#i listened to 'everything she wants' by wham while making these i think its fitting for how i feel about nando LMAO | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

petersasteria · 4 years

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168 Hours - Haz Osterfield (9)

Pairing: Haz x Reader

Haz Osterfield Masterlist || Ultimate Masterlist || 168 Hours Masterlist

DISCLAIMER: *This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.*

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: In which your son’s wish comes true and it turns horrible. Now, he has to fix it in 168 hours.

𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧 closes the door and turns around to see Y/N and Harley on the floor on the living room with papers scattered everywhere. He smiles to himself while staring at them. Harrison starts to feel this weird feeling like they look like a family somehow. Harrison shakes the thought out of his head and walks towards them and joins them on the floor.

"So, what's all this?" He asks. He didn't understand them all, but if there's one thing he's sure about, it's all for the wedding. It kind of broke his heart because he's grown to like her since that day in the bookstore. He grabs one of the wedding magazines and flips through it.

"It's for the wedding. You said you'd help so yeah. I need help for the wedding dress." Y/N sighs in frustration. Harrison looks at her and furrows his eyebrows, "Why?"

Y/N looks at him and chuckles, "Because I'm getting married...? It's logical for a bride to wear a wedding dress at her wedding."

"Yeah, I know that." Harrison blushes. "But why do you need help with it?"

Y/N shrugs, "For opinions, I guess."

Harrison nods, "Okay but in my opinion, you shouldn't ask anyone about it. If you feel like a princess in the dress that you pick and if you really like it, anyone else's opinion isn't valid anymore. It's your wedding. Don't let anyone else decide for you or you won't be happy with it."

Y/N blushes and nods, "You know what? You're right. I'll follow what I want. Tom would want that." Harrison's heart drops at the mention of Tom but he didn't let it show.

Harley hears this but he pretends he doesn't. He doesn't want to ruin the moment between his parents despite them not knowing. Instead, he busies himself in flipping through the papers Y/N laid out that showed dresses for the bridesmaids, colors, centerpieces, and other stuff that are sketched.

"What else do you need?" Harley asks. Y/N hums and looks at her list, "Aside from the wedding dress, the centerpieces, I guess. I want it simple but elegant."

Harrison and Harley nods and begin to look through everything. Y/N helps too. They end up with top three centerpieces. Y/N loves all of them but she knows she should only pick one. "This is so difficult." Y/N sighs in frustration. "Let's take a break. Enough wedding planning."

"Are you sure? You only have four days left." Harley says. Y/N looks at him and ruffles up his hair and says, "I'm sure."

The three of them clean up in the living room and sit on the couch. They sit together in comfortable in silence when Harrison breaks it, "Harley can sing."

"Really? Let's hear it Harley!" Y/N says excitedly as he looks at the young boy.

"I don't have my guitar with me, though." Harley says shyly.

"You can do it in acapella." Harrison says. "I know you can. It's just me and Y/N here. Don't be scared." He reassures with a smile. Harley sighs and stands up from the couch and stands in front of them.

"Yay, Harley!!" Y/N cheers and claps.

Harley clears his throat and starts, "Just a small town girl. Livin' in a lonely world. She took the midnight train going anywhere."

Harley stops and says, "I'm sorry. I'm just really shy."

"But why? You weren't shy the other day when you say in front of people." Harrison frowns.

"My guitar gives me confidence." Harley confesses. "I'm sorry."

"Just a city boy. Born and raised in South Detroit. He took the midnight train going anywhere." Y/N sings with a smile.

"I didn't know you could sing!" Harley chuckles and looks at her in awe. Harrison looks at her in awe too.

"Aww, thanks. There's a lot of things you don't know about me." Y/N giggles and looks at Harrison. "Continue it. It's acapella night!"

Harrison chuckles, "Don't tell me I sound terrible, okay?"

"Okay. Now, sing!"

"A singer in a smokey room. The smell of wine and cheap perfume. For a smile they can share the night-" Harrison sings.

Y/N smiles and blends with him, "It goes on and on and on and on."

Harley grins at them and stands on the coffee table and points at them, "Strangers waiting up and down the boulevard. Their shadows searchin' in the night."

Harrison grabs the remote and sings, "Streetlight, people. Livin' just to find emotion." He points at Y/N.

Y/N snickers before continuing, "Hidin' somewhere in the night!"

"You nailed that high note!" Harley grins.

"Thanks!" Y/N giggles.

Harrison crouches down in front of Harley and says, "Hop on!" Harley immediately gets on his shoulders and continues the song, "Workin' hard to get my fill! Everybody wants a thrill! Payin' anything to roll the dice, just one more time."

"Some will win, some will lose." Harrison sings as he looks up at Harley.

"Some where born to sing the blues!" Y/N sings and takes the remote from Harrison. "Oh the movie never ends it goes on and on and on and on."

She starts running around the living room and Harrison chases her, "Hey, that's my makeshift mic! Give it back!"

Y/N runs fast and laughs, "Nope!"

"Get her!" Harley shouts and laughs and holds on to Harrison's hair.

"Careful with my hair, buddy. I don't want to be bald." Harrison jokes and runs around the living room to chase Y/N.

"Don't stop believin'. Hold on to that feelin'. Streetlight, people oh oh oh." Harley continues despite being in a fit of giggles.

"Don't stop believin'. Hold on to that feelin'." Harrison sings perfectly as Y/N stops to catch her breath.

"Streetlight, people, oh oh oh! Don't stop!" Y/N ends the song with a high note. Harley cheers and laughs, "We make a great group! I think we should make acapella night happen all the time. I can almost hear the music."

"Same here." Harrison chuckles and crouches down again so Harley could safely get down from his shoulders.

"You guys should sing some solos." Harley suggests. It's not just any suggestion, though. He has a plan. If he can get both Y/N and Harrison to sing individually, they'll fall in love. Besides, Harley thinks that Y/N and Harrison are slowly starting to have feelings for each other. And the best part? Harley doesn't doubt it one bit.

"I haven't done that in a while, to be honest." Y/N says.

"So does this mean you're not up for it?" Harrison smirks. Y/N looks at him and raises her eyebrow, "Who said I wasn't up for it? Of course I am! In fact, I already have a song."

"You go first, then." Harley giggles and sits on the couch. Harrison sits next to him and nods, "Go for it, Y/N."

"Fine." Y/N smirks. She looks around and sees a vase full of flowers. She immediately gets all of them and she grabs her suitcase and then she walks out the apartment. Harley and Harrison looks at each in confusion but they get surprised when Y/N suddenly opens the door, enters the apartment and sings, "Don't tell me not to live just sit and putter. Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter. Don't bring around a cloud to rain on my parade!"

She closes the door and walks towards them, "Don't tell me not to fly, I simply got to. If someone takes a spill it's me," she points to herself using the flowers before pointing to Harrison and Harley, "And not you! Who told you you're allowed to rain on my parade?"

"I'll march my band out. I'll beat my drum and if I'm fanned out," Y/N lets go of her suitcase and sits down on the coffee table and looks at Harrison, "Your turn at bat, sir. At least I didn't fake it. Hat, sir. I guess I didn't make it."

Y/N looks at Harley and smiles, "But whether I'm the rose of sheer perfection," She walks towards Harley and boops his nose, "a freckle on the nose of life's complexion,"

She quickly turns to Harrison and cups his face and stares into his eyes, "The cinder or the shiny apple of its eye."

She pulls away and sits back down on the coffee table, "I gotta fly once, I gotta try once. Only can die once, right, sir? Ooh, life is juicy. Juicy and you see I gotta have my bite, sir. Get ready for me, love, 'cause I'm a comer."

She quickly stands up and stands on the coffee table, "I simply gotta march my heart's a drummer! Don't bring around a cloud to rain on my parade!"

She slowly gets down the coffee table, "I'm gonna live and live now. Get what I want I know how. One roll for the whole show BANG!"

She points at the doorbell, "One throw, that bell will go CLANG! Eye on the target and WHAM! One shot, one gun shot, and BAM!"

She looks at the two boys and smirks, "Hey, Mr. Arnstein. Here I am!"

"She's really good, don't you think?" Harley whispers in Harrison's ear. Harrison just nods, though. He's in too much awe listening and watching Y/N sing her heart out. Harley smiles to himself as he watches Y/N again. His plan was working!

"Get ready for me, love, 'cause I'm a comer! I simply gotta march my heart's a drummer! Nobody, no, nobody-" Y/N takes a deep breath for the climax of the song. "Is gonna rain on my parade!!"

Harley and Harrison cheer and clap for her and Y/N bows, "Thank you! Thank you!"

They all laugh. Harley points at her things, "Why did you need flowers and a suitcase?"

"Darling, they're my props! Barbra Streisand did it in 'Funny Girl' and it seemed appropriate." Y/N shrugs and chuckles. "Your turn, Harrison! I wanna see what you come up with."

"Mine doesn't involve flowers and a suitcase. Also, I'll only sing a short part." Harrison chuckles and stands up in front of them. Y/N puts the flowers back and settles her suitcase next to the couch before sitting next to Harley.

"You can start now, Harrison." Harley says with a smile. He forgot what it feels like to hang out with his parents. You know, just the three of them.

"Oh my god. I'm shy. I don't really sing for anyone." Harrison laughs nervously.

"Aww, c'mon. We literally sang together a while ago." Y/N says.

"Yeah but we were a group. I haven't sung on my own unless I'm in the shower, but I'll give it a shot!" Harrison smiles and clears his throat. "I can't fight this feeling any longer and yet I'm still afraid to let it flow. What started out as friendship has grown stronger, I only wish I had the strength to let it show."

Harley's no love expert, but based on the lyrics and how Harrison is looking at Y/N, Harley knows that the song is reflecting how Harrison currently feels. 'Geez, dad really falls in love fast.' Harley thinks to himself.

"And even as I wander, I'm keeping you in sight. You're a candle in the window on a cold dark winter's night and I'm getting closer than I ever thought I might..." Harrison smiles.

"'Cause I can't fight this feeling anymore. I've forgotten what I've started fighting for. Even if I have to crawl upon your floor, come crashing through your door. Baby, I can't fight this feeling anymore ooooh." Harrison ends the song and smiles. Harley and Y/N cheer for him. Then Harley yawns.

"Ouch. Was I boring?" Harrison jokes.

Harley shakes his head, "'M just tired, I guess."

"Same here. It's not easy being a performer." Y/N flips her hair as they all laugh.

"Let's get ready for bed, then." Harrison smiles and carries Harley to the room with Y/N following behind them.

All of them take turns in the bathroom to get ready. After that, Harrison tucks Harley in and Y/N leaves him a glass of water on his bedside table. Harley notices this and smiles at the thought of his mom, Y/N.

"What're you smiling about?" Y/N smiles at him. Harley looks at her and shakes his head, "Nothing. I-It's just that my mum does the same thing. Sometimes, she'll leave a glass of milk. She said she does that in case I wake up in the middle of the night because of thirst."

"Really? I do the same thing!" Y/N grins. Harley chuckles and yawns. Y/N looks at Harrison and says, "Someone's sleepy."

"I know right." Harrison chuckles. He glances at Harley who's already asleep. He and Y/N looks at each and they get out of the room.

"So, how are you so good with kids?" Y/N asks Harrison on the way to the kitchen. She prepares a snack for both of them while Harrison prepares the beverages.

Harrison shrugs, "It's natural, I guess. You were great, by the way. Where'd you learn how to sing like that?"

"It's natural, I guess." Y/N smirks.

"What's your job again?" Harrison asks.

"I'm an interior designer." Y/N tells him and hands him a sandwich. "Thanks." Harrison mumbles.

"Why aren't you in theater? You belong there. I mean, based from what I've seen."

"I won't lie, I've thought about it, but I realized that I don't picture myself doing it for years you know? It's just not for everyone." Y/N smiles at him and he smiles back. Both of them subconsciously lean in but they immediately pull back.

"Um, it's getting late." Y/N chuckles nervously.

"Y-Yeah, you're right." Harrison says. "Good night."

Y/N nods and says, "Good night."

"Amadis, your watch has been blinking like crazy!" Saint Christopher says as he eats his sandwich.

"Check it." Saint Thomas Aquinas encourages. Amadis sighs and checks his watch and smiles at everything he's reading.

𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐎𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐘/𝐍 𝐘/𝐋/𝐍 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭.

𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐎𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐘/𝐍 𝐘/𝐋/𝐍 𝐚𝐥𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐬.

Whatever Harley's doing back in London, it seems to be working and Amadis is absolutely living for it.

* * * *

-not proofread- im sorry sksks but i love this chapter tho

𝐇𝐀𝐙 𝐎𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐈𝐄𝐋𝐃 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @abrielleholland @silencetheslaves @imeanlifesabitshit @joyleenl @hjoficrecs @myblueleatherbag @poguesholland @harryismysunflower @justanothermarvelmaniac @lonikje @lizzyosterfield @itstaskeen @ilarbu

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @marvelousell @justasmisunderstoodasloki @rubberducky-jrr @petersholland @osterfieldnholland @miraclesoflove @god-knows-what-am-i-doing @perspectiveparker @hollands-weasley @itstaskeen @call-me-baby-gir1 @the-panwitch @iamaunicorn4704 @chloecreatesfictions @holland-styles @halfblood-princess-505-deactiva @spidey-reids-2003 @herbatkazmiloscia

#harrison osterfield #harrison osterfield fanfiction #harrison osterfield fanfic #harrison osterfield fic #harrison osterfield x reader #harrison osterfield x y/n #haz osterfield #haz osterfield fanfiction #haz osterfield fanfic #haz osterfield fic #haz osterfield x reader #haz osterfield x y/n #in-a-lot-of-fandoms-tbh

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nerianasims · 3 years

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Billboard #1s 1985

Under the cut.

Foreigner -- "I Want To Know What Love Is" -- February 2, 1985

One of the quintessential 80s power ballads. It's actually kind of interesting if you think about it enough. He's not in love yet, but he's gotten sick of not being in love, so he's asking someone he's in the pre-love stage with to show him. Though he's had "heartache and pain" before, and doesn't know if he can face it again. It's not consistent. I feel like it's a missed opportunity, but oh well. It's good enough for what it is.

Wham! -- "Careless Whisper" -- February 16, 1985

Oh my god I love the saxophone in this. The music throughout the song is so incredibly sexy. And this is the kind of song George Michael's voice was made for. He's totally capable of sounding both hot and in agony at the same time. I actually adore a whole lot of cheating songs -- mostly, though not exclusively, the tormented kind. Drama! Love! Sex! Angst! Gorgeous.

REO Speedwagon -- "Can't Fight This Feeling" -- March 9, 1985

<3. He keeps singing "r"s like a pirate, but he doesn't go as hard on the other consonants, so I'm good with it. Lyrically, this song sounds like it might be two songs mashed together. "What started out as friendship has grown stronger" or "my life has been such a whirlwind since I saw you." Well which is it? Except I've had that happen. I love this song.

Phil Collins -- "One More Night" -- March 30, 1985

This is a depressing heartbreak song without the saving grace of any of Phil Collins' neat drum stuff. Blah.

We Are the World -- April 13, 1985

Whoo boy. I was 8 when this came out. Obviously I loved it. All the kids loved it. Now, though... I'm sorry, but it's bad. Really bad. Many others have gone deeply into why it's bad. I feel acutely embarrassed listening to it, so I'm just running away from it as fast as possible. (Remember all those celebrities singing "Imagine" in their mansions in 2020? I blame this song for that.)

Madonna -- "Crazy For You" -- May 11, 1985

This is one of Madonna's most straightforward love songs. Maybe the most, period. This or "Cherish," and this is a better song. It's lovely. Like Olivia Newton-John, Madonna can act a song. (Unlike in most movies she's been in.) But what I'm thinking about now is learning in this article that her label wouldn't let Madonna release "Into the Groove" as a single. That song was huge. It was played on the radio all the time. If it had been released as a single, or maybe if Billboard had tracked songs then like it does today, it would have been a massive smash, definitely #1. "Into the Groove" is also the best song of her very early career. "Crazy for You" is good, but not nearly as special.

Simple Minds -- "Don't You Forget About Me" -- May 18, 1985

As I am "Gen X", I am supposed to deeply connect with The Breakfast Club. I was 8 years old when it came out. My life as a teenager was nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, like that movie. I didn't recognize any of the "types." I liked the movie when I saw it in college, mostly, but the whole sexual harassment turns into a relationship deal was not seen as cool any longer. The "jocks vs. nerds" thing also felt very dated. The school in the movie was bigger and richer than mine, but it's a fantasy.

Anyway, though I don't feel much about the movie, its breakout song was really good. It does speak to a real fear both in graduating high school and during young adult relationships. I haven't forgotten the people I knew in high school, as far as I know, but obviously they don't have the same importance to me any longer. I'm Facebook friends with a lot of them. And very much not with a couple who were the most important then, because we grew apart -- or blasted apart. One of the nicest girls I knew in high school thinks there's a war on Christmas. Another keeps trying to get me to join her MLM. One of my best friends became my first boyfriend, and I don't regret that, but it was also a semi-disaster. And others... we just have nothing to say to each other any longer.

So, Breakfast Club: I don't connect with at all. "Don't You Forget About Me": Speaks to something very real and timeless.

Wham! -- "Everything She Wants" -- May 25, 1985

What a dick. Songs in which the narrator is a colossal jerk are perfectly fine, of course, but this one gets under my skin. He's whining about his wife getting pregnant when she's dissatisfied with their life and that they're broke. As if it's something she chose to do to him. She's stuck creating a whole other person with her blood and flesh, and he thinks it's all and entirely about him. I really hate it.

Tears for Fears -- "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" -- June 8, 1985

I can't hear this song without thinking of this Baldur's Gate fan trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdd06d2nids. Speaking of which, I am incredibly excited for Baldur's Gate 3. I've been reading the early access reviews on Steam, and anything anyone is saying that's negative is stuff I don't gaf about (except bugs), whereas the positive stuff, I care about deeply. I hope it's got some of the feeling of that trailer. Um, right, Tears for Fears.

Honestly, though, it works best as a Baldur's Gate theme song. I don't think everybody actually wants to rule the world. It sounds good though. And pretty different from other stuff around it. But I like Lorde's cover better, and not just because it fits so wonderfully with all sorts of fantasy stories.

I usually play a paladin or paladin-type the first time in fantasy RPGs, but I'm thinking bard this time.

Bryan Adams -- "Heaven" -- June 22, 1985

He's been with this woman since they were young, and while they've broken up and gone through rough patches, now they're together forever and they're "in heaven." Bryan Adams knew exactly how to write a song that would become a hit. I used to not mind it at all, but it also means nothing to me. The chorus is catchy as hell though. So catchy that I ended up waking up with it in my head and it would not leave for hours and hours, so now I resent this song.

Phil Collins -- "Sussudio" -- July 6, 1985

I refuse to believe anyone ever told Phil Collins he was too young. He was born middle-aged. Anyway, the narrator isn't supposed to be him, so it's fine, but it's still kinda funny. He's got a crush on someone who doesn't even know his name, but "she's all I need all of my life." Um. The music is repetitive, the drums aren't as interesting as Phil Collins at his best, and I don't like the lyrics. I don't hate it, but I don't like it either.

Duran Duran -- "View to a Kill" -- July 13, 1985

I'm not sure I've ever heard this song before. It's about as good a song as the Bond movie they wrote it for was as a movie. In other words, it's bad. I'm not even sure there's a melody. Just a mess. "Ordinary World" would have made a far better Bond theme, but of course that was the 90s, when Duran Duran decided to try to make sense both lyrically and musically.

Paul Young -- "Every Time You Go Away" -- July 27, 1985

I like the high keyboard notes in this. They're sort of haunting. The rest of the song is musically pretty good, too. Lyrically though, it's only passable. This woman keeps leaving him every time "the leading man" shows up, so I guess he's the backup. Why does he keep waiting for her anyway? There's no hint in the song. I'm kind of embarrassed for him.

Tears for Fears -- "Shout" -- August 3, 1985

I think "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is a better song than this one when done by Lorde. But I think "Shout" is a better song than Tears for Fears' original iteration of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." The chorus seems clear enough. But the verses are not. "They gave you life/ And in return you gave them hell" makes sense in isolation, but then there's a bunch of stuff that doesn't go with it. Like "I'd really love to break your heart" -- wtf? But the music is really good.

Huey Lewis and the News -- "The Power of Love" -- August 24, 1985

This was the big song for Back to the Future, and it meshed beautifully with the movie, but it doesn't need that association to be a great song. "Don't need money, don't take fame/ Don't need no credit card to ride this train/ It's strong and it's sudden, it can be cruel sometimes/ But it might just save your life." Yep. It's sort of Motown, sort of rock, and I love it. (Also: "Stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream." Heh.)

John Parr -- "St. Elmo's Fire" -- August 24, 1985

Of all the John Hughes movies I have not seen and do not plan to see, St. Elmo's Fire sure is one of them. The song is about a disabled man who inspired people by rolling himself cross-country in his wheelchair for charity, which has absolutely nothing to do with the movie. I'm disabled, and I just... okay look, what he did was admirable. But we shouldn't have to be inspirations to be counted as worthwhile, and I've been told I should die because I can't produce for capitalism, so you know. I've got some personal issues with this and I'm gonna move along.

Dire Straits -- "Money for Nothing" -- September 21, 1985

This is not Dire Straits' best song, but it's an awfully fun one. I watched the video tons when I was a kid. (That sound is Tipper Gore falling to the floor in a dead faint.) The music is great rock. And the lyrics are very true-to-life. You can either sanitize people or present them as they are honestly, and I know which I prefer.

Ready for the World -- "Oh Sheila" -- October 12, 1985

The band's from Michigan. The English accent at the beginning of the song is fake. That's a good preview for the song, which sounds like a 3rd-rate Prince knockoff at best. Blech.

a-ha -- "Take On Me" -- October 19, 1985

The video totally ripped off one of my aunts. Somehow or other, they saw into the little comic she drew for me about someone going into a land of drawings to rescue someone else in a romantic adventure, years before 1985. Anyway, this song is great musically, massively synthesizer heavy without sounding artificial. Though I can only understand maybe a third of the lyrics as he sings them. I've always understood "It's no better to be safe than sorry" though. Yep, at least when it comes to romance, which is what they're singing about here.

Whitney Houston -- "Saving All My Love for You" -- October 26, 1985

It's not better to be safe than sorry, but that doesn't mean it's good to be an absolute idiot in matters of romance either. Nor is it good to be a colossal jerk. That's what the narrator is here -- the "you" she's singing to is married. And he won't leave his wife and children, though he used to say he would. The lyrics seem to say that's she's accepted the situation, but the way Houston sings it, I think the narrator's trying to get him to leave his wife -- and children -- for her still. This makes sense, as it puts some kind of passion and sense of story into the song, which without Houston's singing would not be there. The narrator certainly never acknowledges that what she's doing is wrong in the slightest iota. This song could be done in a way that works. But it's a completely sincere ballad. So, no. I despise the narrator, I despise the man she's singing to more, and the whole thing leaves me feeling gross.

Stevie Wonder -- "Part Time Lover" -- November 2, 1985

No one's thinking anyone's gonna leave anyone in this one. It's about cheating, and the thrill of it, but then at the end, he's found out his wife's cheating on him too. "I guess that two can play the game/ Of part-time lovers." This kind of funk groove is one way you make a song like this. It makes the whole thing sexy and fun, and the lyrics also work even beyond that ending, because they acknowledge it's wrong.

Jon Hammer -- "Miami Vice Theme" -- November 9, 1985

My parents didn't watch Miami Vice. And then I never felt like watching it in re-runs when I got older. I don't recognize this song. It's an energetic instrumental, but there's so much going on, I keep trying to figure out if there's a main musical idea anywhere. Nope. Just lots and lots of synth. Headache-inducing.

Starship -- "We Built This City" -- November 16, 1985

Blech. This song sounds both unfinished and overproduced somehow. The chorus seems designed to be catchy with absolute ruthlessness by people who didn't really care, and no one involved even seems to want to bother to fake it.

Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin -- "Separate Lives" -- November 30, 1985

This is supposed to be heart-wrenchingly sad. Well, it does tank my dopamine, but that's not what a good sad song does. A good sad song makes you feel better. This one makes me need to turn on something high-energy after about 30 seconds, before I sink into bleakness. It's aggressively boring.

Mr. Mister -- "Broken Wings" -- December 7, 1985

This was one of the first songs I recorded from the radio. On my pink tape deck/radio that was a sort of a mini boom box. I've always had my own tape player since I can remember, but that was a definite upgrade from the Sesame Street one. I was 9 then, so getting more seriously into music and developing my own taste intentionally, rather than simply absorbing what was happening around me.

Anyway, the song. It's about a relationship in trouble, and he wants to stay with her. To me it sounds like she has been so seriously hurt (and not by him), that she can't trust anyone, and he's laying himself on the line for her. That has spoken to me deeply ever since I first heard the song as a child. Moving on to the music: While the lyrics are repetitive, the music is not, which is what makes the song so good. It's a beautiful song.

Lionel Richie -- "Say You, Say Me" -- December 21, 1985

I look forward to Lionel Richie no longer being on the charts. This song was on the soundtrack of some movie I've never heard of. I wish I'd never heard of the song. Totally artificial glop.

BEST OF 1985: "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds WORST OF 1985: "We Built This City" by Starship

#billboard number ones

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sassycassie-s-writing · 5 years

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Kissing Strangers

By: SassyShoulderAngel319

Fandom/Character(s): DC, BatFam - Jason Todd/Red Hood

Rating: PG-13/T (for mentions of drugs and minor violence)

Original Idea: This Prompt List

Notes: (Masterlist)(By Character)(About Me) Shout out to @jason-redhood for encouraging me through this when I was kinda stuck and looking for something new to write! You’re awesome my friend! Enjoy some angst, y’all! @welovegroot @batboys-and-other-messes @haylo4ever

^^^^^

Jason dated around a lot. I didn’t exactly blame him. He was handsome and eye-catching and generally a pretty decent guy. But it was kind of infuriating, trying to keep track of him. One night we’d be scoping out a bar for mob bosses while he made out with a waitress in a corner and the next day he’d be flirting with the girl working at the café where we stopped for lunch.

Being an Outlaw was dangerous work, but that wasn’t why I was always so irritated.

I was basically carrying the weight of the team on my shoulders. Jason was supposed to be the leader but I was the one doing all the work.

Jason couldn’t be bothered because he was too busy finding some lovely lady to kiss in a corner. Ugh.

I’d hoped tonight would be different.

Apparently not.

I rolled my eyes and wove through the club in my evening gown, glittering mask snugly nestled on my face. Jason was, of course, distracted by some socialite he was flirting with. Artemis and Bizarro were sitting out the gala. Bizarro attracted too much attention and Artemis didn’t want to wear an evening gown. So the mission boiled down to just me and just Jason. Hunting for the target.

But now it was just me, prowling through these upper-class richies looking for our target on my own.

“What’s a young lady like you doing alone at an event like this?” a voice asked from behind me. I whirled.

Just. My. Luck. Internally I fist-pumped. The businessman who moonlighted as a drug trafficker. Our target. He was standing right there. He was in his sixties—so a good forty years too old for me—and smiling at me warmly.

“My date disappeared,” I said with a saccharine smile.

“Would you care for a dance?” the target asked, offering me his hand.

I took it. “I’d love to. What a gentleman,” I said.

He led me to the dancefloor. His hand was a little too low on my waist for my comfort, but I would put it aside until I could persuade him out of the hotel ballroom and into a side room to knock him out and take him away to have a… conversation. “I don’t see why your date would leave a lady like you behind.”

I shrugged. “He and I have a complicated relationship,” I said.

“Shame.”

I fell into silence, letting the target talk about business how lucrative his practices were for a few minutes.

I nodded in all the right places, pretending to listen.

“Get your hands off her!”

Wham!

The target dropped. There were gasps from the other attendees as the target let me go. “Keep your hands off my date!” Jason snapped. The target held his jaw where he’d been struck. He looked almost amused.

“So this is the mysterious date,” he said.

Jason narrowed his eyes. “D*&% straight,” he spat.

“Hey. How about we take this outside,” I said, putting one hand on Jason’s chest. This wasn’t part of the plan.

“It’s alright, young lady, we can handle this like grown men,” the target said. Jason pushed me behind him, making me stumble in my heels. I caught myself by grabbing Jason’s shoulder.

“Jay,” I hissed in protest.

“No, I think she’s right, old man, let’s handle this outside,” Jason snarled.

“Red, don’t cause a scene,” I whispered, squeezing his shoulder.

“Alright, son. Let’s talk outside so we don’t disturb these nice people,” the target said. I made a face of abort, abort, ABORT. Whenever someone called Jason “son,” he got testy. He ignored me grabbing his arm and pulling him toward the door. The target followed my pulling Jason out the door to the outside corridor. The three of us got out of the ballroom and went to a nearby conference room. Galas in hotels that held conferences and conventions were great.

“Red, you’re out of control,” I said. “You can’t just punch businesspeople in the face at a gala for dancing with me.”

“Princess, you are my date,” Jason growled.

I sighed and pulled the skirt of my dress to the side to extract the syringe tucked into the garter around my leg. I plunged it into the target’s neck and depressed the plunger. The target cried out and flailed his arms before dropping to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Once he was unconscious, I whirled on Jason. “What gives, Red?” I snapped. “You punched him in the face! That wasn’t part of the plan! We had one of those—remember?”

“Shut up, Starbeam,” Jason muttered, leaning down and moving to haul our target onto his shoulders. But I grabbed his shoulder and forced him upright.

“No! You’re going to tell me what’s going on in that head of yours,” I ordered. “You can’t spend all these missions ignoring me and then suddenly get protective.”

“I don’t ignore you!”

“Oh yes you do! You find yourself in some corner with whichever girl is the most eager to make out with you on every single mission and leave me to do the bulk of the work! You’re the leader of the Outlaws—so lead. Don’t leave it to me. I'm not a leader.”

“Can we talk about this at the safe house?”

“No because then Little Bro and Big Sis will be listening. We’re talking about this in private, now.”

Jason sighed and propped the target up on a chair so he looked like he was just dozing in a chair while Jason and I… talked.

Yeah.

Talked.

“Stars…”

“Look, Jason, I don’t begrudge you dating around. You’re a handsome guy and we stay places just long enough that romantic flings happen. But when you forsake the mission in favor of a random girl in every town we pass through while I actually get crap done, I start to get irritated. Heck I could even say discouraged because I can’t do all this all on my own and with how much Biz and Artemis don’t want to be seen in public, I'm gettin’ stressed and really tired of doing all the work like we’re doing some high school group project!”

Jason clenched his jaw. “What I do is none of your business,” he ground out.

“It is when we’re on-mission and you’re unfocused. Need I remind you that this is a team. We’re the Outlaws—not some band called Jason and the Thrilling Three. I'm not going to stand by and allow your distractions to put Artemis or Bizarro in danger.”

“Two nearly-invulnerable superhumans,” Jason said.

“There is still plenty enough stuff on this planet that can hurt them and I'm not going to let you macking on some girl be the reason why one of them gets injured.”

“You’re not worried about yourself?”

I scoffed. “I don’t have time right now. I'm too busy doing all the work. And yes, I am a powerful telekinetic, but that does not mean I am capable of all the heavy lifting, ya hear?”

“Alright, fine! I’ll stop!” Jason exclaimed.

“Oh really?”

“Yeah. Really.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

Jason yanked his beautiful black satin masquerade mask off to stare right into my eyes. His were cold, steel blue and full of some emotion I couldn’t label. “I'm serious about this,” he said.

“And why would you even expect I could believe you?” I retorted, exasperated, as I untied my mask from the back of my head.

“Because I can’t keep kissing strangers pretending that they’re you!”

I dropped my mask to the ground.

“Wh… wha—?”

Before I could even complete my one-word question, Jason’s lips were crashing against mine, his hands cupping my shoulders, bare because of the dress I wore. I could feel his calluses and his body heat escaping into my skin.

Almost immediately my muscles turned to putty, body giving way to whatever whims he could come up with, molding me under his fingers. Our lips fit together perfectly—like puzzle pieces destined for each to find their place with the other.

Then I shoved him off, getting my senses back. “Nuh-uh, Hood! You don’t just get to say something corny like that, kiss me, and expect everything to be smoothed over!”

Both of us were panting and heat was spreading over my neck, ears, and face.

I was blushing.

I got angry at how flushed I was. How flustered. How easily I’d completely given way to him. His words and actions caught me off-guard and I hated myself for the longing in my chest now that I pushed him away. My heart, its beat pounding in my ears, reached for him with the grabbing hands of a small child desperate to snatch a beloved teddy bear.

“I'm not… I'm not going to just be the newest notch on your belt,” I said breathlessly.

I ignored the aching pull yanking me toward him, scooped up my mask, and ran out of the conference room. My high heels weren’t too terribly tall and I’d gotten used to moving fast in them when I needed to.

Once I escaped the hotel, I wrapped myself up in telekinetic power and launched myself directly into the air.

I flew over the city and landed at the safe house. Once I was inside, I ran to the room Artemis and I were sharing. “Hey Biz, hi Artemis. I'm gonna be out in the woods for a while. Jason should be back soon,” I called as I pulled on my normal clothes after abandoning the formal outfit.

“Blue-Her am… sad?” Bizarro asked.

“No, no. Blue-Her is fine,” I replied, tying my hair back and running to the backdoor. “I won’t be gone long. Promise. ‘Kay bye!” I slammed the backdoor shut and launched myself into the woods beyond the safe house.

I landed hard in a clearing and just sat on the ground in my normal clothes, not even caring that it was getting cold out.

Curling my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them, I shook my head. “It wasn’t envy. It wasn’t,” I muttered.

Jason’s words echoed in my head. Because I can’t keep kissing strangers pretending that they’re you!

Jason was many things. A liar wasn’t one of them. He only lied to marks and targets and civilians who didn’t need to know about the life we led. He didn’t lie to us—to his team. He wasn’t lying to me when he said that.

I knew he meant it based on his tone and eye contact and the fact that he wouldn’t lie to me.

But knowing he was telling the truth didn’t really help me any. It just gave me one more piece of information. Not a path to take. I didn’t know what to do about him or what just happened in that conference room. I didn’t want to admit to myself that sitting on the cold forest floor I could feel myself pining for that kiss. The sensation was there—the desire and desperate longing—but if I didn’t acknowledge it, it didn’t exist, right?

“This is ridiculous. I'm not in love with you, Jason,” I muttered into the empty night. “I wasn’t angry because I was envious of those women you kissed. I don’t need… I don’t need you or your—” His what? His love? As if. Jason wasn’t really in love with—

I can’t keep kissing strangers pretending they’re you.

Pretending all those women were me…

“Biz said I’d find you out here,” a familiar voice remarked casually.

“Go away, Todd,” I snapped, putting up a telekinetic shield between him and me so he couldn’t come closer. He was never catching me with my guard down ever again.

He sighed and sat cross-legged on the ground at the edge of my shield. “I just came to say I'm sorry and you were right. That wasn’t fair of me. I shouldn’t have done that. Or said what I did. I meant every word but I shouldn’t have told you. I just…” He shook his head. “My explanations sound like excuses so I won’t bother.”

I eyed him carefully and let the telekinetic shield dissipate but didn’t let my guard down. “Thanks,” I said. “But… you should have told me. A lot sooner. It would have saved us both a lot of irritation.”

He sighed. “You… are probably right,” he muttered.

I couldn’t help but snicker to myself and bounce my eyebrows. “Thanks,” I said.

“Starry, I'm not going to ask you to feel obligated to return my feelings. It’s just—”

“Shuuut—uuup,” I complained, reaching for him and setting my hands on his shoulder. “I am pining for what we shared in that conference room and I promised that I wasn’t going to let you catch my with my guard down ever again but d*&% it, Jason, I can’t keep those walls up when all I want is you.”

He gasped quietly, surprised. “R… really?”

“Jason Todd, just kiss me and get it over with. No more pretending with strangers.”

“It would be my pleasure.”

We leaned closer to one another and crashed together with the reckless abandon of youthful eagerness. His lips fit perfectly against mine, just as before, and I could taste him. A tropical lip balm and the metallic aftertaste of blood.

Our trafficker could wait. For now, the whole universe melted away until it was just him and me.

“Jay,” I whispered, not even pulling away from the kiss.

“Mm?”

“Promise me one thing.”

“Anything.”

“No more kissing strangers.”

“As long as I have you—never.”

#Kissing Strangers #Jason Todd #Jason Todd Imagine #Jason Todd FanFiction #Red Hood #Red Hood Imagine #Red Hood FanFiction #DC #DC Imagine #DC FanFiction #BatFam #BatFam Imagine #BatFam FanFiction

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believerindaydreams · 5 years

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...it was quite possibly a mistake, to revisit Syb’s “dead dove do not eat” Blonco fic before writing a 70s au. partner on partner violence

still, it seems necessary also. this is still all the same first night of roadtrip.

“...so last time we were here, I punched Blondie like this- wham! Right in the kisser. You know what that smirk’s like, right? Well that little mouth didn’t look so good when I was done, I’ll tell you that.”

Tuco waves his folk in the air for punctuation, nearly bedecking both of us in an overly sweetened honey braise. He’s been chattering a great deal between voracious bites of pulled pork, talking fast and too loudly. We’ve been in the restaurant less than a quarter of an hour and already more than one head’s turned, to look at the relentless monologuer and his silent audience.

Yet a further argument then, in favour of the ultimatum I’d left Blondie pondering.

We’re too noticeable like this. One alone is hardly safe in this line of work, two is pushing it, and as for three...if you won’t, I’ll have no qualms about telling him myself. Then at least we’ll know where we stand.

Promise or threat, I might have meant it either way; though Blondie’s ashen-faced shock had left me in no doubt how my listener interpreted it. He’d never thought I’d call him on that, evidently, though nothing about Tuco’s careless joviality tonight suggests why.

What’s even being protected here? A man capable of such ostentatious bravado...“Did you hit Blondie often?”

Now if this is why my inamorata left me- fearing more the devil he knew than the one he didn’t- we’re not so far from home for me to be unable to find a convenient ditch, some dark hole ready to take anonymous bones this very night-

(”Be calm, little rabbit.” My mentor preferred not to kill in haste, when avoidable; and until today, I never would have thought twice of that stricture.)

“Cristo, not all that much,” Tuco says, the confusion on his face far more bemused than angry. “This was back in the fifties, we didn’t beat each other up more than most kids. You know how it is.”

I might tell him that I know of no such thing, that in my circles violence would always be taken for the threat it represented; but how close would that comment come to a transgression? How Blondie could lie to this man- years on end to his constant partner, and my sympathies are shifting like water tonight-

“...oh, I forgot. One of those expensive schools, huh?”

I nod. It seems simplest.

“Well, maybe you wouldn’t know then- but yeah, and anyway I had a good reason. This was back in the old days when you’d walk in a place, and maybe they’d point at the sign saying no coloured and point at you too. So then you leave again.”

“Would you keep the noise down?” a woman demands. A tired one whose efforts at beauty suggest more determination than success, eating a frugal salad with dainty fuss. She is, nevertheless, a person who somebody might miss.

That her response to my glare is rather fonder than frightened, is a matter of some small irritation; but Tuco’s back is turned to her and he carries on without further interruption.

“But Blondie knew what I wanted, and we had the money- that was lucky, we’d helped an old man push his car out of the mud that morning. The hustle, we hadn’t really gotten it right yet. Still trying to play it honest,” Tuco grins, splatters more sauce on beef already swimming in the stuff. “We’ve got a little smarter since than at least. Or at least I’ve got better about not believing everything we say, whatever...okay, but you wanted to hear about me punching Blondie.”

Not especially, I don’t say; not least because even with the words rising to my lips, it isn’t true.

Mine is a world of secrecy above all else; if there’s crassness in this man owing to his faults so publicly, it’s attractive all the same. As is the tender joy in his eyes, the particular gusto that comes only when he tells me absurdities;

“So I wait outside by the highway, that’s a good fifty yards away and getting cold- you know, I’d never been to the desert before, I didn’t know how cold it could be. Flicking my lighter every couple of minutes just to keep my hands warm, and it was getting dark, I didn’t like so much being out by myself. You start thinking about how big the world is, when you’re on your own- hey. Hey, if you’re not eating that I will.” He waves a fork at my half-consumed sandwich, teasingly.

“Do you want this?” It is hardly as if this restaurant is liable to run short of its main dish; though the bafflement on Tuco’s features suggests that rhetoric was uppermost in his mind.

“...I guess you could get another one if you wanted to, huh. Huh. No, I don’t want it- where was I? Oh, so. Dark. And windy...I was glad to see Blondie, I’ll tell you that. Almost ran up for a hug, and then I said to myself, maybe don’t do that Tuco Ramirez, it’s not so safe around here.”

My mentor would have disciplined me with all the severity in her nature, were I to calmly name myself in public like this. The entire restaurant is staring at us now and the man sitting across from me is enjoying every bit of the attention, damn his eyes. “And then?”

“Oh, well, Blondie comes out empty-handed, and says ‘sorry, sorry, I just couldn’t do it’. Morality, you never heard so many excuses! Not wanting to give money to bad people who wouldn’t let me in the door. Racist, whatever, I listened to ten minutes of nonsense like that, with my guts rumbling like crazy and then it was just, okay, if you don’t close that mouth of yours right now I’ll shut it for you.”

“So what happened?”

“Blondie says, as if, and then I just had to,” Tuco says. Lifts the bottle of hot sauce to his lips; thought I’d swear in the moment before, that I’d seen a precisely calculated gaze travel downwards from myself to what he held-

(for that matter, how had I not realised that he’d been staring at me all this time)

- he takes a long swig and coughs, tearing up with pain evidently no less real for being theatrical. The tension of the room dissolves into laughter, while he gulps water and swears imprecations at himself and the hot sauce and the entirety of the continent north of the Rio Grande.

He seems, praise be, willing enough to make a ready exit after that; and the walk from restaurant to motel is as refreshing to me, as it evidently isn’t for him.

“...christo, you’re not used to being in public, are you?”

“No.” And perhaps Blondie will see fit to explain that part of it as well, though I could hardly hold out hope for that with any degree of fairness.

“Just, I’ve never seen anybody be so miserable over a good meal before- well, someone who could be happy, I mean. You’re not like my brother being all ascetic, I’ve seen you grinning at Blondie and that’s not long suffering at all.”

“...grinning?”

“Sure. You’re pretty cute that way, you know?”

“Cute?”

Both of us turn in surprise; it’s the woman from earlier, with the tired hair.

“I just wanted you to know,” she says, panting. “That I have never, ever heard anything so uncivilised as- as a man in public boasting about beating a woman up-”

He’s trying to rein it in, evidently; but Tuco’s self-control can’t stop his smile. “You thought Blondie was a woman? Why, does it make it any better if I said he’s a guy? Yeah, Blondie’s a guy, he’s white, he takes it up the ass when I tell him to bend over. There, you feel better now?“

It proves just as well, that Tuco’s powers of self-defence prove a satisfactory match for a small infuriated whirlwind wanting to bash his skull in with a second-hand umbrella.

My own abilities being so entirely disproportionate, to the ludicrousness of the situation...

#70s au #the good the bad and the ugly #orange #what the heck is my tag for r*a*c*e #can't remember now but trigger warnings whatever

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lisetteaman · 5 years

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Sonder

Monday, December 17, 2001

A woman is in labor. She is young and heavily influenced by her parents’ unfolding resentment over her stupidly throwing her life away for a boy and becoming pregnant. He stands guard in the waiting room while his parents stare apathetically at the pages of a Time magazine that is ruminating on the Twin Towers. They sit, indifferent towards the current situation of their son having knocked up a teenager. Her parents barge into the waiting room and start an intense discourse in which each parent is screaming at the other, but no one is listening. Each forcefully playing his own disconnected word as if in a game of Scrabble, borrowing bits of the others’ anecdotes, while trying to see who can increase his score. Amongst all the squabbling, the young woman gives birth to a son, Jack.

Across the hall is a second woman in labor of identical age but antithetical descent. Her parents were extremely loving and unconditionally forgiving, but now deceased, while his are globe trotters who never stopped to watch him grow up. With neither involvement nor surveillance of an upper-hand, they wander into a territory much too young for a couple to embark upon and wind up with a kid, whom they name Olive.

Monday, December 17, 2018 Jack

5:30am His alarm goes off, and he hops into the shower. It’s the only part of his morning routine that he actually enjoys. He takes his showers in complete darkness, the lights off to further exemplify how much his heart craves to slip into the morning air with the steam and melt into the black sky just behind his skylight above his shower head. He looks up and sees the vapor condense to the cold glass of the window-pane. He draws a dick in the fog and goes back to playing with himself. Don’t be fooled: he’s a good kid, even with an immature and slightly inappropriate brain. Don’t blame him; blame his biological sex organ. There’s a pounding in his head. Nope, it’s his father on the other side of the door hammering him to hurry up. Time is always official business in his household. His parents are strict and conservative, of the affluent, conceited type. Jack has no say in this life. It was as though his parents put him in a box once he was born and slapped a label on it, saying: “elite, sophisticated aristocrat” and put no room for failure in with him. They had to. They needed to organize their life somehow, as their parents were hounding them to get their shit together if they wanted some semblance of a successful life. But proof be known, Jack’s parents are now exactly what they wanted to be: rich and famous. It is only fitting that they teach Jack the exact same way to live—with your head up your ass and your ego two sizes too big.

It’s about the hundredth time his father has started this conversation with him. It’s always about the law firm, and how Jack needs to keep his grades above everyone else’s in the class if he wants to get into Yale, like his father, and become the next business partner in the firm. “The board only wants to see Ivy League graduates, Jack…” Jack tunes him out and starts drifting into thoughts that are too conceptual for an early morning without coffee, but that’s how Jack likes it. He likes his brain and all the corners it takes him to. It just never seems tangible enough for Jack to get out of this barricaded city and plan the contours of his life—to go explore the world’s abyss for all it offers in releasing the fantasies that remain dormant inside his head. He’s a hopeless romantic. He has never loved anyone, but his heart, as fragile and malformed as it is, is too gentle and graceful to share with others. He protects it and its sentimental value.

6:45am Although Jack is mostly undisturbed by his parents’ lineage of condescension and economical influence, he does assume the role of a private school boy with wispy, blonde hair and a sophisticated veneer. His driver, Stewart, is parked outside to take Jack to Bradley Preparatory Academy. The limo turns and drives past the Lexington Avenue street subway. Jack turns his head and stares out the window at all the passersby in the subway street car, and thinks of how they all ride around town with their newspapers and their sweaty palms stuck to the subway car poles and their gum shoved under the seats, living in such frustration and haste. He turns his attention back and buries his head in his book, The Catcher in the Rye.

Olive

6:53am She sits smushed between two obese men in overly large, black wool coats, who are clearly failing in their attempt to hide their stress-induced eating habits. She looks at the kid sitting across from her take his gum out and stick it under the seat. She’s sweating and reaches her palm out for the pole to get up and stand somewhere else—not worth the body odor and loss in blood circulation. She hates this route. The Lexington Avenue stop, with all the men who aren’t wealthy enough to drive to work, but just arrogant enough to make her upper lip curl as they eye her up and down before disembarking the subway car. Most people take quick glances at Olive but are too skeptical to trust in how stunningly beautiful she naturally is. She dyes her curly, long hair pink and wears an excessive amount of black eyeliner. She has a septum nose ring in the shape of a butterfly and a pretty bold tattoo of the letter A on the side of her neck below her ear—her mother’s first initial, but some look at it and think of The Scarlet Letter. She’s on her way to work. Her parents passed away last year, and now she lives with her aunt in a tiny apartment in Queens. Her aunt made her a promise that she didn’t have to go to school this year as long as she got a job. So naturally, Olive picked a coffee shop in Midtown. “It’s where all the assholes are, Aunt Grace. The meatheads, the hoodlums, the tourists—they all congregate at my coffee shop.” Aunt Grace is not the biggest fan of having her 17-year-old niece travel right into the raucous of Time Square. She sees through Olive’s chill veneer—her hurt and big brain masked behind makeup and a stellar performance of “I don’t give a shit.” Olive is quintessentially brilliant. She was tested at a young age for an IQ score and found out she was in the top 2 percent of the world at her age. She refuses to get tested again, not for fear that she will have fallen behind, but for just the opposite—for fear that her score will be even more impressive and “they” will sit her in a think tank or ship her off to do long division somewhere until all of her brain cells die. She has read just about everything that has a spine or a library code, and yet, she is rarely amused by any of it. If Olive had it her way, she’d be a starving artist—hitchhiking her way to some rural landscape, finding earthly materials to paint with, and blogging her experiences with people from different cultures around the world.

3:45pm Olive usually walks down to Central Park when she gets off of work. Sometimes she runs, but it’s a cold day out and kind of gloomy. She loves these days—the days when the people seem to be more capricious than normal and she can find a nook somewhere she can sit and watch the melancholy mood dissipate into the grey air. It always seems quieter on these days, more people with their headphones in and their caps on, blinding their focus from the inherit craziness singing in the background. She remembers it’s her birthday. It’s been a whole year since her parents died. She dials her mom’s phone number and listens for the voicemail message: “Hi, you’ve reached Abagail, sorry I can’t come to the phone right now, probably doing something fantastical with Olive right now. I’ll call you back when I get a chance. P.S. if this is Grace, you know where to find me.” Olive is not a crier. She rarely shows her emotions, especially to the people around her. But right now, she sits alone on a park bench, bawling her eyes out, wishing time and memory flowed backwards. What a perfect moment to start questioning everything around her—how time keeps getting faster, how babies are being born but others are dying. How the world seems to be constantly growing, and yet, this city has bolted her down and she can’t escape to see what’s out there and who’s living as vivid and complex a life as she is. She starts getting stuck inside her head, trapping her beautiful, yet damaged mind inside. She feels swallowed in a sea of thoughts and tumbling emotions that are rising like a maverick. She can’t contain it anymore. She erupts—she opens her big mouth and screams. Silence. No one is around her. The world has just stopped—frozen in time and place. She turns her head to see if she can move. Nothing happens, no sounds, just silence. Then, wham! A cab flips over and smashes into a tree.

Jack

4:13pm Jack usually gets picked up by Stewart after school, but he decides to ditch his driver and catch a ride in a cab downtown to Central Park. The clouds are hanging especially low, blanketing the city in its sorrows—these are the kind of days he likes. His driver slams on the breaks. However, the car beside goes flying through the intersection, but it doesn’t make it through the red light in time. The cab is hit by a fast moving semi, is vaulted into the air, and strikes a tree upside down. Jack tells his driver to go ahead and turn around to take him back home. The road would be closed soon, and if he stayed at the park, there would be too much traffic to ever get back home in time for dinner. Dinner’s always at a hard 6:00pm, after indoor lacrosse practice, but he skipped today…didn’t have the heart for it.

Jack’s birthday has always weighed on him, but this year has been especially heavy. His parents have pressured him more, his friends are mostly heroin addicts, and the girl he has been inconveniently crushing on for the past three years is stuck like glue to the hot glow-up from sophomore year. He turns his head out the window and watches as the people dance about the street, always rushing—places to be, people to meet, busy lives to attend to. For the rest of the cab ride home, Jack ponders the irrevocable power of freedom and silently cries in the back of the cab. He wonders if there is a person out there that will make him dance.

Olive

11:34pm Olive walks through the front door. Grace jumps up from the kitchen table and runs to her. “Where have you been? Don’t you do that to me again!” Grace has tears in her eyes. She grabs Olive and holds her in her arms. Olive explains that there was an accident near the park, so she walked for a couple miles before calling a cab the rest of the way home. “Hun. You have to be careful. It’s a zoo out there this time of the year and I HATE the idea of you being alone, especially today.” She plays with Olive’s hair. Olive looks into her eyes and starts sobbing again. She can’t hold it back anymore. It’s been a year since she cried—that’s how tough Olive’s cover-up has become, that’s how much time she has spent packaging all of her emotions into a tiny box and burying them deep into a pit in her soul. No longer, she has freedom from her pain at that exact moment. It’s fleeting though. Olive snaps back to reality and pushes Aunt Grace off of her. She wipes her tears and tells Grace that she isn’t hungry and just wants to be alone, again…a ploy to start hiding her true self from those who get too close to her.

She lies flat on her back on her bed and stares at the ceiling. Her mom was a fantastic artist and used to paint with Olive all the time. When her parents passed, she went digging under their bed for the boxes of old school supplies and random crafts until she found these paintings. She had stapled them to the ceiling. Aunt Grace was against Olive putting holes in the ceiling, but it didn’t bother Olive one bit. “What’s it like up there, mom? Is it colorful and just all that you hoped it would be?” Olive has the particular feeling that no matter what she does, everything will always go wrong. It’s like everyone around her is just living such a normal and simple life, but she has these powers to see the future and know that something—her passions, her love life, her job, her cares, her worries—will always go wrong. She’s coped this past year in her own silent, painful way. She wears threaded friendship bracelets and rubber bands over her wrists to hide the pain from the naked eye, but what the eye can’t see is that she is secretly scabulous. She is proud of her scars, of the character and the meaning behind where they are and how they got there. She plays with them like autographs on her body that she doesn’t share with the world. They remind her of her identity and how she got to this particular place of hell in her life. They speak of her brilliancy, of her broken mind and damaged heart. She gets out her phone and dials her mom’s number again. She can hear it ring in the box that she keeps it in, tucked away on the top shelf of her closet. It’s her namesake, and she must never let anyone take it away from her. Aunt Grace doesn’t know she has it for fear she would rip it away from her on a forced path of closure and acceptance. But, Aunt Grace, how the FUCK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO ACCEPT THAT YOUR MOTHER WAS FUCKING KILLED?

Aunt Grace knocks on the door, and Olive lets her in. Grace apologizes, but Olive knows it’s not her fault. She pats the bed for Grace to come and lie down with her. They stare at the ceiling while Aunt Grace tells old stories of Abagail and the crazy, stupid adventures they would have as kids. How Abagail fell in love so young and then had Olive. How Olive was such a tiny baby, born 3 months early, yet grew up to a be such a feisty, resilient, and brilliant young woman. The world seems to be spinning slower tonight with Aunt Grace sharing her memories about Olive’s mother. This whole year has seemed, to Olive, to be growing faster in time, as though the moon has been gravitating farther from this earth, and so she was spinning faster and faster until now. Now, it finally stops. The moon returns, and there is a brief moment of clarity for Olive. “Aunt Grace, do you ever feel like you’re stuck in one body, occupying just one space and it will never change? That people around you will continue to live freely but you will essentially never grow up to understand the world and what it has to offer? That you’re just a gawky kid from Queens who has lived the same day over and over again and nothing about it will ever change… “And that maybe you’re supposed to meet someone who will change your world? That there is somebody perfect out there, just for you and you’re supposed to spend eternity together, because he is the cosmic balance to your failures?” Aunt Grace doesn’t have an answer for her. So for the remainder of her 17th birthday, they lie together, with Olive’s head resting on her aunt’s shoulder. Olive feels safe for the first time in what seems like ages. She likes it and holds on to that feeling for as long as she can.

Tuesday, December 18, 2018 Jack

10:00am There’s a school trip to the Met to see the new exhibit on Art and Conspiracy, how everything is connected—public policy and the expression of artists who explored the hidden operations of power and the symbiotic suspicions between government and its citizens. However, Jack’s class is comprised of kids who spend their time vacationing in the Hampton’s and whose parents are politically powerful in the Republican party. Therefore, they aren’t interested in artists who unveil how the government is hidden in webs of deceit.

Olive

9:00am Aunt Grace wakes Olive. “Let’s go to the art museum today. C’mon girly, call off work this one time. We didn’t get to do anything for your birthday yesterday, and it’s the perfect day to go. It’s raining and you looove the Met. You can’t deny it.” Olive smiles and already knows the answer. All Aunt Grace had to do was say the word “Met” and Olive would be snapping on her shoes and out the door.

10:00am They arrive with a huge crowd of prep boys from the Academy down the street. Olive looks at them with disgust. “Look at them with their perfect hair and pocket squares in their suit jackets, so precise and perfect. Their lives so plain and planned—destined for wealth and authoritative power.”

Jack

10:38am Jack is drawn to the stunning expression of freed meaning and colorful revelations. He approaches an especially extraordinary depiction of Gerald Ford being pulled by a puppeteer behind the stock mark exchange. It’s exactly how he feels. Someone is pulling on him, his heart, and he can’t see who. He walks towards the art piece. There’s a tall white wall separating the room into two sides. He leans his right shoulder against the wall as he looks at the picture. He stops and feels the wall with his hand.

10:41am The hopeless romantic questions, “Is it her?” The woman who is tugging on his heart and pulling him along. The woman who has been dragging him around the city, pushing him to think that there is more of the world out there than what his school has taught him and his parent have preached to him. More than the uniform thought that people live such boring, regular lives, but that there are people who claim a dynamic life of excitement, complication, and vividness. These thoughts come flooding in; he can’t imagine anything else but that there is someone with just as beautiful a heart and complex a mind as him. A woman who will flip him upside down and change his world.

Olive

10:41am She stands with a white wall on her left side as she stares up at two black and white paintings. One is an alien, and she knows that’s exactly how she feels. An out of body experience occurs. She is lifted up out of her body. She feels pulled along, with increasing thoughts that there is more to this world, to this universe than this one place that she has stayed all her life. There is more out there, a reason her parents were killed by a drunk driver. A reason they left this earth and flew into the sky. There is a person who lives at this exact moment who is drawing her in, her heart, her mind. Then…

The Meantime

10:42am Nothing. A moment of tangency flees from the mind; the simple sample size of the original thought that the people of this world stand still and their lives are of no real meaning, just random commotion, comes back into focus. Jack turns to his left and walks away. Olive turns right and tells Aunt Grace she should leave.

10:43am A failed occhiolism: they never became aware of the smallness of their perspectives, in which they could never draw a meaningful conclusion about their worlds, and how they could have crossed paths and added to the complexities of the world’s great culture. A moment so innocuous, but with a chance for it marking the diversion in a new era of life. Like they just missed their cue. Two people who share a parallel story, harmonizing in what could have been a wilder experiment if she just turned the corner and crossed his path. But life is an unrepeatable anecdote. A universal flaw that the epiphanies of Jack and Olive were imperceptive and fleeting, until nothing was left but the echo of what might have been.

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noddytheornithopod · 6 years

Note

5 for the ask meme?

(From here)

5 - Favorite Episode(s)? Hmm, this is interesting. I have a few that come to mind as favourites for various reasons. I love so many of them, but here’s what I consider major standouts.

Alone Together: This is just such a sweet episode, not really much else to say on it. I’m major Connverse trash. :V

Open Book: I really admire this episode because it has a message that is only growing MORE relevant with time. People are defining their relationships too much by what they do and don’t like in regards to specific media (a major feeling I have right now because of Phineas and Ferb and Milo Murphy’s Law and the increasingly mixed reaction of their crossover lol). If your friendship really matters, you will know it’s okay to have different opinions on a book, movie, show, etc. I mean, it even feels like the Steven Universe fandom forgets this so much, I can tell you I’ve made my share of mistakes with this.

Sworn to the Sword: This is the episode that made me realise what the show could truly be capable of. It’s just so dark and sinister, and I really appreciate how the show isn’t afraid to use its own core characters like Pearl as episode antagonists. Of course, as you’ll see in a bit, this episode is now even darker. :V But I mean, in the end it’s about Steven and Connie’s relationship and how close they’ve become, and also really brought to my attention the idea of how self sacrifice can be detrimental. It’s just so good. I see some people take issue with the end and while I can see why, I’m still fine with it personally. It’s also just so well done from a technical standpoint too, like seriously Do it for Her has to be one of my favourite examples of lyrical dissonance I’ve ever seen, and the visual storytelling is brilliant.

Log Date 7 15 2: Look, I NEEDED a Peridot episode on this list, okay? XD I adore her, and this episode is so funny and great. It also helps add to Peridot’s character to the point it made me wish I got to see this before It Could’ve Been Great. XD It’s also cool because it really shows how much Steven can sometimes miss and as a result us because we’re limited to his perspective.

Mr Greg: Nuff said. Okay but seriously, Steven Universe musical episode? Yes please. Steven Universe musical episode that has major development for Greg and Pearl? Even bigger yes please. Honestly, you can really tell they went all out here, and the level of effort and passion really shows. It’s Over, Isn’t It is of course the big standout song, but they’re all enjoyable, and I really like Both of You both as a song and as the episode’s climax.

Mindful Education: Yeah, another really adored one. When I was first watching it, I have to admit I wasn’t quite sure where it was going. Steven Universe’s slower pace than most cartoons does that sometimes. XD But then the final act came, and it all clicked for me. Steven is really starting to struggle now and question who Rose Quartz really is, and it’s getting to him a lot. It’s also another great episode showing just how supportive Steven and Connie are of each other, seriously I adore them. Also, Here Comes a Thought is one of the best songs if not THE best song in the show hands down, it’s such a powerful piece of music and listening to it really is able to help with things like anxiety and stuff (and I mean as someone with OCD and also being an Autistic person prone to intense emotions, it really is something that helps).

Onion Gang: What?????? Some random townie episode??? Boring filler, get out!!!!!! Okay to be serious, this is actually my favourite of the Beach City citizen based episodes. I always was hoping for an episode that really helped to make Onion sympathetic because to me he’s VERY Autistic coded (in a different way to characters like Pearl and Peridot that is) and as a result a lot of the stuff people say about him rubs me the wrong way. This episode was just really touching, we got to see more of Onion than we ever had seen before and it helps make him more sympathetic to those who aren’t a fan of him. Also seriously, the part where he cries at the end because he’s now alone again always hits me hard.

I Am My Mom: Oh gosh, this episode. It might even be THE favourite depending on my mood. The previous episodes built up the threat of Aquamarine and Topaz really well and they really did have quite a scary presence. But this episode, damn. It just really hits so hard. It’s already beginning at a low point, but it just gets even harder. Just as when Steven seemed to think he might begin to heal over his issues, Aquamarine shows up with Topaz and they completely botch everything. Topaz is great as someone intimidating and will ultimately remain loyal to her duty even if we discover she’s secretly really struggling and sympathetic, but I love Aquamarine BECAUSE she’s such a little shit. I mean, I even get the impression she’s not even fully into her job and just wants what comes out of it for her. Steven’s guilt gets to the better of him to the point where he basically just gives up and sacrifices himself, quite possibly the lowest point for him so far. It’s a DEVASTATING scene, especially seeing how everyone is reacting. Connie’s scream at the end completely breaks my heart because now she risks being alone again, it’s so sad. The next two arcs are really great because this episode is such a wham. Speaking of which…

The Wanted arc: It’s probably just because it’s fresher in my memory, but I love it all so much. Not only do we get major character growth for Lars (and he fucking dies… ouch), but we also have it made clear to us the known story about Pink Diamond doesn’t make sense. I am a little let down by Lars’ Head, which while still a good episode I did feel maybe wrapped things up a little too neatly since Steven had such a means to get home. I guess maybe I just feel they needed another revived being to help establish it more so that it felt less of a surprise and less convenient? Still though, the next arc makes it clear it’s not all so easy.

The Season 5 Connie/Steven arc: Another instance where every episode hits so brilliantly. For me the second half of the episodes are definitely the overall stronger ones, but seeing this fallout made sense even if it was still devastating. I guess it’s why I like Aquamarine so much: she was able to fuck so much up compared to previous antagonists. But yeah, not only is the Steven and Connie stuff really emotional and touching in the end, but I also love the Peridot stuff too. I was happy to see that they addressed the issues in her relationship with Lapis (something I think was discussed further on the SU podcast), but you still so bad for her. It also relit my interest in Amedot, Amethyst was just so caring even if she was rough at times. Also I really liked Sadie Killer, purely because it satisfied the anti-capitalist side of me (Working Dead is a pretty cool song too). Also… they even added depth to Kevin. FUCKING KEVIN. It was also amazing to see that Steven actually resorted to working with him to try and patch things up with Connie, but even that didn’t go as planned.

A Single Pale Rose: So not only did we get a creative way to learn more about, Pearl, we also get the biggest twist of the show so far. Like seriously, Rose being Pink Diamond is the best kind of twist. Not only was it heavily foreshadowed in the series and could be picked up by anyone willing to put the pieces together (I was a big fan of the theory myself because I felt it would fit into Rose’s character really well), but it’s also something that completely changes everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. Everything is now so much more darker and complicated, and Rose is now only even more interesting as a character. And the best part is: apparently there’s even more we have to learn about Pink Diamond that will inform why Rose is such a complicated and tragic being.

Made of Honor: It’s fresh in my memory, but even so I still think this episode is worth mentioning. This Garnet arc is great, and Ruby and Sapphire marrrying is so sweet and satisfying and of course I mention this here because the wedding planning is a lot of fun, but I also loved how Bismuth was handled in this episode. Even if she only had one episode before this, she was still such a fully realised character, and I don’t blame people for feeling so passionate about her. Seeing her come to terms with everything was just really interesting to see.

#ask #meme #steven universe #please send more!#(yes i need something positive to direct my attention to lmao)

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letsgetnutsclub-blog · 6 years

Text

2017

Previously posted by LGN XYZ on Facebook

Hello there.

Proper writers and ‘bloggers’ and that will have done their 2017 write ups already. Fortunately, we’re crap, and so we’re doing it now. It’s not quite over, but it’s pretty much over. The year. And other things.

That was a terrible intro. Quick! Look to the past!

Chronology

We were going to just move through the year, like these things often do, but on second thoughts: balls to that. Our memory’s knackered and we’re tired, and some FUCKING CUNT IN ANOTHER FLAT is banging the floor like they do. So let’s just group things in vague themes and crack on.

Oh, this’ll be us talking about music, by the way. We should have said that at the beginning.

Making a bloody racket

We love a bloody racket in musical terms, and oh man do we miss going for a boogie to a bit of drum ‘n bass. It’s a great finisher. Back when dubstep was newish, it was fine and all, but a set had to finish with d’nb or it was a snore. Hip hop’s good and all, but in a club it’s a bit samey and mid-tempo unless you ramp up to a bit of d’nb.

Anyway, at the beginning of the year, Emeli Sandé – yes, Emeli Sandé – put out an absolute banger. Breathing Underwater (Matrix & Futurebound remix) is an absolutely euphoric belter. Love it.

And euphoric rackets brings us onto PC Music.

We were already grooving along to Charli XCX’s Vroom Vroom EP. It’s a massive smash of fairly aggressively old/new sounding rave-ups.

It was from there, we think, we learned of your SOPHIE. In what will become a bit of a theme in this ramble, late to the party we discovered the PRODUCT stuff SOPHIE put out in 2015. Most especially we fell deeply, deeply in love with JUST LIKE WE NEVER SAID GOODBYE, which is an absolute beauty of a track. A drumless banger. Listening to it daily. LOVE.

Back to Charlotte, 2017 was the year where she evidently was setting some self challenge of releasing a new track every week or so. Of her fifty-seven collaboration, the Mura Masa one is our fave. Whilst that steel pipe (drum? glockenspiel?) sound is so very now it’ll sound so very old in a year or two, 1 Night is an undeniable tune.

But Number 1 Angel – Charli’s album-in-all-but-artist-description ‘mixtape’ – was a bit of a revelation. In 2016, the people’s queen of x Carly Rae Jepsen won everything with her album-not-an-album Emotion Side B, and in 2017 Charles did the same. This prompted us to launch our catastrophic opening hour gambit for LGNXYZ02, but more of that later.

Number 1 Angel is so great, we’ve conspicuously not listened to her SECOND bloody album-not-an-album Pop 2 – that she casually threw onto the stack at the end of the year, forming a pair of “I call them mixtapes” 2017 bookends – because we’re a bit scared and want to have time to appreciate it / holy fuck it’s got a standard to live up to.

Soz.

Anyway, the first of the two had a very snazzy website put together showing off the producers. A bunch of your PC Music sorts – SOPHIE, A. G. Cook, Danny L Harle...

Huge Danny is another we’d sort of let slip by. He did a song with Jeppo a while back, and we thought it was okay, but we’re NOT INTERESTED in anything Emotion-era that falls outside the Emotion and Side B+ sets (what Lil Yachty advert song? Huh?) and so we paid little more attention.

Anyway, he produced one of the best on N1A, called ILY2, and with a penchant for initialisms this year he released an EP called 1UL. We gave it a listen, and moved on.

But then later in the year, we moved back. And gave it many more listens. The title track (another with that bloody plonky percussion sound) is a great wee thumper.

It takes us a while to catch on sometimes. Soz 2.

Taking a while to catch on

Two big ones we got to late in similar fashion were songs by Tinashe and Dua Lipa.

Again, we listened to the albums when people were wanging on about them, and didn’t give them enough time. That’s one of the drawbacks of streaming. When we were kids, if we took a punt on an album, that fucker was getting listened to. It took us a good while to learn to love Breakbeat Era, but we put the effort in and got there. Now, we’re flighty and don’t give things the time.

But we love a good music video. And these two have absolute belters of music videos.

Company, by your Tinashe, is an incredibly impressive performance video. A single room, a few people, some cheaty edits to cover the joins in a sweatily energetic and near-relentless routine, it’s fucking great. She looks amazing. And the song, it turns out, is absolutely magic. A smooth-as-anything r’n’b thumper, with a very enjoyable bleepy noise thrown in there. From 2016, but for us it’s a 2017 jam.

And your Dua snuck in an all-conquering number 1 hit and vaulted from alt-pop to pop-pop on the back of an all-time great music video for New Rules.

The minor flaws of the slightly wonky head-nod bit and the girl getting accidentally whipped in the face by someone’s hair only make this gem shine brighter. It feels like a home-grown triumph – don’t spoil it for us by telling us it cost $1mil and was directed by someone super-established. The choreography is tremendous, the look is great, but more than anything the core concept is so strong, it’s hard to think of a narrative vid and a song that go together so beautifully. It’s so good. We rewatched it a zillion times.

And from love of the song and video came a love of the song. And going back to a few of her previous singles too. Well done, all involved.

Music videos are important

Maybe in 2018 we’ll get back into making them.

Dua became a big hitter thanks to that incredible music video. And some existing big hitters released some big videos too.

Katy Perry launched what is apparently now trad to call an ‘era’ with an astonishing music video for Chained To The Rhythm. A proper megabudget job, but really, really darkly bleak and upsetting. What with political things as they were and are, it is still genuinely affecting to watch. A big shiny pop video has never been so harrowing. It was a real “oh fuck, she means business” moment, and did the job in creating a massive wave of publicity for her doing ‘woke pop’.

She then followed it with a song making a blunt non-metaphor about fucking. Didn’t do so well.

We quite like Bon Appetit, though, and Swish Swish did a Sound Of The Underground whereby it grew on us a thousand percent thanks to hearing it sounding massive at a disco (Unskinny Bop, natch). Astonishingly bad video, though, providing a peculiar seesaw end to the ‘era’.

And unfortunately clashing with Taylor Swift bringing out her own megabudget megavideo.

Look What You Made Me Do is pleasing if only for the fact that it was another underline that big pop stars are still in the business of spunking big money on big videos. High score for spectacle, with odd grade slipping due to the fact the rush to get it finished evidently left the first half slightly out of sync.

The song’s alright, but Ready For It...? is the real banger. We dig it. Haven’t given the album more than one listen, though. Maybe we’ll come back to it.

Selena Gomez’s Bad Liar was a leftfield anti-pop pop smash that we liked and grew to like more. We’ve not given this video many rewatches because we find it faintly unsettiling in its own way (is she digitally de-aged in it? What’s going on?)

And switching musical directions in the reverse, Lorde came back with a surprise disco banger in Green Light. Again we weren’t sure at first, again it grew on us, again we played it at LGN. Our initial judgement is often pretty shaky.

What isn’t shaky however is our enduring love for Ariana Grande. LGN was in part built on a night round one of our houses, singing along to Spotify, accidentally playing Problem on loop and loving it. Confident outspoken feminist queen of casually shutting down douchebags whilst releasing banger after banger.

This year, the hundredth single off of Dangerous Woman, again an awesome video grew our love for a song. Everyday is a song that more or less passed us by on the album. But seeing her grooving around in her big puffer jacket whilst diverse snogging kicks off around her in the really fun video made it move up onto our faves list. She’s the best.

We’re not going to be able to say anything in this superficial and pointless ramble to do justice to the fucking awful nightmare of what happened in Manchester, so we shan’t try. It’s heartbreaking, and the One Love response had us in tears.

Memory

George Michael died last Christmas, and as with David Bowie and Prince, it shamefully took his death for us to dig back into his music. And in George’s case, fuck we remembered some belters. Freedom ‘90 is an incredible tune, and one we played to triumphantly finished LGN04. His cover of As with Mary J Blige is ace. Multiple Wham! megasmashes which should have been on our playlist all along, apologetically we remembered them.

We also reminded ourselves what an incredible album Music Box is. Can’t remember what inspired us to have a bit of a Mariah Carey dig – perhaps just closing with her as queen of Christmas in the last 2016 LGN, and then rehearsing the lyrics to Hero when we wanted to close with it this year. A very, very strong closer. So good we chose it twice.

And you know who else we rediscovered this year? All Saints, mate. We saw them live (supported by Melanie C and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, thankyouverymuch) and it was everything. They looked incredible, they sounded incredible, they played the old hits and the new hits, they looked like they were having a fun old time of it, it was brilliant. We never saw them way back when, but this was pretty unbeatable. They played Chick Fit, which made us happy as that is an underrated smash. And they made us check out the new album. AGAIN, something we slept on when we first heard it, but One Strike is a top tier groover. Hurrah.

The joy of being part of a pop crowd

The All Saints gig was at Kew Gardens, and we were wary of it being a yummy mummy sitdown picnic fest. Which it was, but with a dancing area right in front of the stage, which meant we could get right in a wee crowd of heroes to boogie around like it was an awesome club gig.

AND SPEAKING OF AWESOME CLUB GIGS. We saw Yelle. For the somethingth time, always great, and this time in Canada.

We were a bit wary early on as the support DJs were kicking out some ace danceable tunes and the crowd was extremely sparse, an the venue inside was very swish and new which can sometimes be a bit of an atmosphere cooler. But when they came on, the crowd packed the dancefloor and it went off. Banger after banger after banger. Yelle chucked out a bunch of singles in 2017, all ace, all massive live, adding to a set of just the best fun jumping around pop joy. Love love love.

We were in Canadia for a hol, but deliberately coincided it with Tegan & Sara doing a hometown Con X show. This wasn’t a rave-up, was in a big modern concert hall, stripped down and partially acoustic-y. But was the joy of being a part of another sort of crowd. A crowd that love Tegan & Sara. T&S spent two albums doing the big pop thing, and it seems like they’ve had enough of it for now.

On stage and in interviews, they’ve spoken of how they wanted to be prominent queer voices in the mainstream, but now want to retreat a bit because the mainstream is gross. They spoke of playing big festival and support slots with the audience not really giving a shit. So here they were, playing a big small show for an audience who really gave a shit. It was wonderful.

Two days later, and well over a day without sleep, we were back in London, in another big modern concert hall, seeing Camille at the Barbican. Camille is someone you really should see live. Her albums are often beautiful, and floaty, and dreamily lovely. Live, she turns it into a big thumping dance performance. We can’t describe it without making it sound several times more shit than it is; it isn’t shit at all. It’s clatteringly, physically brilliant.

New love

In a not dissimilar fashion, Chela’s Bad Habit video is worth a look. It came out this year, and has the handclaps and odd clothing and weird dance moves that aren’t a million miles from Camille’s show. We’d never heard of Chela before, but liked this song and video. And it prompted us to look into what else she’d done.

And holy fuck, she’s incredible. No album, a bunch of scattered singles over a few years, but such tunes. And so captivating to watch. It helps that she’s beautiful, but it extra helps that she’s got fully awesome seemlingly-DIY dance moves. We watched the video to Romanticise a million times. More than New Rules. It’s just her grooving around in a single shot, a few digital paint splashes here and there, but it’s fucking great, and the song is an absolute bop. A megabop.

We were hyper obsessed with Romanticise for weeks, playing it pretty much daily. It’s SO GOOD. And in the past week or so, we’ve gone the same for Handful Of Gold. Go and watch it, again and again. We can only hope Chela decides to pop over to London this year, because we will be there with our shapes ready to be thrown. She’s fucking great.

Four discos

Oh aye. We put on some discos.

In 2016, there were three LGNs. In 2017, there were four.

For LGN04, Saturday 4th February, we moved to sunny Dalston and the Moustache Bar Dalston and had a good old time. The now trad quiet beginning, and hopeless flyering of the empty streets, gave way to a busy crowd by the end. Someone requested Martha and went nuts for it when we played it, which was ace.

LGN05 was just one month later, on Satuday 11th March. We felt bad for the few people who came early doors, and we made a real mistake running out to futilely flyer again rather than start a dancefloor amongst ourselves. But again it came good, chums arrived, and the crowd again filled in at the end and was so happy singing along we did a double finish (there’s little better than having a crowd belting out Hero AND It’s All Coming Back To Me Now one after the other).

And then the Let's Get Nuts crew had a bit of a crisis meeting. It’d become very stressful, three of us organising a disco together, and we were getting a bit narked with each other. We had all sorts of extra-disco things to worry about, and rather than break up as chums, we decided to break up as a disco. Or at least go on hiatus, like your One Directions or your Sleater-Kinneys.

But here at LGN XYZ, we really needed the continuing distraction, and so spun off to do basically the same thing, just with fewer people prepping it and poking at the iPad. Our LGN chums still chums, they thankfully came along to provide incredible and invaluable dancing support.

We approached The Victoria and they gave us a post-gig slot on Friday 19th May. Like absolute idiots, we figured we’d inherit something of a built-in audience – the venue being home to G R R L S and PINK GLOVE, and us following a Two Piece Records gig. We kind of didn’t, and had another harrowingly quiet beginning as people were spread out within the actually-pretty-big pub.

But again – AGAIN – it came good.

Our chums kept us going early doors. A heroic solo-discoer was there throughout and encouraged our riot grrly tendancies. And a trio of Charlotte and Jeppo lovers cheered our alt-pop hearts. By the end, we had people strutting to Shamir and raving it up to N-Trance.

You can read about LGNXYZ01 in a separate post where we blethered on about that, and about LGNXYZ02, which on Friday 10th November brought us back to The Star of Kings, in our follow-up jibber.

And so that was that

2017, in bits of music there.

Run The Jewels probably deserve a mention too, as they keep our ear into a bit of hip-hop, whilst we’ve drifted away from paying much attention otherwise. Kanye’s still on heavy rotation. Lizzo popped out a couple of new bops. And Fiona Apple’s 2012(!) album The Idler Wheel... remains our go-to when we’re not feeling big and poppy and want to feel some feels and sing along with something sadder.

And in fact, let’s finish with something really emotional.

Annie Hardy, from your Giant Drags, put out an album called Rules at the beginning of the year. It packs a fucking whallop. Her partner and baby died the years before, and some of the songs are about that. It’s a record that can really kick the shit out your heart.

Start 2018 as you mean to go on.

This was an odd way to end this long and rambling post, wasn’t it? Ah well, it’s happened now.

Happy new year. x

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