#song is no children by the mountain goats and the lyrics just felt so right that i had to

[meangreenbeanz]

When I was a kid there was this thing my church did every couple of months where we’d spend a Sunday singing old hymns for hours.

For the very last song, we’d turn off the lights and everyone would hold a candle, and we’d pass the flames from person to person till the room glowed with soft song and flickers of warmth. We all had different pacing so the words were incoherent, and there was never really a key, but it was still beautiful. Something about coming together and making music, not caring how good it sounds. Just the act of creating, of collectively rejoicing in something greater than ourselves.

And I don’t believe in that stuff anymore, and was honestly never super religious, but as a kid, I’d get literal chills. I thought that was God speaking. I remember trying to hide my candle from my parents so I never had to extinguish the flame. I’d pour the wax into one of the little collection envelopes so I could take the memory home with me. I wanted to live in the warm moment forever.

But the flame went out, and I grew up, and forgot. It has been so long since I’ve sung just for the joy. Too long since I’ve gone to church and felt that unique combination of reveling in glory and religious guilt that I still haven’t processed. Too long, much too long since I’ve felt like a part of something more.

I’d forgotten that specific type of joy until tonight at the Mountain Goats concert when the speakers broke but the crowd just kept singing and the JD walked off the stage to join us in the floor and we just…sang

It was so simple, but beautiful. We were singing “You were cool” a capella and just kept repeating the chorus and people started crying and JD reached out and comforted this one crying girl and then transitioned to singing “No Children” right as the speakers came back on and I remembered what it felt like to be a kid in church again

Something about singing a capella, taking a pause to breathe whilst in the crowded concert hall

Something about being an individual with my own interpretation of the lyrics related to my own specific experiences, but also a part of the whole. We are all here, singing, rejoicing, exalting. We all matter.

Something about the collective happiness despite the difficulty, how complete strangers were crying together, how we all got swept into the magic… if that’s not religious glory then I don’t know what is

[whorelyyy]

Drunk crying at the bar is totally a normal & well adjusted thing to do, right?

Raz, fueled by a caffeine-induced buzz from unpacking well past midnight, found herself wide awake. She thought all her hard work deserved a reward, so she ventured to one of Oasis's only bars, The Watering Hole. The bar was walking distance from her new place, so she figured she could treat herself to a few drinks and not have to worry about driving. When she reached the bar, it was quiet. She ordered a vodka soda, a simple yet satisfying reward for her hard work.

Sipping her drink, she scanned the bar, taking in its plain, lackluster atmosphere. Was this a typical Wednesday night here? With only a handful of patrons, including herself and the bartender, the place felt lonely. As someone tinkered with the jukebox, she braced herself for the predictable twang of a pro-USA country anthem. To her surprise, the familiar chords of The Mountain Goats' "Up the Wolves" filled the air.

“How depressed do you have to be to play The Mountain Goats at the bar?” she whispered to herself, her irritation mounting with every note. The sheer absurdity of it made her angry, prompting her to question the sanity—or lack thereof—of whoever dared to play such an offbeat choice. “What a cry for help…” she whispered to herself, finishing her drink.

As the song played on she unconsciously found herself singing along, muscle memory from playing the song on repeat when she was younger and much more depressed.

“There's gonna come a day when you'll feel better, you'll rise up free and easy on that day and float from branch to branch, lighter than the air. Just when that day is coming, who can say? Who can say?”

As she choked out the last line, tears welled in her eyes. Damn it, this was the last thing she needed. No dredging up the past, just forward, always forward.

She angrily brushed away her tears, refusing to let some damn goat band ruin her night. Hell-bent on making the most of her hard-earned celebration, she ordered another vodka soda, this time a double. The bartender, with her generous pour, swiftly complied, and Raz welcomed the extra dose of liquid comfort. Yet, as she sipped her drink, her mood soured further when the same guy rose to select another song, this time he chose "No Children" by the Mountain Goats.

“You’re fucking kidding me.” She fussed loudly.

The guy who played the song glanced her way, his eyes carrying a haunting emptiness. He offered no emotion, no acknowledgment, just drank his beer and crooned along to what can only be described as the epitome of despair. He kept his gaze locked on Raz before exchanging words with the bartender. Behind the counter, the woman swiftly filled four shot glasses with vodka. Uninterested in witnessing a man drown his sorrows, Raz turned her attention to her phone. No new messages. Not that she should be surprised; he had made sure she was alone right until the end.

“Can’t have you running off and telling someone our business, my business.” echoed in her head.

She shuddered, forcefully suppressing the memory. Before Raz could grasp the situation, two shots materialized before her. The bartender gestured toward the man orchestrating tonight's gloomy playlist as she darted off to serve another patron. Locking eyes with the man, he raised his glass, nodded, and downed the first shot in one swift motion, followed by the second. His gaze bore into her, waiting for her to join in.

She knew better and was well aware of the risks of accepting drinks from strange, depressing men in bars, but in that moment, she couldn't summon the energy to care. Offering the man a faint, uneasy smile, she knocked back both shots. Appearing somewhat satisfied, he returned a sad smile before turning his attention back to his beer.

“And I hope when you think of me years down the line you can't find one good thing to say and I'd hope that if I found the strength to walk out, you'd stay the hell out of my way.”

The lyrics slammed into her like a freight train, shaking her to her very core. Unable to hold back, she crumbled under the weight of her emotions, tears streaming down her cheeks. Wonderful. What a fantastic first impression she was making. Hastily, she fled to the solitary bathroom in the bar. She refused to let this moment define her introduction to anyone in Oasis, not even some depressed weirdo at the bar.

Struggling to regain control, she attempted to calm her racing thoughts, grasping for stability. Counting five things she could see, smell, touch, and taste, she fought to ground herself. Just as she started to catch her breath amid her broken sobs, a knock reverberated through the door, shattering the peace she had managed to build.

"Hey, everything okay in there?" A low, gentle voice drifted through the door.

"I'm fine," she snapped back, her tone sharp with irritation.

"Doesn't sound fine," the voice persisted.

"I said I'm fine!" she practically yelled. "These songs are just fucking awful."

"Apologies for the tunes," the voice admitted. "I chose those songs. Looks like we're both drowning in the same melancholy. Let me grab you another drink? Misery loves company."

“No.” she said firmly, “please leave me alone.”

No response. Thank god he understood. She was in no place to make new friends, no matter how desperately she craved them. The longing to rely on someone other than herself was strong, but this wasn't the place, and she wouldn’t find that here and certainly not in some pathetic man singing sad songs at the bar on a Wednesday night.

She collected herself, giving her reflection a quick once-over in the mirror. It was hard to tell she'd just been a mess of tears, but why did the room feel like it was spinning? Exiting the bathroom, her vision blurred intermittently, not from tears this time, but from the bartender's generous pours. It was time to call it a night; crying and blacking out her first time out in Oasis was not the reputation she wanted. With unsteady steps, she made her way to the bar to settle her tab. Noticing the man from earlier was gone, she shrugged it off, too dazed to dwell on it. The bartender informed her that her drinks had been paid for. Strange, but she lacked the focus or energy to inquire further. All she wanted was to get home.

She stumbled her way home, unlocking the door to her beautiful new space. Unpacking had been a nightmare, but she couldn't deny her adoration for what she’d created here. Collapsing onto her bed, exhaustion didn't quite claim her yet. Opting for distraction, she reached for her phone, mindlessly scrolling through TikTok. What felt like a only 15 minutes turned into an hour of aimless consumption—reviews of eye cream, teasers for her favorite band's new album, snippets from her favorite TV shows, and insane nonsensical memes. The mindlessness was a welcome escape until a video of three childhood best friends, set to Alex Olsen's "someday i’ll get it" triggered tears for the third time that night. The crushing weight of loneliness consumed her, leaving her feeling utterly isolated. No friends, no family, no one to love, support, or uplift her. She was strong, but she was exhausted. Yearning for tenderness, for affection, for rest, she sobbed, drowning in her sadness and intoxication. She had to get these feeling out of her head, and Raz found the best way for her to do that was journaling. She reached for her laptop where she kept an anonymous personal blog, desperately needing to get this aching feeling out. In her depressed and inebriated state, she failed to realize she'd opened the wrong page…

PREVIOUS│NEXT

The songs mentioned throughout the update:

[unloneliest]

hiiiii rj! 🪄 for the lyrics ask game!!

hi adam!!!!!! ty for the ask! lately i have been SO FUCKING CONSUMED by an original story i've been working on since. 2009. so today's lyrics i cannot be normal about: basically the entirity of the young thousands.

i'd heard a handful of tmg songs before i clicked with them but just didn't connect until one of my dearest friends played me genesis 3:23 and the young thousands early in the summer of 2016 and an entire vivid cinematic reel of my characters and my story just instantly played in my mind for both of those songs. and i have been insane about the mountain goats ever since. i can't even begin to speak on what genesis 3:23 did to me which is why i'm doing young thousands.

and like. i used to be able to vividly picture things in my mind but that Went Away due to my chronic health stuff & i can't anymore. i'm trying to relearn it since i'm being treated right now but i don't know if i can. BUT. i can still see the entire story playing in my mind with young thousands (& many other goats songs).

THE REASON it's so. the most song. for my story? is like. it's a story about two generations, my first main characters & the kids they raise. and the first generation can't escape the narrative but they break the cycle for their children. and the driving tempo in this song the inescapable vividness of the imagery the tension between the haunting ghosts and the things that are coming. that's the exact heartbreaking pull between dead friends whose memory haunts my characters and their kids who rewrite the world.

the specific lyric of the summer for me:

"The things that you've got coming will do things that you're afraid to / There is someone waiting out there with a mouthful of surprises"

brought to you by. in fourteen years of working on this story i have spent the entire time unable to change a few facts about it. i have tried. i have failed. this summer. my kid ocs reached a point of developed enough that they started making their own calls. and they said no. they changed what i couldn't. they changed the biggest plot point i've been unable to touch for fourteen fucking years. and in that moment the indescribable emotion i felt the first time i heard the young thousands finally made sense.

under the cut for like. a shorthand of what happens in my brain with my story when i listen to the song

WHITE SAILS ON A SAILING SHIP IN THE SUN APPROACHING A DOCK AT THE END OF A COBBLESTONE CITY STREET. THE SUN IS SO BRIGHT THAT THE SHADOWS ARE DARK AND IT'S YMALIS SEEING THE ARRIVAL. THIS IS THE LAST MOMENTS BEFORE HER WORLD CHANGES FOREVER. THE CITY IS BIG AND IT'S FILLED WITH SECRETS THAT CAN KILL.

JAY IN THE DOMES IN THE DESERT THE LIVING HOME HE BUILT WITH SILAS BUT HE'S ALONE HERE THE SOLE MOURNER OF A FUTURE THAT ALMOST CAME TO FRUITION. OUTSIDE YOU CAN SEE THE FRUIT TREES THEY PLANTED TOGETHER AND INSIDE FILTERED AFTERNOON SUN AS THE MEMORIES OF THEIR SHORT YEARS TOGETHER PLAY OVER THE PRESENT.

SOMEDAY SOON CHILDREN WILL WALK INTO THEIR LIVES WEARING FACES FROM THE PAST

SOLITARY FLIGHT ON HORSEBACK. TIED TO THE SADDLE TO KEEP FROM FALLING TO THE GROUND. UNCLEAR IF THE CHANCE OF IT IS FROM EXHAUSTION OR INJURY. FLIGHT THROUGH AN ORCHARD AT THE EDGE OF FARMLAND BEFORE THE REGION BLEEDS INTO THE EDGES OF MUCH WILDER PLACES. THE HORSE AND RIDER ARE HEADED EAST.

IT SCARES THE SHIT OUT OF THEM WATCHING THE KIDS GET ANYWHERE NEAR THIS / WHEN THE KIDS DO, EVERYTHING CHANGES

SILAS + SZADEH // THE KIDS // MOST DESPERATE TRAPPED MOMENTS // SWINGING OF A SILVER BLADE // BURN OF MAGIC SO BRIGHT IT CAN'T BE LOOKED AT

OVERHEAD PAN OF SCENERY

[legaciesgifworld]

[queerdraws]

Cleaning Out the Rooms - a Harry Du Bois playlist Alcoholism, getting better?, memory loss, being a superstar, The Final Dream, forming political opinions, bad breakups, past transgressions, being a strange and inconsistent being, and persisting despite it all 26 songs (r-slur warning for Turnin’ on the Screw - QotSA)

including: David Bazan, They Might be Giants, The Mountain Goats, British Sea Power (of course), Queens of the Stone Age, and more.  Full track listing and lyric excerpts under the cut

---- Turnin' on the Screw - Queens of the Stone Age (This is the opening track on Era Vulgaris, seemed like an appropriate opening song / introduction to Harry's general essence) ----

... They say those who can't just instruct others And act like victims or jilted lovers You can't lose it if you never had it Disappear, man, do some magic

Want a reason? How's about because You ain't a has been if you never was

I sound like this

Scared to say what is your passion So slag it all, bitter's in fashion Fear of failure's all you've started The jury is in, verdict: r******d

I'm so tired, and I'm wired too I'm a mess; I guess I'm turning on the screw

---- Bless this Mess - David Bazan (Harry being a drunk and a general mess, things going in cycles) ----

God bless the man who stumbles God bless the man who falls God bless the man who yields to temptation God bless the woman who suffers God bless the woman who weeps God bless the children trying her patience Trouble getting over it Is what you're in for So pour yourself another 'Cause it'll take a steady pair of hands Holy or unholy ghost Well now I can't tell, but either way you cut it You should get some distance if you plan to take a stand God bless the house divided God bless the weeds in the wheat God bless the lamp hid under a bushel I discovered hell to be the poison in the well So I tried to warn the others of the curse But then my body turned on me I dreamt that for eternity My family would burn Then I awoke with a wicked thirst

---- Don’t Sit Down Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair - Arctic Monkeys (general Harry vibe.  off-kilter) ----

Break a mirror, roll the dice

...

Find a well-known hard man and start a fight Wear your shell suit on bonfire night Fill in a circular hole with a peg that's square

But just don't sit down 'cause I've moved your chair

...

Bite the lightning and tell me how it tastes Kung fu fighting on your roller skates Do the Macarena in the devil's lair

But just don't sit down 'cause I've moved your chair

---- I've Been Seeing Things - They Might be Giants (feels very Harry's detecting style, surreal happenstance) ----

I've been seeing things I've been seeing things Don't have answers but I've got lots of questions

Carpool's up, someone gets out Hand someone else a violin case I'm trying not to let them see me looking at them But I'm pretty sure there was a dollar sign

Keep your eyes peeled and you'll see stuff Which at first seems like unimportant irrelevant things

Can't just ask some perfect stranger "What are you hiding in your violin case?" Shadow them at a distance instead Try to get inside their head

Where'd they go now (Where'd they go now) I got distracted (I got distracted) Begging me to stay (Begging me to stay) Wearing a disguise (Wearing a disguise) That lady (That lady) Must have ditched the kid (Must have ditched the kid) Hidge the down (Hidge the down) [???] What's she up to now? (What's she up to now?) Trembling cold by the airport road Watching them stack containers in rows Seagulls, helicopter, windblown trash Something doesn't add up

I've been seeing things I've been seeing things No one asks but I'm packing all kinds of attention

Later I'm watching a news report Camera pans across a crime scene Unremarked upon detail Empty violin case Okay maybe not the same case Different material, different color Still you have to wonder Am I the only one who knows

I've been seeing things

---- Music is the Victim - Scissor Sisters (breakup Harry.  drug-addled disco Harry) ----

I left my heart in San Fransisco It's at some motherfucking disco The people there where dancin' on it And that's including Ms. Matronic

Hell if music is the victim then so am I Of lovin' and a cheatin' the snake gon' bite I beg and I scream and I cuss and I cry If music is the victim then so am I

Of your bad fun Money's all gone but you need some Lover's on the phone but they got none Daddy ain't home from the dog run And you're riding through the city with a shotgun

I left my bag in Pasadena Where all them girls was doin' Tina Them bitches sure were crunked up on it I said I'd rather smoke some chronic

Hell if music is the victim then so am I Of lovin' and a cheatin' the snake gon' bite I beg and I scream and I cuss and I cry If music is the victim then so am I

---- Down to Your Soul - Right Away, Great Captain! (about the Final Dream and pre-game Harry) ----

And I see things I actually don't see. I knew it wasn't actually you a few feet from my reach. I looked into your eyes and I began to lose my teeth, And I felt you were dreaming the same thing.

And I know you don't know what I'm capable of But if you give me just one more minute I'm sure That you would be shaking right down to your soul And I'd hope that the fear of the lord brings me home. I'm a man in a body of water so tall Could swallow you whole and forget where he's going But I carved a map in the back of my arm Don't worry I'm coming home I said don't worry cause I'm coming home

---- No Surprises - Radiohead (suicidal harry, pre-game.  Maybe immediately before the game.  A little Big Communism Builder) ----

A heart that's full up like a landfill A job that slowly kills you Bruises that won't heal You look so tired, unhappy Bring down the government They don't, they don't speak for us I'll take a quiet life A handshake of carbon monoxide

And no alarms and no surprises

…

This is my final fit My final bellyache

…

No alarms and no surprises, please (get me out of here)

---- Cleaning Out the Rooms - British Sea Power (The instrumental part seems to have been used / referenced for a background music track.  And also the name of that one thought project. as expected, it fits beautifully.  Wake up in a new life, down by the seaside.  Cleaning out the rooms.  She’ll be coming soon.) ----

Where life is good in a way Swept away upon our hearts, in cold coal ceremonial On a rainy day, hang it up Get the vacuum and suck it in Cleaning out the rooms, I'll clean it up Dark cloud, drifting out of view I'll never know, she'll be coming soon, that is all I'll wake up in a new life, ship shape and shoe shine Cleaning out the rooms, I'll clean it up She'll be coming soon Drifting into view, way in the west, white cloud If everybody knew, I never knew, she'll be coming soon I'll wake up in a new life, down by the seaside In a new life, down by the seaside Cleaning out the room, I'll clean it up Dark clouds, she'll be coming soon Down the chimney, out the window, that is all

---- In the Morning of the Magicians - The Flaming Lips (waking up with no memory, but bad vibes) ----

In the morning I awake

And I couldn't remember What is love and what is hate

The calculations error

Oh, what is love and what is hate? And why does it matter? Is to love just a waste? And how can it matter?

Oh...

As the dawn began to break I had to surrender The universe will have its way Too powerful to master

---- Once in a Lifetime - Talking Heads (Huh??  What's happening??  same as it ever was, same as it ever was) ----

And you may ask yourself, "How do I work this?" And you may ask yourself, "Where is that large automobile?" And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful house" And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful wife"

...

Same as it ever was, same as it ever was Same as it ever was, same as it ever was

...

And you may ask yourself, "What is that beautiful house?" And you may ask yourself, "Where does that highway go to?" And you may ask yourself, "Am I right? Am I wrong?" And you may say to yourself, "My God! What have I done?"

---- Don't Change - David Bazan (alcoholism, cycles of wanting to get better, depression, slipping in to old coping mechanisms, plus a little bit in here about dreams.  This is a song for if Harry continues partying after the memory wipe, I suppose) ----

He seems nice You met him once or twice But you wonder what he's like When he's sober

Then again You hear he has no friends Just people that he spins To do him favors

When he wakes up in the morning he tells himself Today I'll make a change But falling into his bed at night he thinks Man it was a beautiful day to stay the same

I'm so deep That only in my sleep Do the secrets that I keep Float to the surface

So I hold them down Till they don't make a sound Like they accidentally drowned Except on purpose

And when I wake up in the morning I tell myself Today I'll make a change But falling into my bed at night I think Man it was a beautiful day to stay the same

---- Airbag - Radiohead (born again, back to save the universe) ----

In the next world war In a jackknifed juggernaut I am born again In the neon sign scrolling up and down I am born again

In an interstellar burst I am back to save the universe

In a deep, deep sleep of the innocent I am born again In a fast German car I'm amazed that I survived An airbag saved my life

In an interstellar burst I am back to save the universe

---- A Comet Appears - The Shins (puppeting a man-body around pretending to be a living thing. drinking, depression) ----

One hand on this wily comet Take a drink just to give me some weight Some uber-man I'd make I'm barely a vapor

They shone a chlorine light on A host of individual sins Let's carve my aging face off Fetch us a knife Start with my eyes Down so the lines Form a grimacing smile

Close your eyes to corral a virtue Is this fooling anyone else? Never worked so long and hard To cement a failure

---- The Communists Have the Music - They Might be Giants (Big Communism Builder, but especially Harry's shallow understanding of Communism.  Party-boy communist) ----

I got handed an Ayn Rand sandwich Straight from the can, it tasted so bland I asked a lass to pass me a glass Of Engels' Conditions of the Working Class

Right away they dragged me to the committee To explain my un-American activity They're gonna see they made a mistake If they'd only let me play my mixtape

I'm not partial to the martial Or the plutocrats, in their beaver hats And the fascists have the outfits But I don't care for the outfits What I care about is music And the communists have the music

---- Harlem Roulette - The Mountain Goats (Harry thinking about Guillame le Million?  Generally: that vibe of secret, maybe supranatural machinations happening just outside your field of view.  A kinda lonely, pensive vibe, sprinkled with past drug use, driving...memory) ----

Unknown engines underneath the city Steam pushing up in billows through the grates Frankie Lymon's tracking "Seabreeze" in a studio in Harlem Its 1968. Just a pair of tunes to hammer out. Everybody's off the clock by 10:00. The loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you're never going to see again. Feels so free when I hit the avenue. Nothing like a New York summer night. Every dream's a good dream, Even awful dreams are good dreams, If you're doing it right. Remember soaring higher than a cloud. Get pretty sentimental now and then. The loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you're never going to see again. And four hours north of Portland, a radio flips on. And some no one from the future remembers that you're gone. Armies massing in the dusky distance. Ghosted in the ribbon microphone. Leave a little mark on something, maybe, Take the secret circuit home. Nothing in the shadows but the shadow hands. Reaching out to sad, young, frightened men. The loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you're never going to see again.

---- Suture up Your Future - Queens of the Stone Age (Harry's gonna fix his mess) ----

I'm gon' suture up my future I ain't jaded, I just hate it See, I been down too long It's kinda hard to explain Burned and buried, all I carried

...

Tried explaining unexplained Got caught in the plan All this talking at once I've been giving my love away To the things that tear it apart I'm gonna suture up my future

---- Lampshades on Fire - Modest Mouse (Harry trashing his body / having already trashed his body, just kinda a Harry-vibe song) ----

...

Well, the lampshade's on fire when the lights go out This is what I really call a party now Well, fear makes us really, really run around A-this one's done so where to now? Our eyes light up, we have no shame at all Well, you all know what I'm talking about The room lights up, but we're still dancing around We're having fun, having some fun now

Pack up again, head to the next place Where we'll make the same mistakes Open one up and let it fall to the ground Pile out the door when it all runs out

...

As our feelings are getting hurt Oh, we want you to do the work Our ass looks great inside these jeans Well, we want just our water clean

Well, this is how it's always been And this is how it's going to be So you just move on

---- Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes (Harry "can-opener" du Bois.  Talking to the skills, solving things, detecting, generally being a terrifying force of nature / the pale) ----

I'm gonna fight 'em all A seven nation army couldn't hold me back They're gonna rip it off Taking their time right behind my back

And I'm talking to myself at night Because I can't forget Back and forth through my mind Behind a cigarette

And the message coming from my eyes Says, "Leave it alone"

Don't wanna hear about it Every single one's got a story to tell Everyone knows about it From the Queen of England to the Hounds of Hell

And if I catch it coming back my way I'm gonna serve it to you And that ain't what you want to hear But that's what I'll do

And the feeling coming from my bones Says, "Find a home"

---- Body of Years - Mother Mother (Harry's past that follows him, Harry's half-decomposed body that marks the years of abuse it's been through) ----

All the remains of a cadaver of days I keep hidden away, keep them there just in case I wanna visit that place Blow the dust from the bones Off a body of years that I leave all alone Just a body of years

See the skin disappears And the blood turns to stone In a body of years now a pile of bones Like a sheet of veneer Each a piece of my soul It's a body of years that I leave all alone

It's Just a body of years, now a pile of bones You know Old soul who falls down Can't stop trippin' on these Old roads I go down Get back up and get my foot in the door And my face on the page Make my mark in the world With a bat and a blade It's a body of work that you can't ever change Like a body of years that you take to your grave It's just a body of years that I leave all alone It's just a body of years, now a pile of bones Like a sheet of veneer Each a piece of my soul

---- The Cap-m - They Might be Giants (just a Harry vibe song) ----

When I talk you keep looking away from me 'Cause you probably think that I'm high on pot But I'm not, I'm not

Look me over, I'm the Cap'm You say it's such a joke But I don't see you laughing

People seem to think you can't be called the Cap'm Unless you drive a boat Well, I don't I don't

Look me over, I'm the Cap'm Go ahead and mess with me You'll find out what will happ'm

...

Did you say what I think you just said My hat looks good on me? I agree, I agree

Look me over, I'm the Cap'm You act like it's a joke But I don't see you laughing

---- Broke - Modest Mouse (oops!  all mistakes.  Broke it all.  Want to forget it but can't) ----

Broke account, so I broke a sweat I've bought some things that I sort of regret about now Broke my pace and ran out of time Sometimes I'm so full of shit that it should be a crime

Broke a promise 'cause my car broke down Such a classic excuse it should be bronze by now Broke your glasses, but it broke the ice You said that I was an asshole and I paid the price

Broken hearts want broken necks I've done some things that I'd love to forget, but I can't

Broke up, and I'm relieved somehow It's the end of the discussions that just go 'round and 'round And 'round, and 'round, and 'round ... It was like everything was evidence of broken time

You're living on fancy wine You'll drink that turpentine You're starting conversations You don't even know the topic

---- Spent Gladiator 2 - The Mountain Goats (Defiantly alive) ----

Like a spent gladiator, Crawling in the coliseum dust. Who can count on his remaining limbs, All the people he can trust. Like the one who stands behind him, Cheering him on. Ecstatic when he stands defiant, Wild with abandon when he's gone. Just stay alive. Keep your eyes on the pay line. Like a village on the step, About to get collectivized. When the men emerge with rifles from the haystack, Everybody looks surprised. Like the mice in the forgotten grain, Way up on the top shelf. Like someone who's found a small town to escape to, Keeps one eye on his abandoned, former self. Stay in the game. Just try to play through the pain. Like a fighter who's been told its finally time for him to quit. Show up in shining colors, And then stand there and get hit. Like the clock that ticks in Dresden, When the whole town's been destroyed. Like the nagging flash of insight, You're always desperate to avoid. Like the bloody-knuckled gunman, Still stationed at the breach. Like that board game with the sliders, And the children on the beach. Stay alive. Maybe spit some blood at the camera. Just stay alive. Stay forever alive.

---- You Only Live Once - The Strokes (just general Harry, talking about the skills, choices you can make, what kind of cop you can be) ----

Twenty-nine different attributes Only seven that you like, oh-oh Twenty ways to see the world, oh And twenty ways to start a fight, oh

...

And countless odd religions too It doesn't matter which you choose, oh, no One stubborn way to turn your back, oh This I've tried and now refuse, oh

Oh don't, don't, don't get up I can't see the sunshine Oh, I'll be waiting for you, baby 'Cause I'm through Sit me down Shut me up I'll calm down And I'll get along with you

---- Pork and Beans - Weezer (Superstar Cop) ----

They say I need some rogaine to put in my hair Work it out at the gym to fit my underwear Oakley makes the shades to transform a tool You'd hate for the kids to think that you've lost your cool

I'ma do the things that I wanna do I ain't got a thing to prove to you I'll eat my candy with the pork and beans Excuse my manners if I make a scene I ain't gonna wear the clothes that you like I'm fine and dandy with the me inside One look in the mirror and I'm tickled pink I don't give a hoot about what you think

Everyone likes to dance to a happy song With a catchy chorus and beat so they can sing along Timbaland knows the way to reach the top of the charts Maybe if I work with him I can perfect the art

I'ma do the things that I wanna do I ain't got a thing to prove to you I'll eat my candy with the pork and beans Excuse my manners if I make a scene I ain't gonna wear the clothes that you like I'm fine and dandy with the me inside One look in the mirror and I'm tickled pink I don't give a hoot about what you think

No, I don't care I don't care

---- Freaks - Surf Curse (head filled with skills, The Final Dream) ----

Don't kill me just help me run away From everyone I need a place to stay Where I can cover up my face Don't cry, I am just a freak

I am just a freak(x3)

My head is filled with parasites Black holes cover up my eyes I dream of you almost every night Hopefully I won't wake up this time

I won't wake up this time(x3)

---- The Smallest Church in Sussex - British Sea Power (oh yeah this is mandatory) ----

[lunarblazes]

i made a desertduo playlist and then decided to be a nerd and write explanations for all the songs! like a nerd!

playlist link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5ZGylutQpyTbgX7MY7Lrzz?si=t8_kBwBHSYG5kxTvZoIrTQ&dl_branch=1

QUICK DISCLAIMER: i am aware that a lot of these songs may have or imply romantic connotation! i would really really like it if these were not read as though those romantic connotations carry over to scar and grian. even if we’re just talking about the third life characters, i would prefer not to ship them or imply romance between them on this post. thank you so much and keep reading if you’d like to see the playlist analysis!

and now that that’s out of the way, PLAYLIST TIME!

•

passerine- the oh hellos

“you were the song that i’d always sing/you were the light that the fire would bring/but i can’t shake this feeling that i/was only pushing the spear into your side again”

this song really just... firstly, it’s one of my favorite songs, and the line i chose there pushes home the sort of terrified devotion i think the desert has. plus there’s a fun line about the cold wind blowing in from the north in the ending bits that i think very much fits their conflict with the red army, and a lot of legally obligated flight imagery that i need to have in every possible song because i’m a fuckin nerd.

•

no children- the mountain goats

“i hope that our few remaining friends/give up on trying to save us/i hope we come up with a failsafe plot to piss off the dumb few that forgave us”

i will admit that no children isn’t a perfect fit, but the general vibe of sort of defiant pessimism and betrayal fits very well with them! it’s very triumphant in its death, and i think that is very desertcore, because what’s more triumphantly dead than being the last duo left alive?

•

skulls- bastille

“when all of our friends are dead and just a memory/it’s always been just you and me/for all to see”

okay like this entire song is SO MUCH DESERT VIBES? LIKE SO MUCH. if i were to ever make an animatic for them i’d do it with this song. “a match is our only light, it’s day of the dead i’m indiana jones, yeah,” “i hope you can make me laugh six feet under when we’re bored of each other,” “i don’t want to rest in peace, i’d rather be the ghost that annoys you,” IT JUST KEEPS GOING. i think this song would work well with any third life duo, honestly, but these two in PARTICULAR just because of how it ended with them literally ‘buried’ next to each other, and again, the chaotic death vibes.

•

freaking out- mystery skulls

“i just keep out of my tongue/til all you want is done/and you just wanna leave me, oh yeah”

this song is a very third life grian song to me in particular! it could be my bias because of my little headcanon of grian burning on his red life, but seriously, this song is very reminiscent of the back and forth of loyalty that grian has with scar. the above line is sort of representative of the betrayal on red, and of course grian’s life debt.

•

night running- shin sakiura

(this song is in japanese! these lyrics are the rough english translation i found on google.) “someday we will stand at this place once again/for sure we will stand up again and again/we will watch it will the end/i want you to live freely”

this song is actually the ending theme for the anime bna, which i adore, and i just added it on a whim before looking at the translated lyrics. but um. holy hell the lyrics hurt me because they’re about running in search of someone, running for no reason, looking for something, and it just really hit, because the desert never really had a goal! they didn’t expect to survive, they were trying to survive, but what was their longterm goals? nothing. so that sort of endless search felt fitting for this. plus the song is a parallel for the two estranged best friends of the show so! perfect.

•

summer nights- siames

“it’s summertime/singing al green in your car/heading to a party/and the night air feels alive”

okay again, i will admit this song is mainly on here because i absolutely love it, but i also do think it fits well. it’s also about healing/estranged friendships, with a very distinct feeling of nostalgia for a happier time. maybe for a time when this was all a game, when there was no blood or betrayals on their hands. little canon divergent, but it’s fun for me, so into the playlist it goes!

allies or enemies- the crane wives

“are we allies or enemies/this will be the death of me, this will be the death of me/all’s fair in love and war but i can’t fight with you anymore”

. i just. points to that lyric. it literally led to both of their deaths. are they allies or enemies? it also fits with scar still wanting grian to be his friend even after he’s no longer indebted with the line “what happens now? do we have another go, do we bow out?” another very good animatic song that i’ve considered heavily. i listen to this playlist a lot

•

burn him down- kitsch club

“you must destroy, oh you must destroy, beyond all recognition/you gotta burn him down, you gotta burn him down, beyond all recognition”

this song just has a lot of fire and arson and high energy vibes. my little war criminals look at them go

•

rose- the oh hellos

“what's true is like a sickle/it'll cut you to the middle/your rose is without a thorn/but no, my mouth don't taste of metal/from the pot here to the kettle/i think we got a lot we gotta learn”

this one is like the exact opposite vibe of burn him down. the oh hellos are so poetic and this song just... feels like the healing potions after a battle. many of the metaphors here fit, i think

•

lone digger- caravan palace

“hey, brother, what you thinking/that good ol' sound is ringing/they don't know what they're missing/(they call it lonely diggin')”

okay this song is straight up just a dance song. i added it because i like it and also for some reason it feels ominous to me? i’ve got no idea why, it’s seriously just a club song, but it’s a banger and it’s in this playlist because i said so

•

feed the machine- poor man’s poison (suggested by my friend argonaughtkeene!)

“somethin’s goin” on, just look around/fear is on the rise, and there’s blood all over the ground/let’s all just blindfold the poor, we all know what’s in store/ we got ‘em now, just break ‘em down a little bit more”

this song is a VIBE for both desertduo members. there’s parts for both of them. it’s ruthless, gritty, very maniacal, perfect. listen to it and you’ll immediately understand why i added it.

•

sweet tooth- scott helman

“i hold hands with cosmic entities/i’ll take this two-ride if i please/i got this sweet tooth baby, yeah i got this sweet tooth baby/i exploit my opportunities/some broken hearts, some cavities”

sweet tooth is super upbeat and bright with these strangely dark lyrics? like i’m pretty sure it’s about addiction. in any case, i thought the “i hold hands with cosmic entities” very funnily fitting for both of the desert boys. it’s a banger!

•

necromancin’ dancin’- bear ghost

“when i’m necromancin’, everyone’s dancin’/nobody can stop me, i dare you to try/the dead are infused with insatiable groove and they’re coming for you, there’s nowhere to hide”

necromancin’ dancin’ just. bastard vibes. there’s not much more to say it’s just huge villain song vibes. i adore it.

•

crazy = genius- panic! at the disco

“if crazy equals genius/then i’m a fucking arsonist/i’m a rocket scientist/if crazy equals genius/you can set yourself on fire/but you’re never gonna burn, burn, burn”

i. yeah. y. yeah. more bastard vibes. also shoutout to an artist i saw (i think it was strifesolution?) who made a desertduo piece to this song because i have not stopped thinking about it ever

•

sweet bod- lemon demon

“i’m diggin’ up your coffin/and pouring out the contents/your sexy, sweet solution/is ripe for distribution”

you know how i said freaking out was a grian song? this one is a scar song. it’s my favorite lemon demon song and also it has the total macabre capitalism vibe that third life scar NAILED. more bastard vibes good for him <3

•

drunk- the living tombstone

“feel so much better than usual/i feel indisputable, oh/but now i’m feeling so beautiful/don’t wake me up from this spell i’m under, if i’m still breathing/i know that i will be ugly when i feel like myself again, oh/but right now i’m feelin’ so beautiful”

the descent of this song, starting off with a polite gathering and ending with a gasping drunk in the parking lot gazing at the stars that he can barely see? yes. yeah. mhm. i used a line from this song for a fic, actually, it fit so well.

•

oh no!- marina

“one track mind, one track heart/if i fail, i’ll fall apart/maybe it is all a test/cos i feel like i’m the worst so i always act like i’m the best”

bubbly pop track about false confidence, the ruthlessness of the pop industry, and the influence of the media? you know why this is here. it vibes. it rocks.

•

do it all the time- i don’t know how but they found me

“we’re taking over the world/a little victimless crime/and when i’m taking your innocence/i’ll be corrupting your mind/no need to cry i’m only doing everything i want to do because i do it all the time”

EVEN MORE BASTARD VIBES! SOMEHOW THERE IS MORE! this playlist is half villain songs and half heart-wrenching ballads and that’s the real desert experience i think.

•

the phoenix- fall out boy

“i’m gonna change you/like a remix/then i’ll raise you/like the phoenix”

BATTLE SONG BATTLE SONG! i’ll be honest i partially chose this song because i am a huge sucker for phoenix grian imagery in particular, but it’s also just a very good war song for them. villain song no 18372948 except this one originally had a hero vibe and now it’s changed specifically for them?? wild. their power

•

the other side- the greatest showman

“right here, right now/i’ll put the offer out/i don’t wanna chase you down, i know you see it/you run with me/and i can cut you free/out of the treachery/and all you keep in”

scar and grian’s desert monopoly conversation went exactly like this canonically because i said so fuck you <3

•

icicles- the scary jokes (suggested by my friend demizorua!)

“icicles don’t soften when they die/so why should i, why should i?/oh, icicles don’t soften when they die/they sharpen into sabers and they stab you in the eye”

this song actually has specific parts for both grian and scar! my cool epic friend mx demizorua pointed both of them out to me and i adored it so much. it’s a very spiteful song, just like the desert boys. also it feels vaguely murderous. perfect

•

problems- mother mother (suggested by my friend demizorua!)

“i’m a loser, a disgrace/you’re a beauty, a luminary, in my face”

literally this entire song fits them. particularly their relationship with the flower husbands, to me, honestly— the whole “when we meet at the pearly gates/you’ll get the green light/and i’ll get the boot in the face” reminds me a lot of them hdksjdks

•

tongues and teeth- the crane wives

“i know that you mean so well/but i am not a vessel for your good intent/i will only break your pretty things/i will only wring you dry of everything”

h. yeah. this song is literally gaslight gatekeep girlboss and i attribute it to the desert for that reason alone. songs to commit murder to!

•

you’re nobody til somebody wants you dead- saint motel

“you’re nobody til somebody wants you dead/and the list, it grows, and grows, and grows/it grows, and grows, and grows/and grows, and grows, and grows/until it’s everyone you’ve ever known”

this one is very self-explanatory. enemies pogchamp

•

curses- the crane wives

“there’s a fire in my brain and i’m burning, love/oh my, oh my/keep running to the sink, but the well is dry/oh my, oh my/every word i say is kindling/but the smoke clears when you’re around”

okay again! this one has two very specific parts for both of them. grian’s the first verse, which is above, and scar’s the second verse!! i really do like my fire imagery for these two don’t i? well, i blame them for having a fuck ton of tnt on them at all times and literally burning their enemy’s banners as a final act of defiance.

[mcmactictac]

Pt. 3! This one is slightly different, but here’s some songs that remind me of different groups/friendships from the DreamSMP! (These are all character based, not the actual CC’s!)

Wilbur and Tommy: No children by the Mountain Goats

This is one of my top Wilbur songs, especially during the Pogtopia era. Wilbur is just a shell of the person he was before and Tommy is forced to sit and watch as Wilbur crumbles. Both of them desperately need each other, but it just isn’t enough this time.

“I hope it stays dark forever, I hope the worst isn’t over. And I hope you blink before I do, and I hope I never get sober. And I hope when you think of me years down the line, you can’t find one good thing to say. And I’d hope that if I found the strength to walk out, you’d stay the hell out of my way”

An alternate, somewhat happier option is Two Birds by Regina Spektor. It’s looking at Tommy and Wilbur as two birds, and one wants to let go and move on, and the other one is stuck in the same place they’ve always been. I personally interpret Wilbur as the bird who stays on the wire, as it reminds me of how attached he is to his country and the idea of ultimately destroying it. He lies to Tommy and says he wants to “fly” too, but he is inevitably always going to end up in that button room.

“Two birds on a wire. One tries to fly away, and the other. Watches him close from that wire. He says he wants to as well, but he is a liar.”

Tommy and Tubbo: Things we Lost in the Fire by Bastille

After all the war and constant destruction Tommy and Tubbo have sat through; having died multiple times and watching the nation they built get destroyed? They have a bond forged where they have watched everything they love get destroyed, and had to move on and keep going even when it felt impossible. This specific song reminds me of the aftermath of losing their home for the final time, and having to find something new to fight for. It also covers both of their guilt over what has happened between the two of them, and how they both blame themselves for how things have gone.

“I was the match and you were the rock, maybe we started this fire. We sat apart and watched, all we had burn on a pyre. We were born with nothing, and we sure as hell have nothing now. You said, we were born with nothing and we sure as hell have nothing now”

Bench trio: Who we are by Imagine Dragons

What I like about this song is that it addresses their struggles and problems, but doesn’t make them seem helpless and incapable. They grow out of the trauma and force themselves to become stronger because of it, resulting in many other problems, but they certainly aren’t weak. They’re just kids dealing with problems the only way they know how.

“We were never welcome here, we were never welcome here at all. No. It’s who we are, doesn’t matter if we’ve gone too far. Doesn’t matter if it’s all ok, doesn’t matter if it’s not our day. Oh save us, what we are. Don’t look clear, it’s all uphill from here”

Tommy and Techno: Welcome home son by Radical Face

Listen I like to live in a world where this ended well so I will be picking a happy song for this first BUT I have included an angstier option below too. I saw a beautiful piece of fanart to this song months ago, and it’s reminded me of Tommy and Techno ever since. In a post Logsted time where Tommy is still recovering from his trauma, and him and Techno are learning how to be friends again. Neither of them are great with expressing their emotions in canon, and they demonstrate their feelings through actions (Techno giving Tommy a new disc as a present since he knows he loves them) This song is less about the lyrics and more about the energy it has going on, it makes sense when you hear it.

“All my nightmares escaped my head. Bar the door, please don’t let them in. You were never supposed to leave. Now my heads splitting at the seams, and i don’t know if I can-“

And an angsty option for the hurt no comfort enjoyers, Goodbye my Danish Sweetheart by Mitski.

This would take place in the middle of doomsday, with the fight between Tommy and Techno arguing about who betrayed who. We know now that Tommy blames himself for betraying Techno, which makes this fit even better. It’s the sharp pain of feeling like you are not the person you used to be, and not in a good way. You sit there and mourn the loss of who you were, and how you are not the person who other people love anymore.

“Now I lay as I study a blank wall, would you spare me your voice if I call? Cause you waited and watered my heart till it grew, you just grew a little smarter too. And I don’t blame you in you want to bury me in your memory, I’m not the girl I ought to be, but maybe when you tell your friends you can tell them what you saw in me and not how I turned out to be.”

Early L’manberg crew: Born for This by the Score

This song still has the passion, optimism and hope of a united group who believes they are fighting for what’s right. It has that sense of unity heavily tied in with passion that was there with early L’manberg.

“I believe, I believe we can write our story. I believe, I believe we can be an army. We are the warriors, who learned to love the pain, we come from different places, but have the same name. Cause we were born for this”

I might circle back to some of the characters from part one, as I have a ton of songs that fit them, and there are lots of members who have lore I am behind on so I don’t have an accurate idea of where their character is at! I have a playlist right now with all of the songs I’ve used so far, so once I stop doing these I’ll post a list with all of the songs on here, and maybe include some of my favourites I never got around to writing explanations for!

[mxrstar]

[ID: the image appears to be a sunset, but there are clouds and mountains fading in and out on both side of the horizon. on the left of the setting sun, it says: "tomorrow comes anyway" / end ID]

TOMORROW COMES ANYWAY

[a playlist for rainy days, with described day-dreams for each song under the cut]

Smile — Mikko Ekko

you are in a bar, or a bedroom, or a field, or maybe a car.

your best friends are there, and you are tired. your night is supposed to be over. this song comes up on the radio, and after the first lines, someone looks up. slowly, you all start singing. ‘the worst is yet to come’ you scream, from the top of your lungs, and though it may not be true, part of you believes it. ‘the future is forever, so smile,” you say, and you believe that, too.

your friends smile back.

A Complete List of Fears Ages 5-28 (aprox) — The Yellow Dress

you have just finished reading your favorite book for the first time, and- you know that weird, soft burst of energy that hits when words line up your life in such a way that the keyhole of the worst door in your heart lines up with the sky? and you think that perhaps this time you can open it and let light in? that’s what you are feeling right now.

the song says there’s gonna be another day, and maybe, if you weren't feeling like this. you'd object, say: are you sure? does it matter?

right now, you leave it at that. for once, it feels like it's enough.

Don’t Stop — Fleetwood Mac

you are on a couch, about to fall asleep. someone is holding you, or maybe you are holding someone. it’s been a bad night, but not the worst you have had.

at some point, your friend starts moving their thumb up and down, caressing your skin. maybe their hand is on your cheek, maybe it’s on your arm, maybe on your leg. you won’t remember in the morning, but you will often think back to how warm it felt. when people ask you "if you could go back to a peaceful memory, where would you go?" you always answer with this.

Float On — Modest Mouse

you are alone in a park, laying on the grass. it’s spring, and you can feel it in the air. there are children laughing, and people talking, but not so many that it’s annoying.

you feel safe. you sing along to the words, eyes shut, hands closed into fists. nothing bad will happen to me today, you think, and nothing will. you write about it in your diary when you come home at night, even though there’s not much to say. you circle the date and the month, and draw a lopsided heart right beside it. you add the name of the song, Float On, to make sure you'll remember why.

World Spins Madly On — The Weepies

something bad happened. you are in a waiting room, or in a bedroom, or maybe in a bus. a person you love sits beside you, and they are listening to music. they hand you one of their headphones, as if to say ‘want to listen along for a while?’

you do. this song is playing. the person you love sings it quietly, and they have a beautiful voice.

it’s comforting. it doesn’t solve anything, but you are not looking for solutions.

'thank you,' you say, and they take your hand into theirs.

Can’t Go Back Now — The Weepies

you are at a party with a lot of people from your past. some of them you have forgotten, or your affection for them has faded, but none of them is a bad person. none of them truly hurt you.

at some point, during a quiet moment, this song plays in the background. there’s only two people who know the lyrics: you, and a friend that you used to care about tremendously. you haven’t talked to them in ages, but you lock eyes as you sing along, and it feels meaningful. it feels true.

you hope they are okay. you don’t know if you’ll have the courage to ask them, but even if you don’t, you think that this is enough. you both love each other, even after all those years.

Almost Made It — Racoon

something important and yet forgettable in the sum of your life went wrong. you lost a good job opportunity, but you have not-terrible alternatives. you came fourth place to a contest that has prices for the first three. you were turned down by someone you hoped would like you back. you failed a difficult exam. anything on that note.

someone brings you home, and this song comes on the radio. they know the lyrics, you don’t. when the songs start, it’s so on the nose that you both end up laughing. but then the person with you gets so fucking into it, and starts performing it like it’s a concert or something. it’s funny. sincerely so.

you ask them “can you stay with me? at least for this afternoon” and they say yes. of course.

Epitaph For My Heart — The Magnetic Fields

you just broke up with someone you love, or lost a friend, and you are with a good stranger.

you met them in a pub, or maybe online, or in class or at work. you don’t know them well, but they are attractive, and they make you feel comfortable, and they respect all your boundaries.

wherever you are, this song comes on. “oh, this is one of my favorites,” they tell you.

if you like dancing, then you are dancing with them when this happens. if you don’t, you are sitting somewhere, and they sway in place, mouthing along to the words.

what matters is: they are very charismatic. you start moving/dancing/singing, too, and discover that you can be charismatic, too.

you like the music. at some point, you forget what the words say.

I Have Made Mistakes — Oh Hellos

you are about to fall asleep, and faint music is playing from your phone. you are having trouble calming yourself down, but then this song plays.

it has been a very, very tiring day. for the first time since you woke up, you let yourself acknowledge it. you feel like you should be proud of yourself, and you are right to think so.

before the song is over, you fall asleep. you won't have nightmares, and you'll dream of butterflies.

Never Quite Free — Mountain Goats

you are on a train, or maybe on a bus. perhaps you are walking, or looking outside the window of a plane.

you are going home, but it’s a new kind of home. something that you are just starting to build, that still feels like a discovery every time you step into it.

sometimes it’s hard to remember that healing isn’t linear, and so part of you wonders if it will still be home, when you wake up sweating in the middle of the night, thinking that you don’t belong, that there’s some price you must pay to exist wherever you are.

but this song is here to tell you: yeah. yeah, it still is home. it doesn’t have to feel like that all the time, but it’ll wait for you, patiently, with open arms, when you are ready to call it refuge again.

This Too Shall Pass — Danny Schmidt

you hear this song live. it’s a group of people singing it on the side of a street. there’s four of them, and they all—they all believe this. they all believe in what the song says. you don’t know why you can tell, but you can.

it feels magical. people stop beside you, and—god, you think you all believe this, too.

and so you are standing there, in a place that you know well, with people you don’t recognise, and you feel life moving around you, and know, deep inside your heart, that this too, whatever this is, shall pass.

Ghost Of Corporate Future — Regina Spektor

you are washing the dishes after dinner, or doing something equally as tedious, and put music on to distract yourself. this song is what plays last, when you are almost done.

it’s a Saturday, and it has been a hard day cause you never feel like you have enough energy to do something you enjoy. as the song plays, though, you remember about a movie you have been wanting to watch for ages, and, for some reason, you feel suddenly excited. you want to see it, and you know you have people to talk about it with. slowly, you realise that you can’t wait to.

your smile grows as the song ends, and you rush to your room to get your computer and watch the movie.

(turns out, it’s very good. a new favorite. you live-blog it to your friends, and your jokes make them laugh)

Not The End Of The World (Even as We Know It) — Faded Paper Figures

the people you love most sit in front of you on a table. some of them are cooking, and those that are cooking put on this song to sing it.

it’s the only one they all know the words to.

they perform it like they are in a theater and you and your other friends are the audience. they make quite a mess, screaming the lyrics in each other’s faces with everything fragile still held loosely in their hands.

you look at them in awe.

eventually, you get up to hug them. one of them kisses your cheek, and hugs you so tightly they raise your feet from the ground, or maybe they shake your shoulders playfully. do something, anything that makes you feel alive.

you have a whole night ahead of you. you know it'll be beautiful.

No Brakes — Pigeon Pit

two people who are in love with each other are arguing about music. one of them says you have to listen to this song, okay? it’s so good. the other keeps arguing that they just don’t like the genre, okay?

it goes on for a while, and it’s endearing. eventually, the first person puts on this song. the other tries so bad to hate it, but when the music comes to an end, and the singer says I’m going to wake up tomorrow, whatever it takes they smile. it's a wide smile, open and sunny, and it's one that simply can't go unnoticed.

their partner screams in victory, then rushes to hug them. see!!! they say, i knew you’d like it!!!

then they turn towards you. what did i say? they go, i told you this was gonna be a success!

and you know what? they did. they did tell you, and you are happy for them. you high-five them, and their partner laughs.

This Year — The Mountain Goats

it’s new year’s eve. not a particularly good one, but not a terrible one, either.

you remember how everyone talks about this song, you remember the singer saying that around new year’s, much more people seem to listen to it. you wonder: who else is blasting it in their apartment right now? even if they are alone, and maybe especially if they are?

there must be more than you can visualise, sitting on their couch with their tv on mute and their phone opened on this one song.

some of them must be good people. you are not in this together, not really, cause you can’t reach them, but you are not in this entirely alone, either. not in a way that matters. not in a way that counts.

we are all going to make it through this year, you think. we have to.

I Know The End — Phoebe Bridgers

it’s today, or tomorrow, or ten years from now, and you are scared, but not in a way that hurts.

you are scared as background noise, cause you can’t tell, can’t know what will happen now.

and maybe the end is here, maybe something is about to fall, and there’s not much you can do about it.

you listen to this song, though, wherever you are now or will be in the future, and you think you like the music. you like that someone sat down and wrote it.

it’s not enough, but you make it be. just for now. just for a while.

[broken-city-sky]

Okay everyone, here is my playlist about Frank and Gerard that is entirely composed of songs by The Mountain Goats. Below is my explainer for key lyrics on how I feel each song fits their dynamic. 

Playlist: Frerard + The Mountain Goats Playlist 

PART 1: FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE

1. It Froze Me - “I saw you in the blazing light // I saw you, I saw you, all right” (them becoming friends) 

Going to Georgia - “The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway // Is that it's you and that you are standing in the doorway // And you smile as you ease the gun from my hand // I am frozen with joy right where I stand” (I think there was a time in 2005 where this was beyond true for both of them about the other) 

Weekend in Western Illinois - “Some of our promises were binding // Up here where our dreams take form“ (how many late night conversations must they have shared together, on a van or bus rolling down the highway?) 

I Corinthians 13:8-10 - “It was alright just to be alive // It was good that you were mine” (I think this fits when Gerard was sobering up) 

Going to Port Washington - “I had never loved anyone like I loved you”  

Twin Human Highway Flares - “On the day that I forget you // I hope my heart explodes” (This is Frank 100%)   

San Bernardino - “I loved you so much just then” (The “I miss you and want to make music with you” quote from the DD release comes to mind) 

PART 2: TENSION AND FIGHTING 

Sax Rhomer #1 - “And I am coming home to you // If its the last thing that I do” (CW/DD production troubles) 

Early Spring - The pictures that you paint // Aren't as pretty as they once seemed to me (the words “Lie to Me” come to mind) 

Oceanographer’s Choice - “I don't mean it when I tell you // That I don't love you anymore” (this was Gerard) 

Cubs in Five - “I will love you, like I used to” (this song is a list of unlikely things that would have to happen for the person to be in love again, and well. this was def Frank when he wrote his solo music)  

PART 3: HEARTBREAK AND BITTERNESS 

Old College Try - “But I will walk down to the end with you // If you will come all the way down with me” (I think deep down they both knew it would never work long term but damn if they wouldn’t try to enjoy it for however long they had together. It says “I love you enough to suffer through that because the happy times outweigh the pain”) 

Game Shows Touched Our Lives  - "People say friends don't destroy one another. What do they know about friends?" (that line could be the thesis statement of their friendship on a whole) 

Standard Bitter Love Song #7 - “But I know you'd kill me if you could stand the sight of blood” (Again, Frank practically yelling through his solo music at Gerard) 

No Children - “And I hope when you think of me years down the line // You can't find one good thing to say” (This entire song is a duet between two divorcing lovers who are bitter and angry at each other. I think there’s a lot to unpack here and it fits both September 2007 and March 2013 them so fucking well that I need to lay down and cry)  

Song For An Old Friend - “I felt something falling away // On the day your love came screaming through me” (Either of them looking back at those years from now through a nostalgic lens) 

[no6secretsanta]

LOVE LOVE LOVE

by @tea-for-you for @crowmunculus

AN: It’s not a songfic, and it wasn’t even consciously inspired by music, but as I was writing the final part of this story, it became increasingly clear that this fic borrowed a lot of mood from the song from which I lifted the title: https://genius.com/The-mountain-goats-love-love-love-lyrics

I hope you enjoy it!

*******

Somewhere out there, he had connections.

Ritsu, who’d run the playhouse, had died in the manhunt, but he hadn’t seen Mami-hime anywhere there, and Hideki would’ve still be hanging on, and Otsu had been out west and had the tenacity of a roach. Inukashi could’ve been an option if he hadn’t been drawn to Shion by the same gravitational pull that Nezumi had found himself in, and Rikiga was a no-go for the same reason. It was useless anyhow; wherever they were, it wasn’t anywhere Nezumi knew to look for them. What had once been the West Block was now an abandoned lot of ruins, its population likely integrated in the rest of the patchwork city. Walking through the empty streets lined with decaying buildings had been uncanny, a play of death and desolation that had never belonged there, shitty though it had been. The only sounds he’d heard was his own footsteps and the occasional animal scattering away; ahead of him, the city proper had shined in greeting.

NO. 6 looked different with the wall in distant ruins, with buildings clearly reconstructed out of rubble and desperation and a population decimated and doubled. Infrastructure looked mostly the same; he recognised the streets in what was clearly still the city centre, even if half the buildings were new. How weird that the city felt more unfamiliar now than it had back when it was hidden behind a wall, more alien now that he could walk right in rather than worm his way through sewage pipes and abandoned maintenance corridors. He hadn’t been planning his return here or anything, but vaguely expected there was someone in the West Block who owed him enough favours from five years ago to set him up with dinner and a spare blanket until he could look for Shion.

Ironically, Shion might be easier to track down than any of them, but not nearing midnight, on the streets, in a downpour that had started halfway into the town and had quickly soaked through every layer of fabric on his body. It was barely above freezing, and Nezumi hated his life, a little, as he stopped outside a restaurant and pulled in a deep smell of fried food and spices from elsewhere, letting himself revel in the annoyance of his own hunger. He had no money and his last meal had been the day before. He’d find someone tomorrow, he’d look for Shion when it was daytime. This would be far from the first time he’d spend a night forcing himself awake, this was far from the worst hunger he’d known. This wasn’t even disappointment, it was an annoyance, an inconvenience. But he was so tired.

He leaned against the wall by the restaurant door to seek some meagre shelter from the icy rain, and stared out at the city that he hadn’t been able to leave, after all. The skeleton of what once had been remained recognisable under what had been built new, but the new was different enough for the city to feel alien, unfamiliar, as inconsequential as every other little town and shanty he’d passed through. As temporary as NO. 2, NO. 4, NO. 5 had been. He’d known what he looked for when he decided to go back here, but the destination he’d navigated towards looked all wrong. It didn’t feel like he’d arrived anywhere he was supposed to be, and he feet were aching, and he didn’t know where anyone he knew could be found.

He closed his eyes in rest, but startled from his doze at a familiar voice from the door opening, certainly as it interrupted its monologue in a startled “... and as I said, the relocation of the bloody hell, where have you been hiding? Word was, you were taken in the last manhunt.”

“Well, yeah,” he replied dumbly to Yuri, who’d once run the most prolific brothel of the West Block and from her smartly cut suit, had moved forward since then. He might’ve made some snide comment if that had been at all relevant, but the other part of Yuri’s aborted discussion was a man with white hair and an unmistakable red mark pulling down his left cheek to disappear into the neckline of his coat.

“Hi,” said Shion, as intelligently as Nezumi himself felt, and it wasn’t just because she’d known every cock in the West Block that Yuri had once gotten away with never paying her credits.

“Right, then,” she said with a lingering look at Nezumi, and placed a hand on Shion’s shoulder as she opened her umbrella. “Have fun. The downriver school, right?”

“Yes, that’s it,” said Shion, meeting her eyes for a distracted moment before she stepped into the rain and he turned back to Nezumi.

Nezumi, who had not taken this into his planning, and who had walked too far for useful improvisation. “Have you got any food?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Shion, and took him home.

It turned out to be a blatant lie; the only edible nourishment in Shion’s flat was a head of lettuce. But when Nezumi had stood in a spray of hot water for ten minutes, and braided his hair and put on clothes that were clean and dry and mostly fitting, the kitchen smelled like hot oil. Shion lifted pieces of deep-fried dough out of it, and kept frying and frying as Nezumi ate and ate.

They barely spoke, Shion keeping busy with his cooking, Nezumi keeping his mouth full of delicious food. He was still eating when Shion sat down across from him, knotting his fingers and studiously not meeting Nezumi’s eyes.

“I’m happy you came back,” he finally said, and smiled, and that, at least, was something that Nezumi could recognise in this transformed city.

“Yeah,” he agreed, closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair and felt finally tethered.

-

Nezumi had learned kissing from Yuri, rather more thoroughly than the other half of the West Block that had at some point frequented her girls. He’d gone there with his first salary from the theatre, old enough to be curious about sex, pretty enough for a few freebies and murmured lessons in how to kiss someone like a pro. She had probably seen it as an investment, but the experience had been hardly more exciting than what he could accomplish with his own right hand. It was only years later that he realised that he found sex a lot more interesting if it involved men.

Shion had played a part in that, like Shion had played a part in a lot of important events in Nezumi’s life. There had been a tacit agreement between them about the keyless door to the bathroom, but some border is crossed when you prove your stamina to another boy by teaching him to waltz until he’s winded. Never mind when you say your goodbyes with a kiss.

But the unspoken attraction between two sixteen year old children was hardly a basis of anything much between two adult men. Now, it was Shion who went to work while Nezumi lolled around the city or stayed at home and read books. He kept the place clean, learned how to operate the laundry room in the basement, left the cooking to Shion because as it turned out, seven years spent in a bakery taught a man a thing or ten about kitchens. They slept back to back, like they had for half a year in a different world.

Inukashi, who had grown from a famished, flea-ridden, feral bastard into something considerably more human and considerably less ambiguous, had not outgrown the ability to go for the jugular.

“So you really were back, huh.”

“Clearly. I see motherhood’s been feeding you well.”

Inukashi’s smile stretched into baring of teeth in the tense silence that followed, and she patted the kid on the back. “Go help Auntie with the washing-up.”

She dragged him out the door by his shirt, and he let her because he owed Shion’s mum not starting a fight in her home. And it would be a fight, because the effortless grip and demonstratively brutal yank was a clear display of the same tenuous power that had kept Inukashi alive and relatively safe in a decaying city without bakeries and doctors and cute bows for your dogs.

“Listen, shithole,” she said lowly as they rounded the corner by the bakery, out of hearing range from the street, “I don’t know what you think you are but I sure as fuck know what you thought you were, and it was bullshit then and it’s even more bullshit now.”

“Right, fine, you haven’t grown that fa-”

He almost missed the hand aiming for his ear. He jerked away just in time, only to feel the lapels of his jacked seized, to yank him down at eye level. “I remember the correctional facility,” Inukashi sneered, “I don’t know what the fuck happened after Rikiga and I ran off, but I remember the reason you weren’t with us. So don’t fucking start with me. I know that you’re here for Shion, and I don’t need you lording around being a snide asshole.”

He stared out at the street wordlessly, tense in his defeat.

“Anything more, mum?”

“Yeah, get the fuck over the idea that it’s a bad thing to care about others. If you want to be with Shion, then fucking be with Shion, and don’t give me attitude for having a kid. Just because I don’t want him to see it doesn’t mean I can’t still kick your ass.”

“Like you could even back - “

The flat of her hand slammed his head back, and this time her hand found his hair and pulled him back so that he had no choice but meeting her eyes.

“Eyes on the target, jerkass. I could’ve had your balls if it wouldn’t make Shion sad.”

The sixteen year old he’d once been could’ve beaten her to the ground for that, but he’d been in NO. 6 for two weeks without witnessing a single act of violence and something else than age-old instinct told him that starting now would not be taken well, not by Shion’s mum and not by Shion and not by the authorities following the laws that Shion had probably helped write. And Inukashi must’ve known it, too; she’d railroaded him into a corner where his only options were to either destroy the peace that Shion had created, or letting her words go without consequence.

There was a word on the tip of his tongue, borrowed from her dogs and pertaining to the gender she’d taken to displaying while he was away, and throwing it in her face would be a definite capitulation. “You’ve made your point,” he spat instead, humiliation souring his voice.

He spent the rest of the day smarting from the way the altercation had turned out, and pressing into all the tender spots she’d known exactly to target. If he followed his own tracks back, then kindness was the reason he was sitting in Shion’s flat in one of the more central districts of NO. 6. He’d been in despair and the only way he’d known to survive was to fight, and where would he have been, had Shion tried to fight back? If Shion had made a different choice that night, the world would’ve looked so very, very different. But Shion had treated his wounds and given him dinner and cake and held him while he slept, and Nezumi was here because he remembered that sweetness more vividly than all the beatings he’d ever taken in his life.

When Shion came home that night, he was still mulling over it into a mug of tepid coffee. If nothing else, he’d at least stopped startling every time Shion entered the room. The first couple of days had frayed his nerves in how he kept forgetting that Shion, too, had changed in the years between them. He’d walked halfway around the world nursing the memory of a boy of sixteen, and maybe letting go of that was the way to move forward with the man who sat down beside him and squinted in the dim room.

“What happened to your face?”

“I called Inukashi fat.”

“Really,” Shion’s voice was flatly unconvinced, and he touched the red cheek with the back of his fingers.

“There might also have been some veiled comments about parenthood.”

“I’m not even going to try and reason that one.”

“Don’t worry, we didn’t let your mama see.” He reached up to take Shion’s hand, and tightened his grip when Shion started to pull back.

Once upon a time, Shion had made a half-sensible, strange confession. Nezumi’s reply had been to mock him for it, part amused by Shion’s silly crush, part annoyed by the dumb way he chose to phrase it, and a part of him had lit up, a part of him that he firmly told that this juvenile bullshit was something for which his life had no place. I’m drawn to you, Shion had said, yet the only thing that ever came out of it was a cowardly, hateful kiss that meant nothing of the sort.

But Shion was letting him hold his hand, and that tiny act had long since said everything he was trying to put into words. It was one thing to make fun of a confused boy who couldn’t tell that a girl was trying to confess to him before she spelled it out. Telling him that he was the closest thing you had to the things you didn’t think you’d ever get to have was a different burden entirely. A slice of cake and a knitted sweater might’ve been enough to seal the fate of a fugitive child, but that was, inescapably, not how it worked between adults.

Shion had shifted his hand so that his thumb was free, and it was stroking Nezumi’s skin in light circles that echoed to the marrow of his bones.

“Listen,” he tried, and gave up. His only experience in confessions was from stories written in a world that no longer existed, but he’d learned kissing from the best whore in the West Block. So he lifted a hand to caress Shion’s cheek, and Shion fell into it as if practised. His lids lowered prettily, and his breathing was growing lighter, and kissing him was instinct, was destiny, was a law of nature.

And they weren’t sixteen, and they didn’t owe each other anything, and no kiss could carry any far-flung promises, and when Shion pulled away to pant against his cheek, the only thing that remained was details.

“Do you want - “ he started again, and the true content of the question was insignificant, because Shion replied by holding him by the back of his neck and scooting closer.

“Yes.”

The second kiss was heavier, the kind that he'd once been taught and that he'd once demonstrated not on Shion, but for Shion, after Shion had been given his first kiss ever from a girl who definitely hadn't been Yuri's. He pressed into Shion and Shion received it with a sigh, and he yielded as Nezumi leaned into him and gravity brought them together on the sofa.

They’d made it to the bed by the time they were naked, and whatever Shion was, he was at least not a blushing virgin; he was eager, and a bit clumsy, and all the things that might’ve been annoyance with someone else didn’t matter at all. Out of all the half-formed answered Nezumi had forced himself to look at today, one was the fact that sleeping next to Shion had been more meaningful than any sex he’d ever had. He’d come back here for Shion, and when he wanted Shion, and Shion wanted him, there was only one place this could end.

"What do you want," he asked as he pulled away from Shion's mouth, wondering what Shion knew, if Shion knew anything much at all. Shion let his head drop against the pillow, and the hand that had been locked at Nezumi's waist drifted lower. He tensed in anticipation, but Shion's shyness chose to manifest itself there, because Shion didn't touch the obvious places. Instead, his fingers wormed their between his tights, and Shion met his eyes and didn't hesitate.

"Like this," he said, and pushed his fingers a bit firmer in before pulling them back, and there was nothing shy about it, nothing at all.

"Okay," said Nezumi, and let Shion do what he wanted, because lying back and squeezing his legs together was the simplest way about it, in the end.

And there was a sweetness to that, too; to feel the weight of Shion's body, to receive Shion's desire, to listen to Shion panting in exertion and whimpering in pleasure, and to hold on to him so that he didn't move away, that he kept up the rhythm, to flex his legs to meet him, just a little, and to hold him down by the hair as he keened against his neck when he came.

The next morning, he woke to Shion combing his hair with his fingers. He closed his eyes and remembered being twelve and waking up next to Shion in the early, early morning after a storm. But he didn’t need to run any longer; no-one cared if he slept in Shion’s bed, and he nestled closer and fell asleep again.

-

Rou’s idea of education was to have Nezumi be beaten until he started hitting back harder. He’d suffered concussions and a fractured shin, countless bruises and scrapes and sprains, because only wear could create callouses. Then along had Shion come, and gotten under Nezumi’s skin with nothing but innocence and kindness.

Once, there had been a life that Nezumi tried his best to never think about, that had born him into a world of the same safety that Shion had known. He only remembered it in fragments; couldn’t have said much about what food they ate, what instruments they played, what gods they prayed to. He remembered the songs, and he remembered the land, he remembered a little sister and he remembered how it all ended.

He must have remembered something more when he was twelve, to recognise it in Shion, to reach for it despite the danger, to take it despite the consequences, and to ache as he left Shion asleep and climbed out the balcony and ran away across soggy grass. At twelve, he’d already known how to let go of useless things.

At twenty-two, he was still learning how to grasp them, because he’d always, always known that Shion’s softness had been the most important lesson he’d ever learned. With the lights off and the doors closed, nobody would judge him for pulling closer, for smelling Shion's hair, for letting out small, embarrassing sounds when Shion stroked his back or kissed his neck or just pushed their feet together.

Outside the bedroom, life moved on in days passing into weeks and months. Otsu had left for NO. 5. Mami-hime had died of influenza a month after the wall fell. Hideki was still hanging on, doing background checks for the law enforcement these days. Yuri was working on the same committee as Shion. Rikiga had looked sincerely happy to see him again. Inukashi was almost pleasant, as long as conversation was kept away from the topic of relationships. Shion’s mum had taken to ask him to help out in the kitchen, but he never knew when she truly needed the extra hands, or when she just wanted to make him do a bit of washing up for then to set him down with hot cocoa and fond looks as she insisted he keep her company as she set the dough for the next day.

As winter was turning into spring, there was the sombre memorial day. It was the day some hundred and fifty people were murdered in the last massacres in the West Block, three hundred citizens of NO. 6 perished in the medical experiments of the old regime, and another five hundred and thirty were estimated to have lost their lives in the earthquake, the storm, and the collapse of the wall, not counting the thirty-five criminals who had been trapped in the Correctional Facility as it was bombed.

Shion got home earlier than he normally did, quiet and subdued by a day of representational duties. He didn’t move to make dinner, but sat down on the sofa and stared out the window. The list of things that could be the matter was too long for guessing, and Nezumi settled for placing a hand on Shion’s back in sympathy.

"Why did you leave, back then?" Shion asked, without turning away from the window.

"Because I was freaked out," Nezumi answered, and Shion nodded.

"Freaked out about what?"

"You. You were - I was - I nearly... shit," he cursed, but Shion still wasn't looking at him. "I wasn't supposed to care so much about others," he finally said. "And when you - " died, and I only wanted to go after you, but that long, painful sunset, the ghost and the goddess and the miracle was the one topic they’d never spoken about.

The silence between them wasn't comfortable, with the way Shion's breathing was laboured and his shoulders tense, and then he buried his face in his knees.

"I'm sorry," he said, voice breaking.

"It wasn't your fault."

"Yes it was. I executed a man for no crime he'd done against me," and Shion was crying in earnest. "Do you know that I had to lie to my mum? I had to lie to - they found his body, and couldn't explain his injuries, and there was an entire investigation into what happened in that chamber, and I was questioned in an official investigation and I lied to the law that I'm supposed to uphold. And he had a child - did you know that? The guy who Inukashi bribed to get in there, he died too, he was my mum's next door neighbour, they were having a baby in just a few weeks."

"It wasn't you who made that place, and it wasn’t you who made them work there" said Nezumi lowly, "and if we hadn't gone in there - "

"But I didn't have to shoot him a second time," Shion whimpered into his knees, "I didn’t. He was defenceless. He couldn't have hurt you. I did it just because I wanted to. I did it because I wanted to punish him. And I lied to everyone afterwards. To Inukashi and Rikiga and my mum, and it’s horrible."

It wasn't your fault was a blatant lie, because it had absolutely been Shion's fault. You couldn't have done differently was no more true.

"I love you," he said, and it was the only truth that he hoped could offer some comfort to Shion. He wasn't sure if he was heard, because Shion was still weeping violently and refusing to respond to any comforting touches.

"Shion, I love you," he repeated, and fell to his knees in front of him. "I love you, do you hear me?! It's been five years. You can't change it. I love you."

"I made you cry," Shion hiccoughed, wiping his eyes as new tears were forming, "you were shot full of lead, but you only cried because of what I did.”

“Yeah, that was why I couldn’t deal. It wasn’t because of what you did, it was because of how I lost my grip when it was about you. People weren’t supposed to matter to me. You weren’t either.”

Shion swallowed tears, and his his eyes behind a hand as a new wave came over him. “I can’t forget it,” he bawled, but he let Nezumi hold him as he wondered if this was how Shion had seen this day passing every year since then.

“I didn’t leave because you killed that guy,” Nezumi said when Shion was quiet, save for a few futile sniffles to clear his nose.

“I didn’t think you did,” said Shion, wrapping his arms around his neck to rest heavy against him. “That would have been incredibly hypocritical of you. But I never knew for sure.”

“I left because it scared the shit out of me how much I loved you.”

He felt the heat across his face as he realised what he’d just said, but in the dim room, no-one would see, and Shion -

Shion wouldn’t think it was embarrassing to say that, at all, because Shion wasn’t afraid of letting other see where he was soft.

But he didn’t reply for a good three minutes, still.

“I could’ve never come up with such a stupid reason for leaving someone for five years.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re a fucking coward.”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

And so they didn’t talk about it, as the night fell over the city to let it ignore its sins for another year. Shion had changed the city, and he had always changed Nezumi, and as he stroked Shion’s hair in some pitiful attempt at comfort for his own confused feelings, a feeling he couldn’t name was slowly growing.

"Do you wanna fuck me?"

He’d had never felt like researching the process in any detail, but Shion clearly had, or the basic medical education the old regime had given its star students included some truly obscure procedures. When he asked Nezumi to roll over, Nezumi did without a word, and when Shion kissed him and pushed a slick finger against his ass, then there was nothing to it but to close his eyes and receive it, and let his fingers dig into Shion’s hair as Shion touched him in places no-one ever had. He groaned against Shion's clavicle and ground against Shion's thigh when two fingers were sliding easily in and out, and he felt far away, intoxicated and lost when Shion pushed him onto his back and asked him to hold one of his legs.

He let his body go limp as he let Shion tear down the last fences between them, let him in closer than any person had ever been. He slumped down with a shaking sigh, chest heaving against Nezumi's, and this was the terminal, this was the last place he could ever reach.

"Does it hurt?"

"It doesn't," Nezumi said, eyes closed and heart struggling in emotions he couldn’t tell apart, about himself, and Shion, and every tangled knot that existed between the two of them.

Shion lifted himself onto his elbows, and the world collapsed into nothing but his breathing and the way Shion felt on him and in him as he was rocked and rocked and rocked.

Once upon a time, Shion had broken Nezumi in ways bullets hadn’t been capable of, and it had shattered every lesson in living that Nezumi had ever been taught.

“I love you, too,” said Shion afterwards, as if love hadn’t nearly killed him, as if he hadn’t killed a man out of love. And Nezumi held his hand as they fell asleep, because Shion was the one person who would never let him go.

 FIN

[notbrianeno]

#325: the Mountain Goats - Tallahassee

I’m pleased this one came up. Unashamedly autobiographical post to follow.

You know how Highway 61 Revisited is Dylan’s best album (Blonde On Blonde is horrible; fight me), but your favourite is Desire? Is that just me? Well, Tallahassee is not the best Mountain Goats album, but it is my favourite. It was the first time I had heard their music. I had heard the name, like a rumour. A punk rock webcomic name-dropping them as an example of quality non-punk music. The teacher’s assistant in my creative writing class at SFSU telling the group that the Mountain Goats were playing at the Independent and we should all go. I did not go. The Independent was four blocks from where I lived at the time. I did not go. Then a couple of weeks later I was at my internship, tasked with cleaning out the attic storage area that was home to boxes and boxes of t-shirts, books, perfume samples, dead Macs and dying plants. I asked the guy working the storefront if he had some music I could listen to while I worked. Without hesitation he reached behind a curtain and pulled out a CD from the store’s player. It was a CD-R, with just the word “Tallahassee” on it.

I can’t remember the first time I listened to Funeral, or where I was when I first heard felt Born To Run, or even the first Oasis song I heard. I have accepted poor memory of individual listenings as the price to pay for how invested I become in artists I love. But for some reason I do remember this one. I remember liking all the songs on the first half almost immediately, which is rare for me. And I remember reaching the end of No Children and pressing pause, because I was at a crossroads. I wanted to listen to this song at least five more times, immediately, and that has never happened, before or since. In the Discman days I used to shuffle every album precisely once, just to see, then go back to its god-given running order. The album is an art form and unless the artist is particularly deconstructionist or anarchic, the running order is an inviolable aspect of that. So yeah, you listen to the album, you listen to it from start to finish, and you listen to it in the correct running order. No repeats unless you play the whole thing over from the start once it’s finished. Except this one time... I couldn't decide if I should give in to temptation and do the unthinkable, just to hear that swinging, carefree piano and the lyrics about a terrible marriage, toxic and broken and inescapable from either side. More than anything, No Children changed my perspective of what a song could be, and how a skilled songwriter can separate the tone of the lyrics from the tone of the music, and not just in a “singing sad lyrics over happy music” way. I sat there for a couple of minutes, frozen. Just in awe of a song with a chorus that felt cut short by the line “I hope you die... I hope we both die”, marvelling at this perfect lyrical climax of the song, probably of the album.* And then I went with my gut and hit play to continue the album in order. 

Oh. Yeah. An order that goes straight into the wayward bus-ride-bender of See America Right and then grabs you by the scruff of your neck and hauls you home, to sit primly on the porch with a gin and whatever, and listen to Peacocks. Can’t ever be mad at someone who can stack a tracklist like that.

I owned my own copy of the album within the week, learning at Amoeba that I’d missed a free instore performance around the time of the Independent show. C’est la vie. Sometimes, it feels enough just to have discovered this band; I can’t be mad at all the shows I missed. I put a line from Old College Try in the note I wrote to my brother on his wedding day, and led off my best man speech with a quote from Dance Music, because I am, if not the worst, definitely worse than you might imagine.

Oh, right, also: all the above (apart from my brother’s wedding) took place in San Francisco in 2007. The last trip I took was in February. My wife and I rode the California Zephyr across America, crossing 2000 miles between Chicago and San Francisco in 3 days and 2 nights. We passed through Galesburg, IL at full force, crossing the Mississippi into Iowa, then Nebraska, into Colorado, Nevada, then California. Real, Steinbeckian California. Poppies like if liquid gold could raise a cream and you skimmed that cream off the top, you’d have a colour like those poppies. Old mining towns crumbling off hillsides, a few planks of wood each year, windows facing ill-kempt front yards. Into the city I lived in when I was twenty-one. And I finally got to see the Mountain Goats in San Francisco. And I got to sing “I hope I never get sober” along with all the others who found this band in their own way, with their own meanings applied to every single song, meanings I could maybe never understand, or could relate to on a frankly creepy level. It was a wonderful time, and a few weeks after that the world went on pause, and I’m glad I got so take that trip. It’s so good to know that from right here the view goes on forever.

*The only thing more cathartic than bellowing out the modified “I hope we ALL die!” in a room full of Mountain Goats fans is bellowing out “hail Satan” in a room full of Mountain Goats fans. And blessed we are that both often happen in the same night.

[grimelords]

​My October playlist is finished, please enjoy it. From 14 minute 70s acoustic guitar instrumentals, Armand Van Helden bangers and Christian music I’ve had a lot of feelings about this playlist has it all in four hours.

Love Love Love - The Mountain Goats: Posting on the web about Mountain Goats songs you've had a moment with is about as universal as it gets, so here's mine for this month. I woke up one morning with the line about Sonny Liston in my head one day after not listening to this song in years. John Darnielle is perhaps the only person on earth I'd trust to write a song about Kurt Cobain's suicide and he does a very simple and beautiful job of it here. Ben's My Friend - Sun Kil Moon: I discovered Sun Kil Moon way after I probably should have via that guy who was doing parody songs of him last year. This song is fantastic because it takes so long to make its point, and like so much good art is just some middle aged guy recounting his every thought and movement for four minutes. You Were Meant For Me - Jewel: I was trying to remember how Dreams by Fleetwood Mac went and all I could think of was this song, and settled on singing it to myself instead. Sober - Lorde: Sorry to be a normie but listening to Lorde break down this song on an episode of Song Exploder was incredibly good and it definitely made me appreciate the way the brass sounds a lot more. Melodrama really does get better and better as a cohesive whole the more I listen to it. Night Moves - Bob Seger: We as a society need to bring back Power Voice I think. I've been obsessed with this song for months now and as far as I can tell Bob Seger has precisely zero other good songs, which is unfortunate because this one is so good. This also is another song about getting the Lamenting Night Hornies because you heard a thunderstorm that reminded you of the times in your youth that you Fucked and it's, in my opinion, very beautiful. Cairo - San Fermin: This is on the list not only because it's a good song but also unfortunately because of Podasts. San Fermin guested on an episode of Improv4humans and got absolutely roasted about this song so I highly recommend the ep. UFO - Sneaky Sound System: It's unfortunate that Sneaky Sound System's highest played song according to Spotify is the Nicolas Jaar remix of Big (an all time top ten piece of music) because it's really overshadowed the rest of their incredibly good singles. Do you remember 2006? What a time to be alive. UFO (Van She Tech Remix) - Sneaky Sound System: This is my absolute pick of the month and I have been raving to everyone who'll listen but nobody cares, I cannot get enough of it. Do you remember when Justice came from France to bless us all with the secret of bass and we betrayed them by inventing Skrillex not three years later? Van She remember. Charlie Chazz & Rappin Ralph - Duck Sauce: I believe there is a real argument to be made that any song that doesn't refer to the listeners collectively as Party People is absolutely worthless. Duck Sauce's album is a completely underrated classic in my opinion, it's a go-to mood elevator from beginning to end and for some reason has a subplot thoughout about aliens transmitting coded messages to influence human evolution, which is a big thumbs up from me. I Took Your Picture - Cults: Guess what Cults are still really really good. I haven't given this album enough time yet but this bassline has invaded my dreams so that's a good sign. Pavement - City Calm Down: The way this layers and builds into and through the chorus is so satisfying. I love this sort of thick synth production and the contrast between the different registers of his voice is so satisfying as the chorus comes back again. Pogo - Digitalism: Australian electronic music had a real moment around 2007 between Digitalism, Van She, The Presets, Midnight Juggernauts, Cut Copy and all them and I'm realising retrospectively that it was very, very good. Semicircle Song - The Go! Team: The world's best band are back and their new album isn't out until fucking January! This song features big horns and a bridge that's just a montage of children telling you their star sign so that's how you know it's good. The Garden's All Nighters - The Number Twelve Looks Like You: It's a real shame that #12 broke up after this album because it feels like they were really on the edge of something. Over 4 albums they morphed from a straight ahead grind band into some sort of math-prog thing approaching it from a whole different direction to everyone else. I love the idea of writing such an expansive, complex song seemingly just about living in New Jersey. The way it transitions into the groovy latin part is so nice and the solo is just beautiful; and unlike other bands in the same sort of sector they never make a joke of genre switches either, they just keep moving forward with a smile. Paris/Orly - Deux: I forget how I first came across this album but it’s easily the wankiest thing I absolutely love. An 80s French synthpop duo that only ever released a cassette and some singles that got reissued by a label called Minimal Wave a few years ago. It is absolutely the best. New wave mixed with Kraftwerk and synthpop except incredibly french and cool as well. I constantly have their song Game And Performance in my head but this one was my obsession this month. Walking Into Sunshine (Larry Levan 12" Mix) - Central Line: There’s something very authentic about disco songs that are lyrically all about working all week all day every day, and desperately needing a break to perhaps, dance your worries away in a new york discotheque. Cradle In The Crater - The Number Twelve Looks Like You: This is maybe my favourite #12 song because it appears to be about some kind of super child who came from space and perhaps wrought havoc on the citizens of earth, but told in a very real and emotional way like it’s a story about someone they really knew. It reminds me of Mother 3 and the good times I had as a teen playing that game with my best friend, so that’s an added bonus. Under The Ice (Extended Version) - Topo & Roby: Italo disco forever. This song is a duet between a woman and a robot where they relay the story of him coming from a distant planet in a spaceship and crashing on the north pole then getting trapped under the titular ice where he waits to I think murder me. Now that I think of it it’s world similar to Cradle In The Crater. It sounds so good, far better than a novelty song like this has any right to. There’s also a video with someone’s 80s mum dancing with an incredibly shit robot on youtube if you’re interested. Outta The Woodwork - Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett: I really love the covers they chose for this album because they both really make it their own. Outta The Woodwork really sounds like a Kurt song now and I love the strong piano giving the song the harder edge the lyrics deserve and Kurt just lazily soloing to hell any chance he gets Peepin' Tom - Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett: I think I almost like this version more than the original, making it just an acoustic thing but still keeping all the dynamics of the original is so nice. I love specifically the deep bass voice of ‘peepin’ to the high ‘tom’. It satisfies something weird in my brain. Mercury (12" Version) - Bloc Party: I can’t believe i’ve lived this long without ever knowing that there was a 12” version of Mercury out there. The song I always felt was way too short to contain the amount of energy it has has a 7 minute version that well and truly lays it out into a slow intense burn instead. Electric Feel (Justice Remix) - MGMT: Just to get my 2007 opinions straight Electric Feel is not a good song. Kids is a good song but Electric Feel isn’t. That said: this remix comes damn close to making it good. Justice figured out the secret sound and we’re all the better for it. Comin' Apart - Gary Wright: There’s no greater joy than tracking down a sample and finding out that the original song is also a banger. This pairs extremely well with My My My as a sort of extended intro. My My My - Armand Van Helden: I posted that playlist a couple weeks ago of songs mid-2000s bangers with extremely horny videos and this is a highlight from that. I'm always amazed with how much mileage great producers can get out of a relatively straightforward sample because this hums along for almost 7 minutes and only gets better. Laser Life - The Blood Brothers: The Blood Brothers are one of the few bands that scratch the brain itch I have for totally bonkers Mars Volta markov chain lyrics phrases like 'Oh dream machine I'm a pound of flesh inside a drum machine dream'. They're also the only band I think that can get away with having this sort of cabaret swing feel in a song with a lot of screaming and not have it be absolutely unbearable. Camouflage, Camouflage - The Blood Brothers: Where a lot of The Blood Brothers early songs were just chaotic bursts, they have a few songs that spread out into a long multi movement ideas culminating in very good final lines like 'I couldn't see the love and affection it was camouflaged as a jungle of erections, and I couldn't see the skeletal lightning it was camouflaged as a young machete' 16 Tons - Tennessee Ernie Ford: The mistake people make in covering this song is trying to match the extremely grim lyrics to the music, but this version succeeds exactly because it's on some upbeat Frank Sinatra shit with the clarinet refrain sounding like a children's song while still being very much about dying face down in the dirt from arsenic poisoning. Take This Hammer - Leadbelly: On the other hand you have a song like Take This Hammer from a guy who really worked on a chain gang complete with involuntary WAH sounds to time your hammer strikes to, and it's still so much more upbeat and positive musically than it has any right to be looking at the lyrics. San Francisco - Foxygen: There's something about the chorus of this song, and they way the phrases of the two voices line up where if it gets stuck in your head it just goes around and around and around forever and it is absolutely maddening so I thought I'd share that with you all. El Manana (Metronomy Remix) - Gorillaz: This remix reminds me of Studio to a degree with the way it just moves forward with no regard for regular structure. It's gutsy to remix a song and somehow restructure it so the chorus doesn't even sound like it's the chorus anymore but just another small part in a slowly winding up machine. Monkey Gone To Heaven - The Pixies: The way he's screaming that GOD IS SEVEN in this song I feel like if Black Francis hadn't made it in music he'd be running a very successful incomprehensible conspiracy website. This is a song I can get very lyrically involved in when I'm in certain moods, nodding my head like the creature in the sky DID get sucked in a hole and now there's a hole in the sky, and we're all in trouble because of it. Cannonball - The Breeders: I like this song because it feels like everyone in the band is working on their own unique structure. The clean guitar especially just comes and goes at will through the whole song, the lyrics start whenever, the rhythm guitar just keeps strumming along. It all comes together for the chorus and then they just go their own separate ways until it's chorus time again. S.A.D. - Kirin J Callinan: The production on this song just amazes me, especially as it moves into the later choruses the sheer weight of the chords is just crazy. The barest suggestion of guitars chugging in the background but blending into the huge synths chords. Combined with the vocals it's the most threatening pop song I've ever heard. Wrapped up in plastic thrown down the stairs feeling fantastic. Water Coast Blues - Honeyboy Edwards: I feel like Honeyboy Edwards has gotten a raw deal from history. When he died most of his obitaries made a big point of how he was one of the last living people to know Robert Johnson personally. Which is an important detail but it overshadows Edwards contributions in his own right as a guitarist and songwriter who had a 70 year career. The album this recording's from is a really good compilation that gives an overview of his whole career, mixed with interviews with Edwards and Alan Lomax that are just amazing. Anyway just listen to the playing on this song because it is incredible. The bass figure he switches into when he says 'when I had money'? Phenomenal. Another Leather Lung - The Sound Of Animals Fighting: The Sound Of Animals Fighting was a supergroup of a bunch of guys from RX Bandits/Chiodos/Circa Survive and bands like that coming together in animal masks to make the most pretentious band possible at the time. There's a lyrics on one of their other songs where he sings 'the artist! the true manifestation of struggle!' which is quite good. But outside of that they did make some very good music and the second half of this song where it takesoff is really something. Bone Machine - The Pixies: It's amazing Black Francis hasn't been linked to a string of murders in the mid 80s honestly. This whole song feels like evidence. Also the way he says 'I was talking to peachy peach about kissy kiss.. [incredibly long, awkward silence] ... he bought me a soda. he bought me a soda and he tried to molest me in the parking lot hep hep hep hep' is perhaps the most amazing verse ever. Stomping Tonight On The Pennsylvania/Alabama Border - John Fahey: This is John Fahey's best song and I've listened to it probably 4 times a week for the last 4 years. It is quite honestly an eternal mood. Ares - Bloc Party: War! War! War! War! I love the guitar in this, because it's just textural noisemaking more than anything else and mixed with the vocal manipulations in the chorus it's just absolute chaos. It's such a shame that everyone in Bloc Party either left the band or had their brain removed after this album because between this, Mercury and Talons it was truly an incredible moment. Special Rider Blues - John Fahey: I can't believe I only found out this month about John Fahey covering Skip James, and even that it took me this long for me to listen to the full version of his America album. Mark 1:15 - John Fahey: I also learned that on account of cds only holding 80 minutes of music, this 14 minute reissue version of Mark 1:15 is 2 minutes shorter than the original vinyl version and I'm completely riled up about it and demanding a second, definitive reissue to restore them. Regardless, this song is an absolute masterpiece and when it switches into the portion of When The Springtime Comes again about three quarters of the way through it's just amazing. Swim - Nicolas Jaar: Here's another quite long and involved piece of music from the other side of the spectrum. It has a very similar feeling to Mark 1:15 really, so if you liked that persevere through this. It's taken me such a long time to get around to listening to Nymphs for some reason but I'm glad I finally gave it a shot because this song especially is a real masterwork. Crimes - The Blood Brothers: A third Blood Brothers song for you, If you didn't like the other two there's a chance you'll like this one because it's much more sedate. This song is also a good first Blood Brothers song because the way the second vocalist sounds when he finally turns up is really funny if you're not expecting it. This is another on the long list of songs I seem to just always have in my head and sing to myself when I'm walking around. NRG - Duck Sauce: Are you ready for the most powerful 12 minutes of your life? It's the entirety of the NRG single by Duck Sauce. I like to think of it as a purposeful multi-movement work rather than a song and two remixes because that's what it feels like. Starting out we have the original, incredible instant power of NRG. NRG (Skrillex, Kill The Noise, Milo & Otis Remix) - Duck Sauce: and next we have the absolute peak of the work, the fever pitch. See if you can guess which part Skrillex was responsible for. I love the addition of miscellaneous woos and yeahs among the already busy main riff, I absolutely love the bass which sounds like some kind of steel drum pulled down four octaves. I love the distortion on the vocals in the second half as it slowly gives you time to catch your breath. NRG (Hudson Mohawk Remix) - Duck Sauce: The we move into the comedown, the HudMo contribution where the drums somehow sound like they're coming from next door like the party has passed you by and moved on to enliven your neighbours. I love the snare building and then splitting into triplets like it's going to drop before the peace of the synth gives way to the rolling thunder drums hafway in. On The Other Hand Baby - Etta Baker: I don't know what to say about Etta Baker. She's incredible and it's an absolute shame that she didn't really get recorded until she was about 70. This album was recorded when she was about 92 and her playing is still amazing. Crucible - Sleigh Bells: You have to give Sleigh Bells credit for still going strong four albums in if nothing else. Somewhere along the line they adopted this sort of corny rock chick thing that wasn't really there in their first album and I think it works against them but I really can't get enough of the instrumental of this song. The distorted brass and string amongst everything else especially. I feel like there's a much better song buried in here somewhere but I'll take what I can get. Pirate Blues - As Cities Burn: As Cites Burn are another good example of a metalcore band absolutely mellowing out into a indie rock band over the course of three albums, and the result Hell Or High Water has turned out to be one if my favourites of all time. This song especially is an obsession, and I love a band having the sense to no longer make metalcore, but learning enough from it to take a song to a a huge crescendo when they need to like this one does. Timothy - As Cities Burn: Between As Cities Burn, mewithoutYou and a couple of other christian bands I was very nearly converted in highschool and it still informs a lot of my uh theistic thought in a strangely unembarrassing way. This song, from their second album where they were sort of caught between their metalcore origins and the full fleshed indie rock of Hell Or High Water is one of their best. Yelling at god about your dead friend is a massive thing to write a song about but it's done so well and it builds and builds before dissolving into a sparse, thoughtful solo for a good six minutes into a beautiful ending.

listen here

[adventures-in-asexuality]

Hey, can you say some more about why you don't like the mountain goats? I confessed to my girlfriend that I never listened to them, and they made me listen to a song and I was kinda? Meh? Idk it's like an angstier Steven Universe song with a more annoying voice, kinda? You know stuff, explain it to me?

well, I do know stuff and I am very flattered, but also this is definitely largely opinion-based, so see if or where your opinions match up to mine. :P

so first off I will admit that part of it is due to bad associations. a friend introduced me to the mountain goats back in - oh, 2011, 2012? when I was dealing with the first bout of strong suicidality. specifically, she introduced me to ‘No Children’ and ‘You, Or Your Memory’. ‘No Children’ is just depressing, for me; it reminded me, at the time, of my parents somewhat, and of my fears that I was secretly unlovable, or whatever. it reinforced all the narratives about how all relationships just ended in people hating and resenting each other. I actively disliked it then and I still kind of do. ‘You, Or Your Memory’ is about someone trying to kill themself with aspirin and vodka; at the time, my friend said afterwards, half-joking at least, oh no, she’d feel so bad if I killed myself using that method. I listened to that particular song a lot during that time of my life, not really because I liked it or wanted to, but more from a compulsion, that I had to, maybe even because it hurt me and made me feel worse? who can really know what level your brain’s working on, sometimes.

so yeah, for a few years that was my association with the mountain goats. you can see why it wasn’t really my favourite thing. this probably is quite a large part, to be fair; a lot of my associations with a situation tend to go into the music I was listening to at the time, and so there’s a lot of music now which I just… can’t or don’t listen to any more, even if I loved it then, because it’s associated with shitty stuff.

someone asked me a while ago (and I wrote about it then but cannot be bothered to search for the link right now) why I disliked the mountain goats but liked dessa’s music, since they had fairly similar lyrical themes. the big difference for me there was that dessa writes about reactions to terrible shit, about knowing that you may be devastated but you can’t let it show, you’ve still got to be four times as strong and fast and smart as everyone else to get even half the respect. whereas john darnielle just sings about having feelings? like, who does he think he is, that he can just have feelings and expect to be able to talk about it, expect people maybe even to care, expect that he can just do that without being shut out and shut down, outcast and labelled manipulative?

like, if you compare ‘Autoclave’ (which I am grudgingly okay with because it keeps coming up on queenie’s playlists) with ‘Dutch’, I feel like these both talk about fairly similar feelings; about how you feel like you’re Too Much or Not Enough or Both or Wrong in any kind of relationship. (obviously this is personal interpretation, etc.) but ‘Autoclave’ is just john darnielle having feelings; he’s like ‘wow I sure have this feeling. this is a feeling. I have. it sucks. sure am having this feeling!’. where ‘Dutch’ feels a lot more like dessa kind of acknowledging that this is a feeling, and then going, well, fuck you, I have to live with this feeling, here are all my coping mechanisms, if you think I’m too much then fuck you but still with an undertone of ‘fuck this’. living with this shit, this baggage, and talking about how you have to deal with it, and how, yes, you still have to warp it into some kind of thing that will get people to respect you, because the world is like this and it is shit, and it won’t stop being bigoted and judging you just because you have feelings.

and again, that’s a very personal reaction, but it felt like it might resonate with you a bit too. my reasons for feeling unsafe having and talking about legit feelings, for being vulnerable, and my consequent irrational resentment of people who seem to just think that somehow they’re entitled to that, that nothing can go wrong, are my own, but I don’t feel like that’s an unfamiliar narrative to you. but maybe it doesn’t resonate at all! that’s fine.

on a musical level, yeah, I’m not a great fan of the music of the mountain goats. I don’t really have an accurate overall summation of my musical tastes, but an approximation would be ‘plenty going on, and well-put-together’. of what I’ve heard of the mountain goats, there’s never a huge amount going on in the accompaniment; nothing tends to stand out as special enough that I’d listen to it for the music, regardless of the words, and it doesn’t tend to have a driving enough beat that I can get into it for the energy/emotion within that. (compare, for example, this or this, where you can let the music get into your bones and relate to it in that way.) john darnielle’s singing voice is also pretty unremarkable, and while I can see why people would like that - it is pretty neat to get a reminder that Normal People Who Aren’t Trained Singers can make music too! - combined with a fairly uninspiring accompaniment and lyrics that often annoy me, it just doesn’t make for a really compelling song.

but also, this is my opinion, and a lot of it is based on my own personal shit; this isn’t me lambasting these songs as Bad (if it were, I’d choose something that wasn’t important to many of my friends!), just Not Really My Thing, Don’t Really Get Why People Like Them.

[hollyhark]

CWU Soundtrack

Guys this CWU soundtrack is so ancient and sacred to me........... the doc I made for it in my g drive is titled ‘Kylo Hux Trilogy Soundtrack’

;_________________;

That’s how formative it was!! When I was in the initial throes of my obsession with this project I would just open the soundtrack doc in a tab and review it obsessively, tweaking the ~selected lyrics~ and sometimes swapping out songs, just. Basking in how cinematic this project felt in my mind. Wah.

I originally wanted the soundtrack (& my asinine notes on it) to be its own AO3 post as part of the series, for posterity, and these were my notes in that regard lol:

Title: Children, Wake Up

Summary: Now you see me / Now you don’t / Now you say you love me / Pretty soon you won’t.

A soundtrack for my Kylux series.  [!!!]

(those lyrics are from Dilaudid by The Mountain Goats, which is SONG FOUR within~~)

THE SONGS (+more overly earnest commentary! This was the overly earnest period in my life, it served me well tbh) are under the cut:

1. Arcade Fire - Wake Up

The song that inspired the title! I actually don’t have a lot to say about this one, it just felt perfect in tone and lyrics for an opener/theme song for this fic.

2. Icona Pop - Sun Goes Down

My original note for this was “Ben Solo meets his new master” (the soundtrack is chronological for the events of the fic!) I know this is way way too on the nose for a Kylo song because of the vocoder-like effect lol but it did inspire Snoke/Dala’s character in the early stages...! And I still love it.

3. Perfume Genius - Learning

This is a Hux song. Hux at the Academy. All of these songs still make me emotional and probably always will but this one in particular takes me back to where I got my whole initial take on the Hux character from.

4. The Mountain Goats - Dilaudid

My original note for this song was “Kylo Ren destroys Ben Solo.” This was basically my BEN LEAVES HOME IN A BLAZE OF MURDER song. It would give me goosebumps every time I listened to it, especially ‘and take your foot off of the brake, for Christ’s sake!’ There’s so much menace and dread in this song but it’s this sad, empathizing menace, and the dread feels very active rather than passive?!

5. M83 – Wait

This is the other song that I still get enormously emotional about (ok I’m gonna say this about at least half of them, I’m typing this as I go down the list SO). “Kylo leaves Rey on Jakku.” This was my tragic cousins song, and that this is the cover of the album (“Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming” ;__;), welp.

6. Ben Folds Five - Philosophy

My note for this one was “General Hux, lite.” This is the youthful, succeeding Hux! This song always makes me think of Mitaka serving under Hux, too.

7. Aimee Mann - Deathly 

My note for this one was “Hux’s first and second impressions of Kylo Ren.” I think it’s the right tone for how he feels in the Life Sentence part of the story, like, he already knows this isn’t ending well for him. But he’s still into it.

8. Okkervil River - A Stone

Oh man this song. My note was “Ren leaves the Finalizer for the last time. Hux watches him go.” So the ‘stone’ in the song is Snoke & Snoke’s teachings. The long story behind my attachment to this song is really the long story behind the whole CWU series, in that I was working on an original project the year before and getting increasingly frustrated with it-- I realized why in part because I got fixated on this song, which is a(n intentionally, I assume) creepy “nice guy” song that made me realize my villain in the thing I was working on was much more well-developed and interesting than the MC’s blah love interest, and then I dove into writing this villain x villain verse for all of 2016 and it was cathartic. The ‘who once gave just one rose, one day, years ago’ still kills me because it’s the actual most romantic fucken thing.

9. Location – Freelance Whales

Song No. 9 was originally From Eden by Hozier, and I still like that song as a bonus track for their (somewhat happier??) times at the house on the cliff. But I was informed about this song by @eckcro in February 2016 and the more I listened to it the more I realized it was the Actual Perfect Song for the Ceasefire portion of the story. I don’t even know what to say, it’s perfect. It’s the house on the cliff song.

10. Bon Iver - Holocene 

Oh mannnn this song was so important to the development of this story, it was the bridge between their leaving the house on the cliff and going to the island (my note on the original doc was “Kylo’s epiphany”) and in that sense it was also what first inspired me to think about the fic even beyond that, in terms of what would happen after they left the island. The ‘once I knew I was not magnificent’ [...] ‘I could see for miles, miles, miles’ still destroys me. Kylo ;__;

11. Aimee Mann - Just Like Anyone

Oh here’s another song that makes me cry. This is “Luke’s reflection on Ben’s leaving” according to my notes. Basically Luke’s feelings re: Ben. We’ll see if canon reflects this or not lol but I like the idea that Luke could feel this along with whatever rage and bitterness is there also.

12. Sufjan Stevens - Death With Dignity

This was a late-ish addition that saved my life when I wrote Chapter 14. “Ren faces Snoke” is my note. An anon rec’d Fourth of July by Sufjan to me in May 2016, as a song that reminded them of the series, and I loved it and ended up listening to the rest of the album, too, which lead me to this song, which I listened to on loop while writing Chapter 14 and Ren’s first confrontation with Dala. I feel like the lyrics fit what I had in store for Ren in this first confrontation eerily well.

13. Alice Boman – Waiting (PAL Remix)

My original note for this was “Now what” lol this was one of the first songs that became thematic for me as I was planning the story, when the plot was way more focused on Hux being angry and closed-off during his incarceration. At this point it’s more of a ‘writing CWU’ theme song for me than reflective of what the story turned into, but maybe even more sentimental therefore, and it still embodies my original feelings about this pairing.  

14. Sting - Fortress Around Your Heart 

My note for this was: “Life in the city after shit went down” fffff-- and in part because this was the theme song to a post-game FFVII epic that I got about halfway through back in 2005. The third part of CWU has a lot of the same themes and felt like a redemption arc FOR ME in terms of actually finishing a fic that was grand in scope like that one was. And the first line is the title of the third installment ofc.

15. Elliott Smith - Between the Bars

Jailbirds in separate cells song. The original idea of the third part was sooo focused on the jail, ha. 

16. The Extra Glenns - Going to Marrakesh

I’ll just quote this one:

The fog is lifting from the water.

The bells are sounding on the boats.

And our love is a monster, plain and simple.

Though you weigh it down with stones to try to drown it,

It floats.

It floats.

17. Hannah Georgas - Don’t Go

This wasn’t in the original soundtrack but was so important to me when I was working on the final action with the triangulation and the Infinite, it earned a spot. This is like, dreamy between-worlds desperate love stuff.

18. Pools To Bathe In -- The Japanese House

Another that wasn’t on the original soundtrack but I think it ultimately became the most important song. I could write a whole essay about how this song functioned for me at this time in my life, when I was trying to make the conclusion of this huge thing I’d worked on all year work, it was just hugely inspirational. Hearing it will always take me back to that scene where they leave in the transport that Wedge helped Hux repair and they’re finally alone together and headed into the unknown. I love huge epilogues so of course I wrote TWO in the final chapters, but the soundtrack ends where the climax of the main action does, which is in that moment <3

[dreamofcentipedes]

Hi, sorry to be a bother but since I'm new to the fandom and have recently caught up with :re, I was wondering if you've ever like analyzed that rotten womb poem that Ishida wrote and how it's related to the touken baby and stuff.

(Thanks to @makyun​ for the translation)

Thankfully, I don’t think it’s actually related to the Touken baby anymore, but more to do with the Kirishimas (given the art that was posted alongside it, shown below) and the lifelong struggle of being a Ghoul. This is all wild mass guessing here, but isn’t that what poetry’s for?

The term‘Kirishimas’ in the following meta will include Yomo, despite not bearing anyrelation to Arata. Technically they should be called the ‘Yomos’, but it’sdifficult to avoid superimposing Yomo’s face on Touka and Ayato in that mentalimage, so we’ll stick with Kirishimas.

Her womb smelled like it was burnt.

Hikari’s womb. Her death set the development of her children aflame.

The children whowere meant to be born, died. The vision of the future convulses.

Touka, Ayato andYomo are three characters whose lives have been especially affected by theirGhoulhood. Subject to prevailing rhetoric, they believe to some extent thatthey are a mistake. Their being a ghoul is responsible for all the tragedythey’ve experienced without their life, so here their ghoulhood is compared –fittingly, given the real-life mythological description of the species – with beingundead. Because they are ghouls, the future convulses with tragedy.

Someone declared thatthey’ll crush only half of the broad bean.

Touka, Ayato and Yomo have all at various times tried to crush the CCGwithout acknowledging the fault carried on the part of the Ghouls as well. Theycan’t break down the world to create it a new in the same way that you can’tjust crush half a bad broad bean - it must be the whole thing, or not at all.Bean imagery in particular comes from (Kaneki’s mental image of) Rize’slikening of people to coffee beans - you can read more about that in linkspooky’s meta for the poem.

The gene is in asevere bipolar state.The nucleic acid sequence having no recollection of its own actions.

Perhaps againalluding to the genetic curse of Ghoulhood, which they have no responsibilityfor suggested by the lack of recollection of the nuclear acid sequence’s ownactions. The bipolar state being the cause of Ghoulhood in the first place, orperhaps alluding to their various forays to the Human side of the spectrum – likeTouka in the first manga’s second half, Ayato defying Aogiri to save Hinami andYomo’s tolerance of humans upon joining Anteiku.

All of the fingersthat were supposed to be connected from start to end, are scattered around;it’s annoying.

The fingers in the hand needed to reshape the world are scattered apart.Such is the state of the various characters of :re throughout thestory until they can be united within Goat. The same is true of the scatteredKirishima family, which is assuredly better together.

If you look closelyat the knot, you can see that it can be surprisingly easy to untie.

The knot beingexistential crisis and confusion. The key to untangling it is quite simple -love. In the image associated with this poem, it is the bond between theKirishimas that is emphasised here. The knot of the Ghoul/Human conundrum thatthe series revolves around can be untangled in much the same way

I was always askedto keep the switch.Go forward.Go back.Stop.

The switch onKaneki’s actions from Touka’s perspective. Become more Ghoulish (Kuroneki),don’t be so Ghoulish (Shironeki), stop changing all together (Haise). But thesame rhetoric can apply to Touka’s own development: Become more human (1-79),become less human (79-143), stop changing all together (:re 1-53). Ayato’s andYomo’s too.

I can hear my voicefrom the mouth.That voice gave me a feeling of discomfort and it had become extremelydisgusting but, no one noticed that and everyone was under the impression thatit was indeed, my voice.

The voice of themonster inside, the ravenous beast of Ghoulishness – which, either masqueradingin human society or in the presence of Ghouls at home with their identities won’tcause anyone but you discomfort, because you’re either the only one whorecognises it or the only one who takes issue with it. Such is the Kirishimadilemma. Arata and Hikari’s efforts to live like humans saddled them with a lotof ‘Ghoul guilt’ that they have channelled in different ways – either subduingthat nature through Anteiku or throwing themselves headlong into it in Aogiri.

Sin isirresponsible. I’m getting tired of being forgiven.

Touka thinks that amurderer like her should die. Ayato doubtless struggles with his own actions inAogiri. Yomo has never forgiven himself for both allowing Hikari’s death andfailing to avenge her.

My shoulders haveeven forgotten about my legs. 

They bear the weight of things they don’t even know if they can carry - making themselves targets for the CCG being the most obvious example.

I open the doorwith the side of my arm.

They rush towards apossible salvation, slamming it open with their shoulder in typical Kirishimareckless fashion.

The path that Ishould’ve advanced in is gone and darkness pulled onto the horizon that layright beneath it.

…But are suddenlyheld back, sorrow and hopelessness closing in on their hearts when they realisethe path forward no longer exists. In Touka’s case, this wasKaneki’s ‘death’. In Ayato’s, the possibility of Hinami’s execution. InYomo’s, his failure to kill Arima.

“Come on, come on!Come on, come on!”

Nice duality herein that it could be their own inner thoughts expressing their frustration, orthe encouraging voice of their loved one pulling them forwards.

Go forward.Go back.Stop.

Same dilemma asbefore.

I can hear my voicefrom the bones.

“Did you know thatour voice is the mixed voices from dad and mom? No wonder it’s so disgusting.”

They fear repeating the tragedy their predecessors faced, recognising their own story in the bones and voices of their parents. Since :re is about breakingthat cycle, it’s a wise fear.

I pinched my noseand jumped down without a pause. Just like how a child would when jumping intoa pool.

 Again, theirtrouble with recklessness. In spite of their fear of repeating the past, oftenthey throw themselves directly into the situations they try to avoid. Touka’sinvestigator-killing past, Ayato’s time in Aogiri and Yomo’s quest to killArima all reflect Arata’s fixation with revenge. The metaphor suggests theirfixation is childish as well as dangerous.

Even thenever-stopping rain,even the never-breaking night,even the never-ending agony.

It’s surely there,it’s just that it wasn’t there until now.

The three livesthat began to spiral out of control with Hikari’s death. With each freshtragedy it seems like a whole new layer of darkness, becoming easier to lookback on lighter rainfall with rosy eyes.

Falling down,falling down.It’s as if right has become left.

What’s right,what’s wrong? Is it good to be human? Is it good to be Ghoul? And which arethey, now the lines are so blurred? They are lost in the plummet of confusion.

And on the brink of collision, I recall Björk’s song.

Now, Bjork has a lot of songs so I’ll go with the general consensus andassume this is referring to Hyperballad, since Ishida played it during his NewYear’s livestream. The lyrics refer to someone throwing off items from amountain so they can enjoy time with their loved one. This is very Ghoul andvery Kirishima – they have to sacrifice people by the score so that they canlive for the sake of spending that life with the ones they love. They must allfeed on humans to survive, but for more specific examples – Touka felt she mustkill investigators to protect Hinami, Ayato joined Aogiri to wipe out the CCGto protect Touka, and recently Yomo has disposed of Aura to protect Touka. Thesong also contains reference to suicidal thought, which I am sure they have allgrappled with, considering their rather blasé considerations for their ownlives.

Well, that’s just my take on it, but the words are definitely open to a wide range of interpretations, so who knows what lies ahead?

[richmeganews]

Catastrophe’s final scene is perfect

The Amazon comedy’s series finale encapsulates its whole run in a series of brilliantly chosen moments.

Every week, we pick a new episode of the week. It could be good. It could be bad. It will always be interesting. You can read the archives here. The episode of the week for March 10 through 16 is “Episode 6,” the series finale of Amazon Video’s Catastrophe.

Meeting the love of your life is a kind of curse.

It’s wonderful to have the security of knowing this person will always be there for you. But it’s also a way of stopping time: This person will always be there for you. As we live longer and longer and longer, “always” stretches beyond what it used to mean for our ancestors.

And then what happens if they screw up, if they hurt you, if you hurt them? In the beginning, you make promises to each other and hope for the best, but you can never know. There’s a lyric from the song “No Children” by The Mountain Goats — about a doomed relationship that nevertheless persists — that strikes me as relevant when thinking about this: “I am drowning. There is no sign of land. You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.”

I’m willing to bet Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan, the co-creators, co-writers, and co-stars of Amazon Video’s wonderful little British comedy Catastrophe, had that song in mind as they wrapped production on the series’ fourth and final season. And not just because it ends with the two of them having a swim.

Catastrophe’s series finale is a sweet yet caustic look at how couples can and can’t support each other in times of sorrow

The shoe that drops at the start of “Episode 6” is one that Catastrophe fans had to have known was coming. Upon landing in America for a family vacation, American Rob and Irish Sharon — whose unlikely, week-long hook-up in the series’ first episode resulted in a baby, a marriage, and a TV show — discover that his mother, Mia, has died while they were in the air. Their vacation, then, will see its first half taken over by funeral prep.

The reason Catastrophe fans will almost certainly have known that Mia’s death was coming is that she was played by the late, great Carrie Fisher. (Indeed, the very last thing she filmed before her death in late 2016 was the third season of Catastrophe.) But season four places this event not early on but in its sixth and final episode, filling its first five episodes with the sorts of small incidents and moments of wry domestic comedy that have long propelled the series to its heights.

And even though it’s in its final episode, Catastrophe chooses to unspool the story of Mia’s death without rushing. We see several scenes set at her funeral, and the show even finds time for Rob and his sister (a perfectly cast Michaela Watkins) to deal with the complicated relationship they have with Rob’s father, Ryan.

When Rob confronts Ryan about his abuse of Mia, Ryan brags that, hey, he didn’t hit Mia as much as his own father hit his mother. And he hears Rob doesn’t hit Sharon at all. Maybe Rob and Sharon’s oldest child, a boy, will be even better than Rob. Maybe that’s the march of human progress — each generation just slightly better than the last, able to diagnose the sins of its predecessors for what they were, instead of accepting them as “just how things were done.”

Amazon Video

Michaela Watkins turns up as Rob’s sister, and it’s really great casting.

But Rob and Ryan’s conversation also underlines another of the episode’s burbling undercurrents: Both Rob and Sharon can be (and have been) pretty awful to each other. And with so much weighing on him — on top of an unexpected job offer that would take him back to Boston instead of London, where the couple lives — Rob finally blows up at Sharon. He tries so hard to make her happy, and she never is. He wants to move back to Boston. He doesn’t care if she comes along.

Rob and Sharon have survived worse than this fight. But after four seasons of frustration and regret, it’s easy to see how it could be the end. Rob and Sharon met by chance. In most versions of this timeline, they never even met. In some of them, they may have met and had a fun little fling. But in this one, they met, had a kid, then fell in love (and had another kid). And no matter what they do now, they’re stuck with each other.

What takes the series finale from good to transcendent, then, is its final four minutes. With Mia’s funeral behind them, Rob, Sharon, and their kids finally embark on their vacation, stopping at a beach. Sharon assures him he makes her happy. Rob apologizes. She says she’s pregnant. He says he saw the test in the trash. She goes out for a swim, and he’s not sure he wants to come, but maybe he can sit and watch...

...and then he notices a sign saying the area is filled with dangerous currents and no one should swim there. He doesn’t hesitate and strips off his clothes, swimming out to her. They kiss. The Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs (continued)” rises on the soundtrack. In Catastrophe’s final shot, we see them turn toward the shore and start swimming for it.

We don’t see whether they get there.

Catastrophe’s final scene recontextualizes everything that’s come before it in a graceful, understated way

Amazon Video

Rob and Sharon embrace at Mia’s funeral.

The Mountain Goats’ “No Children” follows the lyrics I excerpted above with the turn, “I hope you die. I hope we both die.” At the darkest point in my own marriage, my wife claimed this lyric as one she clung to, as evidence that others had been where we were and made it out. Any marriage — maybe any relationship — is knowing that someone is drowning and deciding if you’re going to risk it yourself.

While I enjoy Catastrophe, I’m not sure the show has ever done something that hit me as hard as its final scene. Indeed, before I saw it, I didn’t quite understand why everyone I know who watched the final season before I did was so gaga for the finale. The way it blended Mia’s funeral with a slightly too-forced conflict between Rob and Sharon never felt like a capper to the series in the way I perhaps wanted it to.

But the final scene recontextualizes all of the above. A marriage is two people, each going through life alone, and then a third person who is somehow both of them, who finds some way to go through life together. Sharon can’t really be present for Rob when his mother dies, because his grief is so private and personal. And thus, he lashes out. But there have been many times throughout Catastrophehe when he couldn’t be there for her in the way she needed, for one reason or another.

What makes them a great couple, then, isn’t that they know how to weather storms, but that they understand the storms can be weathered at all. Rob and Sharon are two people willing to drown with the other if need be. Sooner or later, they might succeed, but for now, the shore is still in sight, just out of reach, but right there on the horizon.

Catastrophe’s entire run is available on Amazon Video.

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