#this turned out even more nistrid centric than i thought it would haha

[wellamarke]

fandom + album challenge

Hi this isn’t a thing, I’m just inventing it right now because I was listening to one of my all-time favourite albums this morning and every single track seemed to remind me of Humans (because my entire mindset is just stuck on Humans obviously)

So I hereby create this challenge: take a fandom, take an album, list the tracks, and relate each song to a character/pairing/other aspect of the fandom. Once you start, it gets almost uncannily easy to find the links...

My fandom is obviously Humans, and the album I’m starting with (I’ll probably bore you with a few of these posts) is Ingrid Michaelson’s Lights Out. The album was released in 2014 and the show started in 2015, so when series 1 was on I already knew the songs, but a lot of my associations have totally changed since then (for instance, there was no Nistrid in 2015...)

1. Home

Shame to start off on such a tenuous one, but “this is my home, where I go when I’ve got nowhere else to go” could be Mia returning to Laura in series 2 (yes I know it’s because she was Anita and was registered to their new address BUT Miaura is life.)

2. Girls Chase Boys

Oh, this is so Mia to Ed! “I'm a little let down but I'm not dead / There's a little bit more that has to be said” she wants closure, in the most epic way possible... “You played me now I play you too, let's just call it over” and then tells him to leave, amazing, we stan an absolute queen.

3. Wonderful Unknown

Nistrid! Because of Niska having just said ILY to Astrid on the phone, and then talking about how the end never seems far away: “Oh, nothing lasts forever but the sound of love astounds me every time that it calls” aaaaah.

4. You Got Me

Umm, do I have to say that this is obviously Nistrid since Astrid literally tells Niska “You won’t lose me. You’ve got me” at the end of s2? But also, this bit about Niska going off to do terrifying things but only so that she can come home to Astrid: “when I see the curve of the earth in your willow eyes, I'm a rocketeer coming home after years at the speed of light / and suddenly you're there, like a pearl in the palm of the universe”

5. Warpath

Ummm... well the word Warpath fits Niska quite well because it’s what she’s always on. If we take it out of context “You’ve got me running round town like a woman on a warpath” is about her gay revenge plot :D 

6. Handsome Hands

This has a faint Leotilda vibe but I’m not sure if it will come out with just the lyrics. Let’s try “I think I'm the only one who really knows / What the emptiness inside of you will show us” with them being tied together by a year of Mattie’s bedside monologues... Also special points to “We are only tiny babies living right here, gone the way of someone else's bygone year” because they are only babies and Leo really has had a ‘bygone year’ hehe

7. Time Machine

Mia and Ed again: “Your broken ‘sorrys’ don't mean a thing: You made that bed, good luck falling back asleep!” Amazing. Also the chorus: “If I had a time machine, and if life was a movie scene, I'd rewind and I'd tell me: run.” 

8. One Night Town

Leo and Mattie. “You're the one with the pioneer heart / I'm the one with the brand new start” I think this fits? I don’t know how to articulate why I think she’s the ‘pioneer heart’ but his complete reinvention as a human is his ‘brand new start’ lol. Also this for Leo’s new way of looking at her in his memory: “Light up our memory, never knew what they meant to me” 

9. Open Hands

(This is a frickin beautiful song ughhh) Miaura? For the parting of the ways at the end of series 1... “Now go on and drift away, the tide can hold you out / Go quiet now, go sound, go safe / Open hands are hard to hold onto anyway”

10. Ready to Lose

Now this is the most Nistrid song I know, in fact. The chorus line is “I’m ready to lose everything but you” which is so Niska, who’s reckless and so brave but also so afraid that it will cost her Astrid (that conversation in 2.8 again). But also this from the verse, oh my life, spot on: “It's the heart in you, I know it in my bones, that made me change direction when I thought ‘better off alone’.” Is this not the perfect line

11. Stick

One of my favourite songs, this one. Anyway, it now gives me Laura feelings, because of her being upset over Neil, which I may be reading into, but I kind of... you know that I don’t ship Laura and Joe, but: “There's a part of you that stays with me someone else gets to know.” Sometimes that’s just how it is. 

12. Afterlife

Another gem... this could probably apply to a lot of ships but we’ll just go Nistrid, shall we? “Living like you're dying isn't living at all. Give me your cold hands, put them on my heart.” Also the chorus is amazing, “We’re gonna be alright, we’ve got the fight in us.”

13. Over You

Hmm... Mia pining for Ed even though she knows he’s a human dumpster fire. “Over, I'm so over you: the way that you said that you'd always be true. And maybe if I tell myself enough, maybe if I do, I'll get over you”

14. Everyone Is Gonna Love Me Now 

A little oblique, but this bit gives me Max feelings, that line to Mia about being alone: “If I knew the way to less alone / Then it wouldn't sink me like a stone”

15. My Darling

Okay! Nistrid! So we have: “Everyone likes the same stupid things / Everyone sings the same love songs” which reminded me of Niska’s lines about talk being mostly noise. Then the chorus: “You make me all the things I wanna be before I’m gone” sobbbb about her line to Mia again, about the end not being far away. Okay, so there’s those, and then..... this.... line.... I don’t know how to feel about this relevance to Niska really: “And I know that I’ve been broken since the first time that my father put me down on the floor.” Well, eek. But it’s followed by: “For the first time in such a long time, I need more” yasss Nistrid.

16. When I Go

Finishing off on a general note for the series as a whole, because organic/synthetic solidarity: “If everybody made a little space right by their side, oh there'd be room enough.” 

idk if I should tag people to do this also or just say: please tag me if you end up choosing an album/fandom to do this with, cause I’d love to read it! :D 

(edit: based on reactions I’m going to pretend as if I tagged @epicfics @sircarolyn and @turned-her-brain all along :P)