#bitter glory 2015
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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY
based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … December 21
1804 – Benjamin Disraeli (d.1881) was a British Conservative politician, writer and aristocrat who twice served as Prime Minister. He played a central role in the creation of the modern Conservative Party, defining its policies and its broad outreach. Disraeli is remembered for his influential voice in world affairs, his political battles with the Liberal leader William Gladstone, and his one nation conservatism or "Tory democracy". He made the Conservatives the party most identified with the glory and power of the British Empire. He is, as of 2015, the only British Prime Minister of Jewish birth. Disraeli was born in London. His father left Judaism after a dispute at his synagogue; young Benjamin became an Anglican at age 12.
Together with his sister's fiancé, William Meredith, Disraeli travelled widely in southern Europe and beyond in 1830–31. The trip was financed partly by a novel, The Young Duke, written by Disraeli in 1829–30. The tour was cut short suddenly by Meredith's death from smallpox in Cairo in July 1831. Despite this tragedy, and the need for treatment for a sexually transmitted disease on his return, Disraeli felt enriched by his experiences. He became aware of values that seemed denied to his insular countrymen. The journey encouraged his self-consciousness, his moral relativism, and his interest in Eastern racial and religious attitudes.
After several unsuccessful attempts in which his opposition accused Disraeli of practicing "Eastern love", i.e. homosexuality, Disraeli entered the House of Commons in 1837. When the Conservatives gained power in 1841, Disraeli was given no office by the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel. In 1846, Peel split the party over his proposal to repeal the Corn Laws, which imposed a tariff on imported grain. Disraeli clashed with Peel in the Commons. The Conservatives who split from Peel had few who were adept in Parliament, and Disraeli became a major figure in the party, though many in it did not favor him. When Lord Derby, the party leader, thrice formed governments in the 1850s and 1860s, Disraeli served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. He also forged a bitter rivalry with the Liberal Party’s William Gladstone.
Upon Derby's retirement in 1868, Disraeli became Prime Minister briefly before losing that year's election. He returned to opposition, before leading the party to a majority in the 1874 election. He maintained a close friendship with Queen Victoria, who in 1876 created him Earl of Beaconsfield. Disraeli's second term was dominated by the Eastern Question—the slow decay of the Ottoman Empire and the desire of other European powers, such as Russia, to gain at its expense. Disraeli arranged for the British to purchase a major interest in the Suez Canal Company (in Ottoman-controlled Egypt). In 1878, faced with Russian victories against the Ottomans, he worked at the Congress of Berlin to obtain peace in the Balkans at terms favourable to Britain and unfavourable to Russia, its longstanding enemy. This diplomatic victory over Russia established Disraeli as one of Europe's leading statesmen.
World events thereafter moved against the Conservatives. Controversial wars in Afghanistan and South Africa undermined his public support. He angered British farmers by refusing to reinstitute the Corn Laws in response to poor harvests and cheap imported grain. With Gladstone conducting a massive speaking campaign, his Liberals bested Disraeli's Conservatives in the 1880 election. In his final months, Disraeli led the Conservatives in opposition. He had throughout his career written novels, beginning in 1826, and he published his last completed novel, Endymion, shortly before he died at the age of 76.
1917 – In Russia, the Bolsheviks nullified many laws including the one making sex between men a criminal act. Seventeen years later Article 121 would re-criminalize it, carrying a sentence up to five years "deprivation of freedom."
1944 – Michael Tilson Thomas, the American conductor, was born today. A conductor, pianist, composer and director of the San Francisco Symphony, Thomas has become in a relatively short time one of the most prominent American conductors of his generation. Perhaps most significantly, he is the first Gay conductor to achieve such prominence without masking or hiding his sexuality.
Tilson Thomas does not discuss his sexuality or his personal life with the public, but his dedication to creating and presenting music that explores the Gay experience confirms his importance as a Gay conductor.
Not only has he impressed audiences with his musical vision, talented conducting, and prolific number of recordings, but he has also used his position to commission works by Gay composers that use the medium of classical music to represent Gay life and Gay history.
To this end, he organized the American Mavericks music festival in San Francisco in June 2000. The festival highlighted the works of such composers as Lou Harrison, Lukas Foss, Earle Brown, Steve Reich, David Del Tredici, and Meredith Monk. Tilson Thomas has similarly pushed audiences to rethink the relationship between classical music and homosexuality by celebrating openly Gay composers such as Harrison and by commissioning works from Del Tredici and others that explicitly explore the experiences of Gay men and Lesbians. Although Gay men and Lesbians have long been present in the world of classical music, both as performers and as audience members, they have often remained invisible. Tilson Thomas has taken bold steps to change this.
In May 2001, Tilson Thomas conducted the premiere of Del Tredici's Gay Life, a series of pieces he commissioned that are based on poems by Allen Ginsberg, Thom Gunn, and Paul Monette. The work both explores the experiences of Gay men in America and also delves into the challenges that Gay men have faced in their struggle to survive the AIDS epidemic.
In addition, two of Tilson Thomas' own compositions have added to the small but growing classical music repertoire focused on Gay subjects. Three Poems by Walt Whitman, written for baritone and orchestra, and We Two Boys Together Clinging, for baritone and pian
o, use Whitman's poetry to explore intimacy between men.
1947 – Dr. Steven Watson, born on this date, is a cultural historian who is particularly interested in the dynamics of the twentieth century American avant-garde.
His 1991 book Strange Bedfellows: The First American Avant-Garde was called "a chapter in our national biography" by Stefan Kanfer for the Los Angeles Times and "a marvelous group portrait of a band of cultural renegades" by Publishers Weekly. Watson has written five books about 20th century American avant-garde and counterculture movements, curated two exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery ("Group Portrait, The First American Avant-Garde" and "Rebels: Painters and Poets of the 1950's"), and served as consultant curator for the Whitney Museum exhibition "Beat Culture and the New America".
Watson grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota and graduated from Mound High School. He majored in English at Stanford University and participated in anti-Vietnam War protests, including a guerrilla theater piece called Alice in ROTC-Land, co-starring with Sigourney Weaver.
After graduation, he founded an alternative elementary school called KNOW School in Auburn, California. He studied psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he received his Ph.D. in 1976, and he worked for nineteen years as the staff psychologist of the Putnam County Community Mental Health Clinic.
In 1976, Watson also began writing articles for the Village Voice, New York Newsday, Soho Weekly News, and Gaysweek. His work on gay culture included the first major article about Marsha P. Johnson, an early extended interview with Sylvia Rivera, and a book about the transgender figure, Minette. At the same time, he began writing books about key circles of the twentieth century.
He currently lives in New York City.
1969 – Jack Noseworthy Jr. is an American actor, whose most visible movie roles were in Event Horizon, U-571, Barb Wire and Killing Kennedy.
He was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, and graduated from Lynn English High School in 1982 and attended Boston Conservatory, where he earned a BFA.
He appeared in Bon Jovi's music video "Always", with Carla Gugino and Keri Russell. He co-starred with Meryl Streep in the Public Theater's 2006 production of Mother Courage and Her Children.
He starred in a short-lived MTV drama series, Dead at 21. In December 2005, he originated the role of Armand in the musical Lestat during its pre-Broadway run at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco, but left the production during its first week of previews. He is also the only male actor to play Peter Pan on Broadway, in the revue Jerome Robbins' Broadway.
Noseworthy made his debut as a nightclub performer in September 2006 at the Metropolitan Room in New York City in "You Don't Know Jack!".
In 2013, Noseworthy played Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in Killing Kennedy, a made-for-television movie aired on National Geographic Channel.
In 2018, Noseworthy joined the Canadian production of Come from Away, in the role of Kevin T. and others.
Noseworthy has been in a relationship with Tony-winning choreographer Sergio Trujillo since 1990. They married in 2011. Noseworthy and Trujillo have a son born in 2018.
1969 – Gay Liberation Front members Jim Owles and Marty Robinson and about twelve people met in Arthur Bell’s Manhattan apartment and founded The Gay Activists Alliance (GAA). Author Arthur Evans wrote the group’s statement of purpose and much of its constitution. Acting on the principle that the personal is the political, GAA held homophobes who were in positions of authority personally accountable for the consequences of their public policies.
Accordingly, Robinson, Evans, and Owles developed the tactic of “zaps.” These were militant (but non-violent) face-to-face confrontations with outspoken homophobes in government, business, and the media. Evans was often arrested in such actions, participating in disruptions of local business offices, political headquarters, local TV shows, and the Metropolitan Opera.
In effect, GAA created a new model of gay activism, highly theatrical while also eminently practical and focused. It forced the media and the political establishment to take Gay concerns seriously as a struggle for justice. Previously the media treated Gay life as a peripheral freak show. The new Gay activism inspired Gay people to act unapologetically from a position of Gay Pride. This new model inspired other Gay groups across the county, eventually triggering revolutionary improvements in Gay life that continue to this day.
In November 1970, Robinson and Evans, along with Dick Leitsch of the Mattachine Society, appeared on the Dick Cavett Show. They were among the first openly Gay activists to be prominently featured as guests on a national TV program.
1988 – The Oregon Court of Appeals reverses two public indecency convictions of men looking for sex in restrooms, finding a right to sexual privacy even outside of enclosed stalls.
2007 – Nepal Supreme Court orders the end of anti-LGBTQ laws and creates new laws that safeguard LGBTQ people.
2009 – Mexico City legalises same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples (effective March 2010)
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already read coanda twice and prob will again and im just sitting here like. man. i wish suguru had things easy back when he was racing. it makes me so fucking sad to know he had so much potential but life just kept fucking him over. i wonder if things were easier. his dad not dying/having enough money to compete etc etc if he would have kept going. kept winning. or if he was just meant to quit no matter what 😞 my poor darling. i also lowkey thought of suguru being satorus race engineer. wonder how that would have worked with them working together towards the same goal. but yea anyway sorry for the lil yappin lmao thanks for sharing ur work!!
vaguely spoilery authors notes on getou's character bc im going insane trying to update all these chapters lmao
we rly can't separate getou from his struggle to fit into the world he's thrust into in both this fic and in canon because without that struggle he's a fundamentally different person... so the what ifs are. insane. (and something ill go into in-world in the coanda sequel, if i write it)
i think without certain things that happen in 2014, getou could hav continued maybe two or three more years, especially after his wdc making him feel a bit more equal to gojo (because he definitely has a complex about it, lol). the final straw in that narrative, the final blow that makes him leave, is yet to come. getou is contracted until the end of 2015! he leaves early! without those final blows its my hc getou and gojo would probably have continued to swap the wdc between them in JTR's period of dominance, leaving them even on championships.
however. the final blows as such were inevitable. if they hadn't happened in 2014, they would have happened eventually. getou is dealing with an immense amount of grief and a serious eating disorder and a massive level of disillusionment from the sport. hes seeing corruption in real time with toji, hes seeing it with haibara... two of his closest friends, two friends who HE SHARED A CAREER PATH WITH have met the ends of their careers in the worst possible ways, through no fault of their own. eventually he wouldve retired early. he couldnt handle it like gojo could, and ultimately that's what makes gojo slightly stronger than him.
suguru being satoru's race engineer i feel would be so fucking funny, maybe ill write it as a oneshot with driver!shoko on the other side of the garage???? but the angsty person inside of me feels that that would also end badly: getou bitter about missing the opportunity to win and playing a supporting role because of his background, and being relegated to a demanding role that he recieves less glory for. i think it depends how you interpret getou's character and his disillusionment, it could go either way
thank u anon!!! might write that oneshot over summer
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Lewis to ferrari will be interesting...like you I've seen drivers come in and get submerged in the red...drink it all in...I hope Lewis gets glory in red too just as he has in all his other teams..
Sebs ferrari end will always leave a bitter taste..but I try and remember all the amazing things he got to do there and that he got to live his dream and achieved great things with them, just as i hope lewis will too. 🥰
Yeah, at the very least I hope he gets more poles and wins, because he deserves to keep beating the records. He's proven time and time again he is one one of the goats and it's unlikely he won't achieve something special with Ferrari.
And yes, Seb's years at Ferrari weren't all sorrow and suffering. We saw incredible things in those years, I can still hear the 2018 British GP radio, or the Malaysia 2015, Singapore 2019, Turkey 2020. Things aren't always black and white, but I think a part of me will always suffer at the idea that he didn't get that championship in red.
On the other hand, when Martin Brundle asked Seb if he'd trade two championships for a Ferrari championship he said no and you know what? Lately I think the same... Ignore my aus in which he wins it lmao
#asks#sorry to ramble so much anon im too passionate about this stupid red ream#and seb i love my old man#anonyme
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The Prayer of the Afflicted
1 O Lord, unto my pray'r give ear,
my cry let come to thee;
2 And in the day of my distress
hide not thy face from me.
Give ear to me; what time I call,
to answer me make haste:
3 For, as an hearth, my bones are burnt,
my days, like smoke, do waste.
4 My heart within me smitten is,
and it is withered
Like very grass; so that I do
forget to eat my bread.
5 By reason of my groaning voice
my bones cleave to my skin.
6 Like pelican in wilderness
forsaken I have been:
I like an owl in desert am,
that nightly there doth moan;
7 I watch, and like a sparrow am
on the house-top alone.
8 My bitter en'mies all the day
reproaches cast on me;
And, being mad at me, with rage
against me sworn they be.
9 For why? I ashes eaten have
like bread, in sorrows deep;
My drink I also mingled have
with tears that I did weep.
10 Thy wrath and indignation
did cause this grief and pain;
For thou hast lift me up on high,
and cast me down again.
11 My days are like unto a shade,
which doth declining pass;
And I am dry'd and withered,
ev'n like unto the grass.
12 But thou, Lord, everlasting art,
and thy remembrance shall
Continually endure,
and be to generations all.
13 Thou shalt arise, and mercy have
upon thy Sion yet;
The time to favour her is come,
the time that thou hast set.
14 For in her rubbish and her stones
thy servants pleasure take;
Yea, they the very dust thereof
do favour for her sake.
15 So shall the heathen people fear
the Lord's most holy name;
And all the kings on earth shall dread
thy glory and thy fame.
16 When Sion by the mighty Lord
built up again shall be,
In glory then and majesty
to men appear shall he.
17 The prayer of the destitute
he surely will regard;
Their prayer will he not despise,
by him it shall be heard.
18 For generations yet to come
this shall be on record:
So shall the people that shall be
created praise the Lord.
19 He from his sanctuary's height
hath downward cast his eye;
And from his glorious throne in heav'n
the Lord the earth did spy;
20 That of the mournful prisoner
the groanings he might hear,
To set them free that unto death
by men appointed are:
21 That they in Sion may declare
the Lord's most holy name,
And publish in Jerusalem
the praises of the same;
22 When as the people gather shall
in troops with one accord,
When kingdoms shall assembled be
to serve the highest Lord.
23 My wonted strength and force he hath
abated in the way,
And he my days hath shortened:
24 Thus therefore did I say,
My God, in mid-time of my days
take thou me not away:
From age to age eternally
thy years endure and stay.
25 The firm foundation of the earth
of old time thou hast laid;
The heavens also are the work
which thine own hands have made.
26 Thou shalt for evermore endure,
but they shall perish all;
Yea, ev'ry one of them wax old,
like to a garment, shall:
Thou, as a vesture, shalt them change,
and they shall changed be:
27 But thou the same art,
and thy years are to eternity.
28 The children of thy servants shall
continually endure;
And in thy sight, O Lord, their seed
shall be establish'd sure.
— Psalm 102 | Metrical Psalms 1650 (MP1650)
The Metrical Psalter, © British and Foreign Bible Society 2015. All rights reserved.
Cross References: Genesis 1:1; Exodus 2:23; Exodus 3:15; Deuteronomy 26:15; 1 Kings 8:43; Nehemiah 1:6; Job 14:2; Job 19:20; Job 36:26; Psalm 12:5; Psalm 22:22; Psalm 22:24; Psalm 22:30; Psalm 39:5; Psalm 42:3; Psalm 77:4; Psalm 107:10; Psalm 116:19; Psalm 122:6; psalm 146:7; Isaiah 34:11; Isaiah 49:23; Isaiah 60:1-2; Zechariah 1:12; Matthew 24:35; Acts 26:11; Romans 15:4; Hebrews 1:12; James 1:11; James 4:14
#prayer#afflicted soul#overwhelmed#Lord#Psalm 102#Book of Psalms#Old Testament#MP1650#Metrical Psalms 1650#The Metrical Psalter#British and Foreign Bible Society
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What's Todd Allison and Petunia Violet?
it was a webcomic... i say "was" because the author flatly refuses to acknowledge its existence despite being very active on twitter for other fandoms, which is a thing that happens, and ive always tried to be understanding, but ive personally never gotten over my eventual bitterness over it
it was a webcomic that ran on various websites in the early 2010s and stopped updating in 2019. because webcomic sites were pretty unstable back then and prone to shut down at any moment, it migrated around quite a few sites before settling down on smackjeeves iirc. it started sometime around 2009 or 2010 or so and ran sporadically for a while until it had a long hiatus in 2015, came back in a brief blaze of glory in 2018, and fucked off into the aether again bc the author had a mental breakdown over fulfilling physical comic orders and probably never wanted to come back to it again. like i said, it happens. sucks for us fans left in the lurch though
#rambles#sorry if you were expecting me to talk about plot. truth is it's been so long i barely remember it#google would have given you an entire tvtropes page for it if you really want the answer for what it actually was#but i figure you would have googled it instead of asking me if you really did. so. [shrug]
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A Belated Love Letter to Steven Gerrard, the Captain Fantastic
Anfield has always been a sea of red whenever Liverpool plays. Initially chasing a one-point gap between the Premier League leaders Manchester City, the Reds saw a disappointing 1-1 draw against Tottenham Hotspurs on May 8th, their title hope dampened with only three games remaining. It had taken three long, agonising decades for a historical club like Liverpool, which had won the 18 top-flight championships and crowned as the best in Europe six times, to claim another top-division glory, which was also their first Premier League title, in 2020. They came so close in the previous season, amassing a total of 97 points that would easily clinch the title in any other season had it not been Pep Guardiola’s invincible City that collected one point more. When the Reds finally won the league in 2020, their captain Jordon Henderson, who took over the armband after Steven Gerrard’s departure in 2015, paid tribute to his predecessor by saying that, “No one can replace Steven Gerrard at this club. I was devastated in 2014 that we couldn’t get over the line for him. This one is quite personal for me and to do it for him is quite big.”
Of all people, Gerrard should know the best how missing out on such a close margin felt like. That near miss in 2014 still haunted Gerrard as much as it had haunted Henderson, for it was he who made an irreparable slip that allowed fellow title-contenders Chelsea to extend their lead and cost their title dream in the end. Earlier that season when they had beaten tough opponents like Arsenal, Manchester United, and Manchester City in a stylish fashion, the trophy seemed just within reach.
“It was the toughest moment of my career by a mile,” says Gerrard. It feels strange to meet Gerrard in Birmingham but not in Liverpool, since he is now the manager of Aston Villa, leading them out of the relegation zone. He ordered a pint of Birmingham’s signature Bathams Bitter for me at the Villa Park hospitality, yet his figure is perfectly kept as if he could still step out onto the grass court and play.
“At the end of the game, I just wanted to be under the ground. When we left Anfield, I was in the back of the car. We were on the way home and the tears were rolling down my face. It was killing me. I had that feeling you get when you’ve lost a family member, that’s how bad it felt. The tears kept coming. I was 33 years old and I hadn’t cried for years.
“There’s not a day that doesn’t go by that I don’t think about what if that didn’t happen. Would things have turned out different? Maybe it might of, I don’t know.” Despite winning the Champions League, the UEFA Cup, three League Cups and two FA Cups for the Reds, the Premier League trophy was Gerrard and every Red’s ultimate dream and deepest regret. In 2014 they missed out on the title by two points, in 2009 by four, and in 2002, seven.
Yes, Gerrard had been around for that long. He had been with the club’s youth academy since the age of eight and made his senior debut in 1998 as a late substitute against Blackburn Rovers, the same year in which his fellow academy graduate Michael Owen established himself as an international superstar at the World Cup in France. In 1998 there were no wrinkles on Gerrard’s forehead, and he was outshone by Owen. In his 17-year-long allegiance to the club and especially those three second-best seasons, people remember the goals galore scored by the wunderkind Michael Owen, ‘El Niño’ Fernando Torres, the buck-teethed Luis Suárez, and perhaps their latest home-grown goal-scoring machine Raheem Sterling, but it was Gerrard who had telepathic connections to these strikers and wingers and struck incredibly precise long-ranged balls for them to put into the back of the net.
(I for one was a fan who hadn’t appreciated his presence enough; I’ve bought jerseys of Owen, Torres, Suárez, Coutinho ‘the Little Magician’, and even defensive midfielder Dietmar Hamann, whom I liked simply because his last name resembles Tim Henman, my all-time favourite sportsman on Earth and another tragic hero who had been carrying Great Britain’s hope of winning the first Wimbledon men’s singles title since 1936, only to be defeated by the subsequent champion in four semi-finals, but not Gerrard until the very end of his career – and it was even an away shirt!)
Sadly, those premium strikers and wingers eventually left Liverpool for more money or trophies elsewhere; Michael Owen left for Real Madrid in 2004, Fernando Torres for Chelsea in 2011, Luis Suárez and Philippe Coutinho for Barcelona (Suárez may be exempted because his wife’s family lived there) in 2014 and 2018 respectively, and Raheem Sterling for Manchester City in 2015 (this greedy kid was simply unforgivable). Some of them did enjoy the success they longed for, while others failed to get enough minutes on the pitch as they would have liked to. Loyalty has become a rare virtue in modern money-driven football and Gerrard was among one of those endangered one-club players like Francesco Totti and Paolo Maldini.
“There’s so much money in football now, because of the television deals, and it seems to be getting worse,” Gerrard says, as hand raised pork pies and apple chutney were being brought to our table, epitomizing the Midlands’ native produce. “I think we’ll see players moving an awful lot more, because agents will always push for the next move. My own focus has always been football. It’s something my mum and dad handed down to me – the idea that you should just be the best you can be and everything else will take care of itself. You avoid becoming greedy. You concentrate on becoming a good footballer, rather than a personality or a brand.”
Rolling back the clock to December 11, 2021, the Kop welcomed their legendary ex-captain back five and a half years after his departure, this time as an opponent, giving him an emotional standing ovation before kick-off, although their reigning Egyptian King Mo Salah sealed the game off mercilessly with a converted spot kick. After the 1-0 defeat at Anfield, Owen, now a TV pundit, asked Gerrard in the post-match interview: “I must admit I hated going back to Anfield to play – what were your emotions?”
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“If I played for Manchester United, I'd hate coming back here!” replied Gerrard with a wry smile, scorning his former best friend’s infamous transfer to their archrival.
Watching these two of my childhood heroes standing side by side in front of the camera again, it was as if they were their energising, captivating coming-of-age selves again in the treble-winning season of 2001. At that time, it was the young, lightning-quick Owen who tore apart defenses easily, who received the Premier League’s golden boot twice by the age of 19, who single-handedly turned against the tides against the mighty Arsenal in the FA Cup final, and who won the Ballon d’Or at 22, younger than either Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi, that made me a faithful Liverpool fan, an admiration shared by Man City’s key playmaker, Kevin De Bruyne (it was such a pity that Liverpool couldn’t afford to buy him). After securing a League Cup trophy against archrival Manchester United with both of their names on the scoresheet in 2003, Gerrard was named captain in the following season, but a trophyless 2003-2004 campaign saw transfer rumours speculating again whether the gems of Anfield would be lured elsewhere. Owen once said that it would be a catastrophe if Gerrard left Anfield, but he it was who eventually left for the Bernabéu in the summer of 2004.
“I just assumed we were going all the way to the top together,” Gerrard rues, “It was always me and him.”
“It’s the lure of going and winning, being what you’ve always wanted to be, growing up,” explained Owen, “If I say no, I’ll probably think what would that have been like for the rest of my life. I’ve just got to try it.” But his teammate Jamie Carragher disagreed. “I was in the room with Mike when he got the call, and my first words were, ‘I wouldn’t go.’ I was always a big-picture person, like, ‘How will people see you at the end?’ I can get it. You may want to play with the greatest players in the world, but it’ll create a divide that may not be able to be ever healed.
“Is it worth it for that?” Carragher asked.
Despite Owen’s wish for a return to Anfield after an unsuccessful spell in the Spanish capital, he joined Newcastle United on a four-year deal instead, and then went on to join United in 2009. “I have to be honest and say I was very surprised he chose to sign for Manchester United,” laments Gerrard. “Michael enjoyed legendary status at Liverpool but that has been diluted because of the move he made. Only Michael knows if he got that decision right.”
The dessert was poached pear with stilton and frosted pecans, another dish that celebrated the Midlands on a plate, and it tasted divine. After Owen’s departure, it was left to Gerrard to carry the entire city’s passion and expectations on his shoulders alone, maturing into an all-rounder who can tackle, pass, and, more importantly, score goals that mattered. “Liverpool captains always deliver. They have to,” says Gerrard. The following season saw Gerrard taking Liverpool to the summit of Europe, first by sending them into the round of 16 through a “stunning half-volley, speared majestically from the edge of the area,” according to The Guardian, the very goal that they needed to qualify.
“I'd be a liar if I didn't say I thought we were down and out at the break. They were spoiling the game and were strong defensively, so there was a mountain to climb at half-time,” Gerrard admits.
And then there came the ‘Miracle of Istanbul’, the night which Liverpool staged a remarkable comeback after being destroyed by an impeccable AC Milan side well before half time. “We’d punched way above our weight to get there, but we had 45 minutes to try and get some pride back. And I think the fans, at least, deserved that. So I felt that responsibility. It’s up to me,” recalls Gerrard.
When Gerrard’s header did pull one goal back, he did this urging hand gestures to his teammates and the travelling fans, begging them to believe that it was not just a consolation, and soon they scored two more within a six-minute stretch, defended heroically until the end of extra time, and finally got the better of Milan in the penalty shoot-out.
“We went as crazy as you would expect. We yelled and danced and ran around like idiots. I look back now in amazement. Was that really me? I celebrated like I deserved to celebrate. Correct me if I’m wrong, but have you ever seen a better Champions League final? Every single one of Milan’s players was either world class or very close to it. They were a better team than us, but we beat them.
“It was not just luck. The big moments in the second half went our way but, after we got back to the dressing room, I saw how much we had given. There were cuts everywhere, bruises, ice, bandages, sweat, dirt and plenty of tears. It looked like we had been to war,” Gerrard smiles. We finished the dessert with a shot of espresso and ordered another round of bitter.
But inside Gerrard’s born-and-bred red heart, there had been times of temptations. When big money was pumped into the business and Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich took over West London-based club Chelsea, buying whichever player he wanted at whatever price, to end the barren spell of first-division title at Liverpool became even more challenging. “My natural instinct is to always defend the club, but there was a part of me that knew that we weren’t good enough. How am I gonna win these Leagues and Champions Leagues?” Gerrard confesses. Moreover, Chelsea’s manager at that time, José Mourinho ‘The Special One’, had been showing great admiration to Gerrard and desperate to bring him in, whereas Stevie was feeling not appreciated enough by his Spanish manager Rafael Benítez. Six weeks after he had brought the fifth European Cup glory back to Merseyside, he submitted a transfer request that shocked the red half of city. The Kopites felt betrayed and burned the shirts bearing his name in front of TV cameras. “Whatever the reason … Chelsea? The bastard son of modern football. Why would a Huyton lad, Liverpool Football Club to the heart, want to go there?” asked Gareth Roberts, editor of The Anfield Wrap magazine.
“My dad asked me a simple question: ‘Would it mean more to you to win two or three trophies with Liverpool than double that number with Chelsea?’ I wasn’t thinking about Chelsea then. I was thinking only of Liverpool. Dad understood,” Gerrard recalls.
“He said to me, ‘You can’t change what you are, the way you’ve been brought up. You’re a Scouser. These fans adore you. You’re everything to them. You’re their hope and their dreams every single day. Liverpool’s in your heart. Forget what’s in your head. If Chelsea are in your head, that’s just a noise. Remember where you’re from. Remember who made you. Don’t walk away from the club that you love.’
“I think there’s a lot of people in the game that believe I made the wrong decision, but they don’t know my feelings. Nine times out of ten, maybe the right thing might have been to go. But I’m not one of the nine. I’m the one. And I never regretted staying at Liverpool my whole career in England.”
John Williams, a witness of the Hillsborough disaster who has been studying soccer as a sociologist for the past 30 years, concluded that “There are lots of ways in which people could say that Steven Gerrard’s career is not measured up to what a player of his talent ought to have had. I think he’d have to accept that. But the thing that he has, which very few players have, is the deep love and respect of people from the city in which he was born. He is an emotional person, like many people in the city feel themselves to be. So he’s part of that order which says, ‘How I feel is more important than what I win or what I can earn somewhere else’. And that’s a big message.”
Gerrard took a quick glimpse at his watch. It was about time to leave for the training ground. When he decided to bid farewell to his beloved city after giving everything he could and leave for America, the manager at that time, Brendon Rogers, described Gerrard as “a guy who is very much about looking after his people”.
“He’s had a number of opportunities to move to prestigious clubs but Liverpool is his home, he grew up around the corner, this is his place and these are the people he loves. What he’s given to this city, politicians haven’t given to this city. All the work he does for local hospitals and charities goes unheralded. He is a wonderful symbol for the people here and an incredible icon of the club. You see in Barcelona they have the quote ‘more than a club’. You look at Steven Gerrard and he is more than football,” said Rogers.
In the States Gerrard enjoyed a short period of Major League Soccer without the spotlight that he detested, being a ‘Z-lister’ that enabled him to relax with his family, but eventually he returned to Liverpool as coach of the youth academy in 2017. “I’ve had an incredible journey. I’ve had my time. But I still think I’ve got unfinished business, and I want to give back,” said Gerrard when he returned to Liverpool as coach of the youth academy, “I often say to myself, ‘Why do you want to go back into the pressure situation, and why do you want to go through all those emotions?’ But I don’t feel my journey is complete.”
One of the teenagers in the academy who idolised him as a boyhood hero, Trent Alexander-Arnold, was described by Gerrard as a ‘beauty’ and was “driven to fulfill that promise”, eventually emerging as one of the world’s finest full-back, playing an indispensable role in the Red’s Champions League and Premier League title-winning team with his precise assists and sensational free-kicks, carrying on Gerrard’s legacy to some extent.
After cutting his managerial teeth at Glasgow and winning the Scottish Premier League with the Rangers in 2020, Gerrard was appointed as successor to Dean Smith at the Villa Park amidst the turmoil left by Villa’s departed captain, Jack Grealish (and yes he went to Man City). Liverpool still have a glimpse of hope for an unprecedented achievement of a Quadruple season. Now that Aston Villa plays two decisive fixtures against Liverpool and City near the end of the title race, I believe many Liverpool fans, including Jamie Carragher and Michael Owen, are thinking about the same thing as I am: Stevie, we’re counting on you.
“We’ll see,” beams Gerrard.
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WATERLOO TO ANYWHERE - 'IS THIS SONG ABOUT PETER?' SERIES:
B.U.R.M.A.
(yeah it was supposed to be in order but i have burma brainworms sue me)
youtube
Talking points:
"Be Upstairs Ready My Angel (B.U.R.M.A.)" is a postal acronym that WWII soldiers used to seal their correspondence to their sweethearts back home, so this is ostensibly what the song is about. I LOVE this so im not gonna try and pull it apart too much. HOWEVER that being said. songs can be about more than one thing, & there are things here that don't add up.
"Do you remember like I remember? / Lost pursuits of excellence / The glory of the crowd" <- I think it's pretty obvious from this verse that he's using war/conquest as a metaphor for chasing fame/stardom/etc, and there's basically only one person he could be asking to remember this with him tbh.
"So no wonder you frown / When you’re two world wars down" <- a streeeeetch but the Libertines were on their 2nd (?) breakup at this point. (And also. 2 albums.)
"So when the dark times come / Well I will sing you a good time song" <- reminds me of Grimaldi which people have theorised was an early carl-to-peter song.
"I’m pretending that it’s ending / But it kills me to act so strong" <- look, this COULD be about war but it reminds me much more of something carl said in 2015 about demonizing your exes/past-relationships as a self defence mechanism, "pretending" that the relationship is done forever if that makes sense
"I’ve been re reading letters / They were moving warm but bitter / And I cried right through them all" <- why would his sweetheart's letters be "bitter"?? this is clearly about a relationship that's ended, which doesn't fit the narrative line of asking them to "be upstairs ready" when he's back from war. ANYWAY we know who obsessively wrote him letters, we have quite a few publicly available
"I’m hoping if you know where I am / Send your heart in a telegram" <- not saying CARL was thinking this, but IM thinking of that one interview where peter was practically pleading with the journalist to tell him carl's new address
"To gaze on your eyes makes all the difference to me" <- see: Basically Every Time They Share A Stage
Verdict: Ostensibly NO ❌, probably PARTIALLY YES ✅ if you stop and look at it for more than 1 second
See also:
(some version of) Grimaldi:
but if you stay for a while, I'll try and think of something nice to play
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Hello! Me again (your gift exhange partner) today I am here to ask about your muses! Do you have a favorite muse? If so, tell me about them. Do you have a muse you find yourself playing most often? Do you have a muse you wish you had gotten to use more? Did you ever make a muse and then lose all muse for them right away and have to drop them? Just tell me about your muses!
I do love your dedication to asking me the big questions!! YES I DO HAVE MUSES AND MUSE STORIES and im in such a Mood to talk about my babies with you!!!
Muses that I lost all muse for after creating them??? Bro, I think it's a very common thread with me! Like, i remember vividly in my early rp days, when I'd make a muse and then find myself unable to write replies for them because there was no mood there. And it is okay to feel that way, btw! I ended up dropping them like after a month of dragging my feet through it.
The rest of it, again, putting this under a read-more because I do NOT know how to hold myself back!
CONTENT WARNING: i do tend to write darker characters with criminal backgrounds, so you have been warned! there is also mentions of death in them.
So let me tell you about my son, Miles Ellis. He's 34, and in every iteration of him, he's been involved in some kind of criminal activity. He was abandoned as a baby, grew up in foster care and has some issues with managing his anger. He's also deadpan sarcastic and funny and sometimes, he's a little stupid. He may seem a little hard on the outside, but there's this inner child that longs to be loved and belong somewhere, anywhere and that hurt haunts him forever. His FC has always been Peter Gadiot, but I have found David Castañeda to be an amazing alternate fc for him too!
TL;DR: Miles is a stupid broken boy who keeps everyone at bay by being the toughest bitch, even though all he wants is to be loved and to belong somewhere.
My next muse is Rafael Mendoza. He's 45 and a teen dad! His own family was pretty stable, he's got an older brother who's the crowning glory, and Rafe was just there. He was 18 when him and his girlfriend became parents, and by the next year, he had a kid and no gf bc she bailed on the both of them. He had to grow up fast because he had a baby, but now that his baby is an adult, he's falling back to his old ways, trying to live out some version of his early twenties that he missed out on when he was busy being a parent. He's not the Best Dad in the whole world, but his kid is still alive and cannot complain about having a shitty childhood, so all things considered....he did good! His fc is usually either Pedro Pascal or Gael Garcia Bernal.
TL;DR: teen dad reverts to teen years the moment his kid is a legal adult.
A muse I wish I got to write more of is Kaya Peralta-Molina. She's an ER nurse, and her life could be divided into two; before she met her husband, and after losing her husband. The girl before used to be an optimist. She was adopted into a family with so much love and warmth, and her other siblings might not have been blood, but she would die for them regardless. It is her adopted brother who helped her realise that she really wanted to be a nurse and help people out. And then she moved for a job, across the country, and fell in love with a man who would be connected to some MC and it would be a whole thing. But Kaya is loyal, and if loving him meant accepting his chosen family, so be it. But then, he died not too long after, and Kaya's world basically shattered into pieces. She's much more cynical now, bitter about the way things are and is very guarded with her heart and her emotions. Her FC is and will always be Jessica Henwick.
A muse I find myself playing most often would have to be some version of Crystalia Ruiz. She started off as a skeleton on a Tumblr rp in 2015, I think? And she kind of evolved into my own favourite little maniac. She is a misunderstood loner who often took solace in her loneliness. Growing up in a big house full of raucous individuals, Crys often felt like she lost her own voice in the crowds. She's a goth girl, very good at being silent and creepy and weird, and she's not that good of a friend. She will sell you for a corn chip and only because she was in the mood for one. Her fc was Katie Findlay, but I use Alexa Demie for her now.
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MALMAISON MEDIA SALON SOIRÉE 10: BITTER GLORY (2015)
1. The Introduction
Greetings, dear Neighbors. Welcome to the tenth soirée at the Malmaison Media Salon.
Now that I say it, it looks like we have an anniversary, so I hope we can have fun and celebrate the occasion... And do some historical analysis of Napoleonic fiction while we’re at it because why the fuck not?!
Anyway, today’s review subject is Bitter Glory by David Swatton and it was published in 2015, so that’s recent.
I don’t remember how exactly I stumbled upon this book for the first time but the summary promising an exciting adventure involving a conspiracy and the fact that it’s set during the Second Italian Campaign did get me hooked because... reasons.
But let me tell you, digging the bloody thing up was a fucking nightmare and, unfortunately, it’s not readily available online.
Moreover, the ebook version was only on the British and the Indian versions of Amazon but I still managed to get it on the website of Fnac (a chain of stores that sell books, gadgets, DVDs and other stuff) for 3,17 euros. So I guess for most people it will be either Amazon or Fnac to the rescue.
Anyway, was it worth the amount of money I could’ve spent on a cup of herbal tea and a slice of cake instead? Good question.
This review is dedicated to @maggiec70 (who also read the book and promised to say quite a bit about it in my review) and @josefavomjaaga .
2. The Summary
I already copied and pasted the summary in my announcement post but here it is just in case someone didn’t see that post:
“In 1800 Napoleon Bonaparte’s grip on the reins of power in Revolutionary France is far from secure. The French Army has seen serious reverses in the last three years and stands on the brink of another defeat with thousands of men besieged and starving in the city of Genoa. He needs a great victory to secure both his military and political position and he is looking to northern Italy to gain that victory. Like Hannibal two thousand years earlier he will cross the Alps with an army to fall upon his enemy. Caught up in this grand strategy is a young cavalry officer, Antoine Chauvelle, returning to his regiment from leave as they march to war. From the struggle over the mountains to the desperate fight for survival in a besieged and pestilential city, events sweep Chauvelle into a mad vendetta with a notorious duellist and a plot that could undermine the campaign and will culminate on the bloody battlefield of Marengo.”
At first glance (in my opinion) the premise sounds pretty cool and gives me the vibes of what could be a good adventure story, kind of like the swashbuckling novels I grew up reading.
Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that looks can be deceiving... Let’s unpack this one, shall we?
3. The Story
Like I said, I like the premise with a vendetta and a conspiracy. On paper, the plot could’ve been really good, which makes the fact that it isn’t oh so painful.
First of all, the novel likes to takes its sweet ass time and the introduction part (the one where we get to know the setting, the characters, etc) moves along with the speed of a pregnant snail which almost made me twist my jaw from yawning.
Don’t get me wrong, introduction is crucial and all, but I don’t need several fucking chapters spent on it! Move faster please!
By the way, the scenes of action like battles also tend to drag on for too long so I would rather watch a re-enactment than read all of that! (Shoutout to @michel-feuilly and @pobodleru who participate in re-enactments!)
Oh, and I also hate the fact that a major plot line (the one with the vendetta) gets an extremely anticlimactic resolution. For context: Chauvelle and this duelist guy are about to have their climactic duel, only for Lannes to break up the fight and tell them off because he needs both men for an upcoming battle. And that’s it!
No, really, that’s how the conflict ends, which is a bit disappointing to say the least, as I was hoping the two would still get an opportunity to fight later. Oh well...
I do like the scenes where Chauvelle (who is joined by Delombre, his close friend) investigates the conspiracy while staying in the besieged Genoa (Chauvelle was sent to Genoa to deliver a message to Masséna and it’s not the only time he does the delivery thing) but, like the introduction, those scenes end up being a bit too long at times and the bulky writing style doesn’t exactly help.
I did like the way the prologue was written at first, but I feel like it wasn’t that necessary as, ultimately, it doesn’t play into the main story as much as I hoped it would so I guess the book wouldn’t suffer if the prologue got removed completely.
That being said, I like several things: There’s no love triangle and the major female character isn’t a love interest. Sometimes the descriptions of battles are pretty good and the book doesn’t shy away from showing atrocities, blood, injuries and gore.
Also worth noting is the fact that a secondary character gets killed off and his death is final, which is something I appreciate in this context.
Unfortunately, the pacing here is the main buzzkill and there’s a bit of Thermidorian propaganda that implies Robespierre was a dictator who orchestrated the Terror. Which... not true.
4. The Characters
Antoine Chauvelle himself isn’t really my favorite. He has flaws, I’ll give him that, but I still find him a bit bland as a protagonist. I don’t know why, but I just cared about him less than I thought I would. I also kind of didn’t like that, after proving himself in one battle, he is quickly promoted to one of Lannes’s aides and entrusted with delivering a ton of valuable information... I think I would like Chauvelle to prove himself more before that. But he does get injured during the story so props for realism.
His sidekick in the story, Joseph Sarrut, is a different story. I like their “scoundrel and gentleman” dynamic and their interactions are heartwarming, like a buddy cop movie where the cops are already friends. Sarrut had a hard life, but he is not a bad person at all and is loyal to Chauvelle. I like that. Oh, and this is one of the few heroes with scars that I have seen in media so far, which deserves some credit as usually villains are the ones portrayed with scars.
As for the major female character, Claudine... I like her but I think her potential is kind of wasted. Probably justified as she is a sutler (or vivandière) but it still feels unfortunate because I would like to see more of her. I like that she is confident (relatively at least), wants to be independent and is genuinely kind.
Lannes here cusses a lot, has a temper but he can be reasonable and even friendly. After Chauvelle proves himself in battle, Lannes entrusts him with a few retconning missions and also with delivering several messages (which is the way the book explains how Chauvelle gets from place to place, @josefavomjaaga ).
(Spoilers ahead!)
Masséna is definitely his usual greedy self and he has a degree of vanity to him. He is also implied to be the person in the prologue who murdered the father of one of the conspirators and that... that came a bit out of the left field, but I guess it’s reason enough for that conspirator to want to discredit Masséna, even though it’s never outright confirmed who the killer was.
Eugene de Beauharnais is never mentioned. Sorry, @josefavomjaaga .
Napoleon is one of the minor characters and he definitely has his moments of anger but is also ambitious and apparently values lucky people. I don’t know how accurate his portrayal is though.
Murat gets a cameo during the battle of Marengo but you really have to play “Where’s Waldo” with the story to find him. Fortunately, he doesn’t seem to be a bumbling dummy so that’s nice. He is also brave in his cameo appearance so yeah. You may calm down, @joachimnapoleon .
Berthier, Bessières, Suchet and Desaix get cameos too, but the death of the latter doesn’t seem to affect Napoleon at all, so... that happened.
No, I’m serious, Naps isn’t seen reacting to Desaix’s death. I get that they aren’t the focus of the story but I would appreciate at least a mention? Because here it looks like Naps doesn’t give a shit.
I do appreciate the fact that multiple characters get credit for the outcome of the Battle of Marengo, by the way. Not just Desaix, but also Lannes, Murat, Victor, Kellerman... I like it.
Oh, and there’s a cameo from Larrey in a flashback. Which... nice but the flashback itself was random as fuck.
Fouché doesn’t appear but he is behind the conspiracy and he is naturally despicable! Yay! Seems to fit. Also the way he massacred people in Lyon isn’t glossed over.
5. The Setting
The style kind of didn’t let me fully enjoy them, but I think the settings aren’t bad, especially when it comes to the besieged city of Genoa, plague, famine and all.
However, the descriptions get too long and this is tiring.
6. The Writing
Ooh boy... I have complaints.
First of all, there are severe issues with editing. I know I have them too at times and I’m working on it, but you’d think an officially published book wouldn’t suffer from such problems. Nope, it definitely does!
For example, there’s a sentence “he severely” and I assume that the author skipped the word “said” in between because it’s in dialogue. What is this, a “fill in the gaps” exercise from English class?!
Second, there are no footnotes to explain what words in italics mean. How the fuck am I supposed to know what a voltigeur is without a footnote?! And that’s just one example of the problem. I know that readers are smart but I would rather not waste my time on googling because the author’s lazy ass didn’t bother with the explanations.
Last but not least, here’s the problem I saw in The Second Empress. The long flashbacks and descriptions completely break the immersion and get confusing as fuck.
I can write descriptions better than this and I would rather get them piece by piece in moderation than a wall of text, thank you very much. It’s like making chocolate chip cookies and dumping a whole bar of chocolate into the batter instead of using, well, chips incorporated evenly.
There are also anachronisms in the speech of the characters, like using the word “bastard” in its modern sense rather than a synonym of “illegitimate child”. And I’m not sure if f-bombs are anachronistic or not but I have the impression that they appeared a bit later?
But at least it’s from the third person’s prospective unlike Moran’s Napoleonic “masterpiece” that liked to play hot potato with first person chapters and multiple characters’ point of view.
7. The Cover
Here’s a point I don’t normally include as I don’t know jack about designing covers but good God is it fucking hard to read!
8. The Conclusion
As I said before, usually I don’t tackle historical accuracy so I can’t pass judgment on that.
However, I can say that the story drags on, waists a plot line and ultimately doesn’t deliver at all. Even I can do better and I have less experience with life, researching and writing than most authors of boring historical fiction.
Quick, someone, get me a deal so I can publish novels since it’s apparently alarmingly easy to churn out whatever the fuck I want!
(On a serious note, I definitely want to get published in the future and countering the bullshit in these bad novels is one of my reasons for writing. That, and I respect readers a bit to much to put up ridiculous shit.)
Anyway, I’d say the book isn’t worth your time and now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to look for good media to cleanse my palate. Hopefully you enjoyed the review and found it helpful, but I’m also curious about what @maggiec70 has to say.
Alright, on this note, let’s finishe our anniversary soirée.
Stay tuned for future updates, Neighbors, and stay safe.
Love,
- Citizen Green Pixel
#history#malmaison media salon#napoleonic literature#napoleonic art#napoleonic media#napoleon bonaparte#bitter glory 2015#literature review#dominique jean larrey#louis charles antoine desaix#joachim murat#jean lannes#andré masséna
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Evanescence’s Amy Lee shares her thoughts on working with Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale
“We love each other, and we get along”
Front-women Amy Lee and Lzzy Hale are no strangers to collaborating with each other, Amy Lee having guested on Halestorm’s ‘Reimagined’ EP on the emotional piano ballad ‘Break In.’
This time however, the duo are set to share the stage with one another on an autumn tour that’ll see two of the most hard-working and hard-rocking women in the metal industry perform alongside their respective bands.
Whilst being interviewed by Matt Pinfield on the last instalment of the “New and Approved” music series on 95.5 KLOS, Amy Lee delved into her friendship with the Pennsylvanian-based Lzzy Hale:
"It started with music. It worked out for us to go do some shows together. We hadn't met in person before signing up to do a tour together in 2012. And I remember we had some kind of joint press or meet-and-greet to do on that first day. And I went in there like, 'Hey,' before the fans came in. And we just clicked immediately. She's really humble and really down to earth. She doesn't take all the glory too seriously. She takes herself seriously and respects herself. She's just a really cool person.”
"We love each other, and we get along," Amy added. "We play hard and we work hard. So I'm very much looking forward to playing live music in general; but to be able to go back out for our first tour out with a whole group of people that we're friends with — the crew, the band, we love each other, all of us. So it's gonna be a really good time.”
Evanescence and Halestorm will be hitting the road on 5th November in the US, starting with a date in Portland, Oregon before making their way throughout the country.
Evanescence's career throughout the years:
1998: The band's inception
Singer and pianist Amy Lee and guitarist Ben Moody formed Evanescence in Arkansas back in 1995, after the pair met at a Christian youth camp. They chose the name Evanescence due to its meaning: "disappearance" or "fading away". The duo released their debut self-titled EP in 1998 and were later joined by friends John LeCompt, Rocky Gray and Will Boyd.
2003: Debut album 'Fallen'
After being signed by Wind-up Records in 2002, the band released their debut album 'Fallen' in 2003. To promote the album, Evanescence headlined the Nintendo Fusion tour in 2003. 'Fallen' spent a whopping 43 weeks in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 and was certified 7× Platinum in the US after selling more than 17 million copies worldwide. The album included hit singles 'Bring Me to Life', 'My Immortal', 'Going Under' and 'Everybody's Fool'. Mega hit 'Bring Me to Life', featuring guest vocals from Paul McCoy from the band 12 Stones, was an international success, reaching Number 5 on the American Billboard Hot 100 and hitting the top spot in the UK Chart.
2004: Grammy Award wins
The phenomenal success of 'Fallen' saw Evanescence win not one but two Grammy Awards in 2004. Their hit single 'Bring Me To Life' won Best Hard Rock Performance and the band won the award for Best New Artist.
2006: Line-up change and follow-up record
After parting ways with both Will Boyd and Ben Moody, Evanescence and the success of their Grammy wins, Evanescence went back into the studio to record their follow-up album. After 18 months of writing and producing, the band released 'Open Door' in 2006. The album featured singles 'Call Me When Your Sober', 'Lithium', 'Weight Of The World' and 'Sweet Sacrifice' and debuted at Number 1 on the Billboard 200. The album and single 'Call Me When You're Sober' have since achieve 2x Platinum and Platinum status in the US respectively.
2007-2009: Another line-up change
In 2007, The band announced that guitarist John LeCompt and drummer Rocky Gray had left. The duo went on to join founding Evanescence member Ben Moody to create the band We Are the Fallen. Evanescence brought in two members of Dark New Day, drummer Will Hunt and guitarist Troy McLawhorn to act as their replacements. Two years, later frontwoman Amy Lee announced that the band were going back into the studio to start writing their third, self-titled album.
2011: Third album release and worldwide tour
Due to delays with their record label, Evanescence weren't able to release their third album until 2011, five years after 'Open Door'. Not that it mattered, because 'Evanescence' debuted at Number 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and Number 4 on the UK Albums Chart and took the band on a year-long worldwide tour to promote the album.
2012: Hiatus and Amy Lee's solo project
Evanescence announced that they would be going on a hiatus in 2012, with Amy announcing in NME: "I haven't been sitting down to write. I'm thinking we'll take a break first. I'm really not sure what I'll do next. At the end of any really long tour you need to get your head in order. I think at the end of the run we'll go on a break for a while and figure things out.
"Taking long breaks is seen as a bad thing, but I don't think it's a bad thing. People have the idea that you have to keep putting stuff out while people remember you. But I'd rather make something that's awesome and then make people remember again. I hope it doesn't take five years, but I don't want to put a timeline on it either. We'll all be doing our own thing for a while. They're (my bandmates) very talented and they'll all be fine."
Amy Lee went on to release solo album 'Aftermath' in 2014, a soundtrack for Mark Jackson's film War Story. She said of the project: "It's not what you'd expect; there's a lot of blending of sounds, a lot of ominous tones. I play a lot of keyboard, and a lot of Taurus pedal. There's a lot of low drones."
2015: Reunion with intimate shows
Three years after going on a break, Evanescence ended their hiatus by hosting a three-night show at intimate venues in Nashville, Dallas and LA in November 2015. This was just before the band hopped on a plane to Japan to perform at Ozzy Osbourne's iconic festival Ozzfest, alongside Korn and Ozzy himself.
2015-2016: Another line-up change
In 2015, Evanescence underwent yet another line-up change after long-time guitarist Terry Balsamo, who originally replaced Ben Moody, decided to leave the band. His replacement was the German singer and guitarist, Jen Majura from the band, Equilibrium. Evanescense continued to tour throughout 2016, but focused on playing hits from their previous albums like 'My Immortal' and 'Going Under'.
2017: 'Synthesis'
Fourth record 'Synthesis' was released in November 2017. As well as featuring new material such as 'Imperfection', the album included reworked versions of the band's older works such as 'My Heart Is Broken', 'Lacrymosa' and 'Bring Me To Life'.
'Synthesis' peaked at Number 1 on four of the Billboard charts, including US Top Alternative Albums, US Top Classical Albums, US Top Rock Albums and US Independent Albums.
2018: 'Synthesis Tour' features a live orchestra
To promote the album, the band embarked on the 'Synthesis Live Tour' in October 2017. This 60-date worldwide tour was different from any other tour they had done before because it featured a live orchestra. The tour was co-headlined by violinist Lindsay Stirling who also featured on the band's single 'Hi-Lo'.
2020: Brand new music
In 2020, Evanescence released four new singles, 'Wasted On You', 'The Game Is Over', 'Yeah Right' and 'Use My Voice', which all appear on the band's fifth album, 'The Bitter Truth'. First announced in 2018, it was meant to be released in 2020, but had to be delayed due to the pandemic. 'The Bitter Truth' is not only the band's first album in three years, but also their first album with all-new material since 'Evanescence'.
2021: 'The Bitter Truth' is finally released
Evanescence released the fifth single, 'Better Without You', in early March ahead of the release of 'The Bitter Truth', which finally saw the light of day on 26th March 2021. The band is also set to be joining fellow rockers, Within Temptation this autumn for the 'Worlds Collide' European tour, which was postponed due to the pandemic.
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La playlist de l'émission de ce jeudi matin sur Radio Campus Bruxelles entre 6h30 et 9h : Mario Batkovic & Colin Stetson "Quis est quis" (Introspectio/Invada Records/2021) Kali Malone "Cast of Mind" (Cast of Mind/Hallow Ground/2018-2021) Colleen "I'll Read You a Story" (Colleen et les boîtes à musique/Leaf/2006) John Fahey "A Raga Called Pat - Part One" (Volume 6: Days Have Gone By/Takoma/1967) Aurélien Merle "Chic aux buissons" (Remerle/Le Saule/2015) Leonard Cohen "The Old Revolution" (Songs from a Room/Columbia/1969) Crescent "I'm Not Awake" (Resin Pockets/Geographic/2017) Chokebore "Days of Nothing" (A Taste for Bitters/Amphetamine Reptile Records/1996) Berthet-Le Junter "J'entends les avions" (Le Junter-Berthet/Vand’œuvre/1994) Silvia Tarozzi "Siedimi Accanto" (Mi specchio e rifletto/Unseen Worlds/2020) Rose Mercie "Les Glycines" (Cartelle Vol.1/Cartelle/2021) Des Airs "Aux bains municipaux" (Lunga Notte EP/Crammed Discs/1982) Metal Boys "Sweet Marylin" (7"/Rough Trade Records/1979) LES THUGS "Little Vera's Song" (Still Hungry Still Angry/Bondage Records/1989) La Jungle "The Invisible Child" (Past // Middle Age // Future/Rockerill Records - A Tant Rêver Du Roi - Black Basset Records/2019) Richard Pinhas-Heldon "Baader-Meinhof Blues" (Soutien à la RAF/Disjuncta-Souffle Continu/1975) Alpha Blondy "Brigadier Sabari (Opération Coup De Poing)" (Jah Glory/Wagram/1982) Animal Collective "Summertime Clothes" (Merriweather Post Pavilion/Domino Recording Company/2009) Larry Young "Khalid Of Space Part Two (Welcome)" (Lawrence of Newark/Perception Records/1973) Gilbert Bécaud & Jean-Claude Vannier "Monsieur Winter Go Home" (7"/EMI Records/1969) https://www.instagram.com/p/CbfCa34gYYc/?utm_medium=tumblr
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II. Solipsis
Summary: Rogers isn’t stupid. Quite the opposite, he’s incredibly perceptive and remarkably intelligent.
It doesn’t matter how you feel about him or how you feel about this situation; there’s only two weeks to let it go. Both of you must relinquish every individual sentiment to each other and obey the system or else the neural handshake collapses and you’re crushed inside a Kaiju’s maw.
A/N: Video reference for Greco-Roman Wrestling. Please do yourself a favor and imagine Steve Rogers owning your ass. 7.8k words.
Warnings: Language. Bucky angst. Tension.
Trinity Epoch Masterpost
You wake around 0500 and flip on the light—a jaundiced splash of color that makes your skin gleam sickeningly yellow. You shake your head, rub your eyes, and try not to linger on last night’s dream.
Lashing rain. A metal shriek. Your world bursting with red.
There’s movement outside the hall—appreciated distractions to rouse you from your thoughts. Footsteps, wheels on smooth concrete, muffled alarms, all sorts of noises clanging around together in the distance. Small comforts of familiarity; you remember how these facilities work.
There’s always something to improve in a Shatterdome. Data to analyze, parts to product and repair, training to be done. From the highest to the lowest position, every single bit needs to run tirelessly like a well-oiled machine.
You will need to as well. The war clock demands it.
You have a maximum of two months to be combat-ready, but you’re not pitching your hopes on that timeline; Kaiju have been known to emerge earlier than K-Science predicts. Rogers broke it down last night: evaluations and endurance building the first week. Sparring the next. Week three will intertwine both more intensely. Week four will be when you face him in front of Fury in the Kwoon Room—prove yourself well-suited to be his co-pilot.
And you had argued shouldn’t we do that earlier? If we’re already not compatible, why waste anyone’s time?
What would waste my time is you fighting me when you’re not ready and throwing the match. You agreed to this, so start acting like it.
Out of all the rattling noises you can hear, his phantom voice rings the loudest.
Drift compatibility doesn’t happen for just any Dick and Jane, and you’re betting on that—but let me tell you again, we’re compatible. Got it?
Fine. Fine. Fine. You’ll keep your thoughts to yourself, but they’re bitter thoughts, truths that he isn’t keen on facing. No, compatibility doesn’t happen for any Dick and Jane. It doesn’t happen much at all.
Most co-pilots are related or coupled for a reason. The potential for alignment is higher with these pairs because they’ve already established a personal connection and know how one another work. There’s history, trust, and something more. Something deep and intrinsic. Something that binds you until you die.
You used to joke that you and Natasha got lucky finding each other at Kodiak. Two misplaced orphans finally given a home in the shape of Decima Red’s Conn-Pod. It was metal and cold, but it was home, even if it was too brief.
Three minutes after waking and the dread has already settled in your gut like debris floating to the bottom of a lake— another layer on top of all that old sludge inside your body but there’s no time to ponder it. You have precisely one hour after breakfast to let your food settle before he joins you in the Combat Room. You brush your teeth and dress.
-
“Again.”
His voice cracks through the quiet space. Fury’s closed it down for today, keeping the session private. The staff in his right hand hovers above your shoulder before it retreats. From behind a wet curl of hair, you glare.
It’s 2015 and you’re back in Kodiak Island. Except this time, instead of sparring with Nat, Steve Rogers is there in all his effortless glory. Clean-shaven, jaw set, stoic, not a single hair out of place. Ruthless.
And it’s not like you’ve been slacking these past two years; you’ve been on army bases, worked on construction sites, did a short stint in security. You’re in shape and you remember how to fight.
But he is ruthless.
1300 and you’ve been whacked in the head, chest, thighs, ankles, back, and up and down both arms. You’ve gotten a few on him. Some good, most laughable. Only six more hours to go and you’re not sure if there will be lunch in-between.
At this point, you’re too tired to think about your burdensome conscience. Too tired to feel anything but tired. It must be a purposeful tactic from him because the less capable you are to think, the less you’ll worry, and the less you’ll feel inclined to dive into Victoria Harbor and swim yourself away.
“Is this your idea of a partnership?” You snarl when your side contracts in agony, an ache burrowing beneath your soaked shirt. You grasp the staff firmly, ignoring way the muscles of your wrists beg you to stop.
“This is my idea of an evaluation. Focus.” He says it calmly, like you’re supposed to be grateful. “You’ll be better for it tomorrow. In a month, you won’t even recognize yourself.”
Well, you’re not grateful.
“I’d rather not recognize you.”
His grip falters, features flashing amusement at your comment.
You momentarily ponder a few things: the pros and cons being insolent again on the second day when he’s liberally kicking your ass; that the last memorable thing you said to Steve Rogers was fuck you three times in a row; and suddenly, the way he looks with the corner of his mouth turned upward, lips slanting.
Moment over. You take the opening and the tip of your staff stops half an inch from his Adam’s apple, letting it bob up and down. Then, you press it gently to his throat. His lips part, jaw sliding forward incrementally with attitude and another emotion you can’t place.
“I’m hungry,” you assert.
He stops breathing and closes his mouth. When he opens it again, he takes a shallow breath and says, “Alright.”
Taking advantage of your surprise, he immediately seizes the same opportunity you took. His staff pushes against the side of your neck, the cool, smooth wood landing on the slope connecting to your shoulder. The slant of his mouth grows an inch wider. You gulp at the crescent shape of his eyes, bright with mirth.
“Hit the showers,” he says, passive again, “You have one hour for lunch.”
-
No such luck. Not even twenty minutes pass before someone else fucks up your day.
Across the table, a man sits down with his tray, smile wide and handsome. He’s been watching you from the corner of his eye for a few minutes now, probably wondering if he should come over. Other residents of the Shatterdome have been equally inquisitive, but none as bold.
“Saw you go into the fight room with the big guy. I’m surprised you’re alive.” His head tilts forward as he inspects you playfully, “I’m Sam Wilson.”
You remember your manners, no matter how exhausted you are, and extend your hand, “Good to meet you, Sam Wilson, but I’m not sure about being alive yet.”
An understanding laugh, “Can’t help noticing you’re new. Steve training you for something?”
You shrug, sidestepping his inquiry, “You a pilot?”
Sam Wilson is polite enough to follow your path. “Yeah. Avis Dominion—the flyest girl in the game—that’s me and Riley.”
You know of Avis Dominion. Maroon and silver, propulsion rockets attached to her ankles. She doesn’t fly, of course, but she’s lithe and graceful, the jets giving her quick bursts of speed. Avis has particle dispersal cannons on her back, firing plasma charged ion rails to wound and cauterize. She’s simply incredible, and Sam beams expectantly.
“Think I’ve heard of her,” you respond, lightened by his humor.
Suddenly, a pair of heavy bootsteps pulls your attention sideways. Not even twenty minutes and Rogers is marching forward, hands clenched in fists by his side, mouth pressed into a worried and thin line. Wilson doesn’t even have the chance to greet him before Rogers stops by your hunched-over form.
“He’s up.”
And the partly chewed bite in your mouth threatens to turn sour.
He’s up means he wants to talk to you. And you couldn’t have avoided it forever, but you fantasized that meeting James Barnes might be put off indefinitely.
He’d been in and out of consciousness since last night, lucid enough to speak and question his state, enough to raise hell when he looked down at his left side, and certainly enough to thrash himself open and bloody and needing to be sedated again.
You run your hand through your hair, grip it tightly for a second out of frustration, and finally rise. You’re an eloquent orator in a pinch, so, you groan.
“Fucking fuck me.”
-
Back at the table, Steve’s attention never leaves the way you uncomfortably walk down the hall. To his left, Sam’s leg bounces impatiently because Bucky’s injury still hasn’t been announced and CNN has called the facility every six hours since they landed post-battle. Everyone has questions and suspicions, and Sam’s last three minutes of snooping wasn’t enough to glean a clear answer.
“Steve, man—what is going on?”
Steve looks gravely back at Sam, watchfully inspecting his expression as he admits, “That was Decima Red’s former pilot.”
A beat passes. Sam blinks once, then twice, and then his eyes fly open.
“Decim—shit— Anchorage 2017? Natasha Romanoff?” Sam clamps his mouth shut, at a loss for words, outraged and impressed all at once.
Decima Red’s story is one of those tales Rangers pass around a campfire—or in their case, a boiler room. Natasha Romanoff was a stiletto dagger— elegant and lethal and blood red. She would show up to events like a goddess, always stunning and magnetic and she never took a bad picture. Sam met her once, at some award show where he had too much champagne and Riley asked him to kindly stop drooling on the pretty lady.
He’s never met her co-pilot until now and he’s not sure if anyone outside The Icebox has. Romanoff would laugh it off when reporters would ask. She’d say her partner’s camera shy and doesn’t like crowds. Then her long lashes would flutter, her sly smile glittering, and men would drop like Kaiju in the ocean.
She was extraordinarily skilled and beautiful.
So when Decima Red washed up as a devastated heap on Anchorage’s shore with only one pilot, no one thought it would be her partner who survived. Romanoff handled the right side, after all. She was the dominant one. The stronger one.
Sam shakes his head, “Steve, what the hell are you up to? Where the hell did you find her? How--”
The slew of queries slowly tapers out as Sam lights up in understanding. But it’s a joyless light and he shakes his head again, dismayed. “You’re recruiting her. She’s replacing Barnes.”
“Yeah,” Steve frowns deeply. The truth always sounds worse from an outsider’s point of view but he didn’t expect much else because it sounds bad in his head, too.
“He’s gonna hate her,” Sam mutters, cracking a joke because if Steve’s had to bring in a new Ranger, it means that Bucky’s more hurt than they’d thought. And the two of them? Closest co-pilots he’s ever had the pleasure to meet.
Their drift was immaculate. Absolutely seamless. As if they were brothers—as if they were twins. And that’s not even – look, Sam Wilson knows some twins. There’s a pair here in Hong Kong and even their connection is nothing like Steve and Bucky’s.
From the moment they step into their drivesuits to the very last blow they land in combat, you’d think they were one single person spliced into two like a damn science fiction novel. The simple sight of Rogers and Barnes walking into the Jaeger bay was uncanny and nearly an act of God. They moved the same. They breathed the same.
Sam knows what happened to Bucky, and what Steve must do in its aftermath, must be killing him.
-
James Barnes is upright in bed, sheets around his waist, right fist over his thigh. He hasn’t said anything or even looked at you yet and in the strained silence, you find yourself absurdly craving the fight room. At least you know what to expect in there.
Outside of his Ranger biography—which is public knowledge—you know nothing about him. Barnes is reserved on T.V. and in interviews. Having grown up with his co-pilot, their biographies are eerily similar, and so he rarely slips out from Rogers’ shadow and is rarely anything more than stoic. He smiles for the camera, sure—real big and pretty—but never quite true.
It unsettles you. Here sits some kind of modern-day Achilles, heel pierced and torn through-- still more powerful than you.
You shift your weight from one foot to the other when his eyes flicker over to your boots before darting to your face, a quiet breath leaves him. His left shoulder jerks and you look away, tense and apprehensive, not wanting to stare.
A few curious seconds pass before his right hand shakily rises to run through his hair. His fingers tremble as he pinches dark strands, jaw ticking, and you realize James Barnes just had that moment—that moment—when he catches himself trying to use his left arm.
And you know there will be many more of those.
“Jesus...” he mutters, breaking reticence with a venomous hiss, “Fuck!”
Your tired body takes the impact of his words like a car crash. The fight has fled your heart at the sight of him and you’re left regurgitating all those jumbled-up-worse words every Jaeger pilot vomits sooner or later:
You owe a debt. You need it paid. He can’t take it personally. This is neither about you nor him.
“Look,” you begin apologetically, “I didn’t— this wasn’t my idea.”
“I know that,” Barnes retorts, scrubbing his face with the heel of his palm, the skin of it scratching against his chin and jaw. He’s grown a bit of stubble, his usual smoothness replaced by a grey-green shadow. He props himself up with his right arm, legs swinging over the edge of the bed.
“Maybe you don’t think you can do this,” he snorts derisively, “But you better.”
His line of sight is fixed on the floor, right arm flexing with the pressure he exerts on the poor mattress and you watch the way his muscles ripple up into the shade of his sleeve. When he turns to you after a deep breath, his face—sharp cheeks and dignified brow; tall, straight nose bridge; strong jaw and his distinctly wide lips—is fatal.
“Personally, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about who gets into the robot as long as when your fucking feet hit the rig, you’re one-hundred-percent in.”
Barnes’ eyes are piercingly blue. They’re reflective like frosted gunmetal. Cold. Hard. He bares his teeth.
“If there is even one tiny bit of you that doesn’t believe you can, and in the middle of the drift you chase that rabbit, and you get him killed?” His mouth is a wide and devastating slant. “I will dig your corpse out of the Pacific Ocean--”
The door slams open with a crash. Rogers barrels inside with a cafeteria tray of food in hand. They stare at each other before Barnes shoots him an annoyed look and suddenly the threat from only seconds ago disappears with a blink of his silver-blue irises.
“You ruined my moment, Steve.” He states plainly, grabbing at the tray. He gives you a look— half of an amused quirk, tongue flicking at the point of his canines— and then tucks into the meal, moving the platter with his knee. You’re staggered.
It’s silent other than the sound of his chewing, rhythmic and carefree. He even folds a square bit of napkin inside the neck of his shirt to catch crumbs and you’re helplessly trying to reconcile that this is the same person who just promised you he’d find your dead body 10 thousand miles underwater.
The more time passes between his verbal gutting and his cheerful eating, the more your sympathy rots.
A pop of his blue Jello container opening and you snap.
“You know I just fucking got here, right? You—” your finger jabs accusingly at Rogers, “kicked my ass all day, and you—” your finger turns to Barnes, who stops slurping midway, “—sorry about your arm, that’s not my fucking fault—"
“Hey—” Rogers warns, stepping forward, hand out to derail the impending shouting match.
“No. Fuck you, Rogers.” He stumbles back with the force of your two-handed push on his chest, stunned at how quickly you leapt from the wall, “I agreed to it already, assholes. Maybe it’ll help your cause a little to not keep pissing off the other half of the fucking robot.”
And because you’re both incensed and starved from having lunch interrupted, you yank Barnes’ Jello from his shocked-slax grip and shake it into your mouth. A loud crinkle fills the otherwise silent room when you fiercely throw it into the trash bin and stomp off.
All the atmosphere gets eaten up by your temper. It’s silent like a black hole, nothing but the receding clomps of your irritation in the distance.
Bucky waits for your footsteps to pass before he begins to laugh, bright and astounded, quick puffs of air passing over his lips. He looks at his hand, still out in front of his chest, fingers curled around nothing. He looks at the trash bin by the door, plastic liner crumpled inward with the force of your arm.
He looks at Steve, standing with his hands uselessly by his side, an array of emotions passing over his face. He’d been calm—really, really calm—kept it pushed down and pacified, but it’s just the two of them now, and Steve looks like he could cry when he sees Bucky’s shoulder. He looks like he could level the Shatterdome.
“I’m fine.” Bucky says, rolling his eyes dramatically, humor gone. “Quit your blubbering.” He tilts his head towards the open door, “She’s tough, like you said.”
Decima Red’s pilot, the one who brought her skeleton back to Anchorage through a storm, of course she’d be. When Steve proposed it— explained it to him, practically wheeled out a chalkboard so Bucky could see his whole plan—Bucky was pissed. He’d just lost a fucking arm, after all. And now he was losing his fucking robot.
But he slept on it, thought about it some, knew Steve was right.
He trusted Steve. Always have, always will. Whoever Steve decided on needed to be more than just tough. Steve needed reliability. Conviction.
They needed to match that Rogers persistence. Stubborn. Smart. Torn open by guilt and walking around with the world on their shoulders as if it’s their burden alone.
Yeah. It’s perfect.
Bucky looks at the blue specks of Jello clinging to his fingertips and sighs, “You’re gonna have to break her.”
Steve nods. He knows.
-
Time blurs as routine gives way to monotony.
Your sanity is precariously tethered to lunches and dinners between psych evals and full-body exams. In the two weeks you’ve been here, maybe there’s been one rest day. You hoard what comfort you can from the time you limp from the fight room to the second your back hits the mattress to the bedside alarm blaring.
Ephemeral relief also trickles in by way of conversations with other inhabitants of the facility.
The rest of Hong Kong’s STRIKE team take to your presence well enough. Co-pilots Wilson and Riley; the Maximoff twins, Wanda and Pietro; cousins from Wakanda, Erik and T’Challa; Odinson brothers, Thor and Loki.
They’re supportive and encouraging, but certainly not naïve. They keep their distance, the entire thing like a caged animal they can view, but not interact with wholly. You’re here as James Barnes’ tentative replacement, still just a prospect before anyone can entertain the idea of becoming attached to you.
Not to mention, you’re a deserter. Fucked off from the Ranger life and went off the grid. Most co-pilots died together—which was the honorable thing to do—and the rare few who are unlucky enough to survive at least come back to their Shatterdomes to continue their righteous work. You understand why they’re guarded.
Sam Wilson is the one person most willing to ignore all that, it seems. He hunts you down in the dining hall, finds you on morning runs, is kind and easy-going. He grabs an extra tray when you’re hobbling into lunch and plays basketball with you when you’re well enough to amble around the court.
He keeps you grounded with reminders: Rogers is a hard ass, but look—past that, he’s just a dude, you know? Trying his best to keep it all together—and there’s a lot to keep. Shit… you seen this place. I couldn’t do it.
The whole world wants to suck his dick, Wilson. You too?
Appreciate you, but man’s not my type. But hey, I’m just sayin’—maybe the world’s onto something.
You get a laugh, and you get to complain to at least one sympathetic ear about how Rogers seems adamant on turning you into a blood bag, or how Barnes is gleefully spectating, or how Fury is willfully ignorant. You get at least one person in your corner when Rogers yells at you for mouthing off—for fighting him in a wrong way—again.
You wish you were jogging the perimeter with Sam now, but this morning there’s only persistent torture.
Apparently today is, once again, exclusively about kicking your ass.
The rules are: no kicks, no punches, nothing below the waist. Traditional wrestling only, which means your hands can barely get halfway around him before he takes you to the mat effortlessly.
All morning you’ve been pinned. Shoulders and waist constantly under his palms, flipped sideways and upside down. His reach is longer. His hold is stronger.
Barnes stands against the wall, shoulder in a sling, observing with amusement. Sometimes he clucks his tongue. Other times he smirks. He walks in and out like he’s at the movies. Fucker.
You cuss when you land on the mat for the hundredth time. The wet smear of your forehead glistens when you roll over, clutching your side. You’d woken up this morning feeling alright, taking to heart some of Sam’s advice, attempting to be understanding a little more each day, but with the way this session’s going, you’re headed for a backslide.
Your legs are shaking. Too hot all over even with your pants rolled up and shirt knotted at your hip. You plant your feet stubbornly, pacing around Rogers. A touch too soon, a weave too late. He slams you on the floor.
“This is—fuck!” you scream, “—a fucking unbalanced fight, Rogers!”
“I know,” he responds from above you, a single bead of sweat collecting on his placid brow. He gets up, yanking you along, and watches you try again.
Two seconds pass before he’s hooked, biceps locking beneath your chest, spinning you through the air, and coming down hard on top of your back. Another crash into the mat, another muffled scream of pure, helpless rage.
You’ve had it. It’s been hours of his domination and your humiliation. You’re done with wrestling and done with him. Your knees and hips dig into the plastic, fury stoking the fight, fully intending on throwing him off but he shifts immediately. His chest presses into your spine, thigh flexed diagonal over both of yours.
“Don’t.” He says, shallow breaths heavy over the top of your head.
“Get off me, asshole! You’re too fucking big to wrestle with—I’m not Barnes!”
Rogers only grunts and bears down until you’re motionless and gasping beneath him. The air is hot, too hot. Scorching waves roll from your body, between his chest and your back, scalding with heat and embarrassment.
Your cheek drives into the plastic, burning with submission. Early stinging of pre-emptive tears prickles your eyes as frustration comes to a head, seizing your body and mind, and you feel up to your throat in despair. Anger makes you want to thrash but weakness makes you obedient. There’s nothing to be done but clench your fists and bite it back, swallow the tears, chew your lip bloody.
He is too big and too strong and too overpowering.
It was different wrestling with Natasha; you were closer in size and well-matched. It was a good recreation of what Kaiju combat may be if ranged weapons were to fail. She’d be the Kaiju, you the Jaeger. Then you’d switch. It felt like preparation.
This doesn’t. This feels like a setup for failure. This feels like a lesson.
And suddenly, you shut your eyes. God damn him. God damn him. God damn him.
Allowing insight to cool your temper, you stop resisting and go slack. Your fists unclench, head dropping to lay on your sweat-slick forearm. Surrender vibrates through your chest, tremors undulating to the rhythm of his breathing.
You’ve figured it out.
Rogers lets off some pressure and you can finally take a good breath. Slowly, he moves. His weight carries to one side of his torso, then his knees and he rocks off you, rising.
His hand splays over your shoulder blade, thumb pushing gently against the back of your neck before he hoists you up by the collarbone. It’s a delicate grasp as opposed to his previous ones. Calloused finger pads avoid the bruising on your shoulder from old hits.
Barnes looks on as his hand curls over your bicep, melting around the shape of your muscles, vice-like but merciful. The heat of your body becomes indistinguishable from his as he props you securely.
“You understand?” He asks gently, “Why it’s an unbalanced fight?”
His brow furrows, earnest blue eyes respectfully apologetic, searching yours for acknowledgement and perhaps forgiveness. You press your lips together tightly.
Of course you do.
He’s breaking you piece by piece until you’re malleable and pliant, willing to surrender your ego and give yourself over to a force much larger than your personal reality. You haven’t vocalized rebellion since the second day, and many days have passed, but it’s obvious how you struggle against the current.
Rogers isn’t stupid. Quite the opposite, he’s incredibly perceptive and remarkably intelligent.
It doesn’t matter how you feel about him or how you feel about this situation; there’s only two weeks to let it go. You can’t hold onto your pride, your resentment, or your reservations about any of it in the con-pod, and you can’t have one single fleeting thought about failure.
Both of you must relinquish every individual sentiment to each other and obey the system or else the neural handshake collapses and you’re crushed inside a Kaiju’s maw.
Barnes was right: you’re either one hundred percent in, or you’ll get him killed. So in today’s simulation, no, you’re not the Jaeger and Rogers isn’t the Kaiju.
He is the drift. It’s equal parts cruel and effective.
Today’s session is a reminder. When you fight the drift, it will take you down hard and fast, there’s no changing that. Only in silence will it support you, and only in silence will it keep you alive.
“Do you understand?” He says again, in a whisper. His lips are parted, turned down solemnly. “You can’t push back. Do you understand?”
Sam Wilson’s petition for Steve Rogers’ character echoes.
He’s just a dude. Trying his best to keep it all together. And there’s a lot to keep.
You manage a nod despite the aching throb of your skull. Shame crawls up your arms, erupting beneath the clutch of his fist. You nod. You’ve learned your lesson. Of course you understand.
-
After that, everything seem to flatten itself out. You heed Sam’s words, bitterness chipping away in the patient flow of Rogers’ direction until it becomes smooth like a time-worn pebble. You no longer fight the slipstream of your situation and rather become more mindful of his labor-- more appreciative.
You can either be a fatalist and fixate on how much you’d rather not be here, or, like he said, you can get on board.
If Barnes is a modern-day Achilles, Rogers might as well be the Hercules. Some radiant demi-god tasked with backbreaking labours in the form of beast-slaying. Unlike Hercules though, he’s all mortal, burdened even worse with mortal toils.
You might as well not be yet another thing that gets him killed in the end. It’d be further hell on your conscience and Barnes would personally scalp you, anyway.
So you iron out your attitude and grow friendly, and on a Thursday morning, he shows up with his hands tucked into his pockets. Barnes is to his side, matching in posture, his new prosthetic arm gleaming black and gold.
“Ready?”
They walk in conjunction. Left foot, right foot, hips following a perfect cadence.
His blonde head turns back at you with an expectant grin, “You excited?”
A snort, “You’ve dangled it in front of me for weeks. What do you want to hear, huh?”
There’s no offense in your words, only a hint of mischief because you’ve discovered the joy taunting him brings. Amusement in the form of riling him up because he’s surprisingly easy to rile, because there’s many ways to do it, and because you’re a damn fast learner.
Steve Rogers might be athletic and quick, but he’s terrible at guarding his legs. It makes his cheeks flush when you repeatedly strike his thighs and even more so when Barnes cackles from the corner. It’s infinitely better than any entertainment you can buy.
He gets you back, though, biding his time until your jogs, then laps you twice to keep you humble. The best kinds of friendships are built off torment, besides. You’re hopeful.
“I’m not convinced you’re excited,” he sings now, stopping abruptly so that you bump into his back with a grunt of surprise.
Barnes smirks, “He gets you every time. It’s sad.” Cheeky bastards, but they pick up the pace again, threading through the hallways.
They’re finally taking you on a proper tour of the Shatterdome. Four weeks and you still need a map to get around. They’ve kept you from wandering, kept others from being your guide, kept you on your fucking toes because they’re absolute little shits.
It’s friendship.
The first stop is the enormous Jaeger hangar.
Stretching on and back, it’s a mess of moving parts and electricity. Cranes up and down, engineers and workers in constant motion. They walk you across the main bridge of the perimeter, taking leisurely steps to let you catch your dazed breath and absorb the view.
The anticipation was clever provocation on his part, created in jest, but the sight of it now in front of you feels like a kick to the teeth. Your teasing demeanor drops.
The Mark-3’s are beautiful despite their conditions. Scratched and dented, wind-bleached in places, but all gorgeous and exclusively equipped to best fit their Rangers. Titanium cores, angel wings, plasma casters. Assault mount sting-blades, K-Stunner warheads, sentry treads. The list of features running on and on and on.
Unique traits for unique pilots.
Pain strikes your heart.
Decima’s Crocus-9 reactor core was uranium powered and instead of angel wings or blades, she had extendable plasma batons. You and Natasha amputated six Kaiju with them. A 1700-ton ballerina, she was created to fit your partnership’s style— brutal but dexterous. The fight was always good in Decima—always, always, good.
You’ll never have that with Orion. You’ll never have that with Rogers.
In the distance, voices shout and echo over gears and metal joints. Forklifts whirr and beep, personnel scrambling like dedicated worker ants.
Two years without Decima and Natasha. Over seven hundred days and each one felt too long, stretched, infinite, miserable. Waking up was just another twenty-four hours to bury like how you buried Nat. But now, here you stand—returned to the front of the continued Jaeger Program that’s moved on without her, and the last two years comes to crush you in a tidal wave all at once.
You feel powerless, distraughtly wishing you were back in your Jaeger. You wish you were stronger than you are— wish you could take on the tidal wave.
“Hey,” Barnes calls, urging you forward his perceptive, sharp eyes. “Stay with us.”
You quell the hurt and keep up.
At the end of the ramp, Tony Stark teeters on a crane. His face is covered by a thick iron mask and he’s welding something tiny on Orion Bravo’s left flank. Over the banging machinery and screeching blades of metal on metal, he yells, “Good to finally meet you, kid!”
You don’t get a chance to holler back.
“Gotta say, Decima was one of my personal favorites,” and you flinch.
Nobody notices. Life moves on. Tony Stark does so even faster.
“Still damn proud of her after all these years! I know exactly where she is in Oblivion Bay—if this—” he gestures vaguely to the three of you on the walkway, “—doesn’t work out, let me know and I can go get your girl. Sure, her chest’s all ripped out—” he motions to his pecs, and you recoil each time his blowtorch sizzles past, “—and I’d be breaking my back to get those pieces right— but hey, a little boob job isn’t gonna hurt anyone. If you ask me, people could use more of ‘em!”
You’re speechless. You finally meet the Tony Stark—the genius mind behind every single Jaeger. His endless vat of brilliance designed them, breathed them to life, equipped and armed them, made them perfect, and— boob job?
“What?” You whisper, feeling your entire body drain of warmth.
Rogers tucks his chin to his chest in an attempt to hide his smile. Barnes speaks up, dismantling the silence of your shock with strategic and considerate intention. He snorts a clipped sound at Stark and says simply, “He’s on speed. Don’t listen to him.”
Life is moving on all around you in rushes of sound and color. The noises of the Jaeger hangar blare in your ears. The blues of Barnes and Rogers’ eyes flash like lighthouse beams and you feel yourself ebb and flow in the current of time, like a buoy floating toward the shore, and suddenly— strangely— you realize you’re laughing.
They share looks before grinning themselves. You wipe the corners of your eyes with a final smirk and run your hands through your hair.
-
He was right: you hardly recognize yourself. Monotony has come and pass and now you find comfort in the routine. You’re stronger, too, hitting harder and moving faster, matching his tempo and technique. You parry his every punch, slip from his grasp, deflect his force with your skill.
There’s louder talk in the Shatterdome the closer you get to proving day. Your presence no longer feels uncertain.
“Stop dicking around, Steve.”
Barnes is leaning against the wall, watching the way Rogers pads around you like a panther. Two long strides and the heavy staff comes down an inch away from your forehead. He spins it in one hand like a drumstick, kicking his legs leisurely as if you’re no threat at all.
“Point,” Barnes comments. He’s acting as judge today, another perspective on the potential of compatibility. The Kwoon Room’s got your name on it next to a time slot, the official fight scheduled for tomorrow when you’ll be proving yourself in front of a crowd.
Rogers backs up with a chuckle, goes right too carefully, and you land on his thigh in retaliation. The smack sounds like it hurts. A few feet away, the Maximoff twins pause their sparring to look over in amusement.
“Point.”
A huff, he hisses between his teeth at the sting. “This how you wanna play?”
A return whack on your arm rings out before you can respond- much harder than you hit him originally. It burns. Steve fucking Rogers. Oh, you wanna play.
“Point. Hey, careful.”
You slap his bicep with your staff and it leaves a red welt on his skin.
“Watch it. You’re gonna mark each other up.”
He returns it to your lower back and you hit him next in the same spot. His mouth opens indignantly, but Barnes has had enough of childishness, coming up behind him and yanking the back of his head. Quick as a whip, he kicks Rogers’ knees out and picks up the weapon, aiming it at you menacingly.
His arm glimmers like a warning beacon.
“Drop it, sweetheart.” And you grin.
Sweetheart. Barnes only says it when he’s feeling fully annoyed, which, both you and Rogers are particularly good at making him. If drift compatibility could be determined by how much two people can piss off another one, Orion would be looking at a new pilot right the fuck now.
You put both hands up in the air in mock surrender and he rolls your staff away with his foot. Rogers is on his back, chuckling and rubbing the back of his knees.
“Isn’t it obvious the two of you are suited?” Wanda speaks up from the corner.
Pietro stands by her side, fists wrapped in bandages on his hips. “Three of you, truly.”
“It’s just formality,” Rogers replies to Wanda, “Fury wants what he wants.”
“What Fury wants is for the two of you to get in the robot.”
From the shadows, because he’s a dramatic son of a bitch, the marshal steps forward. You immediately fix your posture, pulling Rogers up by the hand until he stretches himself tall next to you.
“I’ve seen what I needed to see.” The marshal looks you up and down, standing stiffly next to your awaiting co-pilot. “An estimated three weeks before the next breach and time is of the essence, Rangers.” He pulls his wrist from his sleeve and taps on the leather watch rhythmically, not bothering to give any of you another glance as he sweeps himself from the room.
“Hangar. Suit up five minutes ago.”
In his wake, your harried expression says it all: I’m not ready—I don’t think can. Your eyes frantically find them, emotions spiraling out of control, panicked and shaken. There is a logic to formality—you’re still working yourself up for the fight. You were supposed to have more time to prepare for the next part. Twelve hours or not, that’s still time.
But you’re being thrown into the cockpit now.
They compose themselves for your sake, all hints of levity gone. There’s determination and severity in their expressions.
In unison, because they know each other in ways you don’t yet, because they’ve been in each other’s heads, two pairs of controlled blue reply: You can. You must.
-
Rogers stares at your chin in the Drivesuit room, both stripped down to your underwear. His muscles are sweat-slick, dappled rose with exertion as the two of you shove your limbs into new skin until you’re encased in black circuitry. Technicians zip the first layer up, then retreat to other cabinets with haste.
Your hands are balled into fists, mouth set grimly as you fight the urge to scream or crumble. It’s been two years since you’ve been in battle armor. Even worse, it’s been two years since you’ve been in someone else’s head.
The polycarbonate shell gets snapped on. The spinal clamp sinks its hooks in.
He steps forward, geared up in matching polished white. The technicians nod and leave the two of you to privacy knowing that in just a few moments there will be none left; the entire hangar will be an audience.
“Hey,” he calls, voice low and rigid, “You’ve done this before—you know how it works. It’s just a test run. No rabbits. No modesty reflex. Got it?”
The biggest setback to the neural handshake—besides chasing rabbits—mistakes made by rookies and greener Rangers, are what PPDC psychologists call the “modesty reflex”. It’s the instinctive shielding of personal information during a drift, cluttering your thoughts with barriers to keep someone out, and the exact thing that will shut down any chance of alignment.
Simply put, it’s about sex.
“You just eye-fucked me in there. I think we’re past modesty.” A useless attempt at a joke to soothe your rattled mind. Sex is the lowest on the totem pole of things you give a fuck about in the drift. There’s nothing Rogers could learn about you that he likely hasn’t ever thought or experienced for himself. You’re both adults. Sex is merely biology.
He takes the helmets off their stands, holding one to you. Your fingers curl underneath and press tightly into the molding to keep themselves from shaking.
“It’s Tasha,” you whisper with a tremble, “I’ll find her in the drift. And—”
The admission makes him swallow, thick and nervous. You mean to say, and you’ll find Barnes.
It’s a trauma that’s been seared into his brain—a cruel truth to air—but it’s true all the same. The worry is that once you see Nat, he’ll see Barnes, and you’re afraid that after all this time avoiding her memory, you won’t be able to let her go again. Your weakness will dislodge his focus, ruin the drift, tear apart the alignment. Tear yourself apart along with it.
You’re afraid.
He’s still holding onto the other side of your helmet. His grip is tighter and firmer, and it keeps you steady enough.
“You can’t chase her,” he urges, “But if you do, I’ll come find you.”
He sounds sure, and you nod for both your sakes.
-
A hundred people stand in wait, hands on their hips in anticipation as Steve enters the cockpit with you by his side. Sparse clapping begins behind the glass. Engineers, flight crew, technicians, Rangers. Bucky is next to the LOCCENT officer, Shuri, at her monitors, watching electrical impulse levels rise and fall.
He’s spent all month with you, mentoring in some ways, giving space in others. He meant it on that god-awful hospital bed—get Steve killed and Bucky’s wrath would move heaven and earth to wreak vengeance. Steven Grant Rogers, his whole life being Bucky’s responsibility, now placed into two hands that are not his.
He looks at his left arm, the Stark-made prosthetic leering up at him like an excruciating reminder. Not his. Not his. He looks to the blue screen, projecting lines of data. Two bodies slowly arranging into one. One similar, one—not his.
He wants to trust you. He’s learning to trust you. Bucky squeezes his eyes shut and grits his teeth.
-
The rig locks in place. Feet, shoulders, arms, backs. It’s comforting and jarring, facing the flickering projections of the heads-up display, seeing the skeleton of Orion Bravo so similar yet so alien from Decima’s. You don’t dare look to your right, don’t dare think about Nat’s face over his.
You miss her, god damn it, you miss her. A panicked breath. A low, quiet, whine you hardly register as yourself.
Shuri’s voice comes over the speaker. Her usual cheery tone has been replaced with firmer speech, all business, “Orion, are you ready?”
Rogers mouths calm down and punches the corresponding buttons. He gives you a nod and you return it in good faith. Calm down.
“Initiating Neural Handshake in three—” Shuri activates the system, “—two—” Electricity shoots up your spinal column.
The first rip of immersion is searing hot and freezing cold. You try to remind yourself you’ve done this before, that you know what to expect. It’s been done—yes—and it’s been done well.
Trust the drift. The drift is silence.
Your thoughts subdue as the first tendrils of Steve’s consciousness bleed into yours in the form of red-bricked alleyway and summertime. There’s a sweet breeze rushing over your face before time slows and the seconds stretch into years.
A silver bicycle. His feet on the metal pegs. Barnes, plump-faced and pink-nosed from sunshine, grinning and whooping. Seven and eight. On top off the world. “—two—“
Past and present cease to exist. You’re in the sun, too. They’re older now. Thirteen, fourteen. Bruised from street fighting, sharing popsicles as both a treat and an icepack.
All at once, it comes.
Art school, army, academy. Graduation, first drift, first drop. Barnes by his side every step of the way. They laugh, they cry. Flashes too highspeed to be wholly memory, but you feel it flooding and soaking your brain. You feel it like intuition. It burns. It chills. It’s gone. “—two—”
His hands become your hands. His body, your body. He’s swimming in your every thought. A flash of crimson streaks through your line of vision. You impulsively turn to face it. “—one—”
Hey! Let it go. It’s your voice and his voice blended. You listen, flinching at the abrupt sound, knee-jerk reactions firing off, fear beginning to chew at the center of your brain, spreading out slow and thick.
Don’t chase the rabbit. “—one—”
A figure appears at your side, tall and quiet. He’s half torn open, red like Nat, with big, ghostly irises peering down and you hear yourself calling his name:
Bucky?
Don’t! Steve demands, don’t look, please. I can’t— I can’t either. You quiet your pounding heart at his pleading, forcing the image from your mind.
Trust the drift.
Steve continues to sink in like a palm running from the edge of your temple to the back of your skull, tugging your head toward the blue sky of his eyes. It feels like his hand— it feels like your hand. Your body lifts, weightless, secured only by a single hold. He’s everywhere, inside your muscles, your pulse, your heartbeat, like he’s been a part of you your entire life. Like the way Natasha used to feel, he’s vivid and alive, thoroughly woven through.
Okay?
The two of you look each other without looking at each other. A nod of his head— your head— vaguely registered as real movements.
Shuri returns both of you to time’s fixed pace. Her voice lifts the trance.
“—Neural Handshake complete.”
Steve’s right arm moves forward. Yours continues the motion. Orion brandishes its shield in salute.
The drift is silent, but the entire facility has erupted into cheers.
-
“Yes! It’s good!” Shuri exclaims from her seat. A loud exhale followed by victorious punches at the air and she can’t help grinning so big her face begins to ache.
She looks over at Bucky, standing with a smile, both proud and pained, and places a gentle palm on his shoulder.
“Yeah,” he says calmly, eyes still shut. “It’s good.”
#marvel#pacific rim#steve rogers x reader#bucky barnes x reader#mcu#fanfiction#steve rogers#bucky barnes
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#17
things i imagined
kyungsoo/sehun, pg-13, 8000+ words
sehun is really proud of having more than two lines (and kyungsoo is too)
(sorting through my old computer, i found this gem i started way back in 2015, after the promotions of ‘love me right’. i don’t write fics anymore, which is kind of sad and somehow inevitable given the very different life i’m living right now, but it was so heartwarming to reminisce about all the beautiful times i spent loving sesoo and writing and this fandom... i thought i’d share it with you. so here it goes, in all it’s raw, unfinished, un-proof read glory, a draft from something that could have been a whole novel. at the end, there’s a long note i wrote to myself how the story would turn out)
The manager hyungs tell him the exact same thing that Baekhyun's been saying all along. "I feel it, I feel it sooo deep in my heart that you're going to slay the next comeback. You're going to have more than two lines, you'll see," is what Baekhyun said, but it left Sehun feeling nothing else but a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. He is perfectly aware of his incapabilities of singing, and he has so much to improve both dancing and rapping wise, he knows that, yet the cold fact that he has pretty much nothing to work with makes him grim and gloomy.
That is why, on a sunny Thursday morning, when all the members are gathered in one of the practice rooms with Jongin dancing to himself in one of the corners, he lacks the feeling of any kind of excitement. The lyrics are about to be handed to them - some of the parts he's heard, mostly Yixing's, when he was singing in the shower, but he has no idea what's about to come right to him. Maybe Baekhyun's right, and he's going to have more than 6 seconds to prove his talent, but that seems too beautiful to be true. God, Sehun, get yourself together, he thinks. Jongdae pokes him in the waist then, staring into his soul like he's looking at his only child. Oh, Sehun often forgets that his face is like a mirror to anything that's going on in his head.
"Why so down?" Jongdae says to him, his frizzly poodle hair crowning his head almost perfectly. Sehun sometimes feels jealous, because Jongdae is one of the very best vocalists in SM, even if he's not as smooth as Kyungsoo.
Kyungsoo. Well, if Sehun could be anyone for a day he sure would be Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo the brave, the manly, the one with the silky voice. He would sing like an angel and more. He would be smiley, and nice, and very delicate and soft. Because – and Kyungsoo would hit him if he heard that – this is what Kyungsoo is. And Sehun wants that, even if just a little bit, to feel that kind of power in his voice, to feel small and cute and down to earth at the same time.
Sometimes Sehun forgets Kyungsoo is human. He is, after all, but Sehun likes to think that Kyungsoo is an alien, because only an alien could be so inhumanly impeccable all the time.
Chanyeol would oppose to that, surely, but Chanyeol is not someone Kyungsoo would want near 24/7. Who Kyungsoo wants near is Jongin, and Minseok, and Joonmyeon. He wants near Jongdae and Yixing and sometimes Baekhyun and very rarely Chanyeol. But he does not want Sehun, and the thought cuts down right to his core where it hurts the most to leave him bleeding out all cold and lonely.
I'm horrible, Sehun thinks, to view hyung's distance that way when obviously he has reasons, but Sehun can't help himself. Can't help himself now when Tao is gone to LA and Lu Han is in China. The distance is too much, yet feels nowhere as far as Kyungsoo is to him.
"And Sehun," the manager says, and Sehun snaps out of his reverie. He takes his paper and bows. From the corner of his eyes he sees Kyungsoo smiling, bright, but it's not aimed at Sehun. Never at him.
Baekhyun was right - as much as Sehun didn't believe it, he got a whole of two more lines to work with, and Chanyeol comes up congratulating him grinning, patting the small of his back.
"You've worked hard for this," Baekhyun says, and Sehun feels grateful, and strong, and invincible. Almost like Kyungsoo.
Jongin laughs at him, then, saying he needs to improve his english even more, but Sehun pays no attention to him. All he cares about is the plus two lines he got and this brilliant opportunity to show himself and everyone else how great he actually is.
After practice and reading through the lines to the new song and mini album, 'Love Me Right', Sehun stays back at the washroom. He dismisses Junmyeon with a slight wave of the hand when Junmyeon tries to coerce him back to the dorms.
"I'm good hyung, don't worry," Sehun says to him when Junmyeon looks too adamant about staying in with him. "Just need a bit of fresh air."
"Alright," Junmyeon says hesitantly and slowly turns to leave. His face is all soft lines and little curves. He is beautiful and sings just right, and-- god, there it goes again, the awful feeling of not being enough screwing a hole right to the middle of Sehun's heart.
There are times that you feel not quite comfortable in your body, Sehun knows, and he's been through those days, months, even years, but still, the defeating sense of being worthless stings five times more than anything. Being worthless means being unwanted, and even though Sehun is familiar with the feeling, he hasn't been exposed to that kind of emotion in a long time.
It hurts. There is no physical pain, but it hurts just as much as having your throat cut right open. It itches. Lingers. Then you bleed out.
I'm pathetic – is what he thinks next. The water from the faucet has been running for a good ten minutes now. He sinks his hands under it, watches the drops falling apart somewhere between his knuckles. It's akin to the way he feels his own heart breaking right now.
He hears the door clicking open, and someone steps in. Sehun almost spins around to say something not so very nice, but when he registers Kyungsoo standing by the entrance, his back plastered to the closed door, he looses all his words.
Looking at Kyungsoo now is almost as bad as having his heart laying around in tiny little pieces. Kyungsoo the brave, the great, the smooth voiced, the awesome. He really is awesome, and also so far away. It makes Sehun feel a hundred times worse.
He splashes his face with cold water, his fingertips going numb pretty fast. Oh, how he wishes his feelings could go numb just as simple as that. He turns off the faucet, stares at himself in the mirror. Kyungsoo is still there, with his back to the door. He hasn't moved an inch. It makes Sehun feel bad for him, because Sehun hasn't been particularly nice. He turns to say something, something cheerful, something that would make him feel empty inside, like, "I'm alright. I was just feeling hot," or, "I'm feeling okay." All of them would be a lie.
"I'm proud of you, Sehun-ah."
Kyungsoo says that. Just when Sehun thinks about a truth to tell that would not be as judging or hurting, Kyungsoo simply says that. Smoothly. Sincerely. Like he has his whole heart behind it.
"There is no need to pity me, hyung," Sehun says, and it's true, although it doesn't entirely feels right on the tounge. Sehun isn't the type to make a big fuss, he's just loud and sometimes overhyped and childish, but he's never the one to start a fight. The simple thought of having a quarrel with someone makes him nauseous throughout his body.
"Why would I pity you," Kyungsoo takes a step forward. There is only about a meter between them but it feels like a whole ocean. "When you are so talented? I only pity your limited opportunities."
Sehun goes quiet after that, just stares at the little bow above Kyungsoo's lips. He has a pretty mouth, and a pretty voice, with a pretty face. A pretty, petite body. Nice muscles. Sehun has none of that, and something self-destructive tries to tentatively climb its way up his throat. Sehun tones it down with a shallow smile, but the way Kyungsoo leans towards him indicates that Sehun doesn't have to hide anything from him.
He doesn't realise how long they stand there, wordlessly, Kyungsoo boring holes into his soul with his eyes. Sehun would feel self-conscious if it wasn't for the fact that he's practically empty inside.
"Um, alright," Sehun speaks up after what feels like an eternity. He starts for the door, to where Kyungsoo is standing. His back isn't pushed against the frame anymore, but Sehun still senses his presence there when he goes to click the door open. "Let's go back to the dorm."
Kyungsoo just stands there, staring at him. Sehun stills his hand on the doorknob. Kyungsoo looks majestic, even while shifting his weight from one leg to another. The eeriness of Kyungsoo's being makes him kind of calm, but doesn't fill in the empty cracks in his soul.
Sehun then suddenly realises; this is the way Kyungsoo gives comfort. Sehun knows Kyungsoo isn't really good with words, because he has his feelings too complicated to say out loud. Kyungsoo shows affection with body language and slight brushes on the arm, the fingers, the knees. Kyungsoo is good at praising but never comforting. Kyungsoo is not an alien. Kyungsoo is a boy with dark eyebrows and a rich dip above his lips that Sehun will never have.
Kyungsoo reaches out to him. The moment his hand spills out wide on Sehun's back is the moment when the empty space inside him slowly starts to fuel up with untamed longing, the kind that you cannot foresee or outrun. It's just a feeling there, at the back of your heart, pulsing all vibrant and bright until it dies out in your throat.
Sehun reminds himself it's Kyungsoo. His bandmate. Ex-roommate. Brother. Friend. Someone Sehun could never...
He doesn't finish the thought. He doesn't dare to. Instead, he shies away from the touch.
Kyungsoo isn't taken aback. Kyungsoo doesn't usually have his reactions excessive - he is always collected, meanwhile Sehun is falling apart.
"Okay," Kyungsoo says, waits until Sehun opens the door and emerges. As Sehun watches him walking afore, the longing kicks back with full force.
When did he become so infatuated? Kyungsoo has been there with him pretty much from the very beginning, the trainee days when Sehun was almost the same height as him, when they were still little kids with only dreams in their pockets. Kyungsoo knows every aspect of him, but Sehun doesn't know half of Kyungsoo's heart. How did Kyungsoo make him so defenseless?
Maybe he was whipped from the start. Maybe it was when Kyungsoo walked in with his arms fasted close to his side, glasses high up on his nose. Maybe it was years later, around debut, when Kyungsoo first let Sehun really into the hall of his heart, but never opened more rooms for him. Or maybe, just maybe – it was the way Kyungsoo's hands stilled over his back mere fifteen minutes ago.
---
Sleep doesn't come easy that evening. He still remembers the warmth of Kyungsoo's palm on his back, the longing that the touch awoke - the fact that this simple genuine act of kindness affects him so much keeps him twisting and turning throughout the night.
Junmyeon is fast asleep on the other side of the room. There is not much light, only a faint blue ray of moon shines in through the cracks of the blinds and paints Junmyeon's hair grey on end. Sehun takes the image in, thinks, if Junmyeon were to stay with him in the washroom, would have he felt the same longing that washed over him without warning? Would Junmyeon's touch on his back make him feel not as empty as much?
Maybe it's just about his attachment to his hyungs – after all, they've been through so much, ups and downs, awards, tears, angriness – that he feels this connected. They are close. All of them.
So why does a touch of Kyungsoo make him this needy? Years ago, this touch would have meant nothing – or, at least, nothing that it means now. It would mean "I'm here for you", or, "There's no need to be sad". It wouldn't mean "I want you so much".
He shivers at that thought. He doesn't really want Kyungsoo, does he? Yes, Kyungsoo is small, and kind, and soft, but Kyungsoo is Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo is his bandmate. Ex-roommate. Brother. Friend. Someone Sehun could never...
There's this thought again, scratching the back of his mind all tireless. It leaves Sehun unarmed and a sudden tiredness washes over him, the weight of the world pressing his eyelids closed. These confusing feelings are draining him of energy and if he doesn't sleep now, yesterday's dance practice will hurt like hell.
He wills himself to sleep at half past three, staring at Junmyeon's hair painted all various greys.
---
Promotions for Love Me Right are cut short - it's mostly because of individual schedules and the remaining stops of their Asian concert tour. Sehun doesn't really have anything to do - one photoshoot here, an other there, but mainly, there's nothing in his line up.
"They ain't no giving you schedules because they don't want to," Jongdae says to him one particular night out with the beagle-line. "It's because the company has a lot of controversies going on."
Sehun rolls his eyes at that. He wishes Jongdae could stop defending this shitty regime SM built up. He doesn't tell him how SM cut short Super Junior's promotions as well, doesn't argue him about f(x) being neglected, or SHINee unpaid, even though he would like to oppose.
Jongdae is not the right person to have a quarrell with. He is bold and loud, words sprouting out his mouth like fire yet inside he's mellow and delicate. It's all contradictions; Jongdae sees only good, but his words are sharp, even if his heart is made out of butterflies and fine china.
"Um, let's not talk about this," Baekhyun says, but Sehun has enough of not communicating about their problems. This is the exact thing that happened when Kris, then Lu Han and Tao left, it's the same thing that is happening now. Sehun has enough of not talking. He wants to, but doesn't quite know how when all his members want to talk about is patbingsu, and the thought eats him away. He's long lost his appetite, but Chanyeol is still shoving fat dumplings down his throat.
By the time the patbingsu arrives, Sehun collects his courage enough to say, "I think we need to speak more often. About... Our... Problems."
He feels three pairs of eyes boring holes right into him, but doesn't dare to look up. He knows what they'll look like anyways; having their mouth open, paralysed, a dumb expression gracing all of their faces. Sehun knows talking isn't one of his characteristics per se, but there are things that need to be said. Even if it hurts.
He wonders if Kyungsoo felt exactly like this, the other day back in the washroom when he had his narrow little back pushed against the door. He wonders if Kyungsoo struggled to say those words out, just like Sehun was struggling right now, if he had the same whirlwind of thoughts creeping to the back of his head. He wonders if it's anything more than it already is; if it was something Kyungsoo had on his mind all day long, and the thought spreads a warm tingling sensation throughout his chest.
"Well... Let's talk then," Jongdae says. He has ice cream running down his chin, and for a split moment Sehun wants to reach out and wipe it away, wants to see if touching Jongdae feels the same as swiping a hand down Kyungsoo's arm.
"Yeah, let's talk," says Chanyeol, nodding, "It's true we haven't really had a conversation about... things."
Sehun tries to speak, tries to say something relevant, something meaningful, but every jumbled word of his gets stuck halfway between two mouthfuls of shaved ice. This is an opportunity to open up, as if he wasn't open enough, and now, goddamn, there's no sound coming out of his mouth. He thinks, why am I being like this, when he was the one to start up this conversation and they could talk for real this time, and, god, there is nothing he can say.
Baekhyun notices he's struggling. Baekhyun, on regular, notices a lot of things; he's observing, everything and everyone to the point where he realises individual gestures of feelings. He especially notices Sehun, lately, and it makes Sehun feel safe, like he has someone to lean on when the day is hard and heavy, the two of them sitting quietly at the back of the van, not really talking but still, Baekhyun's caresses are speaking to him. A light stroke on the hand means, "you are not alone," and two fingers circulating Sehun's wrist says, "you can tell me anything". Baekhyun can communicate well with both words and body, and that is something Sehun lacks. Too. Sehun lacks a lot of things. A strange feeling floods him all blue to his toes and he shoves the patbingsu away.
"Sehun-ah, we know it's been hard on you," Baekhyun says then, not looking at Sehun but watching his abandoned patbingsu instead. "The other members leaving does not mean we will leave you too."
Damn, Baekhyun observed Sehun too much. The cold truth of his feelings being said out loud by somebody else feels like a rock hard punch to the stomach. His hands are shaking, so he hides them under the table, never really looking Baekhyun in the eye.
"Is that why you're so down lately, Sehun-ah? I noticed you shying away the other day after practice. We're here for you, you know?" Jongdae says. His voice is smooth and rich like honey. It's another punch right to Sehun's core.
"Yes," Sehun says. He could tell them about Kyungsoo, and Kyungsoo's hand, and his narrow petite back, but chooses not to. They do not need to know that.
"Don't be sad, Sehun-ah. Smile instead," is all Chanyeol says. It's unlikely of him, to talk this little, but Sehun knows the three ex-members leaving has made all of them sad in different ways.
"I'm not sad anymore," says Sehun, and for the first time that night, he smiles. It's a real smile, and it comes forceless and easy, even though the feeling of blue still stings at his sides.
The car ride back is happy, Baekhyun and Jongdae singing along to crappy songs on the radio and Chanyeol beatboxing for them, but inside the dorm, locked in his room, Sehun cannot find his peace.
Sehun catches himself wondering too much lately – wondering about his worth, abilities, opportunities, chances he had missed, chances he had taken. Thinks about the times when training for being a part of an SM boyband was enough for him, when feeling like he belongs was his only desire. Remembers the the long afternoons spent in various practice rooms with boys just like him, scrawny kids who haven’t grown into their own skin yet, didn’t even know how to. All they knew was what they wanted – being stars, dancers, singers, maybe a bit of all three. But did they know what they needed?
Junmyeon groans in his sleep across the room. Sehun looks in his general direction, but doesn’t see much – just stares into black nothingness, but imagines Junmyeon fast asleep with his knees drawn close to his chest, his hair crowning his head like a halo on his five hundred thousand won pillow. Wonders if sleep came to Junmyeon easy this night, if he dreams in colour, about things he wants to do, about things he loves.
Wonders if Kyungsoo wonders as much as he does on sleepless nights when his bones and muscles are dense from too much dancing, stomach too full from after-practice dinner. Wonders, what if Kyungsoo is only nice to him out of pity, even though he said he doesn’t pity him; what if Kyungsoo is not particularly kind just to him, if he’s nice to anyone else, anyone other than Sehun, only he didn’t notice it, and the thought itself sends an ugly, deep, coiling feeling to his guts. He turns, away from Joonmyeon’s direction, stares at the plain greyness of the cold wall.
When he finally falls asleep, there’s a strange sense of guilt etched under his skin. It still stings in the morning.
---
The filming of Pure Love begins in June, summer heat too scolding hot to bear. Kyungsoo goes swinging between their concert tour and shooting, with very limited time on his hands to spend some quality “alone-ness” in the dorm. The absence of Kyungsoo’s being makes Sehun put his head under cold water, seeking a kind of strange comfort in anything he can find; an evening out with Jongdae, an afternoon spent with Jongin and his dogs, a brunch shared with Joonmyeon, but none of them truly makes him feel any better. The past few months of indescribable, unpredicted heartbreak and gloominess spent in agony and wondering about that particular day at the practice room cannot just go away with few laughters. Not even with a true, hearty one, one that Sehun tries to entertain throughout June, when Kyungsoo is away most of the time.
The TV is on with Chanyeol’s face in the jungle on it when Kyungsoo comes home late at night, on a Sunday almost-morning. Sehun is somewhere between letting his eyes closing in shut and forcing them open, but the minute Kyungsoo steps in the living room, he’s wide awake. Every nestle Kyungsoo makes sounds ten times louder now with everyone gone to their respective rooms, only Sehun lounging around on the couch at this ungodly hour. Tomorrow they have practice for their concert, and Joonmyeon has been alarming him of it throughout the evening, but sleep hasn’t again come easy to Sehun this week, leaving him switching through channels all restless.
Kyungsoo’s tired, is the first thing Sehun notices. He puts his keys on the hanger swiftly, but the next moment he comes stumbling across the room, one thing Kyungsoo rarely does. Clumsiness is not an adjective of many to describe Kyungsoo, Sehun knows, and when Kyungsoo hits the pillow next to him, Sehun doesn’t think twice about circling his hands around his waist.
“Rough day?” Sehun asks, voice low, calm. Chanyeol’s face flashes on the screen.
“Just long,” Kyungsoo answers. “Had a lot of scenes today.”
His body has a sheen of sweet summer sweat all over it. Sehun collects them with his thumb as he swipes it over in circles on the back of Kyungsoo’s hand. “Maybe you should skip practice tomorrow.”
Kyungsoo’s eyes are fixed on the TV screen but his gaze is unfocused. Sehun wonders if he only sees colours and abstract shapes. “No, I’ll go,” Kyungsoo says, in return, a few heartbeats later. The sweat on Kyungsoo’s hand is slowly starting to dry, and Sehun stops drawing loops on his palm.
“Maybe you should go to sleep then,” is what Sehun says next. Kyungsoo looks down at their hands, almost intertwined. When Sehun starts to circle his thumb around Kyungsoo’s palm again, Kyungsoo stretches his fingers for Sehun’s to meet in the middle. It almost burns, the faint touch of Kyungsoo’s skin on Sehun’s, but it’s soft, almost like a feather. Almost like it isn’t there.
It’s a pure movement, lacking any kind of ulterior motive or menace, needing no response. Yet still, the undeniable force of wanting to put their hands together strikes Sehun with dispatch, something he cannot foresee, something that is impossible to outrun.
But want and incidence does not necessarily align. Kyungsoo’s hand is gone. He stands, starts for the bathroom. Sehun looks at him from across, the light in the hallway illuminating Kyungsoo’s sun-kissed skin that practically glows under white-ish led lights, and Sehun can’t help but think about ways to let Kyungsoo know that he wants his hand over his a little longer, a little more. By the door, Kyungsoo says, face slightly turned back to look at Sehun, “You should go to sleep too.”
“Okay, hyung,” Sehun says, but dwells there for a moment or two. Maybe Kyungsoo is just a really good friend with really beautiful skin, and a majestic voice, and deep brown eyes.
Sehun can’t really pinpoint out what brings him to follow Kyungsoo into the bathroom – need… want? –, yet he’s there, arm slightly pushing against the doorframe in a try-hard nonchalant way. Kyungsoo is too tired to take notice of him or even acknowledge his presence with a mere humm as he takes off his shirt.
Suddenly there’s not enough air for Sehun to breathe in, the walls turning in on him too soon, too fast. Kyungsoo is just standing there, right by the shower as he waits for the water to cool down, and with a facile move, one blink of an eye, he’s in, completely naked.
It’s not like they haven’t seen each other naked before. In fact, Sehun has seen the entire band in their natural state, especially Baekhyun, who doesn’t care about what anyone thinks. Oh, how Sehun wishes he was anything like Baekhyun. But he’s not. Instead, he’s standing in the bathroom, Kyungsoo about an arm and a full ocean away, in all of his naked sun-kissed wet glory, and he feels like a fool. How did he get here, exactly, again?
The shower stall opens. Cold air gushes all over Sehun’s body. “Are you getting in or not?” Kyungsoo says. Like it’s nothing.
Maybe it really is nothing. Maybe they’re really just nothing, and this moment of vulnerability as Sehun stands there, wordlessly taking his clothes off, is barely just a dream of feverish thoughts.
The water is cool enough to keep Sehun standing on both of his feet. Kyungsoo puts shower gel on a sponge, traces his skin with it over and over again. Sehun watches him, without a sound, because he doesn’t know what else to do. To be clear, he doesn’t know anything, not even lately. All he knows is Kyungsoo’s skin is beautiful and glowing and tan. He’s nothing like Sehun.
Kyungsoo turns to him then, offers him the sponge. It’s still wet and soapy, and Sehun can practically smell his own desperation over the scent of coconut shower gel. He finds himself mulling about the muscles on Kyungsoo’s back as he turns, reaching up for shampoo, the muscles that he has never seen before. How long has this been happening? How did Sehun not notice? And why does the simple thought of Kyungsoo being close to him send him into overdrive?
By the time he’s soaped himself up, Kyungsoo is out, a baby blue towel fastened low around his waist. Sehun has little to no time to comprehend the deficit of Kyungsoo’s body heat. Everything is happening so quick, like a sketchy dream, in a non-linear realm of disjointed occurrents. Sehun feels like he’s out of his body and mind, and Kyungsoo’s gone again, only a few patches of water left of him on the bathroom floor.
---
Sehun knows something is changing. Or, as Baekhyun says on a lovely, mildly hot August summer evening out on the roof of their apartment, stuffing their faces with ordered bulgoggi, “something has already been changed”.
“What do you mean?” Sehun says, mouth full of spicy rice cake. He very well knows what Baekhyun means, but it’s too soon to admit that. He’d rather play blind, like he’s been playing for who knows how long.
“You very well know what I mean,” Baekhyun says, pointedly. Sehun hates how he sees through a lot of things. Even more now, when he sees right through him. “Kyungsoo. And you. Or should I put it this way; your feelings for Kyungsoo?”
Sehun is compelled, at first, to say something opposing like “What, no,” or “Haha, you’re kidding me,” but nothing comes to his mind. It’s only blank, his heart, with a little vibrato at the base of his lungs and at the top of his stomach, sizzling with little heat and a nervous trembling. Somehow the half full bowl of bulgoggi seems disgusting right now, but he has no strength to push it away. An after-image of the practice room door and Kyungsoo’s tiny back pushed against it comes to him, accompanied by a ghost of Kyungsoo’s fingers against his flashes right before his eyes, clear, unabashed, unchanged. Then there’s the feeling: the feeling of not being good enough and being too much, too loud, too forgettable makes his heart sink, just a little, right where his stomach is pulsing with unkindness. Baekhyun sees right through him, but when has he ever not?
Baekhyun reaches out, takes the bulgoggi of Sehun’s hands, puts it on the ground. The sky is simmering in blues both pale and deep dark, underlined with a kind of warmness of the setting sun, painted in low oranges and yellows at the bottom. It’s only after he’s sitting fast and close next to Sehun, his hands around his shoulder when he says, “You’ve been out of focus lately… If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”
The closeness of Baekhyun is not unpleasant, but it’s nothing compared to Kyungsoo’s body heat hitting Sehun in the chest warm and kind and fast. Sehun feels like choking up, because, even if he tries not to, somehow he grew too fond of Kyungsoo and his many talents; his voice, his cooking, his body…
If Sehun could shout right now he would, he would let out a shriek so sharp it would almost represent his bleeding heart. Baekhyun senses his discomfort, so he pulls him closer, so close Sehun’s head fits under his perfect little chin. Baekhyun is as easy to hug as he is easy to love, something Sehun can’t identify with. An ugly bubble of jealousy boils up inside him, and now he’s full of colours, all sad blues and yellows of envy.
If he doesn’t speak now he’s going to burst, so he does what he has to do; at least this he knows, so he says, quietly, “Why does everything have to be so confusing and hard?”
Baekhyun’s hands are still around him, holding him in place so Sehun doesn’t completely fall apart. Sehun appreciates Baekhyun’s sensible nature, but somehow thinks nothing, not even Baekhyun’s emphatic solacement could ever take away these blues.
“That’s just life,” Baekhyun’s voice is soft. “It happens to everyone, every now and then.”
Sehun breaks away from Baekhyun to look him in the eye. “Does everyone feel this worthless as I do?”
“Having ups and downs sometimes is human,” Baekhyun responds. There’s a chill breeze swiping past them the moment these words roll off his tongue and Sehun feels helpless. “Not being able to comprehend our worth is human. Hell, some people never get to know their real worth. Having someone you like, and maybe falling in love with them, and maybe loving them unconditionally and getting nothing in return is human. Loving someone of… the same sex is okay. Even if your parents say otherwise. Even if society says otherwise. And I hope you know, Oh Sehun, that I love you. And I want the best for you. And I also want you to know that having complicated feelings is okay. Everybody has. Everybody has to, at some point in their life, face hardships. But we will pull you through. We are almost brothers, remember?”
A moment of silence passes between them. Sehun is trying to make sense out of Baekhyun’s words, even though Baekhyun has been clear from the very start. Damn, Baekhyun is really good at unfolding the deepest, darkest pits of Sehun’s irregularly beating heart, but Sehun does not yet know what Baekhyun’s words mean to him. Is he really– in love? With Kyungsoo hyung? Kyungsoo hyung, who cooks for him at midnight, who accompanies him to movies no other wants to watch with him; Kyungsoo hyung, who not only has a voice, but has the looks, the strength, the passion, the heart? Kyungsoo doesn’t usually have his heart out on his sleeves, at least, not like Sehun has his right now, laid out bare and raw in front of Baekhyun to touch. Because Baekhyun, out of all people, is now seeing it; the rush of sadness that escapes Sehun in form of tears, hot and wet down the side of his cheeks. He’s crying, in relief or grief, in realisation or deny he doesn’t know; all he knows is he’s crying, on the goddamn roof, his bulgoggi growing cold on the ground, with Baekhyun’s arms around him in a consoling manner.
There are times when Sehun is too lost, too deep in his thoughts to listen to anything that’s said to him. But this time he does, he really, truly listens, but Baekhyun’s words he cannot comprehend – yet. So he just cries, soundless, his broad shoulders shaking as he tries to wipe away tears that had been trying to break out ever since on that unfaithful day at the practice room.
“Good,” says Baekhyun, hand coming up to Sehun’s nape to linger a little bit. “We, I think, need to embrace sadness as well as we embrace happiness. Cry it out, Sehun-ah.”
So he cries and cries.
---
They say, after the rain comes the sun, and for Sehun it might just happen. The experience shared with Baekhyun on the roof with cold bulgoggi and mildly dark-yellow setting Sun and a lot of crying made Sehun feel ten times lighter in the chest. In some strange way, letting his emotions out in form of tears provided as a moderate temporary solution for an aching heart, even if Sehun was always sceptical of this form of pain-relief: he usually laughed away his tears with either too much dance or too many food, but this time around, crying his tiny heart out served him good, leaving him feeling a lot fresher in the morning. Not even the burnt toast Joonmyeon made him as a lame excuse of a breakfast took away his smile as he sat at the table, poking Jongin in the ribs with his index finger till Jongin had enough, pushing at him in revenge, and when it’s time for dance practice later, at around ten o’clock, nothing seems to make him feel down.
Until Kyungsoo appears. Because he does, he dares to show up in a slick black training suit, his hair a muzzled nest on the top of his head, with all of his brownish glowing skin, and Sehun suddenly feels a stone drop in his stomach, deep and low and hurting.
The uneasy feeling stays throughout dance practice. However hard he tries, he just simply can’t bear to look away from Kyungsoo’s reflection in the mirror, and the longing that has been keeping him up at night for the past several months makes him unable to coherently rehearse his lines, leaving him feeling all kind of different blues again.
Practice lets out at three in the afternoon, and everybody is up for lunch. Sehun doesn’t really have an appetite right now, seeing as how well Kyungsoo gets along with either Chanyeol or Jongin or Joonmyeon. Sehun sticks with Jongdae, sits close to him in the booth at their favourite diner with Kyungsoo across him.
Jongdae tells him bad jokes as Sehun watches Kyungsoo’s hand slide along Jongin’s shoulder, laughing at a very funny thing Chanyeol just said. Sehun couldn’t care less, he thinks, and turns back to Jongdae to feign a smile at another bad joke of his, the kind that only Baekhyun appreciates, but damn, halfway along the tenth shaggy dog story Baekhyun tells Jongdae, Sehun’s attention wanders back to the other side of the table. Apparently he cares, and wonders if Kyungsoo cares about him too the way he does about him. Wonders if that night in the shower meant the same to him as it did to Sehun. Oh wait, he doesn’t even know what it meant, or if it means anything at all. Questions he cannot yet answer flood his mind and the lightness he felt in the morning now seems so far away, even farther than Kyungsoo feels a few feet away to his upper right, laughing in a kind of joy Sehun can’t possibly share.
Above a table full of food and light chatter on both sides, Sehun still ponders, thinks about the times when his feelings were left unchanged and discerning happenings in life seemed easy and quick. Now, all he has is a depot of amphigoric thoughts and a confused heart and Kyungsoo is still sitting over at the table in his pretty tracksuit and pretty face and Sehun can’t think about anything else.
Somewhere between a bite of galbi and yet another fart joke from Baekhyun, Sehun’s fingertips start to tickle on end. Kyungsoo has reached over the table for a side dish, but missed and took Sehun’s hand instead. Sehun’s mouth goes dry as sand as Kyungsoo smiles at his own foolishness, and gives a light pat on Sehun’s hand before reaching over for kimchi. The chopsticks in Sehun’s hand are starting to slide off, and Sehun decides to collect himself. He won’t let the knot in his stomach stop him from eating all this delicious food, so he starts stuffing his face with various meats, korean barbeque first and foremost. Yixing laughs at him, says, “Sehun-ah, you’ll choke on your food, eat slowly,” but what Yixing doesn’t understand is, if Sehun stops forcing huge bites down his throat, he might as well suffocate from the knot in it.
“Sehun-ah has been working very hard lately,” Kyungsoo says. “He needs to eat well.”
“True that, but he’s eating like a machine,” says Baekhyun, puts a hand over Sehun’s shoulders mid-bite. “Sehun-ah, you’ve been showing us your many talents this past comeback, you shouldn’t kill yourself with too much barbeque. Right, Kyungsoo?”
It’s a huge bite that gets stuck in his throat and makes Sehun gag, Sehun would like to think, not Baekhyun’s rather smart remark to Kyungsoo. Baekhyun just smirks at him and Sehun thinks he wants to put his hands over his neck and just simply squeeze him to death, but that would be inappropriate in a diner Joonmyeon loves. And Sehun loves Joonmyeon, so he wouldn’t dare to make all of them get banned from here, so he sticks for killing Baekhyun mentally, maybe later on the roof of their dorm.
“Told ya you would suffocate considering the amount of unchewed meat you shoved down your face,” Jongdae laughs and Chanyeol snickers with him, clapping his hands together.
“Thanks for the reminder, hyung,” Sehun says in reply. Kyungsoo is just smiling at him, warm, kind, a heart-shaped smile Sehun could never erase from his memories, because the imprint would be always there. This, he determines, would he like to remember later, and not Jongdae’s unfunny jokes.
---
Staying in means wearing no clothes whatsoever while the others are out at their favourite bowling place. Sehun likes to call it ‘Hours’ with a capital H, indicating that it’s his very own, very special time he gets to spend by himself and himself only. Sometimes he likes to go out with the band, just to see the wrinkles of worry dissolve from Joonmyeon’s otherwise wrinkless face. They would go out and play games, mainly bowling, with Jongdae shouting over both Baekhyun’s and Chanyeol’s voice as Yixing sits behind them, snickering about something Joonmyeon just said to the others that has no effect on the shouting whatsoever. Jongin would lounge in one of the seats, popcorn all over his shirt, his hands, his mouth. And Kyungsoo – Kyungsoo would stand beside them, hands crossed on his chest, lips stretching far out into a wide smile at the others. Sehun does not know if he’s ready for yet another emotionally tumultuous day with either the Beagle-line or Kyungsoo, so he chooses to stay in, telling Minseok that it’s only because of tiredness.
Partly it’s true. He’s genuinely tired from all the photoshoots and commercials and concerts and music programs, but he’s also tired from a completely different aspect, something he only could ever share briefly with Baekhyun. Good old Baekhyun… if only he could lift the weight off Sehun’s chest so Sehun could breathe properly again and not with restrain or guilt or pain or tears.
Sehun doesn’t know how long he can stand this—this feeling, this sense of overwhelming thoughts, the feeling of not being good enough, of not being good of anything, of not being… Of not being enough. Simply. Truly. At all. Not for the band. Not for his parents. Not for the world. Not for Kyungsoo.
Is there a way to wipe my head clear of these thoughts?, he thinks to himself as he rolls over in bed to his other side. Or is he stuck in this blue nothingness forever with little to nothing to hold onto; not a single joy in life. Even food doesn’t taste the same as back then, back when he experienced happiness with the same intensity as he experiences these blue days of fog and self-loathing and question marks inside his head. There is, a possible way out, of course, is what he thinks the next minute, but the sadness comes back, kicking the front door to his heart open and leaving it torn into pieces without any kind of consolation; is that how it’s going to be always? For eternity? How does a person feel so low about themselves for this long – for months, not only a few weeks, but months, long months, on end and on end an on end. Without stopping. No rest to the sad heart. No rest to the sad mind, either.
He sits up straight, stares out the window. Summer is ending soon, trees that have been blossoming in green slowly turning into a harsh palette of browns and oranges. Everything around Sehun changes, but Sehun’s confusing feelings stay the same, the same as ever. Undiscernible. Hurting. As if someone took a knife and put it between Sehun’s ribs right through his skin and meat to the middle of his heart and left it bleeding. Nothing changes there.
Maybe it’s really all just tiredness. Work has been cruel, to be honest, this past year, especially on his body. He knows he’s losing weight. And he also knows it’s not the main reason.
It’s… and it’s hard to even think to himself, let alone to say it out loud, it’s because of Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo the beautiful, brave, the amazing, the muscular, the toned, the one with The Lips. The Voice. With everything Sehun doesn’t have. But what Sehun doesn’t especially have is, and what he’ll never could possess has nothing to do with how Kyungsoo looks. Or how Kyungsoo sings. Because those things can be changed; those things can be learned. What can’t be learned is how to have someone who’s heart is not reserved for you. Who’s not thinking of you the same way as you think of them. Who can’t, no matter how hard he tries, reciprocate those feelings for you. Because a person is a person; and not a thing to learn, or to change. A person has a mind of their own. And Sehun can’t possibly have that. Can’t have Kyungsoo when Kyungsoo doesn’t want him.
He glances outside then. There’s a tree, a single tree in the street, right at the front of their apartment block. Birds usually sit there and chirp all day long if the weather is nice enough. The sun is shining today, but there are no birds on the tree. Not one. It makes Sehun feel even worse, as if the simple knowing that today he is alone because he’s unable to engage in normal human contact on any levels wasn’t enough.
Maybe if he stared at the tree enough, some birds would come fly there and sit and chirp. But Sehun is no magician; he can’t make things go the way he wants. He can’t cast spells.
The front door is unlocked. Sehun hears it clicking open. He takes a look at the clock; it’s only half past six. The guys usually come home around one a.m., slightly drunk, irritably loud. It’s still too early for that.
He cranes his neck to take a peak through the open door – he’s almost scared how fast he recognises the footsteps coming in through the hall. Sehun just simply cannot know it by the sounds. Kyungsoo sticks his head in then, leans against the frame of the door. “Hey. Joonmyeon said you’d be home.”
“I am,” is what Sehun answers. He doesn’t know what else to say.
“Didn’t want to leave you all alone here, by yourself,” Kyungsoo says, closes the door behind him. It closes obnoxiously loud. “Can I sit with you?”
“Sure,” Sehun says, trying really hard to sound nonchalant, or at least not as wrecked as he feels. Kyungsoo sits next to him, clothed thighs slightly brushing up against Sehun’s naked ones. Sehun is now awfully aware of his own nakedness; he only has his super high gymshorts on, the bright blue one that Chanyeol always mocks him for having. He suddenly realises he feels exposed and it makes him shrink away from Kyungsoo, if even only by a few millimetres. Some sort of awkward silence takes a seat in between them, the kind that makes you fidget restlessly. Sehun often doesn’t know what to say; neither does Kyungsoo – but even in that aspect, there’s a gap between them; a gap in which Sehun is on one end, being the one who doesn’t know what to say – and Kyungsoo on the other, who knows what to, yet doesn’t know how. Sehun wishes he’d know what to, but wouldn’t be able to say – even in that way Kyungsoo is someone he looks up to. It’s hard. It’s hard to know your flaws and live with them, especially if those flaws are what restrain you from living your life to the fullest. And Sehun always wants the best. Always wants things he doesn’t have. What he cannot have.
“Sehun-ah, don’t frown this much,” Kyungsoo says then, makes Sehun whip his head towards him. Kyungsoo is dressed in full black, and he looks sleek, breathtaking even. How Sehun wishes he could peel away the black layers and reach beneath Kyungsoo’s skin to take a grip at his heart the same way Kyungsoo is squeezing Sehun’s right now. How he wishes he could do that, but he can’t, and shouldn’t, because Kyungsoo is his friend, brother, bandmate, ex-roommate… everything and nothing to him all at once.
Kyungsoo too, is looking at him right now, all deep brown eyes and dark eyebrows knocking together in a questionable way, like he’s thinking too hard about something.
“What?” Sehun asks. It comes out weak and breathless. He pulls his knees up higher on the bed so he can lay a hand around them, as if hiding from Kyungsoo, even though he very well knows he can’t.
“Wow, I just,” Kyungsoo says, looking down and away, pushing a hand through his hair. It’s cut short and even, laying perfectly onto his sun-kissed bronze skin on the sides. “I just realised something. Something I shouldn’t exactly be feeling… and yet…”
Deep breath and exhale. All the things Sehun thought he wanted to say are completely gone. In fact, all of his thoughts are far away. He says, with struggle, “What did you just realise, hyung?”
There’s a drop of sweat rolling down Kyungsoo’s nape, straight from his hairline disappearing into his loose black t-shirt. Summer has come to an end, as had Sehun’s thoughts just moments ago, and here he is now, following the trail Kyungsoo’s sweat makes all the way down his neck. It’s tempting to reach out and collect it with his fingers, brushing away the wetness and leaving traces of a tender touch on Kyungsoo’s skin.
“Something I don’t exactly understand… Nor am sure about,” Kyungsoo says. There is no trembling in his voice, no hesitance. He’s saying it like it’s a fact, like it’s easy to talk about such things, when Sehun perfectly knows it’s not Kyungsoo’s best feature. “And I’m not exactly sure about how could this thing… my realisation… affect you.”
Sehun’s heart beats like crazy. “Well… if you just told me, hyung… Maybe we could see the outcome.”
Kyungsoo turns quiet awhile. His hand rests on his thighs. Not quite sure how to continue, Sehun takes a glance at Kyungsoo, head hanging low as if he doesn’t dare to really look at him. All he sees is just a soft nervous tremble that radiates off Kyungsoo now, and it makes Sehun uneasy, equally nervous. He knows this something that could either break them or mend them together, but he doesn’t know how to say it out loud.
He wants to say something, or do something, maybe just a nudge of a knee or a slight touch of an index finger -- but before he knows, the moment is gone, and Kyungsoo is on the other side of the room, gingerly clasping at the doorframe.
“I’m... I’m sorry Sehun-ah. Forget it. I am just tired.”
And with that, he’s out the door, leaving Sehun with all this inner turmoil and indecisiveness alone. He looks at his hands. The sweat has gone cold on his palms.
---
Weeks pass with promotions and dance practices and interviews, but all he thinks about is the last month - Kyungsoo has been very nice to him lately, and that is something Sehun can’t quite put his finger on. Not like Kyungsoo isn’t nice on a daily basis; he is a man with a great sense of politeness and good manners, characteristics that resolve in everybody loving Kyungsoo. What is there not to love? Sehun likes to think he is just as polite as Kyungsoo is, but who is he trying to fool? The only thing they truly share is their quietness – nothing else. Sehun is nothing like Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo is nothing like Sehun, and Sehun wonders if that palpable difference between them could dissolve one day.
[sehun keeps wondering about kyungsoo; the days go just like that. this is the era of “its ok its love” and sehun’s feelings for kyungsoo deepens as time goes farther. kyungsoo gets more affectionate towards sehun while sehun wonders if that is all that is; two good friends, holding hands sometimes and being affectionate with each other but every time kyungsoo puts his hands on his waist his heart beats faster, harder, irregular. sehun knows somethings’ changing, and he keeps wondering about his worth, about his abilities or lack thereof. kyungsoo is always there for him to assure him of his worth, to make him feel not so empty inside. sehun starts to wonder about what you want and what you have; if the two can align. can you get what you want, or you should get what you need? whats the difference between want and need? what if we could never get what we truly want or need? we cant have everything sehun knows, but he keeps wanting kyungsoo until the very day that he realises he really, really, really does want it. he doesn’t know how he wants kyungsoo, all he knows is kyungsoo’s presence makes him feel tingly and good and happy. meanwhile sehun realises kyungsoo is just as defenseless and self concious as he is, and they develop a very close friendship, a friendship that’s not yet enough for sehun. one time, around the promotions of another winter lovesong exo puts out regularly, on a slightly drunken night of winning a music program, sehun kisses kyungsoo and they start an affair of purely physical love. sehun is in too deep, even when he knows he wants emotional love as well as physical. kyungsoo is affectionate to him but he is affectionate to the other members as well which leaves sehun all sad, and begins to wonder about wanting and having. whats the endgame I don’t know yet, but I know the last words will be this: when he leaves, he leaves the door open.
ok so the physical side of love continues until sehun cant take it anymore; after wondering about months and months of what this means to him, he goes to ask kyungsoo about it. kyungsoo is surprisingly calm during the talk, explaining to sehun that he too, as sehun could notice, wants the affectionate closeness but not the emotions; hes not in love with sehun nor will he ever be; he doesn’t want anything more than there is. sehun is, at first, devastated, but later realises that that’s how life is; you truly can’t always get you what you want. after he accepted the fact that kyungsoo doesn’t want anything else, he feels thankful for kyungsoo of showing him so many things; of teaching him to love himself through the physical and emotional acts; to teaching him the difference between need and want indirectly. once sehun realises all these things, they stay good and close friends, although the memories of being more than that but not quite anything still mars sehun’s mind. a year later in a café he meets a boy with auburn hair, someone who he can connect with. in the end, sehun is happy and in love and is secure with himself, continuing his time with exo and being best friends with kyungsoo. a bittersweet ending!]
#sesoo#hunsoo#sedo#kyungsoo#sehun#d.o.#exo#fic#shortfic#bold-lettered#what a beautiful time it was to be alive#such an era#such boys#such love
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Carli Lloyd flat out said she was going to pursue kicking in the NFL
Yet all anyone wants to talk about is her saying the world cup was the lowest point of her life.
So here's my rambling, long-winded opinion on that.
If true, Ms. Lloyd has no doubt lived a truly charmed life. That said, she was actually talking about her mental and emotional state due to her diminished playing time and how it was negatively affecting her life off the field. Context is important.
Lloyd never was my favorite player. I've always considered her a glory seeking ball hog, but she does not deserve the shit she's getting for this comment. The media is making her come off as spoiled and entitled. Almost smells like propaganda. USSF, is that you?
I've never played sports at this high a level but can imagine the grind, the hard work, the sacrifices, the absolute mental and emotional toll it takes to be a pro. I get where she was coming from. This game has been her main focal point for most of her life. She achieved the pinnacle of personal success in the 2015 WWC final and having to sit for long periods during this past world cup had to be hard af. I don't blame her one bit for being bitter about that. As a competitor she should have been upset. She also went on to say that she's happy now. That was important. She came to terms with where she is in her career and is dealing.
Anyway, I hope Lloyd makes the Olympic squad and goes on to have one last moment of glory. Then I hope she goes on to successfully kick in the NFL.
📷: Trevor Ruszcowski
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Motion City Soundtrack’s legacy of grappling with mental health
In the current wave of band reunions, maybe the best offered is Minneapolis’ Motion City Soundtrack.
Among the vast number of 2000s bands coming back into the limelight, some seem to be doing it for glory, some for fame or money, some just because of demand, but Motion City Soundtrack’s reunion just feels right, like a good gut feeling.
This is ironic given the sweeping sense of neurotic over-thinking that much of Motion City Soundtrack’s music deals with. The band’s heralded breakthrough piece, 2005′s Commit This To Memory, is seasoned with all sorts of manic-depressive idiosyncrasies - even worse that singer/guitarist Justin Pierre generally doesn’t describe healthy ways of coping with it. Neuroticism starts from the first lines of the album (“Attractive Today” is destructively self-critical) and is relentless to the end, including one of the band’s hits, “Everything Is Alright,” which has Pierre tackling obsessive-compulsive tendencies and cataloging all the things in his life that require extreme existential energy to deal with.
There’s also “L.G. FUAD” (Let’s Get Fucked Up And Die), a generational anthem akin to Blink 182’s “Adam’s Song” or All Time Low’s “Remembering Sunday,” but badly underrated. It’s a siren song for over thinkers, people stuck in their heads, and writers and creatives who feel compelled to observe and record the world but can’t actually let themselves live in it. It nails the neuroticism and self-destruction that comes with never being able to escape this condition. It echoes the sentiments of being constantly drawn inward but being jealous of those who don’t experience that; it’s bitter and self-aggrandizing and raw. It embraces destructive reliance on alcohol amidst manic highs and depressive lows, and by the end of the song, all you even get is a sad half-resolution (“I believe that I can overcome this and beat everything in the end / But I choose to abuse for the time being / Maybe I'll win, but for now I've decided to die.”)
Despite that, it feels comforting - Pierre lays out the struggle boldly and intimately. It’s not pleading, and it’s not “oooh look at me, I’m so deep and sad;” it gives a good opportunity for those with their own issues to not feel alone. Sometimes, this is all that matters: to know that there are people in this world who are in the same boat as you are, and maybe more than anything else, this is Motion City Soundtrack’s contribution to the music scene.
Commit This To Memory was one of the genre-defining moments of the mid-2000s, sitting with Taking Back Sunday’s Louder Now or All Time Low’s So Wrong, It’s Right. The band embodies the punk realites of being a outcast and fucked up, but with the neon vibrancy of mid-aughts MTV-era pop punk. One of their calling cards is the standout use of moog synth, a touch that could easily turn into shtick in the era. Even for the band, it can feel gimmicky at first glance, because it hits the ears in a sort of juvenile way, but the depth of the message overpowers this. And, fortunately for them, what separates Motion City Soundtrack from the trends of the era is the sense of resolve through all the neuroticism and casual substance use; it feels more reparative instead of angsty white boys flailing violently and causing collateral damage in the midst of “rock star” life. Pierre is suffering, but he desperately wants to find the strength and will to recover. He writes with pain, but it’s mostly his own pain - you generally don’t hear him lamenting about treating an ex poorly and begging for a second chance, or other such “neurotypical” entrappings of contemporary male music. This seems to be motivated by a sense of self awareness, which is ironically quite likely a driving force behind all the mental anguish of the music.
At the height of Motion City Soundtrack’s popular explosion, with the Vans Warped Tour still dominating summer and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of bands riding the coattails of pop punk’s invasion into mainstream radio, it was easy to be attracted to the band’s chaotic energy. After all, they have punk roots - musically, they’re frantic and fast, unpredictable and unhinged and loud and anthemic. They released Commit This To Memory’s follow up, Even If It Kills Me, then went major label (Columbia) for 2010’s My Dinosaur Life. The latter album saw Pierre being sardonic, but there were moments of hopeful change (“Her Words Destroyed My Planet”). By this point, Pierre had embraced sobriety for a few years (much of Commit This To Memory was written under the haze of alcohol) and was starting to make sense of the chaos in his head.
Eventually, though, there had to come an end. After My Dinosaur Life, there was Go (2013) and then Panic Stations in 2015, with the band calling it quits the next year. On Panic Stations, it feels like Pierre has made positive inroads into all of the noise in his head - you can tell he’s still struggling, but it feels like he exerts some control over the neurotic parts of his personality and has come to terms with how to live with them and his place in the world. He had also became a father by this point in the band’s career. About Panic Stations, he writes,
“It wasn’t until we started writing and recording Panic Stations that I finally found I could revisit old feelings and scenes from my life without being too affected by them. I had been working at this thing (Sobriety, Living in the moment, Self-love, Not being an asshole, etc…) for years and it was finally paying off.”
During their 2020 reunion show in Orlando, a couple things happened. First, no content from Go or Panic Stations made the set list. Second, they performed phenomenally. Pierre sounded good as ever, the synth was well-mixed, and the rhythm parts were nice and crunchy. Third, and perhaps most importantly, there was a sense of resolve over the struggles of the music, with Pierre taking moments between songs to address mental health issues directly with the crowd. Indeed, if you look at Pierre’s social media presence, he seems remarkably aware of the band’s legacy and how much his writing about mental health has helped fans get through their own demons, despite having worked hard to overcome the issues himself.
Because that’s the thing about these band reunions: people change over time, and the struggles and challenges that drove us crazy in younger years are often bandaged up or even healed over time and things start to make sense, but with art, revisiting your earlier work will take you right back to it. This is not the same when a band is doing a 10-year anniversary tour of an album of saccharine songs about partying and hooking up because that music is surface level; there’s no trauma and strife to reach through time and pull you back in. Even more so, while bands will often, at some point, write about some kind of mental health issue, there are few that make it an integral part of their identity. But for these bands that do, coping with the issue becomes something bigger, and Motion City Soundtrack’s way of doing it is deeply vulnerable and existential. It’s accessible for people who feel fucked in the head and alone because of it, and for anyone who has suffered through mental issues, not feeling alone is important. This is critical for art, especially art that assuages fear and darkness and loneliness, because the undeniable reality is that music speaks a universal language and can ease real and threatening forces in our heads. This is Motion City Soundtrack’s legacy, because there are few that have stared at the issues in the face like they have.
Words and photos by Andrew Friedgen. Like this? Sonder is an independent music, travel and photography publication at sonderlife.com. Give us a follow here or at our Twitter, Instagram or Facebook for more content like this!
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Songs From Mount Chorus’ Top 50 Albums of the 2010s
Hello all!
We’re on the very last legs of 2019, which means a time for reflection on the year, as well as on the decade at large. Here at SFMC, that means - almost exclusively - an examination of the music I’ve consumed over the past 10 years. And what a decade it has been. In the past ten years, I’ve graduated college, held residence in seven different states, and am daily adding to the record of “longest time worked at a single place of employment” (go me). Along the way, I’ve always had a rollicking soundtrack to score the highs and lows of my itinerant twenties, which is what we’re here to discuss.
What follows is a list of what I consider the 50 “best” albums of the past ten years. “Best” is a subjective term no matter which way you slice the cake, and I’m sure that those of you reading this will have your own opinions as to what should or should not be on such a list. Therefore, a minor disclaimer, and then we’ll get things underway. When I was putting this list together, I had a handful of criteria, but they all largely boiled down to a few questions I could ask of any album: Did I enjoy listening to it, front to back? Did it bring me back for repeat listens? Did it make me feel something (joyous or sombre - I can take a good cathartic cry with the best of them)? Has it held up to my tastes in 2019? With those questions in mind, I whittled a list of 73 long-list contenders into the final 50 you’re about to see.
And that should about cover it. Without further ado, the list, and then onward into whatever the ‘20s has waiting for us.
50) The Death of the Self Preservation Society - Two Cow Garage (2013)
49) Interrobang - Bayside (2019)
48) Live the Dream - Ramshackle Glory (2011)
47) The Suburbs - Arcade Fire (2010)
46) Father of the Bride - Vampire Weekend (2019)
45) Wasteland, Baby! - Hozier (2019)
44) Emotion - Carly Rae Jepsen (2015)
43) Paramore - Paramore (2013)
42) Puberty 2 - Mitski (2016)
41) The Winter of Mixed Drinks - Frightened Rabbit (2011)
40) Handwritten - The Gaslight Anthem (2012)
39) Eyes Wide, Tongue Tied - The Fratellis (2015)
38) Suburbia I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing - The Wonder Years (2011)
37) Beat the Champ - The Mountain Goats (2015)
36) Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon - Murder By Death (2012)
35) Romance Is Boring - Los Campesinos! (2010)
34) Avalanche United - I Am the Avalanche (2011)
33) Steel Train - Steel Train (2010)
32) The Desired Effect - Brandon Flowers (2015)
31) Songs of God and Whiskey - The Airborne Toxic Event (2015)
30) American Slang - The Gaslight Anthem (2010)
29) How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful - Florence and the Machine (2015)
28) Tape Deck Heart - Frank Turner (2013)
27) Harmlessness - The World Is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die (2015)
26) Brill Bruisers - The New Pornographers (2014)
25) After It All - Delta Rae (2015)
24) Foxy Shazam - Foxy Shazam (2010)
23) White Paint - Hollerado (2013)
22) Contra - Vampire Weekend (2010)
21) Theatre Is Evil - Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra (2012)
20) Hebrews - Say Anything (2014)
19) Bury Me in Philly - Dave Hause (2017)
18) Wolves - Rise Against (2017)
17) Transcendental Youth - The Mountain Goats (2012)
16) Calm Down, Everything Is Fine - Mike Mains & the Branches (2014)
15) No Closer to Heaven - The Wonder Years (2015)
14) Engine of a Million Plots - Five Iron Frenzy (2013)
13) The Other Shore - Murder By Death (2018)
12) America, Location 12 - Dispatch (2017)
11) Morbid Stuff - PUP (2019)
10) Going Out in Style - Dropkick Murphys (2011)
9) Ceremonials - Florence and the Machine (2011)
8) Sleepwalkers - Brian Fallon (2018)
7) Death of a Bachelor - Panic! at the Disco (2016)
6) The Hands That Thieve - Streetlight Manifesto (2013)
5) Talon of the Hawk - The Front Bottoms (2013)
4) On the Impossible Past - The Menzingers (2012)
3) My Dinosaur Life - Motion City Soundtrack (2010)
2) Pedestrian Verse - Frightened Rabbit (2013)
1) Modern Vampires of the City - Vampire Weekend (2013)
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