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electricbluebutterflies · 3 years

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November prompts 37 + kabby, PLEASE

This ended up being about body issues and power dynamics and... it’s THEM, what can I say. Post-s2-grayspace (canon-friendly for once), PG13ish, and also on ao3.

The way he pulled his body in, out of shyness or shame or a desire not to disturb the air around him.

It has been years since he’s let anyone look.

Avoiding being seen is near impossible – the Guard offered little privacy, and years past finding his ways around it, Marcus has made his peace. But he knows how to make sure it doesn’t matter. Change clothes as quickly as possible, keep his back to others, don’t give anyone reason to pay attention. What matters is his body is capable, not how he feels about it.

Even here on the ground those old habits have held. Communal showers are a layer of hell, but also generally deserted in the middle of the night, and his habits veer nocturnal anyways. The only other people likely to use this space at this hour are those whose sleeping arrangements and sexual inclinations are in disconnect, and desperate lovers tend not to pay attention to anything outside each other. He’s not worried anyone will notice him.

It’s become a ritual these last few weeks, since the situation stabilized enough for routines to develop. Every third night, around when the moon is highest, he cleans himself quickly but thoroughly. Eyes closed as much as possible, avoiding everything he can. Safer this way. Always safer.

First the ritual of undressing. Boots kicked off, everything else carefully removed and neatly folded. This part is done slowly, always, checking himself for any bruises or scrapes he might not have noticed. Tracing the scar on his forearm after he sheds his jacket, tracing the invisible pain lines on his thigh when that too is visible. He should’ve died by now. His continued survival on the ground feels like some kind of cosmic mistake, a life intended for someone else, some other man who’d actually earned it. He hasn’t. But nothing’s managed to get him yet, not for lack of trying, and-

He hears the door click open and a single set of footsteps follow. Dammit. He has memorized the insomnia patterns of roughly two hundred people and he still cannot pin who this might be and-

“Whatever you’re doing, don’t let me stop you.”

Great, the last person he wants anywhere near him when he’s in a spiral. Cosmic mistake, he is convinced.

Marcus turns his head and somehow, in the time it’s taken him to convince himself this is not the cause of the inevitable heart attack and/or brain aneurism that will probably kill him someday because why wouldn’t his death be tragically boring and mundane, Abby has managed to completely strip down. Not that he ever needed to know this, but it turns out her I-am-so-done-with-you expressions look almost the same in that state, her arms still crossed under her full breasts and her eyes still trying to glare right through him.

If he had any sense left, he’d give up and run. He has never been able to make the right choices.

“What?” she says, like this is all perfectly normal and maybe for her it is. “You’ve seen me naked before.”

Yes, and that was in an emergency-medical sort of context and that focuses one’s mind in appropriate directions. This current situation has no such pressure, and he is looking. She has a softness to her despite everything, subtle curves and a certain stubborn femininity to her and-

It’s just as well the rest of his body isn’t facing her. This could get awkward.

He knows not to blame her for his physical reactions. The fact that his prick is suddenly very awake is his own failure as a man, not because she’s meant to provoke him, and somehow that realization is progress but still unhelpful. His normal strategy of just ignoring that part of his body until it behaves is not going to work fast enough here and-

“While you’re here and being weird, could you help me do my hair?”

On second thought, she just might be trying to provoke him. One can never know with that woman.

Abby has maneuvered herself under a showerhead now, turned it on and apparently decided to take advantage of the middle-of-the-night hot water tank. She moves her body like she knows he can’t look away, as if this is the most normal thing in the world for her, and he suddenly wonders how much of this is planned. He wouldn’t put it past her, if she were trying to seduce him, to do any of this. He wouldn’t-

“Could you close your eyes?” he asks, trying to gauge how cooperative she is tonight.

“Why? I’ve seen you before, you don’t have any weird scars or-“

“Other reason.”

Her eyes light up, practically glowing in the badly lit space. Frightful woman. “I trust you not to do anything I don’t initiate,” she laughs. “And I won’t make any comments.”

Marcus isn’t sure how much he believes her, but he is not going to undo the past few months of trying over this and he turns his body towards her all too aware she will look. All too aware she will see every detail he would hide, every minor flaw. He wouldn’t have voluntarily done this before… he’s not sure when they changed, really. Somewhere between falling to the ground and him overreacting to things he knew she’d do and both of them nearly dying a couple times, they got comfortable with each other, or at least he got comfortable with her. She’s never had the issues he does, he’s sure of it, nothing in her current posture suggests an attempt to hide or-

At least she isn’t subtle.

As strange as this all is for him, it’s made easier by the fact that Abby has always been an easy person for him to read. She wants what she wants and likes what she likes, and he doesn’t have to ask what’s running through her mind as she slowly looks him over. Some part of her, some dominant force in that impulse-driven black hole of her mind, wants him all over her right now. And he’d almost let her, if she asked, and-

“You wanted me to do your hair?” he asks, trying to distract her. It’s not an issue of want so much as this doesn’t feel like the right time or place for their inevitability. When they happen, and he’s known for weeks now that they would build to this, it needs to be better than testing the stability of partition walls.

“I want you to do a lot of things right now,” Abby counters, and he’s never seen her this playful for this long and it’s almost terrifying. “But yeah, if that’s what you’re comfortable with…”

He moves behind her, takes soap in hand and does what he can. Her hair is thick and surprisingly tangled given it was in her usual braid just minutes ago, and she makes pretty noises as he touches her. Frustrating woman, he’s not doing anything that should provoke her and yet-

He kisses the top of her head, their size difference just enough to make that easy, and she makes a high sound and no he cannot let this go further. Not like this, not tonight.

“Are you scared of me?” she asks as he works a knot out of the lower part of her hair, brushing his fingers against her back more than necessary.

“Why would I… you think that’s what it is?!”

“Ruled out everything else, so… yeah, I think you’re scared of me specifically because I see right through you and you think I’m going to say something and-“

“I am like that with everyone.” And yet he is having this conversation with her, because she’s right, she does see through him, no one else has ever openly noticed how he is and-

“That’s not comforting.” Abby turns her head, looking up at him through her curtain of wet hair. “If you… if something’s wrong…”

“It’s not like that. I can want to keep people from looking and still go on with my life.”

She rolls her eyes. “No wonder those rumors had legs.”

“Rumors?”

“Why you never did anything more than casual sex. And I’m not judging, personal preferences happen, but…”

She is definitely judging, he knows her too well to believe otherwise, but that’s clearly not the point here.

“I would prefer not to let myself be vulnerable,” he says after a few moments’ silence. “That’s all it is.”

“But you’re here with me.”

“You already know too much,” he murmurs. “If you wanted to go after me, this isn’t where you’d start.”

“Wouldn’t be any fun to take you down. You’ve gotten boring.” She leans up and presses her lips to his jaw, and it’s somehow heartbreaking and all he can do to pretend otherwise. Thank goodness for his beard and bad lighting. “Not that I mind, turns out I have so much free time now that I’m not focusing my entire life on outsmarting you, but…”

“Is there a compliment in there somewhere?”

“I would not have let you touch me three months ago. I would not have voluntarily been this vulnerable around you three months ago. Right now I am not at all worried what you might do and you’re less than a foot away from me and half-hard. This is my trust fall.”

“I am… you can ignore…”

“See that exactly is my point. You’re not trying to get pity sex out of me or… I doubt you would’ve done anything forceful even at your worst but I can’t rule that out. You are not a threat to me anymore and you’re barely even a pest most days and that’s weird as hell and-“

“I’m trying,” he murmurs. “You make me want to try.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” she says, reaching around him to shut the water off. “I’m not your salvation, Marcus. You need to find that in yourself. Not in me.”

She walks away, swinging her hips as she walks over to where she’s piled her things, and he feels like lightning just struck him. Like this is the kind of thing that could only ever happen between them, because no one else will ever see him as thoroughly as she does. There’s a safety in it too, a certainty that everything that happened tonight will stay between them because for a person of her position she has very few friends and who would she even tell about this and-

“I’m not sure what you did, but thank you.”

She glances over her shoulder at him, hands paused as she tries to put her bra back on. “I’m not sure I did anything at all, but you’re welcome.”

#pixievixen #kabby #ebf writes fic

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erraticrandomficwriter · 4 years

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Cloaked Heart - A Gossip Girl Plot Bunny - Season 1 Episode 1 - Work in Progress

Charlotte Bass – Lottie to the ‘Upper East Siders’, Charlie to her friends – stood impatiently in Grand Central Station for the return of one of her closest friends. She hadn’t seen Serena van der Woodsen in a year but they kept in touch the entire time Serena was in boarding school. Why Serena left, she still didn’t know but it didn’t matter. Charlie knew Serena would tell her in her own time and if that time never came then so be it...

When Serena appeared in her line of sight she bounced in delight and ran to her friend, away from the driver that was waiting for her as well. With no word or warning she darted straight to Serena and tackled her with a hug. She should have thought that through because they both lost their balance and ended up falling on the floor together.

Serena laughed at the sudden tackle and teased, “Now what would your brother say about this sort of behavior?”

“As if either of us care what Chuck thinks.” Charlie laughed again as she got to her feet and helped Serena to her own. “Chuck and I may be twins but we are complete opposites.”

“Going at each other’s throats, are you?” Serena asked as she linked arms with Charlie and headed outside together.

“He’d have to acknowledge my existence in order to be at my throat. Chuck has hardly spoken to me since Freshman year.” Charlie pushed the topic of her brother aside and focused on Serena’s life. “Enough about my brother, let’s talk about yours.” She stopped when they reached the car and got serious. “I’m so sorry I didn’t see what was happening, Serena. I should have been able to see it.”

Serena didn’t blame Charlie in the least. “Hey, I don’t blame you so don’t blame yourself. Okay?”

Charlie heard Serena loud and clear but that didn’t stop her from beating herself up for not seeing the signs in Eric.

Serena moved aside so the driver could open the door for them but didn’t get in yet. “I see the face you’re making, Charlie. Now I am not going to get into this car until you give me your ‘I just spent the entire day with my mystery best friend’ smile.”

Charlie couldn’t help but laugh at that then smiled the way she knew Serena was referring to and once they were both in the back seat of the car, she pointed out. “He goes to our school, you know.”

“I do, but you won’t tell me his name. Or where he lives. Or anything. All I really know is how you met and why you don’t bring him around.” Serena could understand Charlie’s need to keep the people in her life separate from one another. After what Charlie went though, it gave her a sense of control.

“And you know me well enough to respect it.” Charlie grinned before leaning back into the seat with a sigh. “Does anyone else know you’re coming back?”

Serena slouched back and sighed as well. “Just you and my mom.”

Just as soon as Serena said that, Charlie’s phone went off to notify her of a Gossip Girl update. She pulled her phone from her pocket and showed Serena the post. “And everyone else.”

Serena presently didn’t have the patience to deal with that so she pushed Charlie’s phone away and turned her attention to the passing scenery outside the window.

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After the driver dropped Serena off at Blair’s place since that’s where Mrs. van der Woodsen presently was, Charlie headed to Brooklyn. With a pizza in hand, she knocked on the door of her best friend’s loft and smiled when he opened the door. “I heard a rumor you were back today.”

Dan Humphrey chuckled as he stepped aside to let her in. “Was there a post on Gossip Girl or something?”

Charlie spotted the site open on Dan’s laptop. “As if you don’t already know.”

Dan tried to veer the topic away and took the box from her. “Oh, look, pizza.”

“Pizza isn’t going to stop us from talking about who else is back.” Charlie took off her black leather jacket and set it on the stool beside her as she sat at the kitchen island.

Dan knew what she was getting at but acted like he didn’t. “Yes, that’s true, Jenny came back with me. You’ve guessed it.”

Charlie narrowed her eyes at him before picking a mushroom off her pizza slice and flicking it at him. “Funny. So are you going to make a move or not? You’ve only just been pining after her since Freshman Year. The day you met the love of your life and your best friend.”

“That was a lucky night for both of us.” Dan meant that for more reasons than one.

Charlie looked down at her wrist and the small scar there as she remembered how Dan found her before it got worse. “No argument here.”

Dan could see where her head was going and leaned upon the island before placing his hand over her wrist. “With all the effort you’ve put into keeping me out of your Upper East Side world, why would you try pulling me into it now?”

Charlie accepted his segue and gave his hand a squeeze before taking her wrist back. “I’m not pulling you into that world, Dan. I am merely suggesting that it wouldn’t be the worst thing if my two dearest friends ended up together. And for the record, I seem to recall you thanking me from sparing you attendance to that world.”

Dan knew she had him there. “Fair enough.”

Charlie laughed then turned to the door when it opened and Rufus came in with Jenny – both carrying pizzas.

“Great minds,” Rufus joked as he set the pizzas on the counter. “Does your father know you where you are?” He knew Charlie had a habit of just going off without telling anyone where she was going. Well, anyone but Dan that is.

“My father asking where I was going would mean he cared. And he hasn’t cared in a long time.” Charlie put that topic to an end when she took a bite of pizza and turned to Jenny. “Jenny, darling, could I ask you the biggest of all favors that would result in getting paid with some lovely green paper?”

Jenny knew where this was going and she didn’t mind at all. “You have a design in mind?”

Charlie shook her head as she proceeded to eat her pizza. “You can have full creative control. I’ll cover the fabric and everything else you might need. Just put it on my tab at the shop.”

Jenny accepted the offer with smile. “It’ll be my pleasure.”

“And no rush,” Charlie made sure to add that in. “I don’t need it for a couple months.”

“You were just afraid of forgetting until the last second again so you made sure to ask now?” Dan was prepared this time when Charlie threw another mushroom at him and managed to catch it in his mouth which resulted in amused cheering and laughter from the lot of them.

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The next day at school, Charlie was presented with an invitation to Blair’s ‘Kiss on the Lips’ party. Charlie was about to politely decline, but wasn’t given the chance to say so when Blair said,

“You’ll be there of course. After all, you didn’t show up to brunch yesterday. You owe me, Lottie.”

Charlie could tell by the look on Blair’s face if she didn’t know up then Blair would make her life a living hell. “I’ll be there.”

“That’s my girl,” Blair beamed before walking away.

Charlie rolled her eyes and headed towards the dining hall, only to be met by her brother.

“Charlotte,” was Chuck’s monotone greeting.

“Charles,” she replied in the same manner. Charlie thought that would be it but when Chuck didn’t move, she looked at him in question as to what he wanted. “What is it, Chuck?”

“You disappeared again. Where were you?”

“What do you care?” Charlie shot back. “Seriously, I think this is the most you’ve said to me in months.”

Chuck looked like he was going to say something else but stopped. “You know what, nevermind. Do whatever the hell you want.”

“I intend to.” Charlie stormed off in the opposite direction of the dining hall and went outside. If she stayed within those walls for another second she would have felt like they were closing in on her.

“You okay, Charlie?” Jenny asked as she approached her. “No offense, but you look a little green.”

Charlie put a fake smile on her face as she turned to Jenny. “All good.” She noticed the invitation in Jenny’s hand. “You were invited?”

Jenny held up the invitation with pride. “I did all the calligraphy for the invitations so Blair said I could have one. It’s going to be awesome.” An epic idea came to her mind in that moment. “I’m going to check out some dresses for ideas after school. Want to come with?”

Charlie was still wrapping her head around the fact that Jenny was going to Blair’s party. “You do know that party is going to be nothing but harpies and vultures, right?”

Jenny got a bit defensive at that. “Doesn’t stop you from having an invitation.”

“I’m only going because I don’t want to deal with Blair’s crap if I don’t go.” Charlie didn’t want to argue with Jenny, especially when she could tell Jenny wasn’t going to budge on whether or not she was gonna go. It was only because Charlie knew she’d be there to keep an eye on her, she said, “Sorry. It’s been a long day. I’d love to check out dresses with you.”

Jenny felt better when Charlie said that. “I’ll meet up with you after school. Later!”

Charlie waved as Jenny walked off then looked down at the invitation in her hand with a groan. It had already been a long day and now it was going to turn into an epicly long week since the party wasn’t until Saturday.

-----------------------------------------------

Charlie kept her word and met up with Jenny after school. After getting a couple coffees and something to eat, they headed to store Jenny just had to go to. Charlie already had a dress so there was no point in buying another one, but Jenny kept pestering her to try some on too so she did.

Presently Charlie walked out of the dressing room wearing a two-piece dress. The skirt part went to the floor, and the top was a corset with long sleeves. She stepped in front of the mirrors next to Jenny and laughed, “This looked way better on the rack. I feel like I’m getting ready for a Couture Ren Faire.”

Jenny had to agree with her on that. “No argument here.” She went over to her purse and pulled out her phone. “Time to call in backup.”

Charlie had no idea what Jenny was doing. “Explain.”

“I’m finally understanding why you let me have creative range when it comes to making your dresses. You can’t pick out a dress if your life depended on you. So I am calling in reinforcements.” Jenny beamed when she hit the send button. “Dan should be here soon.”

Charlie was even more confused. “Why on earth would you call Dan?” No offense to her best friend, but that was kinda laughable.

“You need the male perspective. Anything I say will just sound catty.” Jenny went back to the dressing room to try on a couple more things to give herself inspiration of what to make for herself.

“Who are you and what have you done with Jenny?” Charlie called out with no reply and looked at her reflection with a sighed, “I hate when she has a point,” and went off to the dressing room to find something else.

----------------------------------------

It wasn’t too long later that Dan showed up, asking, “What’s the emergency?” He didn’t get an answer right off because Charlie walked over wearing a spaghetti strapped flowy red knee length dress. “Whoa. Charlie, you look amazing.” Finally it clicked. “Hold on. Jenny, is this a fashion emergency?”

Jenny replied without hesitation. “You should have seen what she was wearing before you got here. Trust me. It was an emergency.”

“I didn’t know she was texting you until it was too late. And somehow my phone went missing so I couldn’t tell you not to come.” Charlie looked at Jenny with an ‘I know you took it’ expression.

Jenny acted like she had no idea what Charlie was talking about. “What do you mean? It’s right here?” She innocently went to a nearby chair and picked up her phone that she was not about to admit she stuck into the cushion there.

“Well that’s convenient,” Dan pointed out as he took the cellphone from Jenny and returned it to Charlie.

Jenny shrugged with a smile and turned to the mirror. “Since you’re here, what do you think of this one? It costs more than our rent but I think I can sew something like it.”

Charlie linked her hands together and rested them on Dan’s shoulder. “I offered to buy it for her, but your responsible sister pointed out that Rufus wouldn’t be too happy about that.”

Dan turned his head to look at her. “Let me guess, the consolation is any fabric she needs will just go on your tab?”

“Yep,” Jenny answered. “Charlie is sneaky. She tried to pay me twice as much for the dress I’m going to be making for her.”

Charlie held up her hands innocently and backed away before laughing. Her laughter was cut short when she spotted Serena with Dan. “Serena’s here.”

Dan didn’t believe her. “Funny.” It wasn’t until Charlie turned him in Serena’s direction that he took her seriously so he booked it further into the store in order to hide from them.

Charlie pressed her lips together and tried hard not to laugh as she went over to Serena and Eric who were talking to Jenny. “Small world.”

“Hey, Charlie. Wow, you look great in that dress. Are you going to get it?” Serena thought it’d be a big step for her if she did.

Charlie was comfortable wearing it around Dan and Jenny but that comfort was fading away. “It’s a little…exposed. I’ll probably end up wearing my leather jacket with it.”

“You should wear some combat boots with it, too. That’d really get Blair going.” Eric had to give that kind of input.

Charlie’s face brightened up at that. “Eric, you are a genius.” She then laughed at the mortified look on Jenny’s face. “On that note, I better go cash up. Take care, guys. Talk later!” She blew them all a kiss before going to change back into her normal clothes.

On the way to the dressing room, she spotted Dan hiding deep within the clothes and shook her head with a smile because that reaction was just so…Dan.

---------------------------------------

Charlie was in her bedroom putting her dress away for the party on Saturday when her father, Bart Bass, entered through the open door.

“I’m surprised to see you home,” was his greeting.

“Surprised you even noticed I haven’t been around.” Charlie pulled her new combat boots from the box and set them next to the bed because she intended on wearing them more often than just for the party.

“I’ve noticed.” Bart took a hesitant step closer. “Despite what you may think I do care about you, Charlotte.”

“Could have fooled me,” Charlie muttered under her breath as she started going through her purse just for something to do.

“I don’t know how to talk to you,” Bart admitted. “Especially after what happened to you.”

Charlie threw her purse on the bed. “Oh, are we talking about that now? Because the last I knew we were just supposed to pretend it didn’t happen.”

“I never said that,” Bart replied defensively.

“You didn’t have to. You didn’t want the scandal and we both know it.” Charlie pointed to the door. “Now will you please leave. I’m not comfortable anymore.”

Bart fully intended to revisit their conversation but for now he respected her wishes and left her room.

Charlie closed and locked the door behind him before sliding down to the floor in tears. Every time she felt she was getting better, something happened that just made her think about it all over again.

---------------------------------------------------

Saturday finally arrived and Charlie was getting ready for the Kiss on the Lips party while talking to Dan. “Shut the front door! You two are actually going out?!”

“I think you’re more excited about this than I am,” Dan replied from his end of the line.

“What can I say, you two are my OTP.” Charlie was about to say more but there was a knock at her door. “I gotta go. Have fun tonight. Take care.” After a loud ‘mwah!’ into the cellphone, she ended the call and went to see who was at her bedroom door. To see Chuck standing there was surprising to say the least, especially since he was pretty much living at the Palace now. “What are you doing here?”

“I brought the limo. You coming?” Chuck saw the outfit Charlie was wearing – the red flowy dress, black leather jacket, and black leather combat boots. “That’s what you’re wearing?”

“I’m not going in the limo.” Charlie grabbed her phone and her purse and moved past Chuck to get outside and to her own car that was waiting for her. What was the point of trying to put in an effort to talk to Chuck when he didn’t even try to talk to her after what happened during Freshman year?

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Charlie thought she was going to go insane at the party but Jenny was her salvation. They laughed and danced and it actually made attending bearable.

“I thought you didn’t want your worlds to crossover?” Jenny asked during one of their dances.

“You’re the one who was invited into it. It’s not like I could stop you.” Charlie spun Jenny around and when she moved back she accidentally bumped into someone who spilled their drink all down the front of her dress. This didn’t piss her off or anything, in fact she found it kinda amusing.

“Oh, no, your dress!” Jenny was freaking out. “I don’t know if that’s going to come out.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m gonna head to the ladies room. Hey, if it doesn’t come out it’ll give me an excuse to leave early.” Charlie winked at Jenny before weaving through the crowd to the ladies which of course had an obscenely long line.

Charlie lost track of how long she’d been waiting in line but was about to get into the ladies room when she felt the buzz of her phone in her pocket. She pulled it out to see a text from Jenny that read ‘911 – Chuck’. Reading that text made her blood boil because she knew what Chuck could be like and hated it.

Charlie simmered her temper ling enough to kick herself into gear and start looking for Chuck and Jenny. She didn’t see them around the party and stopped Nate to ask him. “Where’s Chuck?”

“I haven’t seen him for a bit. He’s probably on the roof with his latest girl.” Nate shrugged in a ‘whatever’ fashion and continued on his way.

The roof was a good enough clue as any so she darted up the stairs. On the landing about halfway up to the roof she found Chuck’s scarf so she started taking the steps two at a time.

Charlie burst through the door to the roof and saw Chuck in the distance having Jenny pinned down as he forcibly kissed her. “Get off her!” she screamed as she ran over and shoved Chuck off Jenny.

“What the hell is your problem?” Chuck demanded to know of his sister.

By now Dan and Serena were with them. While Dan dealt with Chuck, Charlie went over to Jenny who was being held by Serena. When Charlie heard Chuck say ‘it’s a party, things happen’, she’d swear she saw red.

Charlie slowly turned around just in time to see Dan punch Chuck but that wasn’t enough. She stormed over to Chuck and shoved him. “How could you do this?!” she shoved him again. “Knowing what happened to me you try to do the same to her?!” Charlie shoved him again. “You are not my brother! I hate you!”

Charlie would have kept shoving him again and again but Dan held her back. She was so consumed with her rage that she didn’t even see the expression on Chuck’s face – an expression that made it clear he had no idea what the hell she was talking about.

Chuck stood there as Charlie went off with Serena and the others. It took him a little time to react to Charlie’s reaction. “What happened?” he called out, but she kept on going. “What happened?!” he shouted, only to get the sound of the roof access door closing in reply.

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End Season 1 Episode 1

#cloaked heart #a gossip girl plot bunny #work in progress #charlotte bass

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tiesandtea · 4 years

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Suede fell out of bed into Britpop and Britpop controversy about Blur and bisexuality and who was doing what to who in what direction, but between episodes of public drama was glammy rock ‘n’ roll in the most classic English tradition. After years off duty, Suede is substantially re-united (without Bernard) and active and playing their first stateside gig at Coachella.

An interview with Brett Anderson by Chris Ziegler. L.A. Record, 15 April 2011.

How did Suede and Metallica ever get together for all-night rock sessions? Brett Anderson: Our press agent sorta said, ‘Hey, Kirk Hammett is a big fan— should we get you together?’ So we went out to San Francisco to Kirk’s place and spent a lot of time being a bit naughty and playing songs in his basement. He had a studio—a little bit of a jamming room. I remember running through ‘Metal Mickey,’ we did a bit of T. Rex—we were off our faces, anyway. He’s a nice chap!

Kirk said he was struck by how normal you were and how you didn’t spank your buttocks once. I should have spanked my buttocks. He was probably very disappointed. ‘This can’t be the real Brett Anderson. He’s not spanking his buttocks.’

What Crass lyric is so close to the front of your mind at all times that you can sing it to me right this second? ‘Do they owe us a living? Of course they fucking do!’ I love Crass. Feeding of the 5,000 was one of my favorite records growing up. I love that record. I love all the artwork. Talking about bands that draw you into a world—Crass really created their world, and it was a really confrontational, intelligent, political world. I really responded to it as a young teenager.

What part of the Crass ethos do you hold most dear? I don’t live on a commune in Essex. But it opened my eyes—if it’s done right—how powerful political music can be. I never wrote overtly political music, but I did write music that dealt with not like party politics, but themes of poverty and alienation and I used that in songs—that was possibly inspired by Crass.

How was Suede a political band? Dealing with the politics of life. Setting our songs in a real social context. I never wanted to be a writer who waved flags for a political party, but listening to the songs you can tell I was brought up as a member of the working-class, and you can tell the songs have a very strong left-wing bias.

You said you felt there hasn’t been a definitive genre of music invented in the U.K. in the last decade, and that you feel music is meant more to placate than provoke now. Why? I do very much feel that’s the state of things. I can’t see that the last decade has created its own genre, which is a terrible shame for that generation. Not to say there hasn’t been great music. There’s amazing music! I love discovering new bands and there’s a great wave of new bands. But the biggest cultural development of the last like ten years was computer technology. It wasn’t anything to do with art and music, and that’s a shame. Even in the 90s, we had dance music—definitely a 90s genre. Maybe people have become too knowing. There’s too much of a structured sense of what’s cool and what isn’t, and that comes from magazines constantly publishing lists which contain the same five Beatles albums and this kind of thing. There’s this constant pressure to comply with this very sort of rigid set of accepted rock albums. So bands are too afraid to go outside those reference points. I sense this real fear in the music industry. A lot of it is because the industry has become a lot more corporate. People won’t take risks anymore. In the early 90s—that’s the only time I can talk about because that’s when I started—magazines were putting unusual bands on the cover. Magazines put Suede on covers before anyone had ever heard of us. Commercially, that was very ill-advised—but at least it suggested they had a sense of purpose. Now I get the sense people only back who they think are gonna win, regardless of if they actually think it’s any good or not. They will back who they think are the winners, and they will write good reviews for the bands they think are gonna sell lots of records whether they like them or not, and I think that’s a fucking terrible way to be. People are too afraid of not being cool? Or getting it wrong? No one’s willing to get it wrong. No one’s willing to stick their neck out and become a hated figure. No one’s got that kind of confidence. Everyone’s too willing to comply. It’s a terrible thing. But things go in cycles, don’t they? Maybe it’ll move into another period where people are taking chances.

When is the last time you suffered Stendhal syndrome? At the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. I was looking at the Toulouse-Lautrecs, which were absolutely amazing. I’ve never been a huge fan of Toulouse-Lautrec before, but seeing the paintings in the flesh—as it were—is just so amazingly powerful. They’re so beautifully observed. I’m not sure if I actually experienced Stendhal syndrome, but I’ve read about it and it’s an extreme reaction to beauty—that’s the closest I can imagine it to be.

What’s it actually feel like? Like drinking too much coffee. Slightly restless euphoria. Or maybe I’m getting it confused with actually drinking too much coffee. I’m a huge fan of art . I spend a lot of time in galleries and that’s my favorite period of art as well—the post-Impressionists. Paul Gauguin and those artists. I love all the medieval painters as well. People like Bruegel and Cranach and Holbein. There’s something incredibly primitive about it—Bruegel’s ‘Return of the Hunters’ is so atmospheric. What I really like about Holbein is he’s such an amazing draftsman and a great observer of human features. He could completely capture a person. You’re looking at someone who lived 500 years ago but it could be someone passing you on the street. They’re so real. I love that about Holbein’s paintings.

Did you want to try and observe things that carefully in Suede songs? It’s difficult in the framework of pop music. It isn’t a very subtle medium. It doesn’t have as much as fiction or fine art. You’re in a very rigid structure—melody and rhyme and rhythm and those things are constricting you. I don’t think pop writers can ever take it to that depth of observation. But what pop writers can do is engage at an emotional level that other artists can’t do. The pop song, when done right, is incredibly powerful. That’s partly to do with the simplicity as well. Truth in music is incredibly important, but artifice can be incred- ibly important as well—that’s something I’ve done quite consciously. Lots of the songs I’ve written for Suede have been deliberately superficial but perversely enough there’s a kind of truth in that. A sketch is powerful because you fill in the missing pieces. You fill in the framework yourself. If it’s too full, there’s no space for you to interpret it.

Francis Bacon said, ‘The job of the artist is to deepen the mystery.’ Absolutely. One of the most important quotes ever about creativity. Something I’ve learned through mistakes over the years is it shouldn’t be too clear what you’re doing. Sometimes the sketch is so powerful because of the room for interpretation. As soon as you know what something is about, it somehow kills the mystery. And mystery is so important in music. That allows the song to have life beyond what it was intended for. When a writer’s writing, they have a very specific thing in mind, but they don’t know about the life of the listener. The listener applies his life to the music and there’s a new interpretation. That’s why a good song has so much power. It reaches into people’s lives. But to do that, there needs to be a sense of mystery. I’ve always tried to do that with detail. There’s this whole thing with great songwriters saying songs should be universal, but I actually think songs should be opposite—strangely specific and set in a place to make them real. I mean, still allow space for interpretation.

You said once that Suede writes about the used condom, not the beautiful bed. That kind of detail? That’s not my favorite quote I ever said—but it keeps coming back. It must resonate with people’s vision of what the band is about. It’s quite a crass way of saying it, but I suppose it’s got some sort of truth. I always wanted to document the sort of grubby side of life. I didn’t want to talk in rock cliché. ‘Baby, I love you!’ clichés. I wanted to sing about the world I saw around me, and the world I saw around me was the used condom. It was the dusty street, the flickering TV. It was that use of detail and the fact I was born in the U.K. that made me write about the U.K. in detail, and it became distorted into the cliché of what became Britpop later—but it was never this nationalistic, jingoistic intention. It was just a desire to write about the world I saw around me.

Did you have to feel like you were living a Suede song to write a Suede song? I don’t feel I deliberately changed my lifestyle. But I didn’t rein myself in. I felt justified in writing what I was writing—the right thing to do for my artistic vision was live the lifestyle I was singing about, but it’s kind of a chicken-and-egg thing. I was living that, obviously. But you can’t live that lifestyle forever and wanna remain alive. Things have to change. I championed—well, I documented it, and then you realize that what you’re documenting is quite harmful.

Did you think you were going to end up on a prison ship like Dan Treacy? Well, toward the end of the 90s, things started getting quite dark. Life was definitely changing. I thought, ‘Well, maybe we need to veer away from something.’ I always feel I’m slightly on dodgy ground when people talk about this whole concept of the artist as a damaged character—it’s such a powerful cliché that people really wanna believe in, and I think there’s so much great art made through clarity and sobriety. The damaged artist casts a huge shadow people sometimes can’t see beyond. Me personally, as an artist now I feel much more in control of my art. Much more driven. Certainly more than I did ten years ago. But people need to believe in that sort of figure.

Jason Pierce said he started Spacemen 3 because of people like Roky Erickson and Alex Chilton—that he felt he could do what they did because they were flawed and not professional and perfect. It’s the ultimate DIY ethic, isn’t it? The ultimate punk thing? Saying it doesn’t matter how incapable or damaged or all these pejorative adjectives you wanna apply—not you can still create art, but it almost makes your art more interesting or valid or gives it an edge you wouldn’t have if you weren’t damaged? Someone like Ian Dury—the ‘cripple as artist.’ It gives the audience a fascination, I think.

You said you were making music to find community in a fucked-up world. Did you ever find that community? It’s always a search for some sort of community, isn’t it? There’s a line from one of the old songs, ‘New Generation.’ ‘We take the pills to find each other.’ A search for human … ownership or whatever. I don’t know. It’s strange to say because I’ve always conducted my career and Suede’s career almost as outsiders. I’ve never felt accepted by the music industry. I still don’t. I’ve never felt part of any sort of gang, and I never really wanted to be part of any gang. The only gang I’m part of is this weird disparate group of non-members—the ‘others’—and I’m quite happy in that role as well. I don’t jealously look at other people’s lives and wish I could be like that. I don’t have that search for community I used to have— maybe I realized the reality of things.

Does that mean it’s not out there? That it was never there? Can bands create these communities anymore? That’s the definition of a decent band. They create a community. When I answered your question, it was in a personal sense. Whether I’ve found a community. But hopefully Suede as a band created a community. That was one of our real intentions—I loved bands like the Smiths who had this world you went into, with the sleeves and the reference points. You very much immersed yourself. I wanted Suede to have that sense as well. Almost a strong Suede way of being. The Suede army, as someone once said.

If you didn’t find community, what did you find? It made my life. It gave me all those things we were talking about earlier. It gave me everything. Gave me purpose in life. I wouldn’t ever advise anyone to do what I did! I’ve been incredibly lucky in my career. 99 percent of people who go into music won’t be as lucky. It is a lot to do with luck! The fact I’ve met Bernard Butler—little things! I might never have met him, and we never would have written those songs and Suede would have been a very different band. I never just say, ‘This is what you should do!’ I was just confident and stupid enough to do what I did, and it just sort of worked! But some of the decisions I made—they were pretty rash!

Is it necessary to commit totally to being creative to be good at being creative? To jump in with no safety net? Absolutely. You’ve gotta let yourself out there. I didn’t even have an instrument to fall back on! ‘I believe I got enough of a voice to say something interesting, and I’m gonna do it.’ Confidence verging on stupidity that happened to pay off!

Does pop music defend the brave and stupid? I think so. You have to push it as far as it’ll go. Part of the reason the public loves pop music so much is the drama of the story. You have people who have no idea about the drama and just wanna listen to Phil Collins records and that’s fine, but there’s a whole other group of people that love the back story—how it’s made and why people fall out and fall in love. It’s almost treating the world of music like you’re watching a soap opera and people love that.

Why do people fall in love? Probably some sort of chemical function. I don’t wanna be unromantic about it but it fulfills a necessary function for the human race.

#brett anderson #suede

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thebestpersonherelovesbucky · 5 years

Note

I don’t watch Game Of Thrones but I’ve been reading a lot of the comments. I just want to know what happened in 2019 that all the writers/directors went off the deep end and threw all character development out the window for most shows and movies

but, it’s definitely not just this year. This happens all the time and not just in films and shows.

Let me direct you to this year’s release of the video game Kingdom Hearts 3 which fans eagerly were waiting for 14 years to come out. The ending of this *spoilers obviously* fridged the main female of the trio in order to give the villain of the series a ((very crappy)) redemption... sentence. Not even arc, just, “well, i did this for this reason” which was not his motive throughout the series and everyone in-game was just chill after he murdered their girlfriend/friend respectively.

Voltron: Legendary Defender’s dropped season 8 in 2018. Talk about completely re-writing characters and ignoring canon and character growth. Characters who were best friends, who made it very clear they’d die for one another in seasons’ past, went the entire season without saying two words to one another. ((Seriously, Steve and Bucky had a more meaningful interaction in Endgame than Shiro and Keith did in all of season 8)) The Token Gay character was married off to some nobody after promises that something like that would never happen. This series ended so badly that even some of the voice actor’s took the job off their social media accounts and no longer want to be associated with it.

How I Met Your Mother ended in 2014 after a nine-season run and completely tossed Robin and Barney’s characterization in the chipper basically just to hand Robin over as Ted’s trophy.

The Sopranos after nine seasons ended in 2009 with Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing playing while the family sans daughter ((who is apparently horrible at parallel parking, tho I’m still not sure what that had to do with anything)) sat in a diner waiting for said daughter to join them. Not a word was said. When Meadow ((daughter)) walked into the place, the screen cut to black. And that was it. Literally, most people, myself included, thought something went wrong with their cable or DVRs if they were watching post airdate until the credits actually started rolling.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows The highly anticipated seventh book of the Harry Potter Series sailed to bookshelves in 2007 and gave fans an epilogue that, well, let's just say pretty most people choose to ignore. It should go without saying that its companion film/s in 2010 and 2011 didn’t skip this epilogue. Unfortunately. There’s also the nonsense that J.K. Rowling has been spewing ever since then.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest came out in 2007 to complete the Pirates trilogy. Talk about ruining canon ships ((yes, pun intended)) with this flick. The end of this one had left the one and only main female character sitting and waiting for her love to return to her once every ten years. Elizabeth Swan/Turner went from being the Pirate King to the lady in waiting.

Spider-Man 3 came out one week before Pirates 3 in 2007 and gave us this

I think that’s all I have to say.

Dallas Let’s take this even further and go all the way back to 1985 to this little ((but hugely popular)) TV show. I feel like most people around here may be too young to actually remember this, I wasn’t even born myself, but I’m sure, everyone has seen it parodied at least once. In season 8 of Dallas, the character Bobby Ewing was killed off. So, the characters go about their stories for season 9 as most shows would do. Except in the last episode, Pamela Barnes Ewing wakes up and finds Bobby in the shower, prompting that entire season to be a dream. Season 10 picks up with Bobby back in the cast as though nothing happened at all.

Not to mention countless animes that catch up to their manga and, like GoTs, veer in a different direction and basically don’t have an ending at all. Just the gang promising to keep on fighting and one day they’ll win!

tl;dr really, there’s always gonna be something out there that’s disappointing to someone. It’s what’s scary about getting super involved and invested in something. We’ve all been there and your feelings are totally valid.

#anon ask #kellsreplies #spoilers #for many things #mostly things that are long over #but i totally get it anon #i've definitely been there #Anonymous

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kalluun-patangaroa · 5 years

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SUEDE: SLIGHTLY RESTLESS EUPHORIA

April 15th, 2011

Illustration by Amber Halford

How did Suede and Metallica ever get together for all-night rock sessions?

Brett Anderson (vocals): Our press agent sorta said, ‘Hey, Kirk Hammett is a big fan— should we get you together?’ So we went out to San Francisco to Kirk’s place and spent a lot of time being a bit naughty and playing songs in his basement. He had a studio—a little bit of a jamming room. I remember running through ‘Metal Mickey,’ we did a bit of T. Rex—we were off our faces, anyway. He’s a nice chap!

Kirk said he was struck by how normal you were and how you didn’t spank your buttocks once.

I should have spanked my buttocks. He was probably very disappointed. ‘This can’t be the real Brett Anderson. He’s not spanking his buttocks.’

What Crass lyric is so close to the front of your mind at all times that you can sing it to me right this second?

‘Do they owe us a living? Of course they fucking do!’ I love Crass. Feeding of the 5,000 was one of my favorite records growing up. I love that record. I love all the artwork. Talking about bands that draw you into a world—Crass really created their world, and it was a really confrontational, intelligent, political world. I really responded to it as a young teenager.

What part of the Crass ethos do you hold most dear?

I don’t live on a commune in Essex. But it opened my eyes—if it’s done right—how powerful political music can be. I never wrote overtly political music, but I did write music that dealt with not like party politics, but themes of poverty and alienation and I used that in songs—that was possibly inspired by Crass.

How was Suede a political band?

Dealing with the politics of life. Setting our songs in a real social context. I never wanted to be a writer who waved flags for a political party, but listening to the songs you can tell I was brought up as a member of the working-class, and you can tell the songs have a very strong left-wing bias.

You said you felt there hasn’t been a definitive genre of music invented in the U.K. in the last decade, and that you feel music is meant more to placate than provoke now. Why?

I do very much feel that’s the state of things. I can’t see that the last decade has created its own genre, which is a terrible shame for that generation. Not to say there hasn’t been great music. There’s amazing music! I love discovering new bands and there’s a great wave of new bands. But the biggest cultural development of the last like ten years was computer technology. It wasn’t anything to do with art and music, and that’s a shame. Even in the 90s, we had dance music—definitely a 90s genre. Maybe people have become too knowing. There’s too much of a structured sense of what’s cool and what isn’t, and that comes from magazines constantly publishing lists which contain the same five Beatles albums and this kind of thing. There’s this constant pressure to comply with this very sort of rigid set of accepted rock albums. So bands are too afraid to go outside those reference points. I sense this real fear in the music industry. A lot of it is because the industry has become a lot more corporate. People won’t take risks anymore. In the early 90s—that’s the only time I can talk about because that’s when I started—magazines were putting unusual bands on the cover. Magazines put Suede on covers before anyone had ever heard of us. Commercially, that was very ill-advised—but at least it suggested they had a sense of purpose. Now I get the sense people only back who they think are gonna win, regardless of if they actually think it’s any good or not. They will back who they think are the winners, and they will write good reviews for the bands they think are gonna sell lots of records whether they like them or not, and I think that’s a fucking terrible way to be. People are too afraid of not being cool? Or getting it wrong? No one’s willing to get it wrong. No one’s willing to stick their neck out and become a hated figure. No one’s got that kind of confidence. Everyone’s too willing to comply. It’s a terrible thing. But things go in cycles, don’t they? Maybe it’ll move into another period where people are taking chances.

When is the last time you suffered Stendhal syndrome?

At the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. I was looking at the Toulouse-Lautrecs, which were absolutely amazing. I’ve never been a huge fan of Toulouse-Lautrec before, but seeing the paintings in the flesh—as it were—is just so amazingly powerful. They’re so beautifully observed. I’m not sure if I actually experienced Stendhal syndrome, but I’ve read about it and it’s an extreme reaction to beauty—that’s the closest I can imagine it to be.

What’s it actually feel like?

Like drinking too much coffee. Slightly restless euphoria. Or maybe I’m getting it confused with actually drinking too much coffee. I’m a huge fan of art . I spend a lot of time in galleries and that’s my favorite period of art as well—the post-Impressionists. Paul Gauguin and those artists. I love all the medieval painters as well. People like Bruegel and Cranach and Holbein. There’s something incredibly primitive about it—Bruegel’s ‘Return of the Hunters’ is so atmospheric. What I really like about Holbein is he’s such an amazing draftsman and a great observer of human features. He could completely capture a person. You’re looking at someone who lived 500 years ago but it could be someone passing you on the street. They’re so real. I love that about Holbein’s paintings.

Did you want to try and observe things that carefully in Suede songs?

It’s difficult in the framework of pop music. It isn’t a very subtle medium. It doesn’t have as much as fiction or fine art. You’re in a very rigid structure—melody and rhyme and rhythm and those things are constricting you. I don’t think pop writers can ever take it to that depth of observation. But what pop writers can do is engage at an emotional level that other artists can’t do. The pop song, when done right, is incredibly powerful. That’s partly to do with the simplicity as well. Truth in music is incredibly important, but artifice can be incred- ibly important as well—that’s something I’ve done quite consciously. Lots of the songs I’ve written for Suede have been deliberately superficial but perversely enough there’s a kind of truth in that. A sketch is powerful because you fill in the missing pieces. You fill in the framework yourself. If it’s too full, there’s no space for you to interpret it.

Francis Bacon said, ‘The job of the artist is to deepen the mystery.’

Absolutely. One of the most important quotes ever about creativity. Something I’ve learned through mistakes over the years is it shouldn’t be too clear what you’re doing. Sometimes the sketch is so powerful because of the room for interpretation. As soon as you know what something is about, it somehow kills the mystery. And mystery is so important in music. That allows the song to have life beyond what it was intended for. When a writer’s writing, they have a very specific thing in mind, but they don’t know about the life of the listener. The listener applies his life to the music and there’s a new interpretation. That’s why a good song has so much power. It reaches into people’s lives. But to do that, there needs to be a sense of mystery. I’ve always tried to do that with detail. There’s this whole thing with great songwriters saying songs should be universal, but I actually think songs should be opposite—strangely specific and set in a place to make them real. I mean, still allow space for interpretation.

You said once that Suede writes about the used condom, not the beautiful bed. That kind of detail?

That’s not my favorite quote I ever said—but it keeps coming back. It must resonate with people’s vision of what the band is about. It’s quite a crass way of saying it, but I suppose it’s got some sort of truth. I always wanted to document the sort of grubby side of life. I didn’t want to talk in rock cliché. ‘Baby, I love you!’ clichés. I wanted to sing about the world I saw around me, and the world I saw around me was the used condom. It was the dusty street, the flickering TV. It was that use of detail and the fact I was born in the U.K. that made me write about the U.K. in detail, and it became distorted into the cliché of what became Britpop later—but it was never this nationalistic, jingoistic intention. It was just a desire to write about the world I saw around me.

Did you have to feel like you were living a Suede song to write a Suede song?

I don’t feel I deliberately changed my lifestyle. But I didn’t rein myself in. I felt justified in writing what I was writing—the right thing to do for my artistic vision was live the lifestyle I was singing about, but it’s kind of a chicken-and-egg thing. I was living that, obviously. But you can’t live that lifestyle forever and wanna remain alive. Things have to change. I championed—well, I documented it, and then you realize that what you’re documenting is quite harmful.

Did you think you were going to end up on a prison ship like Dan Treacy?

Well, toward the end of the 90s, things started getting quite dark. Life was definitely changing. I thought, ‘Well, maybe we need to veer away from something.’ I always feel I’m slightly on dodgy ground when people talk about this whole concept of the artist as a damaged character—it’s such a powerful cliché that people really wanna believe in, and I think there’s so much great art made through clarity and sobriety. The damaged artist casts a huge shadow people sometimes can’t see beyond. Me personally, as an artist now I feel much more in control of my art. Much more driven. Certainly more than I did ten years ago. But people need to believe in that sort of figure.

Jason Pierce said he started Spacemen 3 because of people like Roky Erickson and Alex Chilton—that he felt he could do what they did because they were flawed and not professional and perfect.

It’s the ultimate DIY ethic, isn’t it? The ultimate punk thing? Saying it doesn’t matter how incapable or damaged or all these pejorative adjectives you wanna apply—not you can still create art, but it almost makes your art more interesting or valid or gives it an edge you wouldn’t have if you weren’t damaged? Someone like Ian Dury—the ‘cripple as artist.’ It gives the audience a fascination, I think.

You said you were making music to find community in a fucked-up world. Did you ever find that community?

It’s always a search for some sort of community, isn’t it? There’s a line from one of the old songs, ‘New Generation.’ ‘We take the pills to find each other.’ A search for human … ownership or whatever. I don’t know. It’s strange to say because I’ve always conducted my career and Suede’s career almost as outsiders. I’ve never felt accepted by the music industry. I still don’t. I’ve never felt part of any sort of gang, and I never really wanted to be part of any gang. The only gang I’m part of is this weird disparate group of non-members—the ‘others’—and I’m quite happy in that role as well. I don’t jealously look at other people’s lives and wish I could be like that. I don’t have that search for community I used to have— maybe I realized the reality of things.

Does that mean it’s not out there? That it was never there? Can bands create these communities anymore?

That’s the definition of a decent band. They create a community. When I answered your question, it was in a personal sense. Whether I’ve found a community. But hopefully Suede as a band created a community. That was one of our real intentions—I loved bands like the Smiths who had this world you went into, with the sleeves and the reference points. You very much immersed yourself. I wanted Suede to have that sense as well. Almost a strong Suede way of being. The Suede army, as someone once said.

If you didn’t find community, what did you find?

It made my life. It gave me all those things we were talking about earlier. It gave me everything. Gave me purpose in life. I wouldn’t ever advise anyone to do what I did! I’ve been incredibly lucky in my career. 99 percent of people who go into music won’t be as lucky. It is a lot to do with luck! The fact I’ve met Bernard Butler—little things! I might never have met him, and we never would have written those songs and Suede would have been a very different band. I never just say, ‘This is what you should do!’ I was just confident and stupid enough to do what I did, and it just sort of worked! But some of the decisions I made—they were pretty rash!

Is it necessary to commit totally to being creative to be good at being creative? To jump in with no safety net?

Absolutely. You’ve gotta let yourself out there. I didn’t even have an instrument to fall back on! ‘I believe I got enough of a voice to say something interesting, and I’m gonna do it.’ Confidence verging on stupidity that happened to pay off!

Does pop music defend the brave and stupid?

I think so. You have to push it as far as it’ll go. Part of the reason the public loves pop music so much is the drama of the story. You have people who have no idea about the drama and just wanna listen to Phil Collins records and that’s fine, but there’s a whole other group of people that love the back story—how it’s made and why people fall out and fall in love. It’s almost treating the world of music like you’re watching a soap opera and people love that.

Why do people fall in love?

Probably some sort of chemical function. I don’t wanna be unromantic about it but it fulfills a necessary function for the human race.

L.A. Record (US Magazine), April 2011

#suede #press

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roseisread · 5 years

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My Year in Movies: Favorite Non-2018 Feature Films (Part 2)

Continuing the countdown of my favorite movies I saw for the first time in 2018 that were released in previous years... for part 1 of this list, click here.

39. Tokyo Drifter (1966, directed by Seijun Suzuki, country of origin: Japan)

Seijun Suzuki pulls together his favorite tropes from the Western, film noir, and Yakuza genres and throws a post modern, new wave sensibility on top complete with lots of neon and surrealism. The end result is one of the most stylistically bold movies I’ve ever encountered, and its influence extends to modern auteurs like Quentin Tarantino, Jim Jarmusch, and Nicolas Winding Refn. Tokyo Drifter (which has nothing to do with the Fast & Furious franchise as far as I know) follows a gangster on the run, but the plot really is secondary to the overall feel of the movie. Really fun and one I can imagine revisiting a lot just for its aesthetic choices and action set pieces. Rent it on Amazon Prime; in the meantime, here’s a pretty decent fan-made trailer.

38. Born to Kill (1947, directed by Robert Wise, country of origin: US)

Hollywood’s original bad boy Lawrence Tierney stars in this nasty little noir that fully lives up to its violent title. Sam Wilde (Tierney) is a gorgeous, amoral social climber who doesn’t let a little trifle like murder stand in the way of getting what he wants. Helen Brent (Claire Trevor) finds herself strangely drawn to him, even as she learns of his criminal leanings. There’s a particularly lustful scene between Sam and Helen that could be a direct influence on Natural Born Killers, actually. The fact that this picture was directed by Robert Wise, best known for his work on The Sound of Music and West Side Story, makes it all the more interesting--this pulpy film doesn’t have any musical numbers but it certainly is well-crafted and choreographed. If you love a good antihero, you owe it to yourself to watch this. Available for rent on Amazon, YouTube, and Vudu.

37. Throw Momma From the Train (1987, directed by Danny DeVito, country of origin: US)

This comic riff on Strangers on a Train starts off with murder on its mind, but there’s a surprising sweetness lying just below the surface. I’m sure most people have already seen this film but in case you haven’t, you’re in for a hilarious and endearing story that showcases peak Billy Crystal and Danny DeVito. Anne Ramsey plays the titular “Momma,” and she was nominated for both the Oscars and the Golden Globes in this supporting role. There are lots of ways to watch this movie for free, including Amazon Prime, YouTube, Vudu, GooglePlay, and Showtime.

36. Johnny Guitar (1954, directed by Nicholas Ray, country of origin: US)

The title refers to Sterling Hayden’s outlaw cowboy, but the real star of the show is Joan Crawford as Vienna: a saloon owning, jeans wearing, piano playing woman who takes on the whole town in a showdown. Portrayals of women in Westerns vary, but few emanate such power and self-assuredness as Vienna.

Another woman, tellingly named Emma Small (played by Mercedes McCambridge), has set her sights on getting rid of Vienna and her establishment once and for all, and she will stop at no amount of violence or trickery to make it happen. So basically this is Mean Girls but in the Wild West. Offscreen, Joan Crawford was hooking up with director Nicholas Ray; and she’d previously been romantically involved with McCambridge’s now-husband. Both ladies also consumed a fair amount of booze while filming. This led to their rivalry bleeding into real life, and perhaps added to the tension we see on screen between the two.

This movie didn’t have the warmest reception when it premiered stateside (Bosley Crowther on Crawford’s Vienna: “...as sexless as the lions on the public library steps and as sharp and romantically forbidding as a package of unwrapped razor blades.”) But European audiences devoured it, and it became beloved of people like Francois Truffaut who saw it as a major influence. You can watch it now on Hulu or rent from a number of streaming platforms.

35. Sonatine (1993, directed by Takeshi “Beat” Kitano, country of origin: Japan)

Takeshi Kitano wrote, directed, and starred in this cult take on Yakuza films. In it, he plays Murakawa, a gangster who dispatches (often in creatively cruel ways) anyone his bosses happen to dislike. But he’s starting to grow weary of this way of life when he gets sent on a new assignment that has him mediating a dispute with a rival gang in Okinawa. He suspects that he may be the real target, but goes along with the order. While hiding out between confrontations, Murakawa and a batch of young recruits find ways to pass the time--shooting cans off each other’s heads, playing a roulette version of rock paper scissors, pretending to be sumo wrestlers, and more.

There’s not a lot of dialogue here, and Kitano plays his character with a stoicism that Buster Keaton and Alain Delon no doubt influenced. But the poetry and emotion are all in the action (and inaction) on screen. Here is a man whose main accomplishments are surviving bloody shootouts and racking up the body count for his employer--no wonder he hallucinates about self-destruction and walks the beach in a daze. There’s actually a good bit of comedy here too, as the movie isn’t afraid to veer into cartoonish moments and satirize the very genre it portrays. I also have to specifically call out the action scenes, especially one near the end--completely memorable, unique, and gorgeously shot. Watch this via rental on Amazon, YouTube, and GooglePlay--especially if you’re a fan of movies like Drive, Kill Bill, or Le Samourai.

34. Metropolitan (1990, directed by Whit Stillman, country of origin: US)

My first encounter with Whit Stillman came via 2016′s Love and Friendship, his adaptation of a Jane Austen story. When his debut film appeared on Filmstruck, I realized what a perfect fit Austen and Stillman really are. This movie follows a group of (mostly) wealthy teenagers in Manhattan, who attend debutante balls and gather at each other’s homes for long pretentious conversations and romantic sparring. If Austen were alive today, no doubt she would have written a novel in the same setting, filled with the same biting wit (no pun intended) that Stillman displays. If you like your movies with a lot of action and plot twists, this may not be your cup of tea; but if you enjoy the works of, say, Woody Allen/Noah Baumbach/Wes Anderson then you will definitely find this a subtle delight. No big names amongst the cast; and many of them only did one or two other projects after this, but I think that adds to the feeling of naïveté and naturalism. Random observation, but when I watched this movie I found connections between a number of its characters and the cast of The Breakfast Club--see if you agree. Right now you can rent this via iTunes, and since it takes place around Christmas and New Year’s, this would be a great time to watch.

33. Radio Days (1987, directed by Woody Allen, country of origin: US)

This might be the sweetest, least cynical movie in Woody Allen’s filmography. It’s a love letter to the 1930s and 40s, when families would gather around the radio (rather than the TV) for music, serials, and news of the outside world. Seth Green plays the Woody stand-in as a child, Mia Farrow plays an aspiring radio actress, Larry David pops up as the Communist next door neighbor--it’s a real hoot. The music (from the likes of Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and Glenn Miller) is gorgeous and it’s fun to see old New York recreated for this film. Suitable for all ages and utterly delightful, you can watch it on Hulu with a subscription or rent it on Vudu for $2.99.

32. Pickup (1951, directed by Hugo Haas, country of origin: US)

I caught up with this low-budget B-movie noir during Noir City Chicago, and fell head over heels for it. The director plays the lead character, a lovable but lonely railroad worker named Hunky (he does not live up to this name in appearance). When he encounters the gorgeous and sassy Betty (Beverly Michaels) at a carnival, he can’t believe a guy like him could hold the romantic interest of such a hottie. As luck would have it, though, she’s more attracted to his life savings than to him. What a golddigger. What sets this movie apart is the addition of a little plot twist: Hunky loses his hearing in an accident, which is just fine by the conniving Betty who can now scheme and talk trash around her husband. But when Hunky’s hearing unexpectedly returns, he doesn’t tell anyone and discovers that his beloved wifey is plotting his demise. Bonus: There’s a pretty adorable puppy in the mix. This isn’t available on DVD, sadly, but someone has uploaded it to YouTube and if you have 77 minutes to kill, I recommend checking it out.

31. Ghost (1990, directed by Jerry Zucker, country of origin: US)

Look, I love Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg and Patrick Swayze just as much as the next person, but for some reason I had always assumed that Ghost was this really cheesy paranormal romance. Wrong! It’s a charming murder mystery with some legit scary moments a lot of comedy, and, yes, some romance too. So if you have somehow missed this gem, you can catch up with it for 99 cents right now on Amazon or rent it for a Few Dollars More on other streaming sites.

30. One False Move (1992, directed by Carl Franklin, country of origin: US)

In part one of this list, I mentioned watching multiple Bill Paxton movies in 2018. This one features Paxton as a small town sheriff with illusions of grandeur--instead of settling small time domestic disputes, he’d love to one day solve murders and thwart serial killers and arrest drug kingpins in the big city. He gets his chance to do something bigger when a car full of murderous fugitives rolls into town. The LA detectives on the case don’t quite know what to make of Paxton; but he views them as heroes. When he gets his chance to show them what he’s made of, he doesn’t flinch.

Billy Bob Thornton co-wrote the screenplay and co-stars in the film, another connection between this and the other Paxton entry on my list (A Simple Plan). Here, he’s a vile and brutal sociopath (a role he’d go on to play in the TV adaptation of Fargo), with a girlfriend named Fantasia (Cynda Williams) that might be having second thoughts about their relationship. Director Carl Franklin is perhaps better known for the Denzel Washington neo noir Devil in a Blue Dress; and Franklin himself introduced a double feature of these two films at Noir City Chicago. He’s a brilliant, economical director with a deep well of classical film knowledge and a knack for capturing defining character traits in the space of a few frames. Rent this movie on Amazon, Vudu, or YouTube and prepare for a gritty, moving ride.

29. Peeping Tom (1960, directed by Michael Powell, country of origin: England)

I caught up with this out of print masterpiece (purchased at my local library sale for 50 cents on Criterion DVD!) during my October horror viewing, and immediately wanted it to find a wider audience. Reviled upon its initial release, it follows a talented but troubled young filmmaker whose obsession involves recording the final moments of his murder victims’ lives, as they realize their fate. Pretty twisted, I know. The exploration of voyeurism and the relationship between the camera, its subjects, and an audience really make this a fascinating watch, both from a technical perspective and as a critique of moviemaking and consumption. One can’t help but see the influence this movie has had on horror filmmakers from Wes Craven to John Carpenter, particularly in the way it forces us to identify with the psychologically damaged killer instead of centering the narrative on his victims. Massively underrated, and deserving of your attention if you consider yourself a fan of horror movies. Watch it via rental on a number of streaming platforms.

That concludes part 2 of the list! Stay tuned for the next segment, coming soon!

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worryinglyinnocent · 7 years

Text

Star Force: A Guide To Rumplurians - Part Two of... Who Knows!

Part One, exploring the Rumplurian religion, can be found here

BEFORE WE BEGIN:

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Rumplurians are a fictional race of aliens found in a fictional TV show, Star Force, as mentioned in my rumbelle fic Friendships and Fandoms, an AU in which the various Once Upon A Time characters were the cast and crew of this fictional TV show. Gold played the Rumplurian chief medical officer, Dr Stiltskin, and Belle was his make-up artist (and also stood in as Stiltskin’s human wife, Lacey, when the actress due to play her had to pull out).

Friendships and Fandoms can be read here and @licieoic and I also wrote a few Star Force screenplays which can be read here.

====

You can all blame @woodelf68 and @ripperblackstaff for this. Thanks to them, I spent a ridiculous amount of time thinking about alien anatomy and reproduction and now, well, this happened.

I need to thank @hedwighood and licieoic for some of the headcanons herein. Licie, I dunno, this might be useful for future Star Force episodes?

Anyway...

Are you all excited to learn more about scaly alien dicks?

I’m gonna take that as a solid yes! Without further ado let’s begin our second lesson in Rumplurians... anatomy and reproduction! As you’ve probably guessed, this post is not safe for work!

Disclaimer: Before we begin I’d like to remind you that this is all completely made up. No similarity to any actual aliens (or any aliens from other franchises like Star Trek etc) is intended.

I’d really love to illustrate this essay with some naked Rumplurians but

a) I’m bad at drawing

b) I’m even worse at drawing scaly alien dicks

c) I don’t have a scanner to upload said terrible pictures of scaly alien dicks

So you’re going to have to settle for some suggestive gifs and using your imaginations.

*puts on David Attenborough documentary style voice*

To all intents and purposes, the Rumplurian doesn’t look all that different to the human, with the exception of the scales. When you look a little bit closer however...

(I’m sorry I’m having way too much fun with this.)

Rumplurians are scaled all over. Yes, all over. They have no body hair, apart from that on their heads. (And eyebrows, because no eyebrows just looks... weird. We’re not quite sure where the eyebrows and head hair came from, but we think it’s the result of intermarriage with hairy races earlier on in the evolution chain.)

Their scales are not the same texture all over. The scales are generally smooth but will give a slightly rougher texture if rubbed in the wrong direction, with much smoother scales on the palms and soles (necessary for grip) and genitalia (necessary for enjoyable sexual encounters).

Like a lot of scaled creatures, Rumplurians do shed, generally once a year. They don’t shed their skin all at once like snakes, that would just be creepy.

[Sheesh, I now have visions of Stiltskin shedding his skin on board Aurora while they were stranded and hiding it somewhere for Hook to find and freak out. Onwards because that’s just gross!]

The scales flake off individually, usually a good scrub in the shower with a loofah will get them all off. Their scales get greyer when they’re about to shed and are very itchy, so most Rumplurians like to slough off the shedding scales as quickly as possible. The new scales beneath are very sensitive for the first day after shedding. On the Rumplurian homeworld, it was perfectly acceptable to take sick days when shedding.

Lacey particularly enjoys having fun with Stiltskin when he’s shedding. Many a happy shower has been shared.

Rumplurian skin is tougher than human skin and it takes slightly more force to puncture it; they tend to heal from scrapes and abrasions slightly quicker. Likewise, Rumplurian finger and toenails are much harder and more claw like. They’re fast-growing and naturally grow into points, and need regular filing, but they don’t like paring them right down like humans do their fingernails because the claws are a part of them and due to the way the nerves work, it can be painful to cut them too short. Mostly they file the tips to make sure they’re not sharp.

(As has been mentioned in previous Star Force smut fics, Stiltskin keeps his index and middle claws clipped short. This is both for practicality and hygiene when performing complex operations and for Lacey, whose soft human insidey bits would not enjoy being accidentally scratched, and whose soft human insidey bits he likes putting his fingers into...)

(No, Rumplurian women do not have scaly vaginas but their inner walls are a lot tougher.)

(I cannot believe I just wrote the phrase ‘scaly vaginas’. Twice.)

Ahem. Onwards!

Since we’ve already veered into incredibly not safe for work territory, let’s stay here in the gutter!

Rumplurians have long tongues (not like, chameleon long and prehensile, but longer than a human’s and more dexterous) and are very enthusiastic givers and receivers of oral sex.

They aren’t cold blooded, they don’t need to sit under heat lamps of a morning to get them going, but their internal thermostat is set lower than a human’s and they come from a very warm planet. If they get too cold, they get sluggish. Which is the opposite of most humans, who get lethargic when it’s too warm.

Lower core body temperature means... Yes, Licie, Stiltskin has internal balls. Rumplurian testes are kept in a kind of pouch inside the body, nice and protected from being kicked by... anything that might want to kick a Rumplurian dude in the nackers. However, the balls do drop down out of the pouch and hang down beneath the scaly alien dick in a human-like fashion (although they tend to be smaller than humans’ balls) when said Rumplurian is sufficiently aroused. The balls think “aha! time to make baby Rumplurians! let’s get to work, fellas!” and are very eager to get in on the action. So if you really want to successfully kick a Rumplurian in the nackers, wait till he has an erection first.

*Worry has to go and take a break before she dies of either embarrassment and laughter.*

YES! ONWARDS! LET’S GET TO THE END OF THIS ESSAY BEFORE I DIE OF SHAME!

Since we’ve got the lowdown on the downstairs bits, let’s move on to the act itself. Good grief, what am I writing here? *Worry takes a moment to question her life choices.*

Ahem.

As you all know from my Star Force smutty fics (they’re on my masterlist somewhere), Rumplurian Baby Making is not all that different to Human Baby Making. Don’t worry, we’ll get onto the actual babies in a minute. Woodelf mentioned refactory periods and I spent way too much time thinking about them, so I’m going to talk about them. If a Rumplurian guy keeps receiving stimuli after having an orgasm he can be ready to go again fairly quickly - quicker than a human. However, if there’s kissing and cuddling and getting breath back time afterwards and his balls draw back up inside, then it will take him longer to get ready to go again - longer than a human. Rumplurian balls need time to recharge, dammit!

And now for the Baby Making.

Rumplurian ladies don’t ovulate anywhere near as frequently as human women, generally only about twice or three times a year. They get super horny around this time because they don’t have as much opportunity for conception, but they don’t go mad, like animals in heat do.

They also don’t menstruate because their womb is constructed differently. If conception is successful, then they’ll start to build up a shell like substance around the baby that grows with it. A full-blood Rumplurian pregnancy lasts five months, the babies are much smaller than human babies when born. When it’s time for birth, the shell shatters and the baby is born in a pretty much human way, although covered in pieces of shell. The rest of the broken shell is delivered as afterbirth, like a human placenta.

Stiltskin can’t tell when Lacey ovulates, possibly because she doesn’t get as super horny as a Rumplurian lady would. He was amazed to find out that she does it once a month and to be frank he’s incredibly grateful for birth control methods.

Half-Rumplurian babies are different and depend on DNA, each case is different. They follow gestation and pregnancy patterns of the mother carrying them, so Stiltskin and Lacey’s babies grew and were delivered in a human way, but a Rumplurian lady carrying a baby sired by a human father would have a five month shell pregnancy.

Rumplurian ladies do breastfeed but their milk is very different to human breastmilk which can cause problems in mixed-race babies. Stiltskin and Lacey’s son Bae was fine with Lacey’s breast milk and it’s generally accepted that the human DNA in him is dominant. Their daughter Nim, however, rejected Lacey’s milk and also rejected Rumplurian formula. They tried a compromise whereby Lacey would express her milk and mix it with formula to create a mashup, but again that didn’t take and poor Lacey was frantic.

Their Rumplurian friend, Dr Morgana, came up with the solution of giving Lacey some Rumplurian hormone supplements, which did the trick, giving her milk just enough Rumplurian hormones for Nim to be happy with, and my word, once she was happy with it, she was a greedy little girl. Lacey was so relieved!

The supplements made Lacey’s skin very dry and itchy as a side effect (since they’re designed for people with scales), but it was worth it for Nim, and Stiltskin helped by rubbing cream in all over...

Right, I think I’ve exhausted my knowledge of Rumplurian Bits and Rumplurian Babies. If you have any questions, fire away! If you want to add your own headcanons, go ahead! If you want to write fic based on Star Force, feel free (just tag me in it because I wanna read it)!

If you think I should go away and think very hard about my life choices, don’t worry, I agree!

*Worry hits post and shakes her head*

#Star Force #woodelf68 #ripperblackstaff #Friendships and Fandoms #Alien Anatomy lessons #what the hell am I doing with my life?

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thesinglesjukebox · 7 years

Video

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MACHINE GUN KELLY & CAMILA CABELLO - BAD THINGS [3.50] Do you think we'll be happier about more kink and less One Direction?

Josh Winters: I can't explain cisgender heterosexual attraction, either, but from the sound of it, it seems like a ba-- [1]

Alfred Soto: I know it's "complicated" because Machine Gun Kelly lets his teeth sink into her lips. [2]

A.J. Cohn: While this track teasingly suggests kinkiness, the actual sexual fantasies described are decidedly bland: "Let me paint the picture/Couch by the kitchen/Nothin' but your heels on." It seems that sexual acts of the heterosexual, fairly vanilla variety are the titular "bad things" -- wait, maybe I love this song. [4]

Mo Kim: No, Camila, you're not out of your head -- in fact, it would be nice if you could get out of it and stop mewling half of your parts in that helium-inflected voice. Then again, one could make the argument that she's only putting as much substance into her performance as she could find in the lyrics; would that we knew any of the Bad Things she and Machine Gun Nerf Gun Kelly (who raps like a first-grade teacher trying to spice up a Common Core lesson on rhyming) are into. Alas, nowhere in the song are they ever specified, so we can only infer the abominable pleasures this duo want to partake in: avoiding BPMs above 10, plagiarizing Soundcloud user unprettytrapstar's remix of a formerly tolerable Fastball song, making kink vague and nondescript enough to pitch to a mass-market audience busy Googling tips to spice up their sex life, boring everybody within earshot of a major radio station and/or mall to death. One pity point for the poor middle school students who will have to endure this dirge at every talent show in their foreseeable future. [1]

Maxwell Cavaseno: Camila Cabello is truly one of the darkest, most malicious sadists on this Earth. By some defect of personality, she has chosen to take the worst parts of Ariana Grande (her tendency to scream to the point of ear-piercing), and overload that both with even more bombast and neurotic tics of melisma. The same way military experts think blasting Metallica at prisoners ensures breakdown of will, Cabello's depravity could warp and plague the minds of the unwilling victims. It's a great counterpoint to Machine Gun Kelly, who's greatest weakness is, despite a technical mastery and excellence of execution, he has not come close to expressing one human emotion with his voice. There was a point on early singles when he goes for anger, and he screamed with all the intensity of an exhausted parent faking monster noises for five clamoring children. As a base for someone who knows nothing about having a personality, this is the perfect combination of too much "personality"; somehow, Kelly dodges his usual brand of post-Eminem/Tech N9ne wank and veers into accidental parallels to A-Wax's white trash toxicity -- though a kinder, gentler version for teens who should just do their best to find the chill once in a while. [6]

Jonathan Bradley: Machine Gun Kelly combines Wiz Khalifa's stoner meditations with Eminem's maladroit earnestness, which apparently is how he ends up swooning over a "pretty little vixen" who runs her nails over his back tattoo. Times like these, I long for the return of real dirtbags -- or at least Shifty Shellshock. Cabello -- the vixen, I guess -- has a nursery rhyme to sing; the good thing about having to sit still and sing pretty is there's no risk of embarrassing yourself. [3]

Katie Gill: The problem with "Bad Things" is simple: for all they've tried to push her, Camila Cabello has always been one of the weaker members of Fifth Harmony. Her voice trends towards the nasal and she consistently has a problem with higher notes, something that's apparent right off the bat when her attempt at breathlessly, easily singing "if you only knew the bad things I like" comes off as her desperately trying to reach those notes in the first place. Add in a criminally boring rap from Machine Gun Kelly and this song lives up to it's title. [3]

Andy Hutchins: Camila Cabello's career is still Ariana Tall at most, but you get the sense she'd like to be Ariana Venti, at a minimum. Good thing, then, that there will always be damsel-in-distressed love placements like this one, on which she climbs the upper register to tantalize Bad Boy's white boy "Wild Boy" with "If you only knew the bad things I like." None of her specific likes are ever fully vocalized, while Kellz, so far removed from telling Waka he's a "hard rapper" that he may as well be chewed taffy, settles for heels-only sex on the "couch by the kitchen," yet this love is "so unique." "Love The Way You Lie," an equally problematic song, at least tried to convince listeners that there might be pain and passion in an abusive relationship. [2]

Katherine St Asaph: The pop machine can't even commit to calling him "Machine Gun Kelly" -- at least only Radio Disney felt compelled to attribute "Closer" to "TCS," and also that's horrifying. So the bad-things ceiling is pretty low from the outset, somewhere around liking Fastball. If we've learned one thing from the Great Derailment of 2016 it's that we live in conservativeland, where "bad things" generally means "thoughts of premarital sex by women"; if we've learned one thing from this bleak midwinter of relationships in pop, it's that "bad things" here probably means the woman being the top. Most duets are manufactured for follower synergy, and the difference is fandom and taste. So I shouldn't make too much of Camila Cabello never having heard "Out of My Head" or Kelly's pop push, like G-Eazy's, existing because top 40 radio is scrambling harder and harder not to playlist black rappers. But sometimes it's just that extra bit of blatant. [1]

Josh Langhoff: Just when I'd forgotten the unrelenting hellscape of the late '90s, here comes a remake of the other Fastball song, with all the portent of György Ligeti plonking out the Eyes Wide Shut soundtrack, and lifting its title from that unfunny comedy where Jeremy Piven kills the stripper in Vegas. Sure, baby doing bad bad things can be a turn-on, and pissing all over Fastball songs is the best way to honor them. But just as comedies should be funny, sexy songs should be erotic. These two sound like they mistook a medical textbook for The Joy of Sex. [1]

Edward Okulicz: Oh you dimwits, the good Fastball single was always "Fire Escape," and having sex on one of those might actually qualify as a Bad Thing. Camila Cabello sounds like she thinks she needs to apologise for having a vagina. [2]

Ramzi Awn: They bring up a good sample, that's for sure. And Ms. Cabello's vocal is outrageous. [6]

Joshua Copperman: The ambient intro is bizarre. It sounds like new Coldplay sampling themselves from Viva La Vida-era Coldplay. Also weird is Camila Cabello's melody in the chorus, which didn't make sense to me until I heard the source of the sample. It works there, because of Fastballer Tony Scalzo's laid-back delivery, but the Auto-Tune and severe compression on Cabello makes that note sound like a glitch. MGK himself is cringey but passable enough. I like the "scars on my body" line as a hook (also "I'm insane/but you're the same"), but the chorus clashes so much with the rest of the song that it's difficult to reconcile the two sides. In fact, I'd like this song more if it was just called "Scars On My Body," and those pre-chorus lines were the chorus. Then it would be fun to shout along to, but Camila and her awkward melody mostly remain in a completely different universe from the rest of the song. It brings to mind the time earlier in the decade where Skylar Grey was grafted onto several Alex Da Kid productions no matter the context. While Grey's performances were usually excellent, until the last minute or so Cabello gives the exact kind of emotionless delivery that someone who left her former band "via her representatives" would give. [4]

Will Adams: Camila Cabello's solo leap is premature and already annoying, but I'm inclined to give her some kudos for sounding relatively restrained compared to YOoooUURRR'e tHEEeeE BoOoooOSss AaT hOoOMeEe, while Machine Gun Kelly represents the beginning of a wave of mealy-mouthed white dude rappers. So the problems with "Bad Things" are mostly its periphery, and the song itself is another example of radio sludge that likes to imply danger or badness without taking any risk in naming it. [4]

Thomas Inskeep: It's funny how so many current pop hits are mining the '90s for their samples and interpolations, when the bulk of their intended audience isn't familiar with said source material, often because they're too young to recall it. Case in point, this single, built largely around a rejiggering of Fastball's 1998 hit "Out of My Head" -- I wonder, did producers The Futuristics and YektroBeatz use it for nostalgia value? Or (and this is where I lean) more likely, did they just like the melody of Fastball's hit and decide that it was a good thing to incorporate into their single? Either way, "Bad Things" has reminded or informed me of the following things: a) "Out of My Head" kinda sounds like The Band; b) Machine Gun Kelly has no discernible talent whatsoever; c) I'm sick to fucking death of Caucasian rappers; d) Camila Cabello couldn't have timed her departure from Fifth Harmony better, as this blows up into a huge smash; e) this record rides on her talent 100 per cent. I wish the production on this were a bit more distinctive, but it still stands out a bit from most Top 40 radio fodder these days, and for that I'm grateful. [6]

Megan Harrington: Do you believe in borrowed nostalgia? I don't. I don't think "Bad Things" is at all a sentimental, water colored '90s retread. And sampling isn't -- and never was -- an act of nostalgia. "Bad Things" isn't nostalgic; it's catchy. It's catchy and it's just a bit too vile which makes it complicated and fascinating. I'm compelled by the way co-dependence and lust fold together, staining each other and making the song's narrators unlikable to anyone but themselves. I'm drawn to their narcissistic attraction, to their mutual sickness. Apart, these two are classic antagonists. Together, they are a very particular storybook romance: true love's curdled remains. [10]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

#Machine Gun Kelly #Camila Cabello #Bad Things

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