#this is my favourite track of the album

[kaitlindogood]

who's afraid of little old me? | lea schüller

warnings: slight homophobia and angst but with a happy ending

word count: 791

summary: you're far from perfect but lea loves you for it

a/n: the fifth installation of my 'the anthology' blurbs series

feral was the word your teachers used to describe you as, all untidiness and chaos.

you know your parents would describe you similarly, if you spoke to them anymore.

your girlfriend, lea, is the complete opposite. always neat and polite.

she is patient too, one of the many reasons she is such a brilliant striker. she can be counted on to wait for the precise moment to do what she is so well known for.

but her patience is also for you.

your parents hate you for being gay, hers accepted her wholeheartedly.

accepted you too, once the blonde introduced you as her partner.

it had scared you terribly at first, given you so much anxiety that this would be the second family you lose but lea soothes it all easily with sweet, gentle words of reassurance and love.

the german woman always knows the right words to say to you. how to calm you down is practically her special talent, given that she is the only person in the world who can do so.

she’s level headed and cool under pressure. once again the complete opposite of you, off the pitch.

you have your father’s temper and on occasion, your mother’s mean streak. both of their characteristics had greatly shaped your childhood.

it was an angry household that you grew up in, one that you have done everything to escape.

but the effects, despite your best efforts, linger.

you yell when you are scared and cornered. you’d rather deal with everything on your own, no matter how much you are struggling, than ask for help.

it took lea a while to figure you out.

to learn that you don’t intend on hurting her but rather, don’t know how else to react.

so it’s with patience that she teaches you to talk to her, to let her help you instead of shutting her out.

to let you know that she doesn’t expect anything in return because she loves you.

you and all your imperfections.

the way your parents raised you made you think that you owed someone every time they did something for you but your lea shows you otherwise.

she never asks for anything in return. only hopes that you let her love you and be there for you.

so you do. even if it means relearning things you have done your entire life.

you will let down your guard for lea because you love her too.

the bayern munich player has never caged you, never hurt you and never called you crazy, like a lot of people did when you were growing up.

you’re by no means an easy person to like. you’ve never made friends easily.

it had taken a few months for you to become at home, with the rest of your teammates.

you’re cold and clinical on the pitch and that’s the only side of you the fans see so you understand why you’re not a favourite like the blonde.

you can be mean and you can be petty. lea doesn’t have a selfish bone in her body.

in fact, you’re actually quite sure that a resentful thought has never once crossed her mind.

for you, showing kindness had to be learnt. it is innate in the german forward and with every day that she is by your side, she shows you that you can learn it.

it’s because of her influence that you snap less at people and instead, laugh a lot more with them.

you will never understand why lea with her beautiful blue eyes and bright smile that lights up anyone’s day fell for you like she did and chooses over and over again to love you.

it makes you the luckiest person in the world.

you know that most people who don’t know you, think of you as intimidating. with opponents, it’s in your favour so you are okay with it.

but lea’s never thought so.

‘who’s afraid of little old me?’ you used to think to yourself as you grew up in your loud and angry house.

you kept the peace there at the expense of your own, pushing down your emotions just so you didn’t upset others.

lea’s shown you that you don’t need to do that anymore.

she won’t leave you. not when you are happy or content and certainly not when you are mad or anxious.

so ‘who’s afraid of little old me?’

it’s not lea. your lea’s never been and never will be.

instead, she sees the best in you.

with soft kisses and steady affection, nights spent safely in her arms and dates where your love for her only grows, the striker brings it out, so that the rest of the world can see it too.

[ringosmistress]

[add1ictwithapen]

Got a bad feeling I'm gonna lose the lead Runnin' from a thing that I kicked in '17

[lady-of-the-sun]

[vimbry]

there's something tying "she's an angel", "birdhouse in your soul", and "hovering sombrero" all together in tone to me. the best way I can begin to explain it is sharing a sense of cautious optimism.

they're all ostensibly positive songs with a huge bed of neurosis underneath. not just in the way the band's music often has a lighter sound paired with dismal lyrics, but the lyrics themselves illustrate characters in happy situations grappling with their various insecurities.

the person in "she's an angel" is in the thick of lovesickness, but seems to be waiting for the other shoe to drop, thinking, 'this doesn't happen to people - she's perfect and we're happy, what's the catch?' the blue canary nightlight in "birdhouse in your soul" is a kind yet modest guardian that's quick to list its limitations, and wants reassurance that the child will always appreciate them. "hovering sombrero" is slightly different in that it's about the narrator comforting something else that doesn't think it can ever be good enough.

[limitlesssense]

Taeyong – Concrete The 1st solo concert TY Track

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Loving the discussion about "Am I allowed to cry?" happening (like @taylortruther's blog) and it also strikes me that it may also be like, getting over the shock of the immediate situation (e.g. ripping the bandaid off/following through on the breakup) and finally asking yourself if it's time now to let it out/grieve? As in, "can I cry now? Is it safe now?" (Is [the worst of] it over now? or Am I in the clear yet? if you will.)

Like, steeling yourself to do The Thing and then once The Thing is over, you finally come down and feel all the feelings.

[robinfollies]

MONA LISA, DARLING / YOU’RE A STILL-LIFE STARLET / ANY MINUTE I’LL WAIT FOR YOU 🌟🎨💘

[ 🎵 Porter Robinson - Mona Lisa ]

still image version + more under cut!!

still version + pandora-less version + gif version

(the letters and stuff are way less jumpy in the gif… they’re supposed to look like they do in the gif normally, but for some reason they get way jumpier when I export as a video? shrug…)

[baby-girl-aaron-dessner]

Should I sleep? Or should I stay up and join the potential swiftie-clown-party?

[pardonmydelays]

ok, so i just listened to "loom" by imagine dragons, and i'm sorry but i only like three and a half song

[scramble-crossing]

Feeling sick right now I miss my wife so much

[traumainpyjamas]

WayV \\ WayV 威神V 'On My Youth (遗憾效应)' MV

[lightineventide]

Welcome all to curtain call, at the opera - today marks the 17th anniversary of Kamelot's Ghost Opera!

Highlighted text on the picture: "Ghost Opera came out on 04.06.2007 via SPV"

/That's apparently the European release date./

Hey, hey, the (best) record I share a birthday with has been thrown upon ya! Now, in 2007 I was still an annoying just-out-of-kindergarden kid that only listened to Alestorm (the magazine is from my father's collection), but a few years later I was delighted to learn this fact!

My Top 3 song recommendations from the usual version of the album:

The Human Stain

Ghost Opera

Anthem

Bonus:

My absolute favourite song from Ghost Opera - Season's End (Spotify link). This video is my best deep-dive find from Kamelot and I just wish the quality was better, because Tommy Karevik's version is just as good as Roy Khan's original!

[silverbastardgoldenfool]

I'm sure I won't be the first to point this out but I really admire the way Halsey was able to create songs which were explicitly inspired by certain artists without ever once losing the ineffable essence that makes her art hers. I'm not on instagram so I missed the whole parade of influences thing - I got that the gist of the album would be this sort of muddle of identities and eras but didn't know each song would have a specific influence. Listening to the album without the full context, I appreciated the scope of its diversity but I never once felt like anything was a copy or an inauthentic expression. It felt strangely cohesive in its chaos and most of all it was, quintessentially, a Halsey album. It's fascinating how, in leaning so hard into this idea of impersonation, they actually proved more than ever what an incredibly distinctive artist (and human being) they are.

[everything-maxriemelt]

Brett: “We did our first gig in 1989 around the time of baggy and shoegaze. When you’re young and impressionable, you want to sound like whatever’s fashionable, but we weren’t musically competent enough to be one of those bands. We carried on rehearsing three times a week and playing to three people, and slowly we got really good at being Suede, something with its own identity…

Bernard [Butler, guitarist] came up with the chords for Animal Nitrate and gave me a cassette of them with a drum machine on. The working title was Dixon, because it sounded like the theme for Dixon of Dock Green. I took it away but I just couldn’t write anything that I thought was any good. One night I was at a gig at the Powerhaus in Islington and overheard what I thought was “animal nitrate” in a drunken conversation. I wrote it down, forgot about it, opened my notebook the next day and there it was. It unlocked the song for me. All of a sudden I had the lyrics.”

Matt: “I first heard Animal Nitrate on a tape at the Premises in Hackney where we rehearsed. The music was completely formed. Bernard – when he wants – can do really interesting jazzy chords but this is much more straightforward and direct. He was listening to a lot of Nirvana at the time and you can hear that in the spiciness of the guitar line. The rhythm of the middle eight is very Smells Like Teen Spirit. I think we all knew it was a big song, almost a distillation of what we’d been doing to that point. It was the first song we wrote with an audience in mind – we knew people were listening. I don’t know if that’s why it has an element of call and response in the chorus, but when we played it at the 1992 Reading festival you could see the audience responding.”

from theGuardian