#why is your first assumption that I dressed up to see a punk band

[i-kill-vamps69]

The next time someone sees me, a local punk, at a local gig and calls me a groupie I'm telling them I hate music

[oldsmobile-hotdogs]

Questions for crossover jatp ghosts crossover fic: I hope Julian and the sunset curve boys talk about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Yugoslav wars that happened when they were alive + Bill Cilnton. I wonder what pat and the band would talk about considering that they would of been kids when pat died? Do you think Julie would think of Les Mis and Hamilton cos Thomas and Kitty are from about the same time period as those musicals? I hope Julie calls Fanny Mary poppins.

Anon, or "Mimi", or "Lulu", or, heck, maybe even "Carl Birtles": Update: Not Carl Birtles. Carl Birtles sent me an ask and is cool, actually.

Stop. Right now. I'd say stop while you're ahead, but you are so far away from ahead at this point it's laughable.

For everyone confused, this is that "commenter from AO3" I joked about making a 2017-esque story time video about.

A couple days ago I uploaded the first chapter of a Julie and the Phantoms/BBC Ghosts crossover fic.

You know what? I’m gonna promo it here bc it’s my callout post and I can shill if I want to: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30681704/chapters/76661471

It was generally very well received and I've had a blast interacting with readers.

Except for this.

Honestly, there's so much to get into, so I’m putting it under a cut:

This was their first correspondence (email notif bc I deleted the comment, the deletion to be explained later):

(Funnily enough, the links very much do not work on AO3, making the comment only more jarring)

I gave you *so much* benefit of the doubt when I saw this comment, and assumed that maybe you're an ESL user, just very enthusiastic to share ideas, and I pretty much said so in my reply, but know that at that point I'd already had friends- who fucking know about this, don't you dare think you're getting me alone- tell me that you were being very demanding.

Below was my reply (another email notif):

I'm gonna be honest, I think I responded really well to what I was given, and now that I'd replied, I was pretty certain the situation was dealt with. You, evidently, didn't agree, as shown by your reply to my reply:

A word of advice: when replying to someone, at least pretend like you read what they wrote.

At this point I'm left wondering two things:

What do they expect from me, if a general reply is not it?

How much more shit do they have waiting to tell me to put in my- reminder, JATP/BBC Ghosts crossover, rated T, comedic- fic?

In order to avoid finding out either, I freeze the thread on AO3. I'm liveblogging all of this on Discord.

It's then that I notice that the username on AO3 isn't clickable, so even if I wanted to block or report them I couldn't. I assume, therefore, that they've deactivated, and since them seeing their comments gone and getting angry was the only thing stopping me deleting the comments, I delete the comments.

It's also at this point I see "Mimi" never left kudos. I guess I don't deserve praise until I mention "Bill Cilnton".

There's relative calm for a short amount of time, until I get another comment:

This one is much kinder than the others and doesn't mention any specific, weird, historical events, so the extent to which I think this is "Mimi" is debatable, but bestie I'm weirded out enough that anything that even uses the enter bar unnecessarily and misses out conjunctive words like "because" and "and" is going to activate fight or flight. Update: Carl Birtles is not Mimi or Lulu. Carl was just being genuinely kind and I misinterpreted it and that's on me.

However, "Carl"'s case is not helped by the fact I can't click his account either, that AO3 offers me the ability to report it as spam, and that guess who replies to "Carl"'s comment: Update: Carl, having done nothing wrong as he has, is therefore also a victim in the situation that is being replied to by Lulu. It would seem Lulu is trying to correct??? some of Carl's commentary.

You must think I didn't get a 7 on my English Literature GCSE because you seem to underestimate my ability to compare two texts.

So clearly this is "Mimi", who has also just replied to "Carl". "Lulu" is also deactivated, and I've fallen off the end of my tether, let alone reached it, at this point so I mark it as spam. "Carl" gets to stay bc he said the idea for the crossover was good. Update: Carl also gets to continue to stay because I have it on good faith that he's a stand-up dude.

So at this point you've readily admitted through your inability to shake up your writing style to using at least one sockpuppet to convince me to talk about the "Yugoslav wars".

If "Carl Birtles" is the real(-est) of them, and "Mimi" and "Lulu" are the sockpuppets, by the way, I have questions and ideas about what you do on your free evenings and I want them neither confirmed nor answered. Update: This is slanderous and I want to apologise wholeheartedly to Carl for making assumptions about him and judging his character. Once again, he is not Mimi or Lulu. He's just a normal, cool guy.

And now you come to me, on the day of my daughter's wedding on a different platform, leave me an anon ask in the exact same format as you're so fond of, and expect any different ??

Well, yeah, then I guess I'll give you special treatment this time.

Here's exactly why I will never include anything you have told me to include:

Julian and the Phantoms discussing the Berlin Wall would be highly inappropriate for the largely fluffy, cracky tone of my fanfiction, especially given how recently the event occurred, how many Eastern Germans still experience prejudice to this day because they were born within the old borders of the DDR, and because of how nuanced this, essentially proxy war, was and how ill-informed a huge amount of the world is on the actual factors in play during this time and the Cold War in general.

Julian and the Phantoms will not discuss Yugoslavia dissolving, nor the fallout and conflict that resulted, because it was genocidal. There is nowhere I can fit Julian, pantsted, casually asking Luke “hey do you remember when the Herzegovinas were killed en masse by the Serbs?” Not gonna happen.

They won’t discuss Bill Clinton because all of them know who the current world leaders are: they don’t have amnesia, they’re ghosts. The fic is also rated T, so it would be inappropriate to make any explicit reference to “sexual relations”. None of them play saxophone.

Julie wouldn’t think of Les Mis or Hamilton because Thomas is Regency, not French Revolution, and Kitty is Georgian, not Colonial.

Julie won’t be calling Fanny Mary Poppins because she is perpetually stuck in a white dress, doesn’t wear a hat, doesn’t own an umbrella or a purse and was not the nanny or housekeeper of Button House.

The ghosts will not discuss the marvels of modern transportation or how long it would’ve taken to cross the Atlantic on dinghy because the ghosts have seen Friends. The house irl is on a flight path. They know airplanes exist. Alison and Mike pulled up in a car.

I will probably have the phantoms and Willie talk to Pat and Julian about being from the ‘80s and ‘90s. That I will actually probably do.

The Captain will not mention FD Roosevelt because, again, they all know who the current world leaders are, and I doubt he expects a ‘90s pop punk band to have any insider knowledge on the man.

It was interesting to think of the phantoms’ grandparents having been alive during WW2. I wasn’t lying. But there is nearly nothing I can do with this information.

But above all: both sets of ghosts have already adapted to modern life. Because the shows are shorter, and meant to actually be able to fit jokes in them.

If you want to see any of this, write your own damn fic. I don’t own the concept of a JATP/BBC Ghosts crossover.

What you will not do, “consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel”-nim, is hound me on multiple accounts and then change platform to hound me again. I’m absolutely not having it.

I have never received an interaction quite like this before, and I cannot help but wonder if this is because this is my first work in the Ghosts/HH/Them There/Six Idiots/Yonderland/Bill fandom: that this is where you primarily camp out.

So it’s at this point I ask the Them There/Six Idiots fandom if they have/if they know anyone who has had a run-in with this person or thinks they may have, or if anyone perhaps even knows who this is? Maybe I’m just one of many. Maybe this is a necessary fandom evil I was unaware of.

This experience has left me royally freaked out, as one might imagine, especially since my anxiety in general has been acting up due to it being exam season. I want to thank everyone who’s read my rambles on Discord and on here and even listened to them irl and offered support from the bottom of my heart.

I’ve enabled comment moderation on the fic. I will continue to write it, and I will put exactly what I, and only what I, want in it.

Believe it or not, I wanted to do literally anything else today.

Anon: Fucking Leave Me Alone.

Update: Just reiterating: Carl is not Mimi or Lulu. Carl is a cool dude and I want to sincerely apologise for having brought him into this mess, passing judgment on his character, and making him feel like he should stop practicing English online.

[ubernoxa]

The Slippery Slope: An Izzy Stradlin FANFICTION

Chapter 3: An Apetite for Destruction

Story Summary: After leaving Guns N’ Roses, Izzy find himself in a rut, and decideds to visit the local zoo. While visiting the penguin exhibit, he meets a red head named Poppy. Will they manage to keep standing while on their slippery slope?

Chapter Summary: Poppy calls an old friend for advice, and Izzy runs into Poppy at a record store and hope to corrects things.

Tags: @slashscowboyboots @smokeandmirrorz

Masterlist coming soon, but Chapter 1 Chapter 2

“Ohh god I made such a fool of myself, he is never going to talk to me again. Why am I so awkward?” Poppy whined into the phone as her old college roommate, Lissa, sympathetically listened. This wasn’t the first time Poppy had been freaking out about a guy, and she knew that it wasn’t going to be the last.

“Calm down Poppy, you are probably overanalyzing it,” Lissa was trying to calm Poppy down, but it wasn’t working.. She wished that Poppy had called her right after the date instead of the morning after. It was clear to Lisa that Poppy had spent most of the night overanalyzing and imagining future scenarios that wouldn’t happen.

Poppy sighed as she plopped down on her bed, still holding the phone to her ear. She wanted to kick herself. She wished she became an engineer instead of a biologist, so she could invent a time machine and travel back in time.

“Do you want to tell me what happened? It might help,” Lissa’s voice cut through the silence.

“So it is all the stupid busboy’s fault!” Poppy shouted into her phone. Lissa playfully rolled her eyes at the very limited story she told.

“I am going to need more details hun.”

“So everything is going great. He is super sweet and really funny. He started off super quiet, and barely spoke at the beginning of dinner. Once the food came he became kinda chatty,” Poppy began telling the story while Lissa nodded her head as she listened over the phone.

“What did you wear?” Lissa interrupted earning some confusion from Poppy.

“I don’t see how that is relevant.”

“Hey, it helps paint a picture of you on your date at some fancy italian restaurant in the middle of nowhere Indiana,” Lissa rebuttled earning a groan from Poppy.

After a couple moments of silence, Poppy broke the silence, “I wore the short gold dress.”

“Thanks, now you can continue the story,” Lissa sarcastically replied earning a light chuckle from Poppy who wished her old roommate was here in Indiana, and not in the middle of nowhere Maine.

“As I was saying, everything was going great. The food was spectacular, and we were clicking. Every once and a while silence would fill the space between us, but it was a comfortable silence. It was when we were looking at the menu or eating. We even shared our dinners. Like Lissa...this is going to sound really cheesy, but he even fed me his food. You know, like in those romance movies we watch all the time?”

“Aww that is really sweet of him. If he has a twin I call dibs,” Lissa half joked.

“Anyway, we both finished our dinners and this busboy….ohh god the fucking bus boy,” Lissa froze as Poppy swore. She had known Poppy for 5 years, and she had only heard the girl swear a handful of times.

“What did the busboy do? Did he make fun of you or something like that?”

“No. So the busboy goes and asks ‘Did you enjoy your dinner Mr Stradlin?’ Then I mumble something like Stradlin is a silly last name which it is! It didn’t sound like a real name to be honest. Sounds kinda like a sex joke. Anyway the busboy turns to me and says ‘Well I guess that is one of the perks of being a rockstar…you get to choose whatever name you want. Plus it’s not the weirdest name, he has a bandmate named Duff and another named Axl’. I fucking froze when the busboy said that. The reason Izzy didn’t want to talk about his job was because he was a part of Guns N’ Roses. That is why he never mentioned his last name to me,” Lissa didn’t need to be in the same room as Poppy to know that she was most likely dramatically flapping her arm in the air like the penguins she took care of.

“Wait wait wait...you went on a date with Izzy Stradlin,” Lissa was attempting to connect the dots and understand Poppy met a rockstar.

“I guess..” Poppy mumbled back.

“What do you mean I guess. You didn’t recognize him from all of the magazines that have been littering the checkout counter at practically every grocery store ever since he left Guns N’ Roses? It was also all over the radio!” Poppy groaned at Lisa’s comment. She should have known. Izzy wasn’t a name like Mike or Mark where there are thousands of people walking around with that name. There were probably a handful of people named Izzy, if any at all. An Izzy in Indiana who is a quiet musician and has brown hair could only have been Izzy the rockstar.

“God I’m an awkward idiot…” Poppy once again mumbled. She wanted to slap herself silly.

“What else happened,” Lissa asked after a couple moments of silence.

“Well anyway, once the busboy pointed out that Izzy was a rockstar, things got awkward. The busboy left, and when the check came he didn’t even look over it. He just handed our waitress his credit card and told her to process it as soon as possible. It was clear that he wanted out,” Poopy’s heart sunk as she recalled the moment.

“How were you the awkward one?” Lissa asked, trying to follow Poppy’s questionable logic.

“I haven’t gotten to that part yet. So we start to leave the restaurant and I missed that he offered to take my hand. Then when we were outside the restaurant waiting for the valet to grab our cars, he offered for us to go and walk to a nearby gelato place that I mentioned during appetizers. The problem was that I already saw the valet driving towards us in my car, and it felt like he was doing it out of pity…so I said no. The whole drive home I was kicking myself!”

“Doesn’t sound too bad hun. Also, he might have just been trying to get out of the restaurant before everyone else recognized him. From what I’ve heard from interviews and stuff, he never was the one who wanted to be the center of attention. Poppy...getting gelato might have been because he didn’t want the date to end…” Lissa was trying to lift Poppy’s spirits by giving an alternate scenario, one that Lissa believed to be the real reason.

“You’re just stressing yourself over nothing,” Lissa added trying the break the silence once again.

“What do I do, Lissa.”

“Go to a music shop. Find his albums and buy them so you could listen to them. Worst case you case you could show up and get some music for your penguins to listen to…”

“I’m going to stand out like a sore thumb….”

“Poppy...you will not stand out in a music shop”

After 20 minutes of Lissa convincing Poppy to get dress and head to the music shop, Poppy found herself standing outside the music store. The closest one was in Lafayette which was a quick drive from her apartment. She took a deep breath before she walked in.

Poppy almost jumped when the bell on the door rang.

“Welcome to Halls Music Shop,” On the outside Poppy smiled and waved at the man who was working the register, internally she wanted to bolt out of the shop because she felt several eyes on her.

The first floor was filled with records and cassette tapes. Poppy wandered towards the section labeled rock as she was determined to find the record and quickly leave as soon as possible. She sighed as she quickly realized how large the rock section was, this wasn’t going to be as easy as she expected. She was under the assumption that there were two maybe three type of rock music; classic, punk, and heavy. There were 15, 15 type of rock.

“Hey, I’m Ryan! Are you looking for anything in particular?” A tall brunette pulled her out of her thoughts of trying to figure out which one of the types of rock Izzy’s band was.

“Yeah….umm...it’s called Guns N’ Roses,” Poppy sent Ryan a soft smile who sent it right back to her.

“Good choice! I saw them live a year ago, and it was insane. If you ever get the chance I would highly recommend seeing them live. It’s almost impossible to believe how insanely awesome their shows are,” Ryan said to Poppy remembering most of the night from the show. His ticket was worth every penny, and he was hoping they would add more tour dates soon.

“Cool, I had a friend recommend them to me. She said I’d like them,” Poppy replied trying to keep the conversation going. It wasn’t a complete lie, but it was a rehearsed one.

“You haven’t been listening to them? They’re the only thing everyone is talking about!”

Across the small store, Izzy stood on the second floor looking through their guitars for sale. Did he need one? No.

Was he looking to distract himself from his date last night? Yes.

Everything was going perfect in his book. He was playing all the moves that his old band mates had taught him. From being overly sweet like Duff to making her endlessly laugh like Steven. Then the damn busboy had to blow his cover. Granted he really didn’t have a cover, but he still hated the busboy. Once the busboy opened his stupid mouth. He knew the entire time all that was going through Poppy’s head was that Izzy was a rockstar with a rockstar lifestyle.

He shook his head before deciding to just pick up his new strings, and headed down the stairs to the checkout. He found this place within the first week of movie back, and was forever great fun for it.

As he headed down the stairs, he immediately saw the redhead. Unsure of what had taken over him, Izzy headed towards the rock section where he saw Poppy looking through cassettes.

“Hey Pops,” A smile grew on Poppy’s face as Izzy stood next to her pretending to look through some of the cassettes.

“Hey,” Poppy felt her heart rate immediately skyrocket when he got even closer to her.

‘Don’t be awkward. Just keep breathing. Maybe Lissa was right about overanalyzing this entire situation’ poppy mental told herself.

“Looking for anything in particular?” Izzy was slowly piecing the pieces to the puzzle that was Poppy’s brain.

“Well I’m obviously looking for the perfect album,” Poppy teased back as she continued to purposely search away from the Guns N’ Roses section. After a couple of seconds of perusing through, Poppy smiled when she found the perfect cassette to tease Izzy with.

“Ahh, here we go,” Poppy grabbed a Motley Crue cassette and proudly showed it to Izzy, earning a playful eye roll from the guitarist. Poppy didn’t know a lot about rock bands, but she knew about the tension between Axl Rose and Vince Neil. There was a solid month where that’s all the magazines that littered the grocery store checkout aisle talked about.

“Girls, Girls, Grils?” A smirk was present on Izzy lips when he spoke.

“Yeah! First off I’m a girl, so obviously this album is for me. Secondly, there is nothing hotter than guys on bikes. Lastly, these songs just speak to me,” Poppy said, attempting to hide her laughter.

“These songs speak to you? Ohh do tell!” Izzy asked, a smirk never leaving his lips.

“Well, the first song Wild Side...clearly as you can tell by just looking at me I have such a rambunctious side! Plus I have worked with wild animals.”

“Ohh I can see it now, you and your penguin sidekicks probably get in all sorts of trouble,” Poppy laughed at Izzy’s comment before continuing on with her explanation.

“Girls, Girls, Girls….self explanatory. The song is clearly written for me...a female,” this earned a chuckle from Izzy who knew that Poppy had clearly never listened to the song before.

Poppy felt the nerves vanish as Izzy laughed. She felt her cheeks and ears redden. She felt smaller against the tall guitarist.

“What about Dancing on Glass?” Izzy asked, breaking the silence between them.

“Well as an ex-ballerina I don’t not see the appeal to dancing on glass…”

“It is about Nikki’s, the guy who wrote the song, Heroin overdose, the shit he and his band went through to get to that point in time, and how he wouldn't go through that routine again. Like he said,"it's just like dancing on glass” Poppy nodded as Izzy briefly talked about the song.

“Did you write any songs?” A soft smile formed on Izzy’s lips as he headed over towards where the Guns N’ Roses cassettes were. Poppy put the Motley Crue cassette that she had no intention of buying back and followed him.

“One of the most popular songs I worked on with Guns was Sweet Child of mine. It was definitely one of those all hands on deck situations, but I provided most of the chords. The intro bit is 100% Slash’s warm up. Out Ta Get Me was another one I wrote. It’s a fun song to play,” Poppy quickly interrupted Izzy by teasily correcting him, “Out to get me….out ta get me isn’t proper English.”

“Well I’ll have you know I’m the only one in Guns to have a high school degree, so grammatical correctness wasn’t are highest concern,” Poppy simply giggles at his remark before he continued talking.

“Mr. Brownstone was another good one Slash and I wrote. It’s about what a day in the life of being a struggling LA band on the strip.” Poppy watched as sorrow grew on his face.

“What about Patience, that one doesn’t sound at all like a rock n roll song,” Poppy tried to distract him by bringing up another song on the cassette that she was holding. It was called G N’ R Lies, a rather odd name for a album, but she assumed they had some sound reasoning for it.

“It’s not really,” Poppy nodded her head at his comment. He then went completely silent looking at the cassettes, memories of both good times and bad flooding his head.

“Well, maybe you should play it for me sometime.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Poppy felt a soft smile across her lips as he replied.

“You have too many albums Izzy..you make it hard to choose just one,” Poppy teased, still trying to lighten his mood.

When that didn’t work, she snatched the cassette he was holding, “Hmm Appetite for Destruction sounds like the one for me.”

“Ohh so are you telling me you crave destruction?” Izzy finally spoke again, a smirk lingering on his features.

“I’m a biologist who studies dangerous animals for a living, I don’t just crave destruction. I control it,” The words were coming out faster than she could think. What she was saying felt silly, but when she looked back to Izzy who now had his arm wrapped around her wrist she didn’t regret the words one bit.

“I would trust penguins under the dangerous animals category,” Izzy smugly replied.

“What about polar bears or mountain lions?”

“Okay, those...those are dangerous,” he didn’t look at her when he responded, but a smile lingered on his face.

“Is that all for you then today?” Ryan asked as Izzy placed the guitar strings he needed to buy on the counter.

“And a cassette of Appetite,” Izzy offered his hand and Poppy placed the cassette in his hand.

“Buying your own albums now?” Ryan asked, raising an eyebrow towards the guitarist.

Izzy shrugged before handing the cashier his credit card. Once the transaction was done, Poppy immediately reached down to grab his hand, slowly stroking it with her thumb.

“Do you have any plans for the afternoon?”

Poppy shook her head no before following Izzy to his car. She was expecting some luxury sports car, but instead he drove a burnt red truck. She couldn’t explain why, but it fit him perfectly.

He put the cassette in, and drove back to his place with Poppy along for the ride. She by no means was a singer, but she was quick to pick up on the refrains.

“You know that the song ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ isn’t very welcoming. I do not feel welcome in whatever jungle y’all were in when you performed that, and I have been to many jungles...if I may add,” Poppy said once Welcome to the Jungle finished. This earned a small smile from Izzy who was surprised that listening to his old album wasn’t making him incredibly pissed off, he figured it was because of Poppy who was dancing and poorly singing next to him.

About half way through ‘It’s so Easy’ Poppy just started cracking up.

“What?”

“It’s nothing,” Poppy tried to hide her giggle as she spoke.

“Sounds like something,” Now Izzy was curious to see the red head’s opinion on the song.

“It’s so easy, when everyone is trying to please me!” Poppy jokingly sang, mocking the song. Was his band seriously that cocky?

“Mock all you want, but that song is inspired by the life we lived,” Poppy dialed back on the mocking and continued to jokingly dance in her seat, clearly earning stares from nearby cars.

By the time Nightrain came on Poppy was pretending to play guitar and drums. Izzy couldn’t help, but smile at the reaction she had to his music.

“Your place is beautiful,” Poppy said as they pulled up to what she assumed to be Izzy’s place. It wasn’t an extravagant LA mansion, but it was home. It was also was a huge fuck you to Axl, since they both talked about living in the house growing up.

“Thanks,” Izzy replied as he unlocked the door. He couldn’t have unlocked the door faster.

Once Poppy made it inside she practically felt herself slammed up against the now closed front door. She looked up to see Izzy, who wore a look that made her want to melt. Holy fuck he looked hot towering over her.

“So, is this how you welcome most guests?” Poppy asked, unable to look away from his eyes.

Even though it was no later than 3pm, the foyer in his house was dark. His face was partially hidden in the shadows, but she could still see the outline of his face and his deep hazel eyes that she swore changed color in the afternoon sun.

She expected him to taste like a mix of alcohol and cigarettes, but she was quickly proven wrong. He tasted like caramel. The type of warm Carmel that you would find in pie. It was calming, as she felt his fingers dance down her sides.

As if on reflex, Poppy intertwined her fingers in his hair. Her mind went blank, unable to focus on any single thing as she felt Izzy’s tongue in her mouth. Izzy began to slowly guide Poppy towards his couch with intentions that could only be described as those belonging to a rockstar.

[aceandaroacts]

On Being a Happy Family of One

[This month, I'm hosting the Carnival of Aces, a blogging festival where participants respond to a topic. The topic I've chosen for this month is "Conscious and Unconscious Differences". You can see the other submissions and join in here!]

Considering the experiences you’ve had that are tied to your asexuality, how have they made you stronger?

Hi! I'm aceandaroacts. If you met me in real life, I'd introduce myself as a coder of custom software and grandma-at-heart. But this is the internet!

The most important thing to know about me is not the things I've built, places I've gone, or the experiences I've overcome. It's my attitude: "I can do this!"

When I first started thinking about topics to write about for this month's Carnival of Aces, I was torn between several ideas. I love fashion. I understand none of it, and never know what I'm doing, but I have fun with it and am trying to figure out how to be more... visible? as one of the few agender people at my company. I also have a cool history with being forced to dress like a Gothic nun half my life and building cosplays and cool Halloween costumes in the present half. But that felt a little too intersectional, and might not be as useful from an academic lens.

I thought about cryptography, clandestine communication, and the obsession with language and selective secrecy I had as a kid, and how that connects to a lot of ace symbols - the black ring on the middle finger, ace cards, cake, dragons... and how I wound up spending two months and hundreds of hours consuming all the ace content I could find, because words and language and symbols are so important!

And I thought about my life; how it compares to the default narrative, and how I'm going about building my own.

This month's theme is conscious and unconscious differences. Unconscious, as in automatic, or as in: before I knew I was asexual. Conscious, as in: intentional. It's broad enough to wrap around all the above, but specific enough in the "how does this make you stronger" bit that I think we'll still see some cool patterns and strengths arise that help to establish our own narrative tropes.

I bought "unsexy" conservative outfits before I know I was asexual. I avoided people that showed too much interest in me automatically. I unconsciously avoided conversations about dating, sex, attraction, and masturbation with friends by walking away or changing the topic. My favorite colors have always been purple, silver, black, and white. Strategy games were my favorite. I'd obsess over characters that were mysterious, building all kinds of different backstories and futures for them in my head. I never had sleepovers, and didn't understand why people would want them. I was the "lone wolf" in my friend groups - a drifter that got along pretty well with all kinds of people, but ultimately did whatever they wanted with or without company. Around 60% of my friends were adults; I had great relationships with the teachers and staff members at my school, and I knew all the local librarians by name. The gender split of my friend group was always pretty close to 50-50, and populated with extremely different perspectives - punk anarchists, exchange students, female football players, native american sci-fi enthusiasts, anorexic wrestlers, etc. I loved words, loved codes and ciphers, loved fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and music with lyrics. I avoided drama like the plague. I had a very unstable home life, and moved locations almost every year. Home only extended as far as to the skin on my body. I never dreamed about weddings or fancy houses or kids (or even pets!). P.E. (Physical Education) was the worst - I felt uncomfortable in the dressing rooms, so I would arrive early before people started undressing and would change in the restrooms so I would have privacy and avoid seeing naked people as much as possible. I never obsessed over my body - I could go for months at a time without looking in a mirror. My reputation was based on my academics and random hobbies, not my looks or relationships. People sought me out as a mentor and constantly told me I was "mature" and "an old soul". When fights broke out, people looked to me as a fair and impartial judge of the situation, and respected whatever verdict I reached. It felt a lot like being a Buddha!

Realizing I was asexual didn't change much of that, but it did cause me to face choices head-on: would I try to find a partner, or not? Would I try to live with other roommates, or not? Would I try to be attractive, or not? Would I go to bars to make friends, or not? Would I worry about having a weak social network, or not? Would I want to live in a retirement community, or not? Would I want kids around, or not? What would my milestones in life be? How would I fulfill my human need to be social? Who would I trust to take care of me in an emergency?

I'm estranged from my birth family. I'm asexual, aromantic, agender, touch-averse, romance-repulsed, sex-repulsed, and introverted as can be. I tried dating and was so miserable that I wound up finding asexuality because of it in the first place. I don't trust myself to be a parent since my own parents screwed up so badly that it left me with three mental illnesses and a decade's worth of unwinding bad life lessons. So I'm in a fun position!

The "normal" life journey story goes like this: You grow up with two loving biological parents, get your education, graduate, get further training or education via school or a first job, find your partner in life, get into a steady career, get married and live together, have kids, raise those kids, watch them get their education and jobs and move away, then retire and die at an old age. My life only has the education and job bits (retirement? in this economy? die old? on this polluted planet?). I'm not going to look for a lifelong partner. I'm not having kids or adopting. There's a whole lot of white space where everyone else has milestones, and I've consciously accepted that as okay. I'm a family of one, and it's great!

The first milestones I set for myself were to find good roommates, help out fellow child abuse survivors, and own a home. I've achieved them! My next milestone is to do something big and artsy that makes a decent amount of people happy. I have no idea what it will be, yet - right now I've been doing lots of little things: teaching workshops, building costumes, painting, home renovation projects. I'm gonna try being in a music band this year. The milestone after that will be to have a big impact via a community-service type initiative. There's a woman in my city that created an LGBTQ homeless shelter that's an actual home-like environment (seasonal housing with free counseling, job training, stocked pantry, etc. aimed at guiding people to independence and self-sufficiency) which I thought was really cool, and I'd like to do something that's on a similar scale. After that, who knows? Maybe publish a book instead of writing 12 of them and letting them collect dust? Maybe run a small rainbow-themed cafe that makes fancy desserts? So many possibilities!

It's exactly these differences that bleed into my strengths. I'm super independent/self-motivated/self-directed, because I've had to be to survive. I excel at navigating uncertainty, ambiguity, assessing risks, and forecasting outcomes and trends, because my life has a lot of uncertainty and risk compared to the average population. I'm quick to pick up on communication styles and tailor my messages accordingly, because I've had to be mindful about it when navigating my parents and people that developed crushes on me and/or became stalkers. My superpower at work is my ability to dodge all of the politics at play and get everyone on board with factually beneficial solutions (so I still come across as an objective party vs someone playing favorites or only looking out for themselves). People have faith that I'm an expert in all things IT, even when I mess up, because I ask good questions and make fewer assumptions. (I assumed I was cis for 22 years and surprise! I was wrong. Anyone can be wrong. Especially if they are never forced to think about the thing!) I'm great at organizing live events - I plan multiple award shows and get-togethers. I also run an ace & aro meetup in my city! (The experience of being isolated will make an organizer out of you real quick!) People seek me out as a mentor and coach at work because I'm already satisfied with my life and who I am, and I genuinely want to help others without expecting anything in return. I intentionally stay in touch with and work to expand my friend group, which means I have a great professional network of actual friends that I find interesting and fun to be around, and not just LinkedIn faces. If I weren't ace, I wouldn't be doing that. And if I still didn't know I was ace, I wouldn't be doing it half as much as I do now - when you really focus on it, it's so worth it!

So, yeah. Asexuality is a part of me, and it's great. How does your identit(y/ies) make you great?

[aria-chicken-flugget]

Things Can Only Get Better - Guren X Reader / Mika X Reader

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences (ao3)

Category: F/M (some eventual M/M)

Fandom: 終わりのセラフ | Owari no Seraph | Seraph of the End

Summary: It starts in 1983, you transfer schools for your Junior year of high school but no one knows why. Yuu’s been getting into trouble a lot without you and Mika, his two best friends growing up in the orphanage – you find out that Yuu spends a lot of time with Guren, a senior and notorious troublemaker who you don’t trust is a good influence on Yuu at all! What happens when you get to know Guren and his friends? What’s he hiding? Why is Mika not there? Find out in this 80s inspired extravaganza of highschool Romances, music and more!

*Title of the work inspired from Howard Jones’s hit of 1985*

Haven’t read the first chapter and want to? -

Link to the first chapter here on tumblr.

Link to further chapters on ao3 here.

Notes:

(F/S) = Favourite subject – (R/S) = Random Subject

I hope you enjoy this chapter my lovelies! It’s not beta read so please excuse mistakes.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

                                 Chapter Two: Shout at The Devil

“What’s this? Don’t tell me someone actually wants to date you, Amane?”

You both broke your embrace to see the bored face of a tall, punky pink haired guy with glasses, holding the hand of a young girl with similar features. You wondered where you’d seen this guy before. They stood before your seated position upon the steps to the arcade on what appeared to be an intimate moment romantically, you rolled your eyes at his assumption. The little girl was smiling and dressed in a sweet, white ruffled dress with a matching bow holding lose, rose locks. He however was not smiling. He had studs in his ears as well as studs on a leather wrist band, clad in a casual black bomber jacket and khaki coloured jeans. Yuu stiffened with a glare,

“What are you doing here, Kimizuki?”

Shiho rolled his eyes,

“And they say I’m blind. I’m taking Mirai to the Arcade, dumbass. What’s it look like?”

Your lips tightened not only at his attitude but at the way he spoke in front of the little girl. Luckily, she wasn’t paying attention though, she was dragging her foot across the concrete in an attempt to entertain herself.

“It looks like you’ve been grounded, why else would you bring your sister here.”

Yuu smirked darkly and you frowned. Again, it didn’t look like Yuu but that Ichinose. It was then you’d realized where you’d seen the punky guy, he was that skater who almost knocked straight into you on your first day of joining Shinjuku high school. You were seconds from asserting as such, but Kimizuki had rolled his eyes and stated,

“I don’t have time for this.”

Before waltzing up the steps, guiding little Mirai. Yuu twisted around with a bark,

“Don’t start anything then, Jackass.”

Kimizuki half turned briefly as they reached the doors to the arcade,

“You know if I didn’t have Mirai, your ass would be grass right now.”

“Only losers rhyme in their threats, waistoid.”

Yuu scowled and Kimizuki balled his spare hand into a fist in a moment of rage before jabbing it to Yuu,

“We’ll see who the loser is when I kick your ass at school, Amane.”

Before stalking off through the doors of the arcade, not before offering Yuu a death glare. Yuu rolled his eyes as he turned his body back around away from the arcade. Your lips thinned, yep, this is definitely going to be a challenge, you thought to yourself.

***

You both walked along the sidewalk and reached the records store,

“This is where I work.”

Yuu beamed and you smiled in return, you both loved music. So did Mika. Better yet, Yuu actually had a job now. He held the door for you as you stepped into the store with mild awe. Rows of records lined like bookcases with band posters decorating the stone walls. You loved the edgy feel to the quaint store that was deluged in amber and red hues, it held the punk rock vibe of a basement venue. Dio’s metal track ‘Stand up and shout’ was playing in the background.

“This is great!”

You beamed and he scoffed a laugh, pointing at your attire of another soft cardigan and neat skirt and you rolled your eyes, giving him a shove as you both laughed.

“You’re late, brat.”

A husky voice boomed over the faint metal track in the back ground. Yuu’s smile dropped,

“Am not! I was on time!”

He shot back. Your eyes reflexively rolled as you saw who it was that spoke, as he emerged from behind the back of the store. None other than Guren Ichinose. He was donning a black leather jacket with studs and his raven locks were slicked back, save for a few runaways.

“You were two minutes late.”

Yuu frowned in thought and you found yourself rolling your eyes again as he furthered,

“Now I’m two minutes late for my cigarette break.”

“You can’t smoke in here?”

You asked without thinking, curiosity taking over and he allowed a sly smirk at your doe eyes,

“’Boss doesn’t like it.”

Huh. Weird, but fair enough. In that moment you recognized the jacket Guren was wearing. It’s the one Yuu had worn the other day at school. Guren raised his brows casually,

“Got a problem, Peach?”

Your furrowed brows knit together further as he stuck a cigarette between his lips. Clearly you’d looked displeased enough for him to catch onto your thought process. Apparently, you were unable to form a cohesive sentence as you staggered,

“That jacket –“

Pointing between the two boys, before scowling,

“Wait – Peach? -”

“Where d’ya think the idiot got the jacket from?”

Guren interrupted with a scoffed laugh, managing to sound cohesive with a cigarette between his lips. Your jaw dropped in that moment as he’d made his way outside, starting to light his cigarette as he swept passed. Your wide eyes trailed his wake before you huffed with the closing of the store’s front door. Yuu allowed a smile,

“He’s not so bad, once you get to know him.”

“He seems like a pain in the ass.”

You countered as you met Yuu’s gaze, he chuckled,

“Remind you of anyone?”

You quirked a brow,

“I hope you mean yourself.”

You remarked, making you both chuckle. But when you thought about it, you wondered how well Yuu could possibly know Ichinose. Not to mention how naive Yuu’s always been. You somehow just knew that there was this mysterious, dark aura around Ichinose, telling you that he had much to hide. And warning you to run away, even though it’s trying to lure you in.

***

Whilst you were there you were somehow roped into buying Yuu’s new favorite album.

“It’s the best rock music of ’83, I swear it.”

He lilted, fluttering his long lashes as he swayed you into buying ‘Shout at the Devil’ by Mötley Crüe. You liked rock but did you like it as much as Yuu? Unlikely. You laughed,

“What if I don’t like it?”

“You will!”

“But what if I don’t?”

You both laughed harder. You realized the song in the background of the store was now ‘Whip it’ by DEVO, a new wave synth-pop song from a couple of years or so before and you hopped up and down a moment,

“I love this song! This is more me, Yuu.”

You claimed playfully and he shook his head before insisting with a raised brow and a wave of the Mötley Crüe record,

“Ok, I’ll let you listen to my tape of it before, but I’m reserving this record for you.”

You laughed a cackle,

“You’re so stupid, Yuu.”

As you started to cave, he wore a victorious grin,

“You won’t regret it, I promise.”

“I better not.”

He laughed again before you noticed the time, gathering yourself to leave,

“It’s getting late, I better head. I’ll listen to it another time - see you at school?”

“Sure, cool. See ya.”

He waved with his smile that you were anxious you wouldn’t see. You were curious as to why the store was kept open so late, considering stores usually close by around 7pm latest. You saw Guren leaning against the building as you exited and offered a cursory glance as you walked by, only to be stopped by his words,

“You’re walking home?”

He asked, incredulous as he flicked a cigarette stub away. He thought the bike attached to the lamp post in front of the store was yours. You turned on your heel to face him with a mild, sarcastic scoff,

“Uh… yea?”

He allowed a stupid smile as he raised his brows, peeling himself from the brick wall of the store.

“Alone, at this time? You can’t live nearby.”

He stated confidently, hands in his pockets, and you retorted,

“How do you know where I live, did you stalk me or something?”

You wondered if you went too far, but he just laughed at your attitude. As he flicked his chin to you,

“One look at your clothes and I know you don’t.”

Your cheeks tinged rose at your cardigan and skirt combo and you held your arms a moment. Of course he was right, you didn’t live in Nagoya, you were just outside. He rolled his eyes but sighed, rubbing the back of his neck a moment before offering,

“Look, do you want a ride?”

Your eyes shot up to meet his and you were even more amazed at how his charming, violet eyes were sincere.

“I can get the little welp to watch the shop, I doubt he’d want you walking all that way.”

Your eyes shifted as the dusting of blush covered your cheeks again, causing Guren to tilt his head back with a small laugh,

“You didn’t tell him you were walking, did you?”

“No.”

You drew out petulantly. His smirk was starting to really irritate you now.

“D’you want the ride or not?”

He asked, his patience supposedly thinning and you huffed as you saw the darkening sky beside you, the street dimming with it with the fewer cars. You bit your lip, prompting him,

“Oh come on. No funny business, I swear.”

He spoke with a natural authoritative tone before he laughed, his hands up in a mock surrender. You fought the urge to smirk at his stupidity, giving him a skeptical once over before claiming,

“Fine. I’ll take the ride.”

***

“I thought you were offering me a ride?!”

You snapped, clenching your fists as you faced his stupid fucking smirk.

“I am. Here.”

He said innocently as he gestured to the push bike to his left. You fought the urge to square up to him as you two stood out back. He’d come back with a push bike?

“What are you, twelve?”

You spat only for him to break out into a boyish grin. You rolled your eyes,

“I thought you were driving?!”

You asked, astounded at his nonchalance. He shrugged,

“I never said I was driving.”

“What?!”

“I don’t drive.”

“WHAT?!”

He’d turned on his heel to stalk off,

“'Later!”

He called over his shoulder as he wandered off in the opposite direction to the store.

“So, you got Yuu to watch the shop just so you could slack?!”

You hollered to his back, eyes sending daggers.

“Yup.”

He called without looking back. You growled.

“What about your bike? How are you gonna get home now?”

You asked tersely but he only laughed as he carried on walking, making you even angrier.

“Ichinose? Ichinose! HEY IDIOT!… Dammit.”

You called irritably, only to be ignored until he left, causing you to grumble.

“Jackass.”

You muttered darkly as you mounted the stupid bike to get home.

“’No funny business’ my ass.”

You scoffed as you began to pedal.

***

You rode the bike back to school in order to give it back to the idiot Ichinose but quickly realized you didn’t know how to find him. He was a senior so he wasn’t in your classes, unless I find him somehow at lunch? I could ask Yuu? Ugh, I really don’t like the idea of Yuu being around that guy, he’s so shady. You grumbled to yourself, chaining the bike to the bike stands outside the school in a huff, just hoping you’d bump into him to tell him you have his bike. Although, knowing your luck, you knew you’d see him again.

***

“You’ll be transferring to the senior class for (F/S), and for (R/S) as well, due to your abilities simply excelling expectation, Miss (L/N).”

Mr. F. Bathory beamed in his weirdly over-excited manor, silver hair slicked behind him in a ponytail, hands intertwined in front of his chest, a lazy smirk that sent uncomfortable shivers down your spine. Looks like I could see Guren sooner than I hoped, you thought with a disappointed sigh. Mr. Bathory took you to your new (R/S) class and low and behold, Idiot Ichinose was actually there even in a class. He had an infamous reputation to skip nowadays supposedly. However, when you entered the classroom you’d cringed for an entirely different reason - It was chaos. The teacher wasn’t there for whatever reason, and there were tables on their sides, papers strewn along with random books and pencils littering the floor. Some guy with seaweed coloured hair in a red letterman jacket was being held back as he laughed a guttural chuckle, Ichinose being held back by Goshi and an ash blonde you didn’t know but recognized as their friend.

“Now, now, what’s this ruckus for? Hmm?”

Mr. Bathory asked from the door frame with a voice of honey coated ice-shards. They all dropped their hold on the two, Ichinose broke free with an abrupt jutt of his shoulders, whilst the other seemed in pretty bad shape… you could hardly make out his features they were so swollen and blood congealed. Guren’s ear was bleeding but the other guy had an eye already swelling shut. Despite this, he was smiling malevolently. It was almost creepy. Maybe he’s some kind of freak masochist, you scrunched your nose. In any case, it was abundantly clear that he’d wanted a rise out of Guren. And he got one. The ash blonde stepped forward and dipped his head,

“I apologize for the mess, Mr. Bathory. We will clean it immediately.”

You couldn’t help but raise a brow at how polite he is, being affiliated with Ichinose and Goshi.

“Whilst I appreciate your efforts, Shinya, that’s not what I asked.”

That same voice was back, threatening and he offered a small smile that didn’t touch his blazing eyes. When all were reluctant to answer, Ferid warned,

“My patience is wearing thin.”

“The psycho attacked me.”

The pummelled masochist stated with that same eerie smile.

“What?!”

Guren bellowed, almost lunging for him again if it weren’t for Goshi blocking him. You cringed, why is he still winding Guren up?  Better yet, what could he have possibly said to get Ichinose so angry? Ferid started tutting,

“Uh-uh, stop that. I’ll offer one last chance for you to explain yourselves for making such a scene before your teacher’s arrival – in fact, I’m surprised no one reported their absence, as they should have arrived by now. And you all know the drill.”

A unanimous sigh filled the room before Goshi stepped forward and admitted,

“It got out of hand when these two started trash talking, stuff like family and…”

Goshi winced with a side glance before meeting Ferid’s piercing gaze.

“And Mahiru.”

Ferid’s brows raised and he shifted his gaze for a split second before recomposing,

“I see.”

A heavy silence fell as you observed those in the room, most either solemn or exhausted. Or they were that guy who fought Ichinose. Either way, it was clear that whoever Mahiru was, it was a sore topic for all of them. The thought made a wave of compassion wash over you and you dared not ask why. Ferid measured the silence for an excruciating moment before announcing.

“I want this cleaned up. Now. You –“

He pointed at one of the guys holding back the masochist in the letterman.

“Take Hiiragi to the infirmary.”

He ordered and it was done. They brushed passed, this Hiiragi slumped over the shoulders of his escort, blood narrowly missed spluttering over you as they clambered passed and you fought your gag reflex.

“Ichinose. My office.”

Guren was still out of breath and his lavender eyes had still somehow darkened when meeting Ferid’s gaze. Mr. Bathory offered one last glance at the room before adding,

“I look forward to seeing you all this Saturday, in detention.”

A collective groan emanated from them all, which their sudden winces that followed indicated they instantly regretted the outburst. Mr. Bathory slowly turned to the class with a cocked brow,

“For that, add another Saturday. All of you.”

“What?! –“

“No way! –“

“I have plans! –“

A chorus of complaints ensued before his gaze darkened,

“Want there to be a third Saturday?”

With that threateningly silky voice. You’d realized you’d been biting your lip, having felt a small pang of sympathy for the class, after all they weren’t all involved in the fight. You tried,

“Sir? With all due respect, not everyone was involved. I think that’s why they’re upset.”

He seemed to consider your attempt at diplomacy for a second, only to smile cunningly whilst bending to your height to level with your gaze,

“Well you can ponder on that when you join them this Saturday.”

Your jaw dropped -  WHAT?! I got a Saturday detention for that?! You’ve never had a Saturday detention in your life. He smiled at your racing thoughts before rising to watch the class and caught the glares of many before stating to you,

“Welcome to the senior class, Miss (L/N).”

Before he swept out of the dilapidated class. You found yourself watching Ichinose as he swept up his denim sleeveless jacket before glancing at you and leaving the rest of you to clean up his and Hiiragi’s mess.

“AFTER that classroom is clean, Ichinose.”

You heard Mr. Bathory’s command from in the halls and recoiled as it was shortly followed by a hissed string of cusses from Ichinose upon his agitated return.

“I never thought you’d actually listen.”

Shinya teased Ichinose which flabbergasted you, he was clearly not in the mood for banter. Guren gave him a murderous glance but otherwise ignored him. Goshi laughed,

“It’s only ‘cause it’s Ferid fucking Bathory. That dude is evil with punishments I’m telling you, we got off easy as.”

After a dumb moment of watching Ichinose picking up a desk to place it, you shook yourself out of it to help them.

Notes:

*Chapter Title inspired by Mötley Crüe’s 1983 hit and album of the same name*

[eternaleve]

Watching Through Construction Time Again

I am back with the rewatch project that no one asked for and which only seems to amuse me! I am here to make terrible jokes and regurgitate history laced with reminisces from eighteen years (?!???) being on the sidelines of the DIY punk music scene.

Broken Frame vids are here

Speak & Spell vids are here

And here i go!

Well, the first one is not technically on Construction Time Again!

Get The Balance Right! (Jan 1983, 13 on the UK charts)

Get the Balance Right! was the first single with Alan Wilder as an official band member and was released in the break between A Broken Frame and Construction Time Again. I guess it’s a good way to really be clear to the public that there’s a clear break between the last iteration of the band and the new band member. And a single doesn’t necessarily have to be linked to an album - The Cure were literally doing the same thing at the exact same time with the singles ‘The Walk’, ‘Let’s Go To Bed’ and ‘The Love Cats’, which were all non-album singles and were released to show a break from Pornography and Faith to the more psychadelic stuff that came with The Top. 

I like the single art. I like how simple the iconography is, the primary colours, the way the artist actually probably listened to the song before creating it.

First things first, this bit of trivia. ‘In the music video, Wilder lip-syncs the first lines of the song, even though Dave Gahan is the lead singer. The director Kevin Hewitt made the assumption that Wilder was the singer and they were too embarrassed to point out his mistake.’ It’s also apparently the band’s least favourite single, according to the hot gossip from… 1985. 

Good evening, child. There is no need to panic, we are mere observers.

There are a lot of early 80s videos that are set in labs. Is it because the backgrounds are cheap? Labcoats readily available? Some sort of wider cultural idea about the perils of science and how it might go too far? Answers on the back of a postcard please.

At midnight, you will be visited by four spirits - the Past, the Present, Yet To Come, and Party City.

So, Dave Gahan is a magician, making a portal to a fairground, but why is Martin Gore dressed like the long lost spirit of a poor starving Victorian orphan boy?

The union mandated ‘Space Invaders’ break was tightly controlled and monitored.

Corporate greed is bad, cool, okay, that’s a fine theme, but I’m not sure how that ties into a theme park run by milkmen. Because they’re upsetting the balance of fun by being corporate and greedy I suppose? I guess it’d be too edgy to show bankers and stuff being cruel.

And now, the chairwoman of the board, this random fortune teller we found on Blackpool pier.

I mean, having an excuse to play on bumper cars is all well and good, but it is a little strange in a music video.

The funfair is all being controlled from a head office - like consumers are all being controlled in a capitalist society! It all makes sense now!

And then the video just… ends. On a control room. What did the child have to do anything? Why was Dave a magician? Or was it all just more ‘avant garde’ 80s bollocks?

The album was released in August 1983 - again, that’s a very tight time to turnaround an entire new album’s worth of material, especially when accounting for stuff like touring, rehearsals, and trying to do other things outside of the music industry like, i dunno, having a life. Construction Time Again definitely marked a real change in the tonal direction of the band - so, leaving behind the more poppy fare of the first two albums to being about poverty, nuclear war, and the destruction of the green belt.

Yup, that’s a huge swing there and i! am! here! for! it!

The album art is phenomenal, too. I’ve always really loved the soviet overtones of Depeche Mode’s official artwork and this is pretty fantastic. The colours are great, and the contrast between the makings of nature and the makings of man really ties into the themes of the album. Especially when the first single is…

Everything Counts (July 83, UK charts 6)

Such a fucking tune. What a classic tune, what a fantastic pivot to a new sound. Also it’s about capitalism being terrible, so of course I love it. Everything Counts features a lot of found sounds and lots of different musical instruments this is all a lead in for me talking about the melodica. I love melodicas. The head of london plays one and i think they are such inherently silly instruments that i love them and want them on every single song ever for the rest of time

There are not enough words in this world for how much i love melodicas

The video for Everything Counts was shot in West Berlin by Clive Richardson, who last worked with the band for ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ after they were burnt out with the weird shitshow that was the Julien Temple videos. According to Alan Wilder, ‘It was felt that after the Julien Temple years, we needed to harden up not only our sound but also our image. Clive had lots of new ideas which didn't involve stupid storyboards where we were required to act.’

BOOOOO BAD MUSICIAN ACTING IS THE BEST PART OF MUSIC VIDEOS STEP UP YOU COWARDS

‘In this video, frontman Dave Gahan for the first time appeared blonde-haired, losing his natural black colour of hair’. Who is editing the Depeche Mode singles on Wikipedia to track Dave Gahan’s changing hair styles?? I understand that everyone needs a hobby but this is certainly a strange one

Ahhh, I see someone discovered how to overlay video images on top of each other! Well done, it will now be used to absolute death in this video

I appreciate not wanting to do bad music video acting and actually letting Dave perform - because when there’s a charismatic front man, yeah, just let him do his thing, especially as his stage presence has only been improving - but it has been replaced with just overlaid images of the band on top of images of berlin which looks less awkward but is just more boring? It’s all so serious and image focused. Let the fun out! On this song about corporate greed where it would absolutely not match this is why i do not direct music videos

The shot is nicely composed but it comes in for a super close close up and also there are knife throwers in the background for …. Reasons?

Images of the Berlin Wall are deeply fascinating to me because it was torn down only a few years before I was born and, yet, because it comes from the nebulous before time, it feels as if it were taken down decades before simply because it happened *right* before I came into existence. I also have a small chunk of it stuck to my fridge. Not sure how genuine it is, given that tourist shops in Berlin could sell any remnants of wall, but, well, that’s my connection to it. Plus i taught cold war history for a while lol

10/10 WOULD MELODICA AGAIN

Everyone can tell who’s a brit on holiday

I like that they went out and found an actual giant grabbing hand. I like a good visual metaphor. 

Cracking tune, alright video. Needed more bad acting. Next!

Love, in Itself (September 83, UK chart 21)

I like the art, it works as a companion piece to the album artwork - and the album was released not long after, so good to keep it present in people’s minds.

I think this video takes place mostly in plaster caves.

The video opens with a very loud electronic noise and a big handprint so I am coming into this annoyed at whoever did the soundmixing for this

That… is certainly a choice, and that’s the last I’ll speak of it.

True facts, this is what happens every time I walk into a room. Greeted by helpful trumpeters so everyone may notice and worship my presence.

You can tell it’s serious, they’re showing the means of construction.

I like how Alan and Andy are dressed entirely normally and then there’s Martin on the end in a slave harness and bullet belt as if there is nothing at all strange about this scenario.

I used to borrow my stepdad’s bullet belts from time to time to wear to gigs and they are supremely not worth the effort. They’re heavy and scratchy and they catch on every single slight hair on your body, so every time you, say, move your arms near them, it’s a constant pain of armhair being yanked out by tiny catches. I do not recommend, they look cooler than they are actually worth.

When will my reflection show who I am insiiiiideeeee

Why is this in a cave? What does that have to do with ‘love’ or constructing things? It seems like a strange choice

Do you like… jazz?

The video could have been set in a construction yard, or something, so you could have the images of industrialised workings and stuff. The cave setting does not match. There are no witches or monsters or other cave dwelling beings featured, nil points.

These videos were something, I can say that. They do show a conscious image change from being Smash Hits pop idol fodder towards being serious industrial electronic musicians and a definite improvement in lyrics and music in terms (for me at least). But the videos are not getting better. The ‘serious image’ stuff sort of takes a lot of the weirder, funner elements out, although I am glad for the lack of puppets and pie heads.

Same time, same place next week for Some Great Reward which is one of my favourite Depeche Mode albums and, again, more development in sound and image.

[extroversive-introvert]

Addressing (and Aggressively Assaulting) Sacred vs Secular Again

PREFACE

Last month my youth ministry hosted its annual conference (my final one, perhaps ever, thanks to my migration) and on the second night had the supposedly “controversial” decision to host an afterparty with a DJ, playing EDM tunes you’d typically expect to hear at a nightclub. A lot of people have come up to me on separate occasions over the course of December and January asking for my thoughts on it. I decided to pen a 3,500+ word collegiate essay so I can redirect future enquirers to one place.

The Radio Game

I once played a “Christian or secular” game among friends in my religious circles, where a short excerpt of music is played and someone has to guess whether it’s secular or Christian music. The most accurate guesser wins. This is surprisingly easy for me. Especially radio stations. It’s easy to spot a Christian station far before any Christianese is said to confirm it.

At gut level, I find something very disingenuous about so-called Christian music. Country, pop, rock all have distinguishable sheens; the Christian variation is blander. The vocals are hot in the mix because the words are important. Much like country music, the compression style and Nashville tones are there but the delivery lacks the humanness and soul country has. You might get what I mean by fake emotion. There’s something more believable about a whispery promiscuous voice promoting drugs and sex on CHR top 40 stations over the voice that copies the style while putting Jesus lyrics to it. It’s not even the style of lyric that bothers me, but that I  don’t believe the singer is feeling the emotions that would lead to that kind of singing. It’s the same weird uncomfortable feeling when somebody belts a really loud, obviously fake laugh.

Marketing Zombies

Example, I grew up with pop punk bands like blink-182, Green Day, Linkin Park, and My Chemical Romance. The problem with Christianising is that emo music isn’t simply reducible to certain grunge tones and heavy power chords. There are emotions intrinsic to the genre that make the soul of the music. You can’t remove anger from the screaming and have it still be screamo. You can’t remove the bass-heavy pulsing and alternating tremolo tones from EDM trance music. You can’t take away the mixolydian chords and spontaneous comps and  raw organic atonalism from jazz. It’s the soul of that music, good or evil is immaterial; it’s simply the soul. So when you remove the soul from music and transplant the body parts (chord progression, instrumentation, dress, lights, look, basically everything but the soul) and parade it with more “positive, edifying” lyrics masquerading as Christian music, what you get is a musical zombie. It looks human, walks, talks, resembles humans, but isn’t. It’s a zombie without a soul, using a human body for its purposes.

This is my primary indicator every time I play the “Christian or secular” music game. I gaze into its eyes to see if it has a soul or not. It takes me no more than a few seconds. The industry is and has been broken for a long time. We call it “Christian contemporary”, but it’s not based on Christianity, but more so in marketing. Which I’ve also studied in depth.

When the foundation of the market and music you are trying to make is pretense, it’s very hard to be honest and successful. There is an unspoken assumption from most of us that we really want the people on the stage or on the book or album cover or on the radio need to have it together more than we do. Because we are messed up, we need them to be a sort of saviour and hope for us. The result of this is that it’s often the people who are really good at pretending that they have it all together that make it to the stage and the book or album cover and the radio stations. The interesting thing about massive Christian music tours is that most stages are in mainstream venues: clubs, theatres, etc...

But to me, the sad part is the empty bar each night. Even though these shows were all sold out, I would imagine that the bartenders at all those clubs were like “oh man, Christian night… that means no tips for me.” I know some promoters would buy out the bar so there wouldn’t be any liquor sales at all. I’m not saying that I wished that everybody was getting hammered at the show… but for crying out loud, buy a beer. Or heck, if you don’t drink alcohol, buy a Coke.

But here’s what’s weird about this situation. I bet you if you took all of those Christians that came to the shows and split them up and had them go to “secular” shows, A LOT of them would have bought a drink or two. It’s the fact that there is this assumption among all of the Christians there that having a drink at a Christian event is sort of a taboo thing to do. Why is this?

It’s certainly not because of the Bible. Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding. And not just any wine. The kind of wine that made people think they saved the very best wine until the end. And you preachers who pervert the holy writ of Scripture with your own extremely biased interpretations, here’s a newsflash, people at parties don’t think the best wine is  your Sunday morning “non-alcoholic Ribena/grape juice”. Religious people didn’t call Jesus “a glutton and a drunkard” because He ate communion loafers and grape juice all the time.

And here’s the thing. I drink socially. Shocker. I don’t even drink very much. I’ve never been drunk in my life, and I’m not advocating that people should just be foolish with their drinking or eating habits. But for the love of my sanity, this whole spiritualising of alcohol being an inherently bad thing is bloody annoying. If I didn’t know Jesus, I’d have probably dropped an f-bomb where “bloody” would be. It’s mostly just a Western thing, by the way (as well as places where America has exported these ideas with our missionaries). If you go most other places in the world, or anywhere else in history for that matter, Christians drink alcohol. Ever heard of this thing called Communion? You know, the bread and the wine? That’s a pretty big deal in Christianity. Jesus didn’t pour out a cup of grape juice.

So Christians that would normally buy a beer don’t because they are in the Christian concert. Christian bands that smoke (more than you think, if not most, do) have to duck into back alleys as to not offend anybody. I personally think smoking is stupid. But I think it’s stupid because it smells bad and it kills you. But I don’t use my religion as a moral high horse self-righteously judge other people about it.

Rather than just being honest about where we are at and what we all struggle with though, we look to our gatekeepers to believe and live morally vicariously for us. That way we feel better about being part of the system of good, and the moral brokenness in our own lives is repressed like the fear of a child with her security blanket that is never faced down and eviscerated, which eventually develops unchecked into a more demonic stronghold in later years of adulthood. This sort of two-faced dishonesty is at the heart of much of what I and so many others find so repulsive about much of modern Christendom.

Actually, you know what the alcohol nonsense is based on? MONEY.

The traditionalists in the Baby Boomer pioneer generation are the people that give the most money to Christian organisations like religious media outlets. And these people grew up in a time where alcohol was seen as a taboo social reality. Just like dancing or playing cards or what they used to call “mixed bathing” (swimming). It’s based in an era of post-World War II prohibition. These are old American values we’re dealing with, not Christian values. It’s the old American people that have money that the Christian organisations are paranoid of offending. So they create an environment where drinking is seen as pure malice and wickedness. If you want to start a televangelist ministry or apostolic network, you can’t have it known to your donours that your staff likes to go out for drinks at the bar after work. So you implement rules for them. Do you know how common this is? Do you see the irony of this? If you had been a disciple of Jesus and drank some of the wine of His first recorded miracle with him, you would be fired from a lot of the churches in the country. Shame on us.

The point is, the way the industry labels things as Christian and sells them to you is more to do with marketing than Christianity. They market the cornucopia of historically religious, western values, and cultural boundary markers that created the sectarianism of Evangelical subculture, setting “us” apart from “them”, which makes us feel safe and righteous, while making the gatekeepers rich.

It’s also strange to me when people call those who deviate from the mainstream to stay true to their artistic integrity as “creative”. Artists like Gungor, David Crowder, or John Mark McMillan. Why do we feel it necessary to say that? Notice no one really says that about other types of music. In reviews of certainly authentically creative bands like Radiohead, Bon Iver, Sigur Ros, Bob Dylan, Owl City, Sufjan Stevens, Explosions in the Sky, Jamiroquai, rarely do you see the word “creative” pop up. No one goes to an art gallery and says, “wow that painting is so creative”. Why? Because art is intrinsically creative. Why else would it be there? Its very nature is creativity. It’s like telling me “I love your house because it’s so architectural.”

But when someone in the Christian industry takes their art seriously, everyone loses their collective shit over “how creative it is”. It’s almost like a person living among zombies for years sees an actual human being and exclaims, “look how clean his face is, there’s life for once”. It’s sad that the idea of creativity is so foreign to the Christian music industry that we have to actually point out when someone sees art as art and not zombie propaganda.

Does “Christian” music really exist?

Furthermore, one of my biggest pet peeves is the existence of so-called “Christian music”. Why do we call it that? Music can’t be “saved”. When I hear those songs, it’s not like I can give an altar call for the songs to walk to the front and receive Christ, then baptise them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and partake of communion together with them before I listened to them. Why is Christianity the only religion that has their music segregated by faith rather than genre? Why is it that every time I go to the iTunes store, I don’t see a Muslim section, a Buddhist section, an atheist section, an agnostic section? I can’t be the only one who finds it weird that all music is genre-divided, except for Christian music, which is separated by religious worldview.

I formally indict both Christian and non-Christians: on Christians because we like to retreat into our own subculture, and non-Christians because Jesus followers don’t have a voice in the industry at large.

The whole secular-sacred bullshit (yes, I said bullshit and I’ll say it again. Bullshit. Fight me.)  came from Greek philosophy, which distinguishes things of the body as evil and things of the spirit as important. God never made things to be inherently evil. He didn’t create everything so they’d be “Christian or not”. He created molecules and said they were “good”. It’s only when sin corrupted humanity’s genome, that the violation of our design spawned evil in this world from the tainting of our nature.

People talk about “sinning against God” by listening to and endorsing secular music. But as His image-bearers, we should reflect a proper image of the creativity of God. When we make bad things, we are reflecting a false image of God’s nature. If the Creator Himself is your dad and you have His DNA and you suck at creating, I would consider that a greater sin against God.

You are saying God’s a copycat, when He isn’t. You are saying God is cheesy, when He isn’t. You are saying God doesn’t believe in the excellence of all things, when He does. You deceive yourself.

Yeah, I went there. Fight me.

Jesus in your average Bangla worker

Why is it that art in the church traditionally is only a stained-glass portrayal of Jesus’ crucifixion? Is there no such thing as art in the Christian world outside of salvation? Can art just speak for itself as something beautiful and true and still reflect Jesus? 1 Timothy 4:4 states “For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.” That means God should get a lot more glory for things than we are willing to give Him credit for. If we only acknowledge Him for overtly Christian things, we are glory thieves. He wants EVERYTHING. When we bite into food, it’s an opportunity to praise God for taste buds and the pleasure of the ability to eat. When we listen to good music, it’s the same for the sheer creativity of forming something from nothing, similar to the story of Creation itself. When we see His handiwork in the sky or in nature or in general, it’s the same.

Another noteworthy thing: Peter was a fisherman. Paul was a tent-maker. Jesus was a carpenter.

How strange is that? Jesus literally made things out of wood all day. He wasn’t a temple rabbi, but a wood craftsman. An average, blue-collared, 9-to-5 layman. Your average Bangla worker. How sobering the thought is of how quickly we would pass Him today if we saw Him on the street. Excepting vocations that violate Scripture (like prostitution or sorcery), most Bible-time followers of Christ retained their jobs. If a blacksmith became a Christian, he stayed a blacksmith, just a blacksmith to the glory of God.

Paul repeats it numerous times in Ephesians and Colossians, but for example’s sake in 1 Corinthians 10:31: “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it for the glory of God.” Note that there’s no codicil that states “only if that eating or drinking is done in an outrightly Christian way like communion or after-church potlucks”. We should not consolidate God’s glory to explicitly “Christian” things, because we owe Him more praise than He is due. God gets glory for everything, and every tongue will eventually glorify God, be it through His grace or His justice.

When non-Christians speak the truth

In Acts 17 before the Areopagus council, Paul quotes pagan poets Epimenides and Aratus: “For in him we live, and move, and have our being: as certain also of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’” to prove his point. 

How many of you today would rebuke Paul for quoting secular philosophers instead of the Torah? Truth is truth no matter if it comes out of the mouth of a donkey, a philosopher, a newscaster, a sinner, the president, or a prophet of God. In fact, if we are being transparent, a lot of times when we reject truth coming from non-Christian sources, we’re trying to vindicate ourselves by justifying our disobedience in spiritualising our dysfunction.

If we are so picky about secular-sacred over music, why don’t we apply it everything else to maintain our consistency? Imagine you’re in the ICU at the hospital. How awkward would it be if you told your doctoral team that’s about to operate on you and save your life: “are you all Christians? If not, you can’t perform surgery on me!” That’s stupidity. We judge doctors based on their field of expertise. Either the doctor is good at medicine or not. And you can give God glory and praise when you walk out of the operating room healed because He has uniquely anointed the doctor with a gift in order to bring Him praise, whether the doctor is Christian or not.

The same goes for art and music. It’s not about a piece of work being “Christian” or not, but about being authentic, beautiful and excellent. Paul states in Romans 11:36 that “from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever.” This means God is glorified in everything He creates. Does this mean everything has to be received and accepted? No! That’s why Scripture is the litmus test - does it hold up? Does it line up? Does it reflect God’s character in Jesus?

Creation Mandate or Salvation Mandate?

God cares about every domain of life - science, arts, government, culture - it’s all His. He wants redemption in those fields, and He redeemed us that we might redeem them in His name. We are created to cultivate, not just talk about religious things all day. Jesus makes it very clear He came to build His Kingdom. This isn’t just a consecrated clique, but a lifestyle entirely encompassing every realm of society. If we don’t realise it’s about the redemption of not just people but the entirety of creation, we’ll reduce church doctrine to escapism rather than restoration. Music is God’s. Sex is God’s. God invented them and called them good. Creativity is the wisdom of God manifest.

The issue with our subculture is that our art and glorification of Jesus weakens when we lose our sense of comparison. This happens when Christian musicians aren’t shooting to be the best musicians, but the best Christian musicians. The standards are lowered. Art can speak for itself. It’s a reflection of the creation mandate, not the salvation mandate. Rather than making Christian music, we should make music with a Christian worldview, much like how atheists, Budhist, and others do when they make music. There is nothing about music that is inherently Christian; it’s the worldview in the music that has the potential to be.

When we privatise our art to a nonexistent “Christian” sector, we see churches feeling the need to be relevant rather than just using their gifts to reflect who God is and what He is like. That’s the root of the seeker-sensitivity issue everyone seems to be losing their collective religious marbles about. And the problem with that is that it makes us cheap copycats of what our culture already does. This puts us decades behind “secular culture” because rather than setting precedent, we’re riding their coattails hoping to recycle intact scraps for ourselves. That’s not redeeming. That’s stealing. And if you want to have a taste of your own religious medicine, what does the Ten Commandments say about stealing?

The Laziness of Escapism

The problem with counterfeit art and Christian subcultures is that it tells a sinful lie about God. When we become lazy and only copy other art to make it Christian, we are essentially saying God is a cheap copycat and a fake who requires culture’s creativity. If God is Creator, aren’t His people supposed to be the most creative? When we make art and engage culture, what kind of picture and message are we giving the world about God? How would that convince them that God is better?

The truth is, God is a God of excellence. He accomplishes things above and beyond, lavishing excessively and adding subtle nuances to bring His name glory. When Jesus spoke to Peter about starting the church, He said “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The crazy thing about that statement is that gates don’t move on their own. For them to “not prevail”, something has to be charging them, because in the militaristic sense of the word, they are a defensive structure. Jesus is implying that the Church will storm the gates of hell, not fleeing in the opposite direction. We should be engaging and infiltrating and repelling the realms of darkness as a powerful offensive. He doesn’t commission us to retreat, escape, and cling to each other because the powers of hell chase us in the domain of secular music and evil movies. No, He says infect every domain in life with His grace as radioactive contagions.

There is no divide between secular and sacred, and we completely miss the point of worship when we insist on it. God created everything, so something doesn’t have to be explicitly Christian. We judge things based on beauty and truth. God owns truth. He has a monopoly on truth. As Christians, we should be setting the bar for good art and culture, not sequestering ourselves away into our pathetic little sectarian subculture and copying the art we call is "the devil's work" in order to "Christianise" it and make it palatable for an audience who won’t see art for art, as art regardless.