no different. The musical cities will always have that competition and it’s going to be harder to find a job when the next guy is better than you are. You got to continue to stay ahead and for me: I was just fortunate enough to find the right people to get involved with and make friends. I love Austin. I don’t think I’ll move away from Austin. It’s been good to me.
Earlier I almost thought we won’t find each other. I wasn’t sure how you look like and didn’t think about sending you a photo of me. I’m always a bit unsure when I just see a photo of a person.
Yes, sometimes photos aren’t exactly honest. My wife takes all of my photos. She does a pretty good job of not photoshopping me too much. Actually she doesn’t photoshop me at all. She’ll edit the photos like all photographers do. I try to be as authentic and as honest as anyone can be. I rather have somebody accept me for who I am as me than something that I’m not. It’s just not my idea of being a real artist. I might not be the best, I might not be the worst but what I am good at is being myself. That’s what I take pride in.
I think if you try to be someone else, it doesn’t work out in the long term.
There are a lot of artists I talk to that just don’t have a clear idea of themselves as an artist. They don’t understand what makes them click and what they really want, so they chase sounds and they chase looks and they try to do something that somebody else did that was successful. Something they liked and admired, so they’re trying to go that way. Honestly, I never considered any of that shit. I wrote my songs and I know how I want to hear them produced and recorded. That might sound really selfish but I wrote it all, it was made for me to just get it out. If people like it, it was a bonus. Luckily it has taken me all the way across Europe and back. It’s a slow build and I hope more people catch onto it and enjoy it.
I know a lot of artists that need some time to find their voice.
I was one of those artists. I never considered myself as a singer. I would sing and emulate other singers and how I would want to hear the song but I never went after it to the point where I accepted my voice for what it is. I have got certain characteristics in my voice like the raspiness and overall timbre of my voice. I was trying to sing too much like someone else and when I finally found my voice with my buddy, the producer of my album, Jamie. I credit him for helping me to find my voice because he just took the best quality of what I could do as a singer and just made it shine. He showed me what I was doing right and what I was doing wrong. And he showed me an easier path how I can deliver a vocal line, whether it’s a chorus or just one word and the inflection in the verse. The difference between drawing out a note and cutting it off real fast. He worked with my phrasing a lot. He helped me to understand a little bit more that I don’t need to say that many words or when to hold a note longer. He was coaching me through. I was always looking at producers as being a coach. It took me a little while to find my voice but I feel like I found it and I’m enjoying it. I look forward to the next record. It’s going to be good. I’m currently demoing songs. Not sure how long it’ll take but I’m not going to put it out there until I’m ready.
You should. You had a lifetime for the first one, the second one is always hard.
Yes, that’s exactly what I heard. It takes a lifetime to make the first record and 18 month to make the second one. No pressure right.
Thank you for taking the time!
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Arkansas Dave is on tour in the UK, playing - among a bunch of other cities - the AmericanaFest UK in London. I highly recommend to see him live and listen to his self-titled debut album. It’s damn good. 
26.01.2019, The Stag Inn, Hastings UK 27.01.2019, Sage Gateshead, Gateshead Quays, UK 28.01.2019, The Asylum Bar and Venue, Birmingham, UK 30.01.2019, Night Tales, London, UK 01.02.2019, St George's Hall, Bewdley, UK 02.02.2019, The Pennoyer Centre, Pulham Saint Mary, UK 03.02.2019, The Maze, Nottingham, United Kingdom
Thank you for reading,
Dörte
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riffrelevant · 6 years ago
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Article By: Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker, Senior Writer/Journalist ‡ Edited By: Leanne Ridgeway, Owner/Chief Editor
It was just this past year, 2018, that the Richmond, Virginia based THUNDERCHIEF landed on my musical radar thanks to my pal of many years, and all around great musician, Erik Larson (Backwoods Payback, Alabama Thunderpussy, Hail Hornet).
At the time, he had collaborated on a track with the wizard behind the THUNDERCHIEF curtain, Rik Surly, but we’ll delve into that a bit more later. An online friendship between Rik and I quickly developed, as often does in this modern age of cyber-realm communications and exchanges of information, culminating in our meeting in person at last year’s edition of The Maryland Doom Fest. Speaking of which, there is also more to come on that too shortly, concerning the upcoming 2019 event.
Anyway, Rik is indeed THE man behind the one-man, stand alone sonic crushing that is THUNDERCHIEF, and if you have not experienced that amalgamated bastardization of crusty sludge and industrial doom metal, you will before this article ends, rest assured. Yet, in the time I’ve gotten to know Rik, I have learned of his incredible musical past, including ties to some bands, and people, that utterly intrigues me. Plus, Rik is the living, breathing, type of aural underdog that I love, and love to champion… a true, dyed in the wool DIY’er.
So, without a lot more further elaborate expounding from me, let’s get down to the nitty gritty of why we are here: I was recently able to pick Rik’s brain about THUNDERCHIEF, his past, his present, his future, and much, much more and thus…
Riff Relevant Interviews: THUNDERCHIEF’s Rik Surly
RIK SURLY
RIFF RELEVANT [Pat]: Rik, a lot of folks are aware of your recent moves with Thunderchief of course but for the uninitiated, share with us a little of your musical background (bands, etc.)… what instruments do you play? Aren’t you originally a drummer?
RIK: Yes, I am a drummer that dabbles in strings. For this project, I am playing drums, bass, and guitar, plus creating my own noise/tape tracks.
I’ve been in bands since 1989, starting with a tech/death/thrash/trash band called Lycanthropy. After hilariously embarrassing myself, showing my young age by blowing an “audition” with a long-haired Neil Fallon, I then made a glorious move to Charlotte, where I joined The Furys with Bradzig from The Dixie Damned. I was doing road work too, and then I started The Irritations out of the remains of The Screamin’ Street Trash, who were being scouted by MCA Records. Of course this was when anything that looked or sounded “punk” was being signed. So we blew that real good.
Then I hitchhiked to Dallas with my dog and drums. I wrote articles for a few Texas ‘zines while looking for a band. I was at Jim Heath’s one day, saw 2 greasers smoking weed and beers across the street from Church Of Sub-Genius. We formed a gritty 3 piece rockabilly trio called Mean Mean Man & The Brass Knuckle Band. Tour, tour, tour – then I had the fortunate experience of having El Duce call me to book/play/drive/babysit his solo tour. When he went to jail, I joined The Spo-Its (notorious sexploitation noise outfit, like Crash Worship, but meaner; known to Jerry Springer as “Shock Rock”), then when he got out of jail, I did The Mentors’ 20th Anniversary Tour.
When that imploded, I hit Atlanta. The hot band in ’96-’98 was Dick Delicious & The Tasty Testicles, so I played with them, he (Dick D.) played with The Spo-Its, and we eventually got Kirk from Buzzoven and Robert Williams of Capt. Beefheart to join in.
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Ok….now we go to Richmond, VA circa 2001 where I formed The Deviltones, we did that for about 5 years. This included Demonboy from Texas Terri & The Stiff Ones and Pustulus of GWAR (known as B.)
Being surrounded by Richmond musicians during this time was very inspiring, so many of us were on the edge of breaking thru to the masses.
The Deviltones had a few successes, but we fought constantly, but were still in somewhat of a demand. This is where I had the vision of THUNDERCHIEF – one man, a guitar, with a bunch of amps, drowning out the chaos that surrounded me. When the “big” expensive Deviltones record came out on 3 labels worldwide, we collapsed. We didn’t tour, the band member’s wives were the shittiest they could have been, and my only out was Thunderchief.
Then I diddled a bit live with Thunderchief and an I-pod, which, to me, was the anti-christ. Bobby from The Undead was really my inspiration for a 1-man band – he used to tour as The Undead with a mixtape of his backing tracks, and he would sing, just him and a tape. Very bad, but inspiring. I then spent 7 years as a hired gun/tour manager/tour accountant for several national acts. Then I did it…. I stopped all other ventures in 2013 to focus on Thunderchief, and here we are.
RIFF RELEVANT [Pat]: What was the catalyst that initially got you interested in music – as far as a particular band, album, or concert?
RIK: I have a pic of me when I was 3 years old, jamming to Elton John’s ”Saturday Night’s Alright” with big-ass headphones and my Mickey mouse guitar. Later, that guitar turned into a KISS guitar, and I was hooked. My sister took me to see KISS in ‘78, we saw the “real” Beach Boys, Stones, Rod Stewart. My sisters were at Cal Jam ’74, so I was always interested in what they were doing with music. I played their records so much, my dad got me a K-Mart record player. Then the next day, he came home with KISS “Rock ‘N Roll Over”. Everyday I would air guitar, or sing along with a brush in my hand, or both at the same time… music was, and has been, my life since I can remember. Hell, I still have those KISS records he bought me.
RIFF RELEVANT [Pat]: And yet another musician names KISS as their gateway band! Being the lone, sole member of Thunderchief, I assume this has its Pros & Cons. Care to elaborate on what any of either might be?
RIK:
Pros –
No band mates.
Can do anything I want. Literally.
No schedule conflicts/family issues
Rehearse everyday
Cons –
No band mates.
Booking/recording/touring is much harder
Promotion is difficult for 1 person
Songwriting becomes more lengthy
*People do not take solo acts seriously*
I don’t think anything can take the place of a “band”, but, if the people you work with are not on the same page, it wastes all of your damn years of creating music. I decided to take a chance with a solo project, and honestly, I’ve done as well solo, as I did with the baggage. I don’t want to sound like a dick, but really, I have true recollections man, and even recent tours have proven that sometimes when you get a band with 4-5 dudes with issues, you get eggroll.
RIFF RELEVANT [Pat]: What prompted you to pursue a project as its singular member like this?
RIK: Thunderchief started as a cartoon of amps and a little dude screaming. I realized that could be me, if only I knew how to play a guitar. I have skater hands, from breaking and dislocating shit when I was younger, so I could never really articulate my fingers to fret properly. I can beat the hell out of drums, Bonham-style, but can’t play power chords. So when the 3, 4, 5-man band thing was clearly not working for me, I had to keep on keeping on… many of those guys I played with just gave up music, but I couldn’t do that, I had to forge my way somehow. I can tour when I want, take my dog, fuck off in Nebraska for a while, whatever I want, instead of waiting for my bandmate’s wife to tell us we can’t go to Europe, ha ha!
The idea is of purity and as little effects as possible. Knowing that very band does not  “master” every song, I decided I didn’t care about being the absolute best – don’t get me wrong, I like it to be more than good, but no band is perfect. Some keep overdubbing and adding on tracks to make a record, like “Dopesmoker”, or some have 1 good song and 9 that you don’t want to listen to… Thunderchief is different in that aspect, if it’s not perfect, it’s perfect.
RIFF RELEVANT [Pat]: Admittedly, I’m not a very tech adept kind of guy… it’s all kind of Greek to me, ha! That said, break things down for us as to how Thunderchief works, in the aspect of you being it’s sole member/player?
What type of equipment or set up do you use, either in studio or live?
RIK: I use the same equipment and settings in the studio, on stage, or at rehearsal. Currently, I have a guitar stack and bass stack with a drive pedal by Sean Ryan Customs, and a huge PA to match. Drums thru the PA, guitar split to 2 amps, and some yelling, you got Thunderchief. I haven’t introduced any effects into the mix, the original idea was to be as straight forward as possible regarding tone. The drums have to be pushed thru the PA from an iPod, but they’re not programmed, they are human.
RIFF RELEVANT [Pat]: Speaking of human, how does a drummer like Erik Larson play with you on the road without actually playing with you live on the road? (Readers, ICYMI – Rik and current Backwoods Payback drummer Erik Larson collaborated on a crushing track earlier this year titled “Stone House”… it’s streaming below)
RIK: I box him up in the back so my dog can sit up front, nobody knows he’s actually there – we wrap his hair in a man-bun!
https://soundcloud.com/thunderchief-3/stone-house
RIFF RELEVANT [Pat]: LMAO!! Being based in Richmond, VA., a hotbed for great music over the years, what do you attribute to RVA’s having such a richly fertile, long running underground music scene? Care to name-drop any current bands from that scene that you like or think readers should check out?
RIK: I am not sure what it is about Richmond, maybe it’s the ancient Powhatan curse of perseverance. There has been so many great bands to surface from here, and it continues with bands like Book Of Wyrms, Desert Altar, Lair, and many more. The one thing I have noticed from living in Richmond twice within 20 years, is that the music is still here. There is a good support structure here, and everybody is quite genuine in their craft, it’s nice.
RIFF RELEVANT [Pat]: What is currently going on with Thunderchief… and what plans loom on the horizon? And of course, we must touch upon Thunderchief being part of The Maryland Doom Fest 2019’s roster of confirmed bands!
RIK: Man, I have some plans! Of course, being only 1 person hinders a lot of planning, and I rely on fans and friends to help make booking and touring work. Now, I’m writing new material for an album, like I’ve said many times before, haha… but I still have a few unreleased tracks. Booking for 2019 has been a very pleasant experience, I’ll be hitting the region a bit heavier than in the past, tours in the works, and some killer festival dates to be psyched about. And yes, plans do now include playing MDDF V.
RIFF RELEVANT [Pat]: And what are your expectations / hopes with this appearance at the famed Maryland Doom Fest? For the uninitiated, what can observers expect from a Thunderchief live show, be it on the road or at MDDF specifically?
RIK:  It’s an honor to be a part of the bad-ass MD Doom Fest. I will be on tour at that time, my goal is to play with some, if not most, of the MDDF bands in others cities. I hope to see every band I can by not talking so damn much, I expect it to sell out! I love Frederick, I guess I’ll have to pull out the big guns for that show. Fans will definitely be encouraged to wear earplugs, get stoned and forget the boundaries of the music… Thunderchief isn’t out to reinvent the wheel, or do noodly solos and add rad effects. The idea is to play with a very organic tone, with a little push, and no gimmicks, but I might throw in a surprise for the Fest. [You can find these upcoming Thunderchief live dates below! – Pat]
RIFF RELEVANT [Pat]: Knowing some of your background, I know you have been at this for several decades now… what keeps you so personally invested and still “at it” after all this time”? Care to share some sage advice, insight or warnings for anyone that may just be starting out?
RIK: Man this is all I know – I don’t have kids and all that normal stuff, I’m basically the same 13 year old practicing to [John] Bonham and Motley Crue, just doing it differently. My love for music and everything that comes with it hasn’t diminished yet, I doubt it will. All of my past colleagues have been done for a long time, except 1 ex-bandmate, who plays with a national act now. I don’t want to do anything else man, I just wanna rock out ’til dawn with a spliff and a cool one. Not much bothers me, but when I’m not playing shows, I always remember The Subhumans lyric – “How’s it going there? It’s Not going at all, We’ve got no more gigs”. Probably the most depressing part of it all for me. That, and post-tour blues.
I think I’m the one who should be asking for advice, insights and warnings! I’m not sure of what to say here, but I can help you with all of your problems, just send me $1 per problem, and consider it done!
RIFF RELEVANT [Pat]: Ha! You and I have talked privately about the hardships that (independent) musicians / bands / artists face in today’s current music scene… what are some of the biggest that you have encountered?
RIK: Well, the current “industry” changes don’t really allow for past methods to work for bands – for example, we give away our music for free even more so than we used to. We work hard, we have extremely high overhead, we do all of these things for art, to be given away on YouTube or whatever, which is fine, but in contrast, years ago, we were cool with people dubbing tapes of our music, but we were gaining so much more from that form of free distribution. That’s one major change I’ve seen that hasn’t really helped out artists.
One particular conversation you and I had was… what does a band do if they want to release a single with a B-side?
Why do we have to continue to write and release full length albums in order to be seen, reviewed or taken seriously? I think if there were an avenue for this, we would see bands releasing much more material. Not every band has the desire to release album after album, without EP’s and singles, right? Maybe I’m just old, but that’s how I still buy music I want. Sometimes 3-4 songs are plenty when I’m in my car, and every record/tape/CD in my collection is not a full length, you know?
RIFF RELEVANT [Pat]: Hypothetically, if there was one thing you could change or improve, what would it be and how might you go about it?
RIK: I guess I would like to see more booking agents. They do such a huge service for independent touring bands. If bands could spend more time writing and touring, rather than Facebooking and emailing all night, there would be more productivity in regards to the artist’s future.
You know, if a saucy agent would act as a “package promoter”, like, promote package tours for small indie bands (not just his/her friends’ bands), the venues would only need to find those one or two stellar local bands to play with the package they booked. Everyone’s headache goes away, the venue makes bar and food $$, and bands are playing to more people. But the flip-side is, some locals hold out for only “touring acts” – WTF? We are all touring acts!
I can honestly say, I don’t know how to suggest any changes, but what I’ve seen at a small handful of venues does not make sense for the establishment, or the artists. It’s reminiscent of the old days, like at the Electric Banana in Pittsburgh. If anyone reading this emails me with an Electric Banana story, I’ll send them free junk!
RIFF RELEVANT [Pat]: Uh-oh, a challenge! About your aforementioned background, I have a question that’s solely for my own curiosity: I recently read that at one point, you were a roadie for a band I love and want to know more about your experiences with – Nuclear Assault!
What period of time was that and if you don’t mind, care to share one of your more memorable recollections from then?
RIK: Oh man, the times! That was the ’92 Agnostic Front / Nuclear Assault tour. I was at a show one night, working for Polygram Records (age card shown) when Danny [Lilker] asked me to hold his bass. Next thing I knew, I was 20 dates deep, their new guitarist and I started the same day. As much fun as Nuclear Assault was, and everything they were up to, I was in awe of Agnostic Front. It was my first AF experience, and I was hooked. NA was great, definitely a “slam a beer and go” philosophy. Lots of beer, pot, and thrashing about. It felt like a summer camp hanging with those guys.
That was a great tour seeing both sides of hardcore and thrash. I did a lot of tech work for those years. I landed in Dallas in ‘95 and got the ultimate gig…catering for Motorhead/Belladonna club tour. I think there are more “experiences” on that tour than most others, besides Buzzoven, Cramps, Napalm Death, Rev. Horton Heat, Mentors, etc. were all after that. I was so young and in my own world, I don’t know if I appreciated what I was involved in, I took it for granted because that’s all I knew at the time.
So many stories… I remember one venue cancelled the show because Roger was walking around with his shirt off after soundcheck, saw his chest tattoo, and cancelled the show in the name of Catholicism!
AGNOSTIC FRONT Circa 1992
NUCLEAR ASSAULT Circa 1992
Another quickie… I remember Belladonna had a young female tour manager, she was very business, very tough, but a doll behind the curtains. She would make sure to go to as many people as possible and say “Belladonna prohibits any photos”. After hearing that for so long I asked if anyone had tried to take a picture to make her say that, she said “no” (inner laughter).
At that age, talking to Danny and Freddie (Madball) convinced me to back off of helping others be successful and focus on my own music. So I did, maybe not the best choice but I did!
RIFF RELEVANT [Pat]: Outside of music, what type of things (hobbies, extracurricular things, etc.) do you enjoy doing in your personal life?
RIK: I still travel to skate, I ride BMX less than a mile from my house, I’m a horticulturin’ fool, I grow hot chile varieties and pickling cucumbers, of course hanging with my best girl Sasha and trusty Roadhound Kraut. Music has always been sort of a hobby, but like a permanent hobby that you do everyday for too many hours. [Riff Relevant extends our condolences on the recent passing of KRAUT McMANUS – Rest In Power, Pup!]
RIFF RELEVANT [Pat]: I have a tradition of letting the interviewee have the final word so is there anything you would like to say, share, rant about or whatever, here’s your shot!
RIK: Last words…. don’t be an elitist, enjoy things for what they are instead of finding the “wrong” in everything not suited to you. And time goes by faster as you get older, don’t waste it… and thank you for allowing me to speak, and thank you for reading this far!
Wow, I hope you all enjoyed that as much as I did! I want to thank THUNDERCHIEF‘s Rik Surly for submitting to the previous interrogation… and Erik Larson for bringing us together, ha!
Before closing, let me say, or suggest, that you listen to and support independent music and artists. You can catch THUNDERCHIEF at the following February appearances and The Maryland Doom Fest this June. RIOT Out!
Feb. 1 – Washington, DC @ The Pinch Feb.2 – Doom Hawg Day (presented by Maryland Doom Fest) – Frederick, MD @ Cafe 611 Feb. 7 – Raleigh, NC @ Slim’s Downtown Feb. 8 – Asheville, NC @ Sly Grog
June 20 – 23 The Maryland Doom Fest – Frederick, MD @ Cafe 611 / Guido’s Speakeasy [Info]
Riff Relevant Interviews: THUNDERCHIEF’s Rik Surly [Tour Dates + Maryland Doom Fest 2019] Article By: Pat 'Riot' Whitaker, Senior Writer/Journalist ‡ Edited By: Leanne Ridgeway, Owner/Chief Editor It was just this past year, 2018, that the Richmond, Virginia based…
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