#this was the first CD my dad ever bought for me

[menlove]

"Life After the Bastards: 30 Years On, Macca Tells All"

"Blamed for the break-up for the biggest band in history, Paul McCartney downsized rapidly to cultivate a successful pop smallholding. Yet a bountiful solo career was always dominated by two famous partners, he tells Paul Du Noyer."

i said i'd do this ages ago and then the horrors happened, but this is a written up version of an interview by paul du noyer with paul mccartney from mojo's july 2001 issue.

sidenote: this seems to be the source for the claim that john thought "dear boy" was about him, which is why i bought the magazine because i haven't been able to find a digitized version of the interview and wanted to get the context. but it's a very fascinating interview just in general so it's definitely worth a read!

Wings were a band who seldom felt the feathery end of the critic's quill, but this year we're seeing Paul McCartney's biggest effort so far to rehabilitate the second most popular group he ever belonged to. He's released a double-CD and a documentary, both called Wingspan, that tell the story as he would like it told. And you soon realise that there's more than a muso's pride at stake in this project. "The great thing is," he says, "it vindicates Linda. I know she wanted to do the Wingspan thing. She knew if it was laid out correctly, people would get the idea. With all the slagging off she got, like the famous tape at Knebworth..." (This illicit cassette, from the mixing desk of a live show at the outdoor venue, was for years a dependable source of satirical mirth in music business circles; Linda McCartney's off-key vocals circumnavigate the chorus notes of Hey Jude, while anonymous engineers hoot cruelly.)

"The truth was," her loyal widower continues, "she was doing this (he stands, raises his hands to clap above his head). She was being the big cheerleader: 'Hey Jude, naah-naah-na.' But you don't see the visual, you just here this out-of-tune voice, and I know she always wanted the record put straight. And this does. You see her playing. You hear her singing beautifully. And you see what she was to the group. You see why she had to be in the group. She becomes the ballsiest member of it..."

He settles back on the sofa, here in the Soho office of his MPL company. Around his neck is a slim pink tie of the kind that Elvis used to wear. On his feet are trainers that look less like a gesture to trendiness than a concession to comfort. Just behind him is the Art Deco statuette that appears on a couple of Wings LP sleeves. The other great thing about the Wingspan film, he says,was being interviewed by his daughter Mary. (That's her face you can see, peeping out from Dad's jacket on the cover of the first solo LP, 31 years ago.) "I'd never had such a long natter with her, as doing this. And I used to say to my kids, You're the only ones who never ask me about The Beatles. Their friends would come round and say, 'What was it like being in The Beatles?' I'd go (adopts pompous old git voice), Well, let me tell you... And my kids would all go out the room: 'Oh bloody hell, he's off...' That's how kids are, they don't want to hear about that shit. But their friends would, so I'd chunder on..."

In fact he chunders on about The Beatles a lot more than you might expect. Or about one Beatle in particular, at least. The World's Most Famous Living Liverpudlian is anything but reticent when it comes to the World's Most Famous Dead Liverpudlian. It's quite contrary of him, because for the first 20 years after the group split up, he showed a stubborn reluctance to discuss the subject with his interviewers. They wanted to ask about John Lennon; he wanted to discuss Back To The Egg... Then came a reconciliation with his past that culminated in the Anthology exercise, when the moratorium on Beatle-talk was entirely lifted. And now, in 2001, when the promotional agenda has switched back to Wings, you almost have to coax him off the subject of John Lennon. Is it just force of habit, or maybe the need to exorcise some kind of long-nosed, bespectacled, sharp-tongued ghost inside his head?

Taste restrains Paul from claiming any posthumous victories over John, though it's no secret that he still has some differences with Yoko that are as wide as the Atlantic that normally separates them. But he can't resist smiling at the irony of Lennon spending his last few years championing the sort of domestic cosiness that was once a derided part of the McCartney stereotype.

"Yeah, it's lovely. But you're right to say they were stereotypes. Everyone thought John was the hard, working class hero. As you know, if you look at his house, he was actually the middle class one, from Woolton. We were the scruffs. He had the full Works Of Winston Churchill: nobody any of us knew had that. A set of encyclopedias was the most that anyone in our class had. But he had The Works Of Winston Churchill, and he'd read 'em, I think.

"There were so many stereotypes of John. And I love the fact that in the end- it's one of the great blessings of my life, seeing as he got shot- that during the last year, we made it up. Thank God for that. I would be just so fucked up now, if I'd still been arguing with him and that had happened. I was thinking about it just the other day. It was cool that I'd started ringing him. We'd had a bread strike over here and I rang him and I was saying, What are you doing? He says, 'I'm breaking some bread.' Oh! Me too! Imagine, with the stereotypes, John and Paul talking about baking bread. He'd just had Sean, and he was talking about just padding round the apartment in his dressing gown, putting the cat out and changing the baby.

"And I'd been doing all of that, and as you say, I'd been stereotyped for it. It was really warm to be able to talk to him that ordinarily, finally. It was like we'd got back to where we'd been when we were kids. It was like we could actually talk about stuff that didn't matter, but somehow it did matter..."

Back in 1970 neither John nor Paul, nor George or Ringo, would find The Beatles an easy beast to walk away from. Paul and Ringo seem to be at peace with it now; John would probably have become so; George never has. Besides the legal wranglings and the personal rancour that persisted between them for a while, there was the unique problem of getting used to living in a world that you no longer ruled.

Pop in the 1960s was like a pyramid. At the top obviously, were The Beatles. Around them and just below, were Dylan, the Stones, the deposed King Elvis, and so on down to the broad base of innumerable also-rans. But pop in the 1970s was more like range of mountain peaks, topped by anyone from Elton John to the Sex Pistols. There was also no unified hierarchy any more, and there hasn't been one since. McCartney can't have found the new world order an easy proposition. But he overcame his doubts the same way that he overcame his blacker periods in The Beatles. In other words, he worked.

It's one of those first post-mop top albums that we discuss in detail today. McCartney (1970) and Ram (1971) were curiously anti-climatic in their day. The first was home-grown, small-scale, contentedly modest, like a record made for his private diversion. The second was sprawling and eccentric, full of unfinished tunes and nonsense rhymes. This was an era when former Beatles were still expected to return from the mountain bearing tables of stone (which Lennon and Harrison certainly attempted to do), not these gaudy, giggling indulgences. Three decades later, McCartney and Ram have endured far better than anyone expected.

It's typical of McCartney, though, that he's still insecure about their worth. He has a peculiar, wrong-end-of-the-telescope way of assessing his talent. He tries to talk up McCartney by telling you that "Dave Stewart really likes it", or boasts that a hippy van driver once yelled across the LA traffic, "Ram! Great album dude!" Recently his girlfriend Heather Mills put it this way: "He is a genius but doesn't realise it, which is delightful."

Towards the end of The Beatles you were dying to get back to playing live in a band, weren't you? But your first move is to go the opposite way and do a totally solo album.

Yeah. I couldn't have another band because I wasn't sure The Beatles had actually broken up. It was on the cusp: we hadn't broken up when I started it, so it was just me doing some solo stuff. And then we had broken up, but things hung on. It basically started from John's decision to leave the band, which came when I said I think we should get back together and do some little gigs. And he said, "Well I think you're daft and I wasn't going to tell you until after we signed the Capitol deal but I'm leaving the band." (Mimes an axe falling) That was, like, The Moment The Beatles Broke Up. But it wasn't in the open until a few months later, when I issued the McCartney album and did this press release with it, which virtually had the announcement. I finally blew the whistle on it. And John was annoyed, even though he hadn't said anything. It turns out, he told me later, that he wanted to be the one who announced it. He was jealous that I beat him to it. But I felt that three or four months was enough to wait around. Either we were just going to fuck about for another year, or we had to actually say to people, "You know what? About three or four months ago we actually broke up." So that was how that happened.

So in your head, The Beatles were still together when you were making McCartney. Whereas the outside world heard it as "What Paul did after leaving The Beatles." I think it seemed a strangely low-key record, as a result.

No. It was on the cusp. There were a lot of funny things around at the time. Allen Klein: he was the one I wanted to sue to get out of it all. But everyone said, "He's not party to any of the agreements, he's just an outside guy. So you'll have to sue The Beatles." So I got into this terrifying thing of having to sue them, scared more than anything of the fact that, as you say, people would just see this album come out, hear my announcement and then hear I was suing The Beatles, without knowing any of the context. So I knew I was in for problems. And I tried my best in the press to say, "Oh, blah blah blah, it was Allen Klein, blah blah." So it was a shitty time for me. The only option was to either let him take it all, and the guys just swim along with him, or fight it. He said I was fine, "Don't worry, McCartney loves me" and all of this. And I knew I was hating the bastard. But to get out of him I had to sue the guys. And, as you know, Liverpool, the mates, no matter how much we were arguing, it's one thing you don't ever want to have to do. So I knew the perception of me would, like, be deadened from there on in. And I suppose in many ways I've been fighting that for 20 years. But it was a clear choice: do that and possibly save it all- or even lose it and pay the lawyers' bills, which was not a terrific option- or just let Klein take it all. 'Cos the others were just with him, gung ho. So I took the option of suing him and had to live with that perception, including: "This is what Paul's done as his first move after leaving The Beatles." Which was actually the nicest bit of the perception: I did an album after The Beatles, so what? The worst thing for me was, I sued my best mates. But the thing is, looking back on it, they now say "Thank you, you got us out of it, we wouldn't have Apple, there'd be no Anthology, no I record, it'd all be in someone else's pocket now." It was the right thing to do, but I knew I was walking into the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Very scary, but it was one of those moments in your life when you have to do it.

And, of course, we were hearing McCartney just after Abbey Road, which was at the opposite extreme.

Very produced, yeah.

Despite the problems going on around it, McCartney sounds a pretty cheerful affair.

Yeah, it was, because of Linda. I was just starting with Linda and in my mind the album was my escape from it all. I'd get home, new baby, that joy... any readers who've got a new baby, it transforms your life. I hadn't had a baby before, though we had Heather from Linda's first marriage. Home was a great solace for me, and making this record was "Yeah, this is what I love to do." The rest, outside, was shit, but coming inside it was like a little cocoon. So I either made the album all at home or went down to a little studio in Willesden. Lin and the baby in the control room. Young married life is a very special time. And I always liked doing things on my own. I was the kid in Liverpool who sort of went on a bus to the next stop, to Penny Lane, and got off and just looked around: "Who lives there?" I still like that, it's in my personality to just go somewhere and watch people. Last night I took the Tube home. We went to the theatre, couldn't get a taxi anywhere in the West End. I really get a charge off that. George never used to. His dad was a bus driver. I'd say to him, even when we were famous, I love getting on a bus. He'd say (astonished), "The bus? Why? You've got a car!" But you're just looking at people. And now of course, with fame, they're looking at me a bit.

There's one or two on the Tube last night, cracking up laughing. Guy in a baseball cap, decides he's got to cool himself out, pull it together, gets off at the same stop: "All right mate? Good luck!" So that's where the record got its happiness. And when the time came to release it, I finally had to deal with Mammon, which was Apple. Ring them up and say, "Er, can I have a release date?" Neil [Aspinall] gave me a date. I was kind of boycotting Apple, and Suddenly Mammon decided to change my release date for (adopts sarcastic tone) the massive Let It Be album. And I'm, "You fucking bastards! I've got a release date worked out! How can you do this?" I can't remember what happened, but I certainly shouted loud enough. So it was Rage Against The Machine, me against them. That's why it was a good album for me, and it's pretty funky, some of the little pieces like Momma Miss America have a great sound on them. I was like a professor in his laboratory. Very simple, as basic as you can get, a joy to make. (Scans the tracklist) Teddy Boy was good, I'd tried to make that with The Beatles but no one was having much patience with me. Maybe I'm Amazed was about the biggest song on it. And Kreen-Akrore was about an Amazon tribe I'd seen, who were fighting for survival, I went into the studio and recorded the sound of a bow and arrow going past the mike. Even now that album has an interesting sound. Very analogue, very direct.

The next album, Ram, is famous for its supposed attacks on John and Yoko, isn't it?

Well, Too Many People was a bit of a dig at John, because he was digging at me. We were digging at each other in the press. Not harsh, but pissed off with each other, basically.

Have I misheard, or does it really start with the words "Piss off"?

Yeah. Piss off, cake. Like, a piece of cake becomes a piss off cake. And it's nothing, it's so harmless really, just little digs. But the first line is about "too many people preaching practices". I felt John and Yoko were telling everyone what to do. And I felt we didn't need to be told what to do. The whole tenor of the Beatles thing had been, like, each to his own. Freedom. Suddenly it was, "You should do this." It was just a bit the wagging finger, and I was pissed off with it. So that one got to be athing about them. Once you start, the ball starts rolling. There was a picture that we had for Hallowe'en of the two of us in silly masks that we picked up at a kids' shop in New York. I'm Wimpey out of Popeye, and Linda was another character which looked a bit Oriental. We heard later that they thought that was a dig at them, but it actually wasn't. So when John did a piss-take [in a postcard given away with his Imagine LP], he held a pig instead of the ram. This wasn't posed. Me and Linda decided to catalogue all our sheep, so there's a photograph of me holding every bloody sheep in the flock. Over 100 of them. I was supposed to be cropped out.

Is that where the title came from?

I remember driving up to Liverpool at some point and deciding that Ram would be a good title for an album, then the picture came, and you can "ram" a door down, and a "ram" is a male, like a stag. It just seemed like a good word. Monkberry Moon Delight I liked, so much so that it's in my poetry book. "My long-haired lady." Very '70s. Ram On is a cute little thing on a ukelele, 'cos I used to carry one around with me in the back of New York taxis just to always have music with me. They thought I was a freak, those taxi-drivers. Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey was an epic thing, a Number 1 in America, surprisingly enough. I like the bit that breaks in: "Admiral Halsey notified me, da-da-da, had a cup of tea and a butter pie." It's a bit surreal, but I was in a very free mood. I like all of that. It must have freaked a few people, 'cos it was quite daft. Back Seat Of My Car is very romantic: "We can make it to Mexico City." That's a really teenage song, with the stereotypical parent who doesn't agree, and the two lovers are going to take on the world: "We believe that we can't be wrong." I always like the underdog.

I think John might have taken Dear Boy as an attack on him.

Dear Boy wasn't getting at John. Dear Boy was actually a song to Linda's ex-husband. "I guess you never knew what you had missed." I never told him that, which was lucky, because he's since committed suicide. And it was a comment about him, 'cos I did think, "Gosh, you know, she's so amazing, I suppose you didn't get it.

The LP sounds like you had more tunes lying around than songs to use them in. A lot of the tracks are like medleys of different ideas.

Yeah, Long Haired Lady goes off a bit, Back Seat Of My Car goes off a bit, Big Barn Bed comes off Ram On, that's right.

No writer's block at that point, then?

No, I've been very lucky about writer's block, touch wood. It occurred to me the other day that me and John never sat down on, what was it, 295 songs me and John wrote? And on those 295 occasions, we never came away without a song, which is fucking phenomenal. The only time we nearly did, was Golden Rings, which became Drive My Car. It was "duh-duh duh-duh golden rings..." Um, this is not gonna compute. Finally, we had a ciggie and a cup of tea and our humour came back and Drive My Car came out of that. Some people analyse songwriting. I've never known about it. It's fingers crossed, every time I sit down to do it. I just dive right in and hope for the best, and it seems to work.

Were you feeling in competition with the other ex-Beatles, now?

Yeah, we were all in competition. Which was a weird thing, trying to avoid each other's release dates, like we'd avoided the Stones' release dates in The Beatles. When John or George released an album, I'd check it out, to see where he was up to. I think the truth, as a lot of people have said, is that we were missing each other. We missed the collaborative thing, of John saying, "Don't do that" or "Do that". Sparking each other off. For a while I was certainly very conscious of it. The only good thing was that I had been writing without John for a while, towards the end of The Beatles, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. It was still a pretty big shock just not to be hanging out with these guys. 'Cos I'd hung out with them since I was 17.

Even when you were not writing together, on later Beatles records, there must have been a stage in the process where the others listened to your songs, and vetoed them or otherwise.

Exactly. John brought me Glass Onion. I remember him out in the garden in St John's wood saying, "What do you think of this?" We would just run it past each other, like you would run it past a mate or a producer. And he actually asked me, "D'you think I should put in this line about the Walrus was Paul?" I said, Oh yeah! It's brilliant. I just generally tended to agree with his stuff, and he tended to agree with mine- like in Hey Jude, i was going to knock out that line about "The movement you need is on your shoulder." He said, "You're not, that's the best line in it." So, often it wasn't negative but bolstering each other up. I might go through the whole studio experience thinking, This line's not right. But the minute he'd signed off on it, I thought, This line is ace! Similarly with him and Glass Onion. It was the strength of unity.

It's always striking that, of the four solo Beatles, George and Ringo got off to the strongest starts.

Yeah, George's All Things Must Pass. As he said, it was just like a diarrhea, he must have held it in for so long. And he had Phil [Spector] and a lot of really good people. And George was just so pissed off with us. I mean, all that anger just came out. Which is a good thing for an album, the "I'll show you" factor, which I had later in Band On The Run, when two of the members left the night before. So George and Ringo did get off to very good starts. John and I took it a bit hard, but all in all throughout the years we all did pretty well as single acts.

You formed a band for Ram, but it's not yet Wings.

Not yet, no. Denny Seiwell turns out to be in the band. Hugh McCracken who plays on a lot of it, who was nearly in the band. He came to Scotland to rehearse, but he was such a New York guy that he didn't really like to be away from America, and I can see that. New York is such a satisfying town, you can walk one block and get anything, whereas you can't do that in the Mull of Kintyre...

The first official line-up of Wings, which makes Wild Life, includes Denny Laine.

Denny came from The Moody Blues. I'd seen him when were out on tour with The Beatles and we'd played with them. My enduring memory is of one night up in somewhere like Edinburgh on tour, we'd had a few drinks and we decided that The Moody Blues would play The Beatles at snooker on this very beautiful, full-sized snooker table. Instead of being sensible and playing one at a time against each other, in a kind of league, they all got on one end of the table and we all got on the other, and I'm afraid the table got trashed. Oh shit. So I knew Denny, I knew we could get on personally and I liked his voice, particularly from Go Now, which I championed. I remember taking that around the BBC in its early days and saying, "Have you heard Go Now by The Moody Blues? It's my favourite record of the moment." And those producers would take notice of us. I was also used to having another lead voice in the group with me, so Denny became that.

And this time there's a friendlier song for John.

Dear Friend was to do with John, a bit of longing about John. Let's have a glass of wine and forget about it. A making up song.

Finally you do what The Beatles wouldn't agree to do, and get back on the road.

It seemed to me that for a band it's essential. We'd given it up in '67 with Sgt. Pepper when our new decree was, "The record will go on tour and we won't. We'll make a great record and send that out instead." But what happened after that was, we made some good records, but missed the stimulus of going out on tour. We missed seeing the whites of their eyes and getting a reality check: "They liked that one, they didn't like that one." And we hadn't done it for so long that my choice was, Either give up music, or continue to make it. I wanted The Beatles to go out as a live band, therefore I ought to go out as a live band. So we got a band and hatched the plan of going out on the university tour. Didn't want a big supergroup, a Blind Faith-style thing. I wanted to try and learn the whole thing again, hopefully learn some new things, rather than just repeat The Beatles things, which had all been done, and been about as successful as anyone in the world was ever gonna be.

But you took the informality to extremes, not even booking hotels.

No gigs or hotels or anything. Looking back, I can't believe we did that. We had the van, the dogs, the kids, and it was just madness. It was like I'd never been in The Beatles, I couldn't rely on any of that fame as a crutch. We went up to these universities, and fate had it that a lot of them were having exams. We didn't ring them up and ask if they'd be ready for us. And the other thing was we walked into power cuts: it was the time of the Great British Three Day Week. My image now is of trying to find our way around the dark North with a torch. Is anyone in? Like trying to find a gig in a mine. But we found a couple. Nottingham was one. Lancaster we played. Newcastle City Hall. Durham. When we did find places it was really cool. The students had a good time.

And you had the unfamiliar experience of handling money again.

Yeah, it had all been cheques and accounts and stuff, bank statements. And suddenly it was 50p on the door. So we came away with these bags of coins, which reminded me of Peter Sellers in Tom Thumb: One for you, two for me... We just counted them out in the van afterwards. Good experience, going through all those hardships, and it got us together as a band.

But that line-up wasn't to last, and nor did any Wings line-up. Why?

I've never actually thought about it. I know it happened but I've always blanked it. Probably, in my mind, a band is a democratic unit. Everyone has an equal vote, and in The Beatles for 10 years that had been the case. So if Ringo didn't like one of our songs, which wasn't often, Ringo could veto a Lennon & McCartney song. That meant everyone felt good about themselves. But in Wings that wasn't the case. I was the ex-Beatle. So I saw myself as the leader of the group, which I'd never been in The Beatles. There wasn't a leader in The Beatles. People had said that John was, and later people had said that I was, but neither of us ever acknowledged it. It wasn't the deal. People would ask, "Who's the leader of the group?" We'd say there wasn't one. I think once or twice in Hamburg, in the early days, John said, "I am." But we got pissed off, so it became a democracy. But Wings wasn't. It wasn't a dictatorship, but we weren't all equal.

By the '70s there was suddenly lots of other big acts: Led Zeppelin, T. Rex, Bowie, Pink Floyd, even The Osmonds in their way, or Abba. Was it difficult, as a Beatle, to adjust to the new landscape?

I knew it was going to be difficult. There was this thing of Follow The Beatles. You found yourself just one of the acts in the Hit Parade, rather than the undisputed leaders. But I knew by starting the group from scratch that we had to work our way up So anyone like Zeppelin or Bowie who'd been building during the '60s and had now arrived, naturally took precedence. You just had to understand that there are people bigger than you. And it gave us a benchmark. We thought, "We'll be as big as you one day." It was very weird for me, starting all over again. But it wasn't the world's worst thing. It was quite sobering, really. It's good to be knocked off your perch. There was a lot of that with Wings. Not only was I doing things for myself with the band, I was personally doing things for myself, living up in Scotland, mowing the field with my tractor. In The Beatles, the office used to buy your Christmas tree for you. Now I was buying my own Christmas tree. I enjoyed that . It's unhealthy to think you're the big cheese all the time. Within The Beatles, we each reminded each other that we weren't. But I think there is a big risk with stardom. I'd ring up a restaurant and say, Have you got a table? "Sorry sir, we're full booked." It's Paul McCartney here. "Oh! Certainly, Mr McCartney!" I've never been comfortable with it.

It seemed like you were uncomfortable with The Beatles' legacy for most of your time with Wings.

The thing about Wings was we bought into the myth that it could never be as good as The Beatles. I knew it was the world's most difficult thing to bite off. Everything we did was in the shadow of The Beatles, which had recently been this phenomenal band. So we did everything with quite a lot of paranoia. And it's only on looking back, that I think we did a lot of great work. You look at '76, we have this big, big tour, and at first everyone wants to know, "Is this gonna be a Beatles reunion? It's rumored that McCartney blah-blah-blah, George Harrison and Ringo Starr are going to join him on-stage, and John Lennon blah-blah-blah." So it was rumoured The Beatles were going to re-form. Even in our most successful year they were taking our success off us. It was, "Well maybe The Beatles will re-form, that would be good." But the great thing was that three weeks into the tour it was suddenly, "Who cares?" It doesn't matter. This is a great band. And at the end of it we go and set some big world record. So that's good to see. We did this thing that we set out to do. And we needn't have worried.

[rodrickrulezz]

hiiii :3 I absolutely LOVE ur Rodrick fics and I wanted to ask if u could write one in which the reader (preferably girl) meets Rodrick’s parents for the first time! (If you haven’t done this yet)

meeting rodrick's parents for the first time :3

"Are you sure they'll like me?" you say as you flatten your skirt, clinging onto the flowers you bought to make a good impression. "Of course they will," he smirks, finding how nervous you are, the cutest thing ever.

"This is us," he says as he stops in front of his house. "You ready, pretty girl?" His smirk widens as he watches you hesitantly walk to the door, fidgeting with the flowers. "Yeah," you finally say.

"Okay, if you say so," he swings open the door, he calls out, "Hey! We're here!" With your hand in his, he gently pulls you inside, shutting the door with a click.

Mrs Heffley bursts into the hallway, immediately greeting you. "Rodrick! She's even more beautiful than you described!" You watch her words tint his cheeks, she continued anyway, "I was started to think that you weren't real..." He groans, "Mom!"

You giggle, "Thankyou Mrs Heffley." you reveal the flowers that were held behind your back, "I got you these, Rodrick said you liked when Mr Heffley got you flowers so I thought I would.. " you ramble, trying to explain yourself when no one was questioning you.

"Oh my! You're the sweetest.. I love them. Thank you, honey," she smiles warmly, looking at all of the mix of pink and white tulips adorned with fresh leaves. "I'll put these on the dinner table...Rodrick show her around, will you?"

Rodrick nods, pulling you up the stairs. "Nice to meet you, honey!" Mrs Heffley calls after you. "Likewise!" You smile back.

As you pass through the hallway upstairs, he points at different doors, "the dork's room, manny's room, mom and dad's room and this is mine," He stops at a white door with a roughly sprayed 'Rodrick Rules'

You snicker, "Rodrick Rules?" He nonchalantly shrugs in return, "He does." He pushes open the door, revealing his messy room. Every wall covered with band posters some more tattered than others. You walk in, settling in by sitting on his bed. Your curious eyes look at his desk, walls, and piles of CDs. "You like it?" Rodrick watches you absorb everything.

You nod, "Mhm..it's cute..so you.." He smiles at your reply. He sits next to you. Just as he's about to say something, Greg pops his head in, "Mom said - oh. She's real?"

You try to stifle a giggle as you hear Rodrick groan again, "Go away, nerd!" he whines, "Why can't anyone believe I have a girlfriend!"

Greg shrugs, "Can't believe anyone would date you. Mom said dinner's ready." He leaves as swiftly as he entered.

You laugh at pouty face. "Don't laugh!" He pouts harder, mumbling grumpily as he got up. "Sorry Roddy," you grin.

The two of you make your way down the stairs into the dining room. Mrs Heffley smiled, "Hey honey! You like chicken and mashed potatoes? I cooked some pizza if you don't like that.."

"Oh thankyou Mrs Heffley," you exclaim, "I'll have the chicken, thank you." You awkwardly settle into one of the chairs, peering at Mrs Heffley plating your food before you.

Rodrick rests on the seat beside you, uttering a simple thankyou as Mrs Heffley passes his plate.

Mr Heffley wandered in, his eyebrows quirked at the sight of you, "Oh. You must be Rodrick's girlfriend."

You smile up at him brightly and nod, "I am Mr Heffley."

He grins as he sits down, "Weird to be talked to so respectfully," he grabs his fork and stabs at one of his pieces of chicken. Before he places it into his mouth, he mouths "she's cute." to Rodrick earning a groan from him.

[heystephen]

maybe i should see if the thrifts near me have any copies of fearless that im not emotionally attached to

no okay i think for mother’s day im gonna make my mom a shadow box. and i have multiple copies of fearless ive accumulated over the years so im kind of debating cutting out the lyrics from the best day from the album insert to put inside the box but i don’t know if i have the nerve to do that to one of my taylor albums 🥲

[wilwheaton]

I have a small part in the 1987 television movie (failed pilot) version of The Man Who Fell To Earth. Lewis Smith played the titular character. Beverly D'Angelo played my mom, his love interest. (Fun Star Trek connection: Bob Picardo is also in it).

My character was a Troubled Youth, which I gotta tell you was not a stretch for me at all. I was deeply, deeply hurting at the time we made it. I was struggling not to suffocate on all the emotional and financial burdens my mom put on my shoulders, and fully aware of just how much my dad hated and resented me. You need a kid who doesn't want to be an actor, whose eyes can't hide the pain? I'm your guy.

Anyway, one of the scenes I was in took place in a record store, where Troubled Youth steals some albums, before he is chased by the cops and saved by the Man Who Fell To Earth, who uses a glowing crystal to save his life from ... some scratches on his face.

We filmed the interior of the record store at Sunset and La Brea, in what I think was a Warehouse, and at the end of the day, I was allowed to buy some records at a modest discount.

I was deep into my metal years, on my way from my punk years to my New Wave years, so I only bought metal albums. I know I bought more than I needed or could carry (I was making a point that I was allowed to spend my own money, mom), but the only ones I can clearly remember are:

Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind

Judas Priest - Turbo and Defenders of the Faith

W.A.S.P - The Last Command

(I know this was in March of 1987, because Turbo had just come out.)

Of those, Piece of Mind is the only one I never really stopped listening to, even through all the different it's-not-a-phase phases. I still listen to it, today.

Ever since I became an Adult with a Fancy Adult Record Player And All That Bullshit, I have kept my records in two places: stuff I want right now, and stuff I keep in the library because of Reasons.

Generally, records move in one direction toward the library, even if it takes years to happen. I just don't accumulate albums like I once did, because I'm Old and set in my ways.

Earlier today, I decided that I wanted to listen to an album while I cleaned up the kitchen, and because I wanted to make my life more interesting, I opened the library cabinet for the first time in at least five years.

There was the very same W.A.S.P album from that day in March, 1987. I don't have any of the others -- I looked -- but The Last Command was right there.

Before I really knew what I was doing, I put it on the Fancy Adult Record Player and dropped the needle.

I watched four decades of dust build up with a satisfying crackle, and there was something magical and beautiful about hearing all the skips and the scratches, realizing I remembered them from before.

The title track was just as great as I remembered it. It struck all the same chords in me that it did in the late nineteen hundreds. The rest of the first side was ... um. It just didn't connect with me, and for the few moments I spent trying to find a connection, I don't think it ever really did. I would remember.

But I did remember how much I loved making those mix tapes, and what a big part of them that song was. I did remember how empowering it felt to not just spend my own money that I earned doing work I didn't want to do, but to spend it on music my parents hated, right under their noses. I did remember how impressed Robby Lee was, when I showed him my extensive heavy metal album collection.

Remembering all of that, in one of those cinematic flashes of rapid cut visuals and sped up sounds, told me why I kept this record, while I gradually sold or replaced the other records I bought that day with CDs, then mp3s, then lossless digital files, before finally coming all the way back to records, where I started.

I didn't listen to the second side. I didn't need to. I took it off the Fancy Adult Record Player, and put it back into the library, next to the George Carlin records.

[emberphoenixisgoingtolive]

Hello I'm here to invade your asks with a "What type of artists/genre would the n6 listen to" question 😈😈😈😈🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

so. full confession. i am one of those people who does not know Shit about artists. i have the weirdest music taste ever. HOWEVER i will do my best :’)

Darius:

mostly film tracks. big fan of John Williams, Hans Zimmer, John Powell, etc

unironically fw classical music. there’s some really great hits out there i promise you guys. his favourite composer would be Mozart but he also rlly likes Dvorak's new world symphony specifically

also loves 80s and 90s stuff because his dad listened to it a lot :’)

loves Queen, Michael Buble, Elton John, David Bowie, etc etc

also likes Ed Sheeran, Madness and Lewis Capaldi (fuck yeah britpop)

likes jazz because i headcanon his mum has a lot of jazz cds that she plays when she picks Darius up from school

likes a few gospel type songs because he grew up going to church but isn’t that religious now, but he still really enjoys the music

cannot make his own playlists. he has one playlist of songs he knows and pre made stuff saved

knows maximum 300 songs

so bad at listening to new music. he takes song recs but often doesnt actually like them

Brand bought him fancy noise–cancelling headphones with bluetooth that he listens to music with

Brooklynn:

likes techno pop and electronic dance music and stuff (ew /j)

also a big fan of Billie Eilish

likes mainstream stuff but also indie bands

her music taste is very diverse honestly she’ll listen to everything

has one (1) playlist of the 1500 ish songs she knows, one playlist for small artists for her to listen to on loop to boost them, and her friends’ playlists saved in her library

willing to take music recs

liked Mean Girls when she was younger

Demi Lovato and Avril Lavigne fan

canonically likes kpop

fave band is blackpink

if an artist is problematic she WILL stop listening to them. all their songs are going off her playlists

loops songs by small artists with the volume off while she works to give them confidence and a bit of revenue from streaming their music

uses the shittiest wired earbuds ever

Yaz:

likes Paris Paloma

has a taste for songs about revolution/flaws in society in general

hind’s hall/hind’s hall 2/fucked up by Macklemore were her most listened to song for two weeks after they were released

does not like love songs unless it’s specifically wlw

likes Haley Kiyoko

also likes Arabic pop/songs with Arab instruments

likes classical music but mostly the romantic era shit. Beethoven is her favourite followed by Tchaikovsky

hates being recommended music. she has a taste and no one can match that

not a fan of musicals but really likes the Greatest Showman specifically

has a playlist of really calming/soothing songs for whenever she has a nightmare or flashback. music is (part of) her therapy <3

four playlists at most

only likes wireless earbuds or headphones; the wires bother her

Sammy:

we ALL know she adores Chapelle Roan. when Chapelle Roan first got big, Yaz bought Sammy tickets to see her in concert and they had the best time

when she was younger she loved the disney channel songs (and still does)

thinks disney music in general is gorgeous and whimsical and lovely

enjoys high school musical a LOT. could sing most of the songs from memory

goes through phases of enjoying a certain song/playlist for a week before moving onto the next one #audhd (trust me on this one)

only listens to sad music when she’s really sad

listened to a lot of sad music after she and Yaz broke up. she’s never really listened to sad music before so she literally starts sobbing her eyes out in a cupboard

has about 10 playlists. one of them is just songs that make her think of Yaz

does not like the feeling of headphones or earbuds #audhd so she has some nice speakers

Kenji:

knows over 2000 songs somehow

horrific amount of playlists. one playlist to suit every setting he can think of. i mean who even needs eighty three different playlists (not me guys don’t be ridiculous)

has a playlist called ‘homosexual yearning’ (again totally not me)

has one playlist dedicated to songs that make him think of his dad whenever he needs catharsis (okay i really am just exposing myself)

has one playlist for climbing that’s full of epic hype songs

likes musical theatre (in secret)

very attracted to Jamie Muscato’s voice. and Jamie Muscato in general

listens mostly to female artists and three (3) men he likes (Rick Montgomery and two others idk)

went through a very intense Beyonce phase

likes Hannah Montana (he grew up watching it on loop to keep himself company since his dad was always away)

still likes Miley Cyrus

likes kpop, he and Brooklynn went to a couple of kpop concerts together when they dated

Brooklynn still sends him song recs from time to time and they’re always stuff Kenji ends up liking. she knows her friends’ music taste freakishly well

takes recs from all his friends, so he has a really eclectic mashup of songs in a playlist titled ‘camp fam song recs’

his music listening is very important to him and he’s willing to pay $11.99 for spotify premium every single month (he switches to the double plan when he and Ben start dating)

has wireless earbuds so he can wear them when doing climbing if he wants

Ben:

only listens to bands no one has heard of. really really obscure stuff. fights with the three (3) other band’s fans on reddit

his playlists are severe whiplash between the heaviest of rock music and gorgeous classical music. Tchaikovsky’s swan lake followed by some loud crashy rock song about drugs

also likes sweater weather

other than his obscure bands he mostly listens to female artists, but specifically Celine Dion and Ariana Grande

has about five really disorganised playlists

also wears shitty headphones. one bud probably doesn’t work unless it’s at one (1) angle. Kenji buys him a better pair once they start dating :’)

hope this is what u want Bon :3 🫶🫶

[northirish]

Squirrel guy again. Hope you're hangin' out and hangin' on. So for my 18th birthday my Dad bought me tickets to my first concert; it was the Grateful Dead (Well, Dead and Co., but same thing). He had folled them around in a VW microbus from 1979-1995 and he wanted me to have the 'full experience'. The venue was ~250 miles away, about a two hour drive. We got there early and Dad bought some acid and gave me a tab. Started peaking when the show started and had a grand old time. Best concert I ever saw, honestly; even without the drugs. Thing was he dosed up too and we were still tripping when we had to go home. Rather than get a hotel Dad decided to take the ~2 hour drive back home at 3am during a thunderstorm. Our CD player in the car kicked the bucket so we decided to find a radio station. Because of the storm the reception wasn't very good. About a little more than halfway it was mostly static on every channel. I was flipping the stations as he drove. Then I hit a news station, and heard this: "The lead guitarist from Aerosmith collapsed on stage today when *bzzzzzzzz* Vampires *bzzzzzzzz* Thirty people were injured in the incident *bzzzzzz*". Then the radio died. My Dad and I, still tripping, flipped out. We spent the next 45 minutes convinced the vampire takeover had begun and they hated Aerosmith. Made it home and luckily never got attacked by vampires. Also never listened to Aerosmith again just in case.

The more I hear from you the more I'm convinced you're Skweezy Jibbs long lost sibling or something

[moon-ra]

I like telling stories. I think a good one to tell right now is how exactly I got into progressive rock.

It all started with a single conversation with my family at dinner and a little band called King Crimson.

So for context, I've always had a subconscious bias towards strange, unconventional, and most importantly... long music for as long as I can remember. When I was younger this lead to me not really listening to much music aside from the things that met that specific standard, and I didn't really know how to find good music either. Most of the music I heard around me (aside from the music my dad listened to) just never really did it for me and I just listened to a small amount of songs that I found while growing up on the internet, and my dad of course.

But one of those things I stumbled upon in my early teenage years was In the Court of the Crimson King. I listened to it because the album cover intrigued me, and oh boy was I pleasantly surprised. It was the best thing I had ever heard, and was my new gold standard for quite a while.

At that point I wouldn't say music was a big passion of mine yet, I was just picky about what I enjoyed listening to. But fast forward a year or two that would change biggggg time. One afternoon my family and I were chatting at the dinner table and the topic of music came up. It was a sibling of mine who asked what everyone's favorite bands are and I think that was the first time I was ever asked that question because I was stumped. I knew a lot of music but I didn't have a favorite band, or did I?

Oh right. King Crimson.

I remember saying something along the lines of "I don't really have one but if I had to pick it would be King Crimson." But that didn't feel right, I only knew one album if theirs after all. So later that night I thought about the conversation a bit more. For some reason it really stuck with me and I sort of decided that night I would expand my tastes and find the music out there that I truly like. And that I did!

Over the next few years I listened to a ton of music, and I mean a ton. It started with more Crimson albums, then onto The Beatles and other classic bands because I was already familiar with them. I was just completely unaware of most labels used to describe music towards the beginning of my musical journey, but I did find myself having a preference for 60's and 70's rock. I was also fortunate enough to have an amazing radio station that plays SUCH good music. I discovered so much just through that station alone.

As the months went by I actually started gaining quite a bit of knowledge about music, music history, and different ways to discover music too. That's around when I started collecting records and cds. (The first album I ever bought was Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) by David Bowie) And then I finally discovered the term progressive rock.... through the progarchives website. Whenever I looked up information for a band I enjoyed that website would always show up, and I would soon start to see that word very frequently during my band researching. Wow, after all that time I finally found the word to describe what I enjoy listening to!! From there on I just listened to more and more music tbh, and now it's a passion of mine that's kind of taken over my life.

But uhhh yeah, that's my story!!! I don't really expect people to read this but if you made it to the end maybe reblog with your own tale on how you discovered the music you like. I'd love to know!

[hope-ur-ok]

13 musical artists and band you suggest and 5 songs from those artists you suggest?

this took days but here is a list with the artists in no particular order (except for first)

boys like girls: the great escape (the classic everyone needs to know), contagious (my favorite like I seriously love this song so much), brooklyn state of mind (my most played blg song of 2024), leaving california (it's been stuck in my head for the past week), up against the wall (has my favorite lyric of all time - the forecast a car crash)

halsey: honey (easily one of my favorite songs), graveyard (the song that made me become obsessed), control (one fo the songs that makes me refer to badlands as a religious experience), hurt feelings (as a girl with a shitty dad it speaks to me on a very personal level), is there somewhere (I literally bought a japanese import of the badlands cd to have this song on it)

the summer set: wonder years (my most played song of 2024), i don't wanna party (newest song that came out a couple weeks ago), street lightning (the song that got the band back together), last first kiss (deserves better than being an australian cd exclusive), legendary (my favorite)

kesha: rainbow (a lyric from this song has been my blog title for like 5 years now), die young (my favorite kesha song as kid), raising hell (quite simply the perfect lead single for high road), blah blah blah (do you like fun? then this is the song for you), godzilla (can you tell rainbow is my favorite album)

brother elsey: dreamer (I have both releases of dreamer on my phone cause it is that good), seeking (spawned a solangelo brainrot playlist), babylon (my sister and were obsessed with this song for months before it's release cause we saw them play it live), oh my brother (if you want to understand them as a band you need to hear this one), honey (songs named honey own my soul honestly)

olivia rodrigo: hope ur ok (literally my url and favorite olivia song), stranger (I was obsessed with this when the only recording I had of it to play was from a video someone took with there iphone of their vinyl playing), enough 4 u (I have a video of me crying while this played at the guts tour), logical (a stand out to me from my first listen of the album), pretty isn't pretty (a perfect render of the crushing weight of the expectations of girlhood)

mckenna grace: haunted house (its her debut single you have to start with it), you ruined nirvana (spawned the angry teenage girl playlist), collapsing stars (my favorite from bittersweet 16), november (my favorite from the autumn leaves ep), gentleman (my icon and header are from the music video)

owl city: vanilla twilight (its literally the most played song on my phone), dinosaur park (I fell in love on my first listen of coco moon), hot air balloon (very nostalgic for me cause my sister used to steal the aux cord and play it in the car), I hope you think of me (the midsummer station acoustic ep is so underrated), beautiful times (this used to be my go to song to soothe a panic attack)

baby metal: gimme chocolate (first song my sister ever played for me), arkadia (an excellent album closer and I think would be likeable even if you aren't a huge fan of their sound in general), monochrome (this whole section feels a lot like me saying trust me but just trust me), doki doki morning (because it's fun), from dusk till dawn (the best way to describe this is the song is the abstract concept of good vibes like idk if the lyrics line up with that but to me you know)

hayley kiyoko: hit and run (a complete bop from her first ep that I feel is often ignored), let it be (my favorite off of expectations), palace (probably my favorite hayley song from all her works), girls like girls (when people think hayley kiyoko they think of glg), sugar at the bottom (nothing more fun than blasting this with the windows down during the summer just trust me)

dua lipa: genesis (I have been obsessed with the decision to start your debut album with a track titled genesis for years at this point), homesick (this is another song that I played on repeat for a hot minute but not the extreme of vanilla twilight), these walls (an instant standout to me on my first listen of radical optimism), boys will be boys (should be listed under "songs I listened to so much in 2020"), blow your mind (mwah) (probably my favorite dua song shes put out thus far)

fitz & the tantrums: sway (spawned the "all the pretty girl are looking sad all summer good thing I'm ugly" playlist), 123456 (it's just so catchy), out of my league (I will forever be mad that t*kt*k got their hands on it), ocd (it's just super fun), livin' for the weekend (can you tell I like all the feels? like 3 of these are from all the feels)

selena gomez: a year without rain (this is my nostalgic pick okay), sober (sad songs have been under represented in my recs and this is probably my favorite song on revival anyway), de una vez (it just sounds so pretty), it ain't me (bought the target version of rare for this & wolves), ring (it hits the same as like her old & the scene stuff for me)

[ketaks]

This has been stuck in my head since your Vinny music post so I'm making it your problem too:

Rourke and Milo doing covers of "The Sound of Silence" and "Scarborough Fair" in their music style i described in the other post.

thank you for my first ask, Hal! ♡

hey, I would listen to it! coincidentally, thanks to my dad’s influence, Simon & Garfunkel were among the first artists I loved as a child. their greatest hits album was my favorite relaxation soundtrack, and I gained some early serious appreciation for songwriting from them. Simon’s Graceland was also the first CD my dad ever bought and the first he handed down to me. so honestly getting to associate them with Atlantis now is more cool than anything else, hehe

[bartletslesbians]

top 5 music albums?

Ask my top 5 anything!

This was so hard actually cause I don't usually listen to full albums that much?

Halsey's "The Great Impersonator" This is one of those albums I do actually really enjoy listening to back to front in order? Most albums if I listen to the whole thing, I put them on shuffle on spotify and that's that; I love the narrative in this one. It's very clear that a lot of it was written at a time she didn't know if she was gonna survive her illness, which makes especially the song "I Believe In Magic" about watching her son grow up So emotional. A bunch of these songs are also on rotation for a feeling so peculiar bc thinking about "I Never Loved You" and "Dog Years" in a specific CJ/Andy context for that fic Kills me.

Xana's "The Sex Was Good Until It Wasn't" This is I just put on shuffle and it's anyone's guess if you're gonna have a good time or weep. For reference, "Better Kind of Best Friend" is such good smut inspiration, it's so hot, it's incredible, whereas "Lavender Daughter" was on repeat for a while writing some specific CJ and Hoynes interpretation stuff and I can't listen to that song casually without some serious anxiety. It's a wild ride of an album and I love it.

Bird York's "The Velvet Hour" Full disclosure I would not be able to name you most songs off this album, but I got the cd a month ago (cause the damn thing's not on spotify) and it's been on repeat So often, but as a very chill background thing. It's nice writing music, I like her voice, I was very excited about owning the actual cd after finally finding it with semi affordable shipping to here. (Though I would actually love to write something CJ/Andy to "Open Wider" or "Come Be With Me" actually)

Hayley Kiyoko's "Expectations" This was the first ever vinyl I bought myself when it came out and therefore it holds a special place. I was very excited to buy a Lesbian album (I was 17 and didn't even know I was a lesbian yet but hey, we got there), and I just love it. I especially love "He'll Never Love You Like Me" and "Feelings" but really the whole album is !! So much fun.

Guus Meeuwis' "Tien Jaar Levensecht" Now if anyone's Dutch, this is embarrassing. This is the guy your dad's a big fan of (but only if he's from the south) and you're kind of embarrassed that he sings along to it in the car. But oh I love his music. I just do. This album has all the best hits and it is just incredible to put on shamelessly and sing along back to front, it's so good, it's fun. I'm my father's daughter, what can I say.

[prettysureimlost]

You just got a kind of shitty old car and it doesn't have Bluetooth. You can only buy 7 CDs and you can't repeat an artist. What are you getting

stealing this idea from @weegreenbean because it looks fun!! so in no particular order:

1. take me home - one direction (the first cd i ever bought with my own money)

2. barometer soup - jimmy buffett (my mum's favourite and the only cd she had in the car, know it front to back)

3. the very best of dire straits (this counts bc my dad had it as a cd and it was the soundtrack to my childhood)

4. call me by your name soundtrack (every song is a banger)

5. you signed up for this - maisie peters (no explanation needed)

6. the mamma mia soundtrack (again, do i even have to say anything?)

7. k.i.d.s. - mac miller (my personal fave mac album)

not gonna tag anyone because i wasn't even tagged! but please do this! its fun!

[space-cathedral]

Has Anybody Else Played "FIND ROSE"?

(AN: This story was written by myself and all pictures were drawn by myself, and is meant to be an inverse letter written someone in my OC-verse — in other words, everything written is fictional. It's on the long-ish side (6,352 words, to be exact), but can probably be read in less than fifteen minutes, if that. Thank you!)

---

The following text was written and sent to our Research Team by an individual whose name will not be disclosed for privacy reasons. The following describes the author's experience with a game assumed to have been created in the early 2000s, which may highlight one of the first forms of human contact from the City to the human realm. If you have any further information, please contact us as soon as possible via any of the information listed on the “Contact Us” page of our website. Thank you.

To whom it may concern,

Hello. My name is [REDACTED], and I’m writing to you today, both to offer some information that could be relevant to your research and to see if I truly am the only person who has played the game I’m about to describe. 

To provide just a little bit of background about myself: when I was a child, the internet was still considered a fairly new phenomenon that people were still waiting to die out. With the birth of the internet came the birth of CD-ROM PC games, and with the birth of CD-ROM PC games came the birth of what might have been my very first obsession. Every Friday after my classes were over, my parents would take me to the local game store, and I'd buy as many games as my allowance could afford (which, usually, was two at the absolute most). To highlight exactly how into PC games I was, I only ever bought them, never rented them; once I got my hands on a game, I wasn’t giving it back. Then, after I’d made my choice, I'd spend almost every hour of every weekend on my father's IBM PS ValuePoint computer (you know, the type of computer that used dial-up connection because Wi-Fi had yet to take off), logged into Windows 2000 and playing whatever game I'd bought the day before. By the time of my experience, I must have owned over thirty CD-ROMs — KidPix was, and still is, my absolute favorite one of the bunch. I still play the CD version sometimes as an adult, even though it's apparently freeware now.

Now, with all that over with, let’s get on to the whole reason I’m writing this.

That winter afternoon had been notably chilly as my parents took me on my pre-weekend CD shopping spree. That day had been the final day of school before winter break, meaning that I would have ample time to play my computer games. While en route, my mother had given me a calm but firm lecture about computer-time guidelines she'd be putting in place during break, but if I’m being honest, all of it went in one ear and out the other as my dad pulled into a parking spot in front of the store. I remember being just short of running through the glass door when my mother frantically snatched me towards her by the hand, as I'd practically catapulted out of the back seat once the engine was turned off. Even as I held my mother's hand, my excitement hadn't let up one iota as I jumped up and down on our way through the door. 

Per usual, I had a difficult time choosing which game to buy, my 7-year-old gaze flitting from one captivating CD case to another. Also per usual, my father kept saying, "Don't take too long, now, we don't want it to be too dark when we drive home," (which even as a child I knew was his code for "Will you hurry up, I want to go home and sleep.") and also also per usual, I hardly paid him any mind. All that mattered at that instant were those games. 

It was when I nearly settled on buying I Spy: School Days that it first caught my eye.

Next to I Spy: School Days’ bright yellow box sat another CD-ROM. The case had no title cover, leaving the CD itself exposed behind the transparent material, and on the disc, the words "FIND ROSE", handwritten in what appeared to be red Crayola marker, were barely legible; I remember having to squint to make them out. 

I pointed it out to my parents, asking them what kind of game that was, and they were just as oblivious as I was. When we brought it to the cashier near the front door, he too had no definite answer to our questions. "Probably just some shoddy homebrew," he'd said. "We get those from time to time." He then offered the CD to us for free, which I happily accepted; my parents even let me buy I Spy: School Days along with it, since I hadn’t spent any money yet. As we walked out the door and headed towards our car, I was even more excited than I'd been when I'd gotten out of the car.

It was nightfall by the time my father pulled into our garage. After eating my dinner, changing into my house clothes, and brushing my teeth, I made a beeline for the computer, both CDs in hand.  My parents, both of them about to head to bed, were fine with me using the computer that night, as long as I followed their rules: no eating or drinking anything at the keyboard, no staying on after 10 pm, no going on any websites other than the ones that they'd personally vetted, etc etc etc. Even now, I can remember it being exactly 7 pm when they finally turned in for the night, and when I fired up my dad's computer in our living room, filled with anticipation as the computer’s lights began to flicker.

As I waited for Windows 2000 to boot up, I found myself fixated on the FIND ROSE disc, feeling as bewildered as I was excited. Normally, when I purchased a game, I would read the descriptions on the back of the CD case repeatedly during the car ride home, ensuring I knew exactly what kind of game I was about to dive into for the weekend. This time, however, was different; without any cover art, there were no descriptions to peruse, leaving me completely in the dark about what I was going to play. For reasons I couldn't quite grasp at the moment, the disc filled me with a sense of unease; perhaps it was just that fear of the absolute unknown that we all have.

Then, Windows 2000 finally loaded, displaying the default light blue desktop background that my father never bothered changing. All of the icons from my past gaming exploits were neatly lined up in rows of five on the left side of the desktop, coming right after Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer. My heart raced with excitement as I pressed the square button on the CD tray, watching it slide out from the modem. I placed the FIND ROSE disc inside and pushed the tray (perhaps a bit too hard) back into the computer, hardly able to believe I was about to dive into this enigmatic game while the CD spun and churned inside the machine.

The first oddity was something I initially overlooked until several years after my experience — although I had a vague inkling of it back then, I couldn't pinpoint the exact issue. In my defense, it was a minor detail that could easily escape a child's notice. Basically: all the CD games I'd played before FIND ROSE launched an installation wizard that you had to navigate through before playing your game. However, FIND ROSE launched no such wizard; the moment I inserted the disc, a fullscreen window immediately appeared, turning the screen almost completely black, sans the small pixel hourglass visible in the middle of the void.

The second oddity was something I caught right as it happened, and that was the ridiculously long loading time. I wasn’t keeping the exact time, but if I had to guess, the screen was black for what I can only estimate was at least 10 minutes. As I sat at the keyboard, a pair of 7-year-old eyes reflecting nothing but raw impatience in the dark screen, the thought that I had broken my father's computer began to creep into my brain. For a moment, the game faded completely from my thoughts as my mind began to swarm with questions of how exactly I would explain this to my parents and what punishment I might receive. Will I be spanked? Will they take away my games? Will I never be allowed on the computer again?

Just as a panic attack was about to take hold, a sudden and deafening beep blasting from the computer speakers jolted me back to the present. My gaze instantly shot to the monitor, my eyes wide and my muscles tensed up as I fixated on the blank, now-white screen. The loud noise had definitely startled me, yes, but a part of me braced for the sound of exasperated footsteps that would quickly morph into a lengthy scolding from two very exhausted, very agitated adults. Fortunately, though, those footsteps never came. Part of me was surprised the noise hadn’t disturbed my parents, but I most certainly wasn’t going to complain.

 The white screen lingered for only a second before an image finally emerged, signaling that the game had finally started. I quickly shook off my shock and settled into my dad’s office chair, feeling both thrilled to play FIND ROSE and relieved that I wouldn’t face any consequences for breaking the computer or for waking the entire house up at 8 pm.

The image on the screen showed a peculiar creature that resembled a llama, but it stood upright like a human and had human-like hands, painted with red nail polish. The creature was situated in a small, rather minimalist bedroom; the only furniture visible was a neatly made white bed, a brown lamp on a wooden end table, and a burgundy rug that covered about one-fifth of the pale yellow floor. It wore a pearl necklace adorning a red rose at the center, and a fancy white dress with a repeating red rose pattern covering the entire bottom half of it. It also had a yellow purse, its long strap across its chest, and red high heels on its (assumingly also human-like) feet. She (at the time, I could only assume she was a "she" based on the attire) stood silently in the middle of the room, her hands folded politely at its waist, wearing an expression reminiscent of what I can only compare to a weary middle-aged woman and gazing off at nothing in particular. I’ve included a rough sketch to give you an idea of her appearance (sorry for the messiness, I am not an artist);

Though my drawing doesn’t really do it any justice, something about the overall art style made me quite uneasy. The only way I can describe it is… it was as if somebody put Tim Burton’s art through fifteen different languages on Google Translate and then put the results on a CD-ROM. Something about it was so gritty, imposing — unfinished, almost.

At first, I had zero idea what I was supposed to do; there were no onscreen instructions, no indicators of what my next step was meant to be, no nothing. My first move was to click on the llama-lady, but all that did was spawn some black text floating above her head. Based on the text, this llama-lady that wore a rose necklace and a rose-patterned dress was named… “Daisy”. Yeah, not sure what the developers were thinking with that one. Then again, the game was called "FIND ROSE"; if the llama-lady was the titular Rose, it would have probably won the world record for the world’s shortest video game.

I began clicking randomly on the screen, but none of my attempts produced any results. Frustration set in as I started to believe that this single screen was all the game had to offer; that this really and truly was the world’s shortest game. But then, I clicked on a very specific spot in the far left corner of the game’s PC window, and the screen went black, leaving only the Windows hourglass icon visible. As I waited for the next screen to load, I couldn't help but wonder how many people must have bought the game only to return it on the same day, unable to find the progress spot and convinced there was nothing else to do. Even as a child, I found it odd that it was hidden in a place where most players wouldn't think to click.

The loading time remained unusually lengthy, but it was shorter than the initial wait; it seemed to take about five minutes instead of ten (though, as a child, that was still too long). When the next screen finally showed up, it was all I could do to sit and stare at the strange scene that had been placed before me.

Daisy was now outside and appeared to be on some sort of city block, but the architecture of the buildings made absolutely no sense — constructed in all sorts of surreal shapes that realistically should have sent most of them toppling over in heaps of orangish-brown bricks. The streets were lined up with what appeared to be street lamps, but some of them seemed to be damaged, with their poles bent sharply at strange angles. This was all rendered in the exact same badly-translated-Tim-Burton style and maintained a lukewarm brownish-yellow color scheme, giving it an extremely uncanny, almost unnatural vibe. Here’s another drawing I did of what a typical screen of FIND ROSE looked like (again, not an artist):

It’s also worth noting that, unlike the previous screen, there was background music playing this time. It was this very bizarre piano tune droning on and on from the speakers — it wasn’t loud or discordant and it didn’t hurt my ears or anything, but there was no actual coherent melody going on with it. The only way that I can describe it is, It sounded like somebody who’d never played a piano before in their life was just making things up as they went along —like some kindergarten kid at the classroom piano — resulting in a slew of notes that didn’t really flow or go together well.

Despite how I’d struggled with the previous screen, I found the general controls were quite straightforward: use the left mouse button to move, click on characters to engage in conversation, click on items to pick them up, and use the mouse to guide Daisy towards the far left of the screen to proceed to the next area. The game hadn't explicitly stated the goal, but I’d long since guessed that it involved looking for whoever Rose even was.

I clicked on all of the weird buildings first, but doing so always brought up the exact same message at the bottom of the screen, written in some scratchy black font that looked like someone was trying to get ink out of a pen: "Rose is not there." I also tried clicking the street lights, which brought up the text: "Things that give light." With nothing else to check, I used my mouse to guide Daisy to the left, moving onto the next screen.

The next few screens were far more populated than the first one. There were all sorts of strange creatures wandering about, none of them seeming human. Each of them walked back and forth at a set path at random intervals, in what I can only assume were preset paths coded in by the devs. When I clicked on and spoke to them, each of them seemed to know Daisy, and they each said something in regard to this still-unseen “Rose” character. Below is a list of some of the dialogue I managed to remember, accompanied by what sort of creature said it, and any event that may or may not have happened afterward. Note that I didn't make any drawings of them, as I didn't feel exact appearances were necessary for this part.

Creature in a tuxedo with a rose for a head, apparently named “Mr. Thorns”, standing in front of a vaguely-rose-shaped building called THORNS based on a sign above the door: “Ah! Good morning, Daisy.” [A text box only containing ellipses.] ���Hm? Rose? Ah, I saw her pass by here not too long ago. I’m sure she’s close. Now, I’ve got to get back to work. Good luck with finding Rose!” [Mr. Thorns then walks into the aforementioned building.]

Creature in a yellow summer dress with a sunflower for a head, apparently named “Mrs. Thorns”, holding hands with a much smaller creature with a yellow rose bud for a head, named “Rosy": "Hello there, Daisy, nice to see you!” [Box of ellipses.] “What’s that? You’re looking for Rose? I’m afraid I haven’t seen her… I’m sure she’s not far, though!” [The dialogue initially ends here, but I talked to Mrs. Thorns a second time to see if she’d say anything else, to which she says the following.] “Ah, that reminds me: if you ever want a nice bouquet of roses, make sure you visit my husband’s shop. He sells plenty of beautiful roses! [There is no more dialogue from Mrs. Thorns after this. The child with her only says “Hello, miss.” when clicked on.]

Creature wearing a black gown that seems to be a white humanoid poodle with three heads named “Ms. Cerber”: "Oh, hi, Daisy! Rare that we see you without Rose… Is she doing ok?" [Box of ellipses.] "You’re looking for her now? We hope you find her soon!" [There is no dialogue after this.]

Creature sitting on a bench that seems to be nothing more than a completely black silhouette of something resembling a human, apparently named “Zilch”: [An empty textbox and nothing but a cacophony of loud, glitchy noises (that, just by the way, made me jump out of my skin when I clicked on Zilch). Clicking on them more than once grants the same result each time.]

Creature with what seems to be a red mushroom for a head in a plain white t-shirt apparently named "Gus", seemingly sweeping the sidewalk with a broom: "Rose? Yeah, I passed by her earlier. She should be taking a stroll in the forest by now." [There is no more dialogue after that.]

Creature that appears to be an extremely massive serpent with four large eyes against a large brick wall, hovering over what appears to be several fruit and vegetable stands. The creature seemed completely flat, almost as if it was drawn into the brick wall. Apparently (and appropriately) named “Four Eyes”: Ah, Lady Daisy, a lovely morning to you! You here to shop?" [Box of ellipses.] "Hm? No? Oh well, that’s fine, maybe next time. Feel free to stay and chat, I enjoy your company!" [The dialogue initially ends there; however, Four Eyes continues talking if clicked on again.] "Hm? You’re looking for Lady Rose? Yes, she just bought some fresh veggies from me not too long ago. She’s most likely up ahead." [After this, clicking on Four Eyes will only ever bring up the text “Pleasure doing business with you!” and nothing more.]

So far, the game, despite its creepy visuals and less-than-appealing soundtrack, was relatively pleasant, and I was actually enjoying it thus far. Even though the NPCs were all bizarre and inhuman, they all seemed friendly enough (aside from Zilch; then again, the racket it made may have been “hello, have a nice day” in whatever language it spoke, but I can’t confirm that).

About three screens past Four Eyes' market, I came across the game's first true hurdle — a nameless humanoid red fox in a red suit only referred to as "Gatekeeper." He was stationed in front of a closed gate that looked like it opened into a forest, judging by the leaves jutting from the left side of the screen. Upon engaging him in conversation, he responded with the following:

“Mornin’”. [Box of ellipses.] “What? You wanna go through the forest? Sure, but I’ll need to see a permit. Don’t want any ne’er do wells in there again.” [Box of ellipses.] “…Don’t have one? Sorry, can’t let you pass, then.” [The dialogue initially ends here, but speaking to him again reveals the following.] "Ask around the City. I'm sure somebody can help you get your hands on one. [After this, the gatekeeper will only say “No permit, no pass. Sorry. Gotta follow protocol,” when clicked on afterward.]

After that, I backtracked multiple screens and spoke to every NPC I could find, none of whom could help me — that is, until I talked to Ms. Cerber again. She said the following:

“Hi again, Daisy! Is there something wrong?” [Box of ellipses.] “A permit to the forest? We’ve actually got one of our own!" [Box of ellipses.] “Hm? Can you borrow it? We don’t know, the last time we let someone borrow our permit, they lost it and we had to sign up for another one… Tell you what, how about we make you a deal?"

I can’t remember her exact wordage, but in the next few textboxes, Ms. Cerber described how she'd wanted to buy a rose bouquet for her (unnamed) partner back at her home, but didn't have the funds for it. She then offered to let Daisy not only borrow but keep the permit if she managed to get her some roses for her partner, claiming that the cost of a new permit was minuscule compared to the value of seeing her lover happy. It seemed that, even though you apparently had to sign up for something to get a forest permit, it seemed that any permit would allow you through even if it wasn’t actually yours because the gatekeeper never bothered doing any actual checks, and I was just fine with that. I felt that someone would be getting fired soon, though.

Remembering what Mrs. Thorns told me earlier, I immediately made my way towards Mr. Thorn’s shop, but not before I picked up an item blending in with one of the buildings that I hadn’t noticed on my way there; a coin (according to text that appeared), small and the color of a penny, its sprite now on the top-left corner of the screen. The coin would turn out to be the only item that you could pick up in FIND ROSE; everything else was obtained via talking to NPCs.

Unlike the previous segments of the game, the shop was drawn in a top-down perspective rather than a side view. Fittingly, the shop was covered from top to bottom with all things relating to roses; rose lollipops, rose jewelry (which I quickly assumed was the same jewelry that Daisy wore around her neck), rose seeds, rose-shaped décor, and of course, rose bouquets. I spoke to Mr. Thorns, who sat behind a counter at the top of the screen. His dialogue was as follows:

“Oh, hello again, Daisy! Have you found Rose yet?” [Box of ellipses.] "Not yet? Well, I'm sure she's around here, don’t worry about her. Now, did you want something?" [Box of ellipses.] "Ah, you’d like to purchase a rose bouquet? Of course, of course! Let me get you one right away!" [Mr. Thorns goes offscreen for about a second, and then reappears at the counter.] "Alrighty, that'll be 5 cents, please!"

I clicked on the coin in the corner of the screen, thinking that I could pay for the roses with it, but that resulted in the following dialogue:

“Oh, I’m so sorry, you seem to be low on money… Hm…" [Box of ellipses.] “Don’t fret, Daisy. I'll give it to you; that is, if you could do me a small favor. Don’t worry, it shouldn’t take too much of your time.”

To summarize what Mr. Thorns said next, he’d give me the bouquet for free if I got him an orange from what I learned was called “the All-Seeing Market”; according to him, he’d get it himself, but he didn’t want to be away from his shop in case a customer arrived. How somebody with no mouth could eat anything, I couldn’t tell you, but all I cared about was getting that permit so that I could finally advance and, hopefully, find whoever Rose was.

As I headed for Four Eyes’ screen, it had only at that moment dawned on me that the music didn’t loop. In the ten or so minutes that I’d been playing, the “melody” (and I use that term very loosely) never repeated itself in the same way, essentially playing one long piano tune. Right then, I could only imagine someone sitting at a piano for probably an hour, just pressing whichever key caught their attention next.

Upon reaching the market, I got the following dialogue when I spoke to Four Eyes:

“Lovely seeing you again, my Lady!” [Box of ellipses.] “You’d like to buy one of my oranges? Wonderful! That will be 1 cent, if you may.”

This time, when I clicked on the coin, it actually worked, much to my relief, and the coin’s sprite was replaced with that of an orange in the inventory. “Pleasure doing business with you!” Four Eyes had said afterward.

I’m not going to get into any of the dialogue spoken between the time of me buying the orange to me speaking to the gatekeeper, because the entire fetch quest took a little less than five minutes, and nobody said anything interesting or of note that I can remember. Long-but-not-long story short: I gave the orange to Mr. Thorns and he gave me the roses, I gave the roses to Ms. Cerber and she gave me the permit, I gave the permit to the gatekeeper and he let me through. Objective complete.

After opening the gate for Daisy, the gatekeeper said the following:

“What business do you have in the forest, anyway?” [Box of ellipses.] “Rose, huh? Not sure who that is, but a fine lady did pass through here earlier. With any luck, that’ll be your girl. Head on through.” [The dialogue initially ends here, but talking to the gatekeeper then has him say the following.] “Be careful, and remember: don’t bother Mother Goose, if you know what’s good for ya."

Although I was eager to move ahead, the gatekeeper's warning stirred a bit of anxiety within me as I moved toward the next screen. What did he mean by "be careful"? Who exactly was Mother Goose? As the screen went dark, I expected these questions to be answered very soon. When the next screen appeared, however, my fingers froze on the mouse, and my eyes became fixed on the landscape presented.

This scene was darker, much darker, than any that came before it. As expected of a forest, the landscape was filled with trees and bushes, but they were all depicted in pure black, while the background was a deep blue that would have made the trees invisible had it been any deeper. The art style, while still maintaining the bootleg-Tim-Burton style of the game, appeared much rougher and more chaotic, causing the bushes to look less like bushes and more like amorphous, shadowy masses. Daisy, previously vibrant in color, was now just a bunch of white outlines, the background bleeding straight through her. The disjointed piano music ceased entirely when the screen appeared, and despite how the music creeped me out, the silence that followed was far worse.

There was a sprite of what appeared to be a wooden signpost in the middle of the screen, and it gave me the following text when I clicked on it:

“Do not bother Mother Goose.”

The tiny wave of fear I felt when the gatekeeper had said the same thing had grown into a full-blown tsunami. Yes, it was just a game, but at that moment, I felt as though I was in that forest instead of Daisy. After a bout of shaking and heavy breathing, I steeled myself to press on, guiding Daisy past the sign and into the following screen.

For the first three screens, nothing happened, and for a moment, my fear began to diminish. Whoever this “Mother Goose” was hadn’t made its presence known in any way I could detect, and I figured that by not “bothering” them — whatever “bothering” actually meant — they wouldn’t pop up.

This relief was short-lived, however, when I saw a tall, lanky figure slowly rise in the middle of the fifth forest screen, staring right at Daisy as she entered the screen.

The being was at least double Daisy's size and had no identifiable characteristics apart from a bird-like beak, a bonnet-like accessory on its head, and a shining white eye on the side that contrasted harshly with the gloom that swallowed the locale. Trying not to panic, I moved my cursor towards the creature, wanting to examine it to get some idea as to what exactly it was and what its purpose its presence served.

“Be careful, and remember: don’t bother Mother Goose, if you know what’s good for ya."

After a few seconds of hovering over the thing, the cursor jerking and quivering against the blackness that surrounded it as my right hand shook, I swiftly decided against it, yanking the cursor from the thing as if it were an atom bomb that would explode if I lingered over it any longer. My immediate instinct was to head back to the brighter, more populated city full of friendly characters, but every single time I attempted to leave, Daisy would stop just short of going offscreen, and the following text would appear:

“You can’t go back right now. You have to FIND ROSE.”

With seemingly no other choices available, I held my breath and slipped by the shadowy being to proceed to the next screen. Thankfully, it didn’t attack Daisy; it only turned in her direction, watching her as she progressed.

I’m unsure of the exact number of screens that comprised the entire remaining forest area, but I am sure that it was far too many. Each screen repeated the same scene; the creature, whom I eventually concluded was Mother Goose, appeared in each and every one, never breaking its gaze away from Daisy as she wandered through the forest. I've illustrated the scene as best I can to give an idea of what it looked like:

I think it was around the halfway mark when I noticed the music. It began with one note, then two, and gradually added more as I went from screen to screen. When the sixteenth note played, I realized it was the first few notes of the nursery song "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary," a tune my mother used to sing to me as a child. The tempo was incredibly slow, with a full second of silence between each note.

I know that most people, especially adults, may not have found any of this particularly scary, but at the moment, my seven-year-old self was beyond terrified. While all of my childhood friends were scared of the Mad Piano from Super Mario 64, I was scared of Mother Goose from FIND ROSE. While all of my adult online buddies were scared of the Lavender Town music from the old Pokémon games as kids, I was scared of the one-note-at-a-time piano rendition of “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” from FIND ROSE. While everyone else remembers being scared over a popular console title, I was scared over some obscure CD-ROM game from a corner store that nobody other than me has probably even played.

Despite my fear, I continued to press on. I kept telling myself that, because I'd made it this far, I had an obligation to see this entire game through. I had an obligation to FIND ROSE.

In what felt like hours — though it was most likely less than two minutes — I finally reached the forest’s final screen. Everything was essentially the same as it had been in the rest of the forest, with Mother Goose still staring me down, but there was another wooden sign at the far end of the screen, which provided the following text when clicked on:

“Forest Exit; Picnic Area Ahead.”

Overwhelmed by a surge of intense relief, I quickly made my way to the left, eager to escape this nightmare, while Mother Goose turned to look at me one final time.

It was when I was just about to transition to the next screen that it happened. The final cherry on the proverbial panic-inducing sundae. It happened so quickly that I almost didn't see it.

Mother Goose darted towards Daisy at astonishing speed, its beak wide open and its white eyes growing almost to the size of its head. The very last note that played before I left the forest was incredibly loud and distorted, as if somebody violently banged their finger on a piano key (something else that I thought would wake my parents up, but thankfully didn’t). I could have sworn I heard the strained cry of a dying bird layered over the noise, being abruptly cut off at the end. Mother Goose was barely a centimeter from touching Daisy when the screen went dark.

As the screen brightened and transformed into a more inviting setting, accompanied by the return of the weird-yet-benign tune, I needed a full minute to motivate myself to move. Once I managed to exhale the breath that had lodged in my throat, I started to move Daisy across the screen again. A small part of me considered backtracking to the previous screen out of curiosity, but I refused. I would never return there again. To this day, I have no idea what happens if you click on Mother Goose, but I’m perfectly fine with not knowing.

I only encountered a single other NPC on my way through the Picnic Area; a humanoid black cat with an orange t-shirt and yellow sun hat on, sitting at what appeared to be a light-brown picnic table to the right of the screen. Speaking with her gave me the following text:

“Hey there, Daisy! You enjoying the weather?” [Box of ellipses.] “Rose? She’s just up ahead. I think she’s waiting for you. You should go see her!” [There is no more dialogue after that.]

After advancing through two more screens, each showcasing rows of vacant picnic tables, I arrived at what seemed to be the beginning of a grassy field. In the center stood a large tree, beneath standing a creature resembling a brown gazelle. Like Daisy, she stood on two legs and had human-like hands, with hers holding a straw basket filled with what appeared to be carrots and lettuce. The creature wore a long, gray summer dress that brushed against the ground, covering her legs and feet, and like Daisy, she had a necklace, only with a white daisy at the center. Her expression mirrored Daisy's own weary, almost middle-aged-lady-looking appearance. Here’s a doodle of her:

Upon finding her, she had her back turned towards Daisy, but she turned around when I clicked on her. True to the cat-beast’s word, the creature was indeed the one whom I’d been searching for the entire game. I had finally found Rose. When I clicked on her, she gave me the following dialogue, which served as the final piece of text in the entire game:

“Oh, Daisy, dear! I was just enjoying the pleasant breeze… I was hoping you’d come to enjoy it with me.  I was just thinking of visiting your house for tea afterward; would that be fine with you? [Box of ellipses]. Wonderful! I’m so happy to see you.”

Then, suddenly and with no fanfare, the game window just closed itself out. A bit anti-climactic, yeah, but I was happy to have won the game. I did attempt to re-launch the game by removing and then re-inserting the disc several times, but it seemed that the game would no longer boot.

As I sat there reflecting on what I’d just played, a soft knock on the wall nearly made me fall out of my chair. I looked up to see my father at the end of the hallway that led to the living room where the computer was, staring at me with half-lidded eyes.

“Yo," he said, punctuating his greeting with a huge yawn. "It's 10 o'clock now, bud."

“Yeah, I know,” I said in placid agreement. “I just closed the game, and I’m getting off right now.”

As my father nodded and trudged back to his and mom’s room, I turned the computer off, leapt out of the chair, and headed straight to bed without a word, falling into a restless sleep.

I never told my parents about the game. When my mom asked about it the next morning, I told her that the disc hadn’t worked and I just played I Spy: School Days. It wasn't a complete lie, though; each time I attempted to load the game after that night, the CD wouldn't read. We didn’t bother bringing it back to the store, since we’d gotten it for free anyway. It was a bit more difficult, however, to come up with a reason for my mother as to why I didn't want her to sing "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" to me anymore.

When I returned to school, I asked several of my peers if they’d ever played or heard of FIND ROSE, and all of them looked at me like I had grown an extra head. I’d even resorted to asking my teachers, who, predictably, had zero clue what I was talking about, and about half of them signed their answer off with some variation of "games are fun but don't let them make you forget to study". After classes, I used the school library's computer to do Google research on (I couldn't use Google on my family's computer, as my parents felt that I could look up something I wasn't supposed to on it, and had it locked behind password via a third-party program); my search yielded no results. I eventually gave up.

So now, years later as an adult, I’m writing this as a… call-to-action, so to speak. If anybody who reads this has played this game, has footage of this game, or even has actual ownership of a functioning copy of this game, please, please contact the research center, so that they can forward it to me, and if you are willing to part with it, send a physical copy to the team as well. I would greatly appreciate it, and I’m sure the team would as well.

Thank you for reading.

Sincerely,

[REDACTED]

P.S: To whoever is in charge of the research party; I’ve read the report on your website you posted a few days ago regarding a tall, bird-like creature with glowing white eyes that was sighted skulking in a dark alley sometime last week? If you happen to gather more information on it, I would appreciate it very greatly if you could share any and all you possibly can with me. I’ve been losing sleep over it.

[End.]

[born-to-lose]

Shameless + Stevie Rachelle & Cherie Currie concert

Here's the long-awaited concert report from Saturday!

When I came inside after doors opened, I went straight to the Tuff merch table where Stevie was sitting and checking his phone. He apologized for not noticing us and my friend said she had recently posted her cover of I Hate Kissing You Goodbye and he had commented on it saying she should come meet him at the merch table. He remembered and he asked where we're from and how old we are. When we told him our ages, he said he could be our dad and we were just laughing as if at our last concert together, we both hadn't had a thing with the 60 year old band members 💀

He asked if we wanted to wait with taking photos until he would be wearing his stage outfit with leather pants and we did. I bought a MORC 2024 lanyard along with a purple patch and some CDs. He asked for my name so he could sign them. When I was struggling to open the wrapping, he suggested signing the booklets, letting them dry and bringing me the CDs personally while we went in front of the stage—what a service!

Early on in the set, Stevie introduced us as his new friends and fist bumped us during every other song. He asked us directly if we were having a good time and said they were going to play some of our favorite Tuff songs. When they played I Hate Kissing You Goodybe, he also dedicated the song to my friend. For one song, he left the stage to Shameless and they played Blitzkrieg Bop with the guitarist Dennis on lead vocals. Stevie was standing between me and my friend and we were jumping up and down with one hand on his shoulder and the other in the air, which was so fun 😫

The closing song was Talk Dirty to Me by Poison and I was very enthusiastically singing along. Their drummer Markus gave me one of his drumsticks with the Shameless logo and his signature on it (first time for me!).

We went back to the merch table and he hugged us, asking if we liked the show and if they had played our favorites. I said yeah but pointed out they didn't play Tied to the Bells. He explained that since their sets are one half Tuff songs and one half Shameless songs, they have to decide what to play (he probably knew the girls would be going feral if they had added that to the setlist). I bought the What Comes Around Goes Around shirt and vinyl and he signed that one too. We chatted a bit longer and he brought out two vinyls of Fist First, saying he's giving us them for free because we've been so supportive 😭❤️

Well, we were hanging out in the back with him since doors opened until shortly before Shameless went on stage and then we came back between their and Cherie Currie's set and afterwards we came back again for a while and continued talking outside and in the corridor.

When he gave me the vinyl, he said Tied to the Bells is on it lol. We thanked him over and over again because that was the sweetest thing ever and I totally didn't expect that! Then we had photos taken together as a group and separately.

Around 3 a.m., when Stevie was loading stuff into the van, he stopped by and briefly chatted with us again. We asked if he's leaving and he said he's gonna get some sleep, but he hoped we had a great time and he'll see us soon. He thanked us for coming and hugged us goodbye.

While Cherie Currie and the band (which were the Shameless guys) were playing, Alexx the bassist threw a guitar pick in my direction and I caught it (also the first time for me!). Of course, her closing song was Cherry Bomb and everyone who wasn't even coming for her was singing along now.

Back at the merch table, I noticed Alexx sitting there, so I approached him to ask if he could sign the Shaneless CD I had bought earlier, which he did. We also had a group photo taken with him, but during the first take, he squeezed me so tightly I was in a weird position and couldn't move, so I looked like a gremlin. The second try looked much better and he asked us to tag him when we post the picture so he can share it.

And now for my musician crush of the month: The guitarist Danny kept eye contact with me throughout most of the show. He did those winking, open mouth, sticking his tongue out, wide eyes things and was chewing bubblegum in a weirdly hot way. Especially during suggestive songs, he looked in my direction and uh... I decided I want him.

During Cherie's set, he animated me to sing along, pointing at me and singing into his mic though I didn't know the lyrics to that one 😭 At the end, he threw a guitar pick at me and after I found it on the floor, I put it in my wallet along with Alexx'.

I went outside and asked Danny if he would like to sign my Shameless CD and his response was a bit cheeky and he went to get a sharpie. He asked if I'm aware he didn't play on that album, I asked on which he did play and he laughed and said, "None of them, I'm Cherie's guitarist but the one from Shameless couldn't do this tour so I stepped in." I told him to sign it anyway because I saw him playing with them tonight. I asked for a photo and he pretty much grabbed me by the waist.

I complimented his playing style and we talked about what picks he uses and for which songs he uses which type of pick. Some other guests wanted pictures with him too, so I photographed them and while one guy was already posing next to him, Danny was still talking and I took a photo because his face was funny. He was so startled because he wasn't ready and I took a proper one.

At some point, he left and while they started to pack their things, I asked if he's staying a bit longer and grinned and he was like, "I hope so!"

Outside, I noticed I had lost his pick and was trying to build up the courage to ask him for another one because it must have fallen out of my wallet. Right when I was turning around to ask, he walked past me and gave me his pick, saying with a wink, "Saved that one extra for you" and I blew him a kiss as he walked inside smirking over his shoulder.

When he ran around loading the rest of their equipment into the van, I went outside again and he asked if I'm waiting for him and I was like yeah. I asked if he's leaving already and he said the guys wanted to go to the hotel to sleep already. I asked if he had time for a round of shots and he agreed, so we went back inside and shared a tiny seat by the bar drinking Jägermeister. I asked him about any upcoming shows near here, but he said he'll be playing more in the Munich area where he lives, but I should try to stop by if possible.

After we had our shots, he thanked me and hugged me and although I usually don't like a Southern Bavarian accent, his sounded so cute 😭 He hugged me again right before he left and when he got in the van, he turned around and waved at me 🥺

Then it was time for frustration drinking and I sent him a friend request on Facebook, which he accepted in the morning and so did Stevie 😌

[goldtowhite]

solana "solar" flores // character study

basic information:

FULL NAME: solana maria flores

NICKNAME(S): solar, sol

AGE: 27

DATE OF BIRTH: january 1st, 1997

PLACE OF BIRTH: salinas, california

GENDER: cisfemale

PRONOUNS: she/her

ORIENTATION: bisexual

LANGUAGE(S) SPOKEN: english, spanish

NEIGHBOURHOOD: sierra vista estates

LIVING ARRANGEMENTS: she lives by herself!

family ties:

MOTHER: violetta marie reyes flores

FATHER: miguel diego flores

SIBLINGS: a little sister, a full ten years younger than her

SPOUSE / PARTNER: none

CHILDREN: none

PETS: one dog, a great dane named nelvin

occupational information:

OCCUPATION: solo artist

SKILLSET OR SPECIALISATION (IF APPLICABLE): singer, dancer

answer only if your character is a musician:

NAME OF THEIR ACT: she goes by the name solar as a performer

SO THEY PLAY INSTRUMENTS? IF SO WHAT?: she can play piano and is attempting to learn guitar

ARTIST INFLUENCES: ariana grande, hwasa, kehlani

CURRENT MONTHLY SPOTIFY/APPLE MUSIC LISTENS ON AVERAGE: 75M

physical appearance:

FACE CLAIM: becky g

HAIR COLOR: dark brown

EYE COLOR: brown

HEIGHT: 5'1"

BUILD: curvy, toned

TATTOOS: she has two of becky's tattoos, the dragonfly on her side, and the familia on her wrist

PIERCINGS: just a bunch of ear piercings

CLOTHING STYLE: what always matters most to her is that her hair and makeup is done no matter what. very glamorous style, loves a good crop top, loves form fitting clothes.

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: she's teeny tiny short.

personality:

MBTI: ESTJ

ELEMENT: earth

WESTERN ZODIAC: capricorn

CHINESE ZODIAC: ox

POSITIVE TRAITS: ambitious, vibrant, expressive

NEGATIVE TRAITS: bossy, materialistic, vain

HOBBIES: travel, cooking, foodie type behaviors in general, swimming

wanted connections:

CONNECTION TYPE: give me a toxic on and off relationship please. i'd love this to be another uber famous person, like they keep writing albums about each other, they've broken up messily in the public eye multiple times, when they come back together half the fanbase cheers and half groans but knows they're gonna get good sad music out of it. down to cook for this.

CONNECTION TYPE: someone who works for solana who kind of picks away at her outer layers and understands her on a personal level.

PART TWO: QUESTIONNAIRE. 

IF YOUR MUSE IS A MUSICIAN:

start at the beginning, who are you and why are you important? i'm solana flores, known as solar to most, and why i'm important isn't really something i can answer. you'd have to ask the people who decided i was.

how long have you been making music? since i was a little girl. my dad plays guitar and he would play around the house, would do it to entertain us when the lights went out because he and mama couldn't make the bills that much, and i just started singing along with it.

how would you describe the kind of music you make? it's a really healthy mix of songs you'd want to have sex to, and songs you'd blast with the windows down going 90 mph on an empty highway.

who are some of your biggest musical influences? oh the list is endless. selena, of course, a legend and an icon. beyonce! lots of lesser known mexican artists i grew up listening to with my parents.

what is the first record you ever bought? it was an n*sync cd, if i'm being honest.

what has working in the music industry meant to you thus far in your career? the life i've built for myself is something i would've never dreamed. my parents never have to lift a finger again, though they do anyway because they worry about my little sister getting too spoiled, and for good reason. they already have one spoiled child, they don't need another.

what are some stand out moments from your career so far? my first sold out show, even though the venues were pretty small. my first stadium tour. my first meet and greet.

how would you describe your style of performance? what makes your shows worth seeing? my style of performance is to make sure that you'd never dare look anywhere but the stage, in case you missed anything. i'm worth seeing because i'm real, and good at what i do, and make it known.

what are you still hoping to achieve in your career? you'd think reaching the top would be where it ends, but there are some awards i haven't won yet that i'd like to. really all that's missing from my shelf at home is a grammy.

what’s next for you? well that's a secret.

[excessexorcism]

Item #48: Album – The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

I mentioned before that I received a lot of records recently, and this one ended up being a duplicate. The newer copy (on the left) is one I bought when I worked at a bookstore. I don’t remember the exact cost, but I’m sure it was too much, even with the modest employee discount.

That said, I’m keeping the older copy (on the right). It's from my late family member. It means so much to me, and I think of him every time I play it. As for the duplicate, I was ALREADY able to pass it along to a close friend who loves The Beatles but didn’t yet own this album on vinyl yet. It’s a win-win.

Verdict: Mixed feelings. I’ve loved this album since I was a child. I still vividly remember the day my dad brought me the CD, I was so excited! The Beatles were the first band I ever got into. (Quick story: As a kid, I only watched cartoons, and my dad once brought home a VHS of Yellow Submarine. I had no idea who The Beatles were, but I fell in love with the music instantly. When my dad explained that the band in the cartoon had even more music, I was thrilled. After that, he’d surprise me with their CDs, sparking a lifelong love of their work.)

Looking back, I probably didn’t need to buy this record when I already had access to so much Beatles music (and, arguably, do I ever need to buy any record?). But I’m so happy to keep the sentimental copy from my family member and to share the less personal one with a friend who will appreciate it.

Lesson I’m Trying to Learn: I don’t need to buy everything I want.

[evildilf2]

What's the first cd/album/whatever you bought or sought out for yourself instead of having it given / provided to you

Oohhhh that’s a good one, I’m actually not sure… I’ve had a lot of my CD collection since was in high school, I’d ask for musical theatre sound tracks for Christmas or for my dad to snag me an ABBA cd from goodwill every now and then- I started building a collection so I had something to listen to while my phone was taken away (which happened pretty frequently lol). A lot of my collection is hand me downs from when my mom moved out of state, or snagged from my dad’s collection when he’s not looking.

If I had to guess the first one I ever bought for myself was proooobably a “Best of The Smiths” compilation album. At the beginning of my adult life The Smiths were my favorite band, they were my introduction into appreciating post-punk and alternative 80s music.