#i really like vicious but some of the chorus sounds like this one song from shrek 2 that I can't place for the life of me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nako-doodles · 2 years

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i need your thesis on all the songs in the album i'm being so serious rn 😭 i'll rb it once a day for months and months don't deprive me like this of things i didn't even know i needed

ioaefjerjgioajo ill try my best aiofjoerjgiojao i was so annoying to my friends over my first impressions over all the songs so im gonna try my best to summarize my thoughts on these songs

joonie said this entire album was a recollection of everything hes done in his 20s aka the transformative years of his life and you can ABSOLUTELY hear the member influences (at first i heard the sope influences bc they have the biggest body of work so their style is most distinct but upon relistens its really a love album to his younger self (you can really tell its an evolution from rm and mono) and his members. ALSO i love how he modulates and changes his style and timbre to fit the style and quirks of his featuring artist? hes so fucking cool????? oh my GOD?????? anyways heres the impressions by song:

track one: yun ft. erykah badu very hot of him to start the entire album w 'FUCK THE TRENDSETTERS' the bassline the restraint of a laidback soundscape the reverb set to max the lines 'I wanna be a human / ‘Fore I do some art / It’s a cruel world / But there’s gon’ be my part' is so fucking insane? fuck. this song lyrically is all about uncertainty and the soundscape has a lot of space for growth and white space for art to be exhibited dare i say, its like the debut group's first stage? full of promises and expectations and uncertainty, but you march ahead regardless......what a sexy first song on the track track two: still life ft. anderson paak

BRING IN THE FUNK HELLS YEA VHOPE IS VIBING SO HARD RN I JUST KNOW IT now the empty space and reverb bassline is given some direction and happiness here. still life is a form of art and thus begins rm's first piece of art here in his lil art collection and joon accepting that things will come as they are and ppl will try to reduce him down to one thing, but hes still a fully realized human moving forwards like us all

track three: all day ft. tablo

ok this bassline and instrumental SCREAMS yoongi to me. the lil kick between verses the beats w the bassline the high melody line the bridge that sick transition from verse to chorus like no wonder tablo is here. i know yoongi draws lots of inspiration from epik high so it makes sense. sonically speaking this song takes the funky sounds of the previous track and condenses it and brings a hint of melancholy just in time for our next track. speaking on less fun notes, tablo is really the only other person who survived such vicious tonguelashing and emerged more powerful and a better person and im just glad joonie has someone to look up to.

track four: forgetful ft. kim sawol oh our queen of folk here to deliver some nice kindie chill vibes thank you i need it for our coming song mwah. here we slowly start to hear the funky bright poppy merge to a chill sound this song was for tae i just know it!!! sonically theres some fun stuff going on but it feels like a cooldown piece for the rest of the album. joonie really said i can pull off ALLLLLLLL genres.

track five: closer ft. paul blanco mahalia

the rnb influences the syncopation the pop beats i bet jk is having the time of his life singing to the chorus. the guitar and the beat and the piano makes me an immediate fan. also they modulated the message beep to be in the same key??? as the song?????? AND it gives us a diving board into the electronica of the next song and then the sound expands when joonie comes in???? i love it.

track six: change pt. 2

OOF KIM NAMJOON DID SUM NASTY WORK ON THIS SONG ITS SO GOOD ok ok ok so this sudden electronica synthpop isnt jarring bc joonie did a fantastic job ordering this album BUT you know whats the fucking kicker???? the way he arranged this song. on paper this song should NOT fucking work but it does bc they used the same chord from the synths as the piano that comes in later even tho it turns to double time half way thru the song and it would be amazing at there BUT(dont quote me on this) change and change pt 2 are either in the same key or are on relative keys AND if you listen to change ft wale which starts on the piano and goes to electronica, he does the exact opposite here???? fuck and the lyrics mirror each other as well????? fuckK

track seven: lonely

this is the love song to mono the reverb on that guitar the upbeat melancholy the tokyo forever rain vibes are THERE BUTTTTT hes added more complex transitions and layering? like even in this short amount of time hes grown exponentially fuck kim namjoon ur so sexy track eight: hectic ft colde

THIS IS THE HOBI SONG OF THE ALBUM YES KING GIVE ME THAT BOUNCY BASS AND HIGH AIRY SYNTH CITYPOP VIBES YES KING i NEEDD someone to give me a just dance x seesaw x hectic remix asap it would sound SO good. also as someone who listens to a lot of colde/offonoff, this collab is SO FUCKING good bc you can hear coldes influences as well? its so good my god the sax the lil touches the production FUCK. ANNNDDDDD they switched to double time again for this outro so the next song doesnt come in too jarring??? mr kim how did you fit so many genres into this album and yet they all belong together????? im in so much fucking awe man!!!!!

track nine: wildflower ft. youjeen

ive told you pretty much everything i wanted but fuck the production on this song is just so fucking good. the details. the expert control of the soundscape. the arrangement. i cant wait to hear vocal line sing youjeen's lines. i also love that he put his title song at the end bc hes at the end of his 20s. this is him currently. hes still growing and growing roots and stretching to the sun fuck man i cant believe this song took over my most played joonie song forever rain in a week.

track ten: no 2 ft. park jiyoon

and here we are returned to the starting spot but slightly to the left, like when you've walked thru the museum exhibition and am spat out the exit right where you started, but w the new insights and experiences that the you from an hour ago didnt have. joonie is a masterful curator and this song ouroboroses us right back to listen to this album again. the tongue in cheek of ending w 'no looking back' when im ready to replay this album again like you literally inviting me to replay this album youve made it a point to end like this?????? lmfao kim namjoon who do you take me for hmmm?????

if youve made it to the end here i love you nothing makes sense anymore i only know that i love kim namjoon and that ive had this album on loop and i STILL hear new things in it i have no words for how much respect and awe and love i have for this man. and when he said 'fuck the trendsetters' he really did it. he dabbled in ALL of the most popular sounds and genres you hear in the music industry, pulled it off w aplomb, and moved on. anyways i love kim namjoon.

#im sorry i ranted at you this is a nightmare to read 😔 i hope this makes sense #anna i hope youre ready for th moost rambly thing to have ever existed im not proofreading any of this im sorry #ans #muwutuals #i just noticed i didnt mention jinmin but in my defense neither of them have had.....a style to them yet?#theyre both musical chameleons bc everything works for them but they havent had the time to explore their specific sound if that makes sens #theyre both still developing their own vibes and musical quirks but i cant wait to hear how they grow

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blackchantilly · 9 months

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I was tagged by @rivetgoth to list 10 songs I like this month. I'm going to try to pick a few other songs I haven't been talking about as much, probably with a couple of repetitive exceptions, lol. Most I've been listening to on my summer playlist, but a few have made it on my not-yet-finalized fall playlist. In no particular order...

"Tall in My Room" by Public Memory: The album this is on just came out at the beginning of the month and it's FANTASTIC! This is probably my favorite song from it, but it's pretty much flawless all the way through. I've been describing it as haunted house trip hop (so like...darkwave/trip hop, but in a very specific way). We're going to see them live later this month. 😁

"The Skin and the Glove" by Drab Majesty: Definitely their best song on the kind of disappointing EP they just put out. They've delved into '90s shoegaze recently, and this is the best example, with some nice psychedelic influences that I don't hear enough in modern goth music.

"Hunger Cries" by High-Functioning Flesh: I honestly thought this song was from the '80s when I first heard it. They really nailed the Remission-era Skinny Puppy sound. I enjoyed the entire album.

"Normalized" by Vision Video: I heard this on the above-tagged dude's blog and enjoyed it! The chorus kind of reminds me of "Vicious Pastimes" by House of Harm but with a more classic goth rock sound. I had avoided checking out this group because I think they're kind of a TikTok thing, so I was pleasantly surprised to realize that they are actually good.

"Model Citizen" by Male Tears: I've been listening to them a fair amount lately, and this has been my favorite. Just a really fun darkwave song. Their song about Skinamarink is good too, but I haven't listened to it as much (yet).

"I Been Young" by George Clanton: Another '90s throwback. He said it was supposed to be a '90s adult contemporary song, lol. It's a fantastic pop song even if you didn't spend your childhood listening to "Come Undone" by Duran Duran on the radio constantly...but I think that helps.

"Vanity" by Nuovo Testamento: I don't like all of their material, but this song is infectious as hell. It's more synthpop and less pop-pop than some of their other songs. Really fun to sing along to. We saw them live with Molchat Doma this past spring and this was my favorite that they played.

"Never Ever" by Body of Light: Another really good album. I can't get enough of this song in particular. The fretless bass and saxophone solo make this a convincing throwback to early-'80s Japan or Gary Numan circa 1981 (very specific!). The vibe is strong here. Also very fun to sing along to.

"The Machineries of Joy" by Die Krupps feat. Nitzer Ebb: 100% my song of the summer. The platonic ideal of EBM. It gets me super pumped, so I've been listening to it at the gym a lot. This is one of many new favorites I heard on this excellent playlist created by a very obscure synthpop duo I like on my friend's record label, haha.

"Rigor Mortis" by A Split-Second: An older Wax Trax favorite that was recently added to Spotify. Yay! I promptly added it to like six different playlists and have been happy not to have to go out of my way to hear it.

Two recent runners-up are "Anywhere" by A Projection and "Always More" by Autokratz -- slightly less memorable but both really fun, synthy, and danceable, albeit in different ways.

#brock is probably really tired of me listening to and talking about these songs lol

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maxwell-grant · 2 years

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Jojo bingo: Vinegar Doppio/Diavolo

Doppio/Diavolo is one of those characters that I find deeply fascinating, more so than well-realized, which I guess could be said for a lot of other favorites of mine. Everything great about him is almost all in the build-up that ends with an pretty unsatisfying pay-off by the time he gets lost in the Chariot Requiem shuffle (quite literally so), and then gets even more lost once GER happens and, y’know. Diavolo is more famous for his “death” than anything else which is, fitting, in a way, but doesn’t exactly do much to alleviate the idea that he’s pretty unsatisfying as a main villain. I do think there’s a lot to like about Diavolo in regards to his build-up and the ways he’s presented, I’m a lot more generous on the guy than most JoJo fans seem to be. He’s on the bottom of my favorite main JoJo villains but still a character I really, really like.

He’s definitely he one main JoJo villain who got an undeservedly horrid fate, maybe the worst fate possible and one that countless other JoJo villains deserved far, far more. There’s lots of room to argue over what works and what doesn’t about the Vento Aureo finale but, regardless, I do think it’s a solid concept on it’s own, I do love some GER jokes myself and I like that it gave him a niche as “the guy who’s dying forever”, I like how some fan works play with that idea.

I’d say upfront that my favorite thing about him is how the anime presents him. Now obviously this doesn’t sound like high praise, but so much of JoJo wins me over due to presentation and I definitely think the anime did the best it could and beyond with the character. I love the sounds used for his powers and transformations, I love the ways they adapted or visually changed the phone conversations between Doppio and Diavolo, I love King Crimson and Epitaph’s effects, and I especially love the fact that, unlike prior parts where the villains only really had one theme to go with, they gave him NINE THEME SONGS to go with on the soundtrack (that’s not counting his sung opening interlude), making use of separate motifs to represent Doppio, Diavolo, King Crimson, Epitaph, their key battles vs Bruno and Risotto and the finale, and etc. All of these songs build off each other in their shared motifs for the two and sporadic usages of phone noises, death shrieks, distortion effects, chorus, clock ticking sounds, pitch shifting, all of these mixing and matching and making part of the tracks to capture how discordant and powerful he is. The soundtrack for Part 5 makes Diavolo one of the most musically interesting characters in the entire series by sheer variety alone.

I love Diavolo’s build-up as The Boss and how we kind of grow accostumed to thinking of King Crimson as The Boss, with how frequently he speaks and acts through King Crimson first and foremost. King Salami is an all-timer Stand design, wonderfully expressive, wonderful power, wonderfully vicious and strong even without it’s game-breaking bullshit, it has a wonderfully deadly build-up in how it’s every appearence is heralded by a main character dying. and it works to put one among many layers of separation between us and The Boss along with Doppio, who adds another interesting twist in that he’s visually and functionally indistinguishable from the protagonists. It’s a wonderful way to let The Main Villain operate as Protagonist without spoiling anything about said Main Villain even when we quite literally get inside his head and see him juggling variants and frantically calculating ways to stop his feral manchild alter-ego from getting themselves killed or exposed. I like Diavolo because he’s pretty damn funny, he’s deeply ridiculous and self-destructive even as he makes a lot of genuinely clever plays and moves to stay ahead. I’ve seen him described as the kind of JoJo character that Nicholas Cage could play and I agree with that, he can be brutally comedic in ways intentional and unintentional.

I’m also obviously taken by characters with split/multiple personalities, and I do think the concept is used very interestingly here, in how Diavolo and Doppio function and relate to each other. Diavolo/Doppio is definitely the one main JoJo villain I most definitely have headcanons for because I find them fascinating to think about, to explore. I actually really like that they kinda subvert the usual good/bad thing in that they’re both different kinds of bad, and the seemingly “good’ personality Doppio isn’t actually good at all, merely terrible in different, more aggressive and less self-centered ways. Fandom Doppio is such a boring misread on what a horrid, feral, yet endearing character Doppio is and how great the dynamic between the two is. I love that their main point of contrast personality-wise is that Diavolo is deeply, murderously self-centered, where as Doppio is deeply, murderously selfless, completely willing to disregard his own safety and throw himself headfirst into certain death for the sake of his Boss, who despite caring for Doppio (as much as he can care for anything), doesn’t look back once at the prospect of leaving him behind to ensure his own survival. It’s like if DIO and Vanilla Ice shared the same body and mind, it’s a pretty interesting concept for a dual-identity villain to begin with.

My take on the “who’s the original personality” debate is, whatever idea I find the most interesting to go with at any given moment, but personally I think it’s less that one is the original and the other is the alter, and more so that they were always co-pilots of the same body (the anime kinda leans in this direction by showing their eyes shifting when they were a baby, something that wasn’t in the manga), and their separation was just further compounded with time (to the point Chariot Requiem classified them as separate spirits entirely). Neither of them is quite “complete” as a person in their own right, it just so happens that one personality sublimated the other to the extent they radically embody two different periods of the same person’s life (Doppio recognizes his hometown as his hometown, despite not being able to recognize himself and Diavolo as the same person).

I do love fanon takes on Diavolo x Doppio that play up the idea of Diavolo as a protective alter created to protect Doppio, and I even like Diavolo’s finale behavior a lot better with the idea that he always has been this fundamentally immature and childish being, a shy young man’s idea of what a big and untouchable grown man looks like, and without Doppio, with no smokescreens to hide behind, he’s reduced to his naked self, a raving beast perpetually clawing for power and untouchability (in a sense, a way for Giorno to truly overcome his fate by defeating and taking the reigns from, who else, a man exactly like his dad at the bottom line). The idea Diavolo remembers everything where as Doppio remembers nothing, not even his given orders, because Diavolo was created to be a scary and invincible man, where as Doppio was created to be the carefree young boy they once were. One a violent single-minded protective entity driven by a desire to separate themselves from their past at all costs, the other a fleeting memory of a person meant to take the front seat and enjoy life free from the burdens of a past.

Everytime we see Diavolo fronting, he’s cowering under blankets and hiding in the shadows, where as Doppio gets to go out and play soccer and pet frogs. Diavolo has no wants or desires other than just expanding his criminal organization and protect his identity (even his mad chase for the arrow is more so to keep it away from his enemies and stop them from challenging him, than wanting to do anything with the arrow’s power), and one could argue that his main goal with creating Passione to begin with is just an extension of his clinically paranoid concern over his identity. He follows Kira in the sense that he has no real ambitions, merely an obsessive desire to keep on living exactly the way he does right now, with no possible risk to it, hence why he has to kill Trish, because even though she’s just an average 15 year old who’s literally never even met him, the risk that she could sense and identify him, which she could because family in JoJo works like that, is enough.

Canonically, all of this comes back to his desire to protect himself at all costs, but I really like (and kind of prefer) fandom takes that instead play with the idea that Diavolo’s doing all of this to protect Doppio, as the only thing about themselves that they were able to salvage from a disastrous past they’ve gone through such absurd lengths to kill and bury. I like the fanon idea that all he ultimately cares about, all he really has that’s worth caring about, is Doppio (and canon Diavolo does care for Doppio, even if mostly out of self-preservation), and his most redeeming quality would also be the one that’s caused literally all of his sins, every murder and torture and drug empire and beyond done by him or in his name (I think one of my consistently favorite things about certain JoJo villains is the ways in which their best qualities, morally speaking, tend to be their scariest traits or lead to their most destructive actions).

I get that a lot of what I’m describing is more fan conjecture than canon, but I do like canon Diavolo. I just also really like some fan ideas of him that give him more attention than the Vento Aureo finale could. Not all of his concepts are used as interestingly as they could have been, but I liked them as they were, I like this guy quite a lot and I wouldn’t even mind that much if he somehow came back, if nothing else to be freed from his horrid fate, Jesus Christ Giorno, I know GER was acting independently and that you didn’t know what it was doing or gonna do, but what the fuck is wrong with you that your soul manifested this abomination to begin with, you could have just sniped his head with that scorpion beam and thrown him in the river, you didn’t have to go ahead and somehow outdo your father in sheer eternal pointless cruelty

#replies tag #jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #vento aureo #jjba part 5 #golden wind #jjba doppio #jjba diavolo #king crimson #character opinion bingo

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halfyourheart · 2 years

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alice bestie hi !! I saw u rb sabrina n now I want to know your favourite songs of emails I can't send (if u may wish to share them <3)

hi myle hi bestie <3 !

pls let it be known that this was way harder than I anticipated?? this is pure vibes and what are currently my favourites. I am so bad at definitive rankings (except for the last one because I am a hater apparently)??? on the other hand, I spent way too much time on this and went back and forth a bajillion times. It's a conundrum, so without further ado, enter at your own risk <3

emails i can’t send

I fell in love with this song when she first posted it on tiktok (i think)??? before the album was announced. and I loved it even more when it got released. just the twist of it being about her dad (or just a dad - but yeah)!! and that connecting with what people have been calling her “home wrecker” and “slut”. As an intro, I think it ties the whole album together really well and emphasises the message(/email (didn’t mean to do that)) that she’s trying to send so I crown thee number one.

2. already over

i love love love the sound this song; it’s so fun. the pacing. the chorus, the “I say i’m done but i’m still confused” just hits me every time. a controversial opinion because this is possibly my one friend's least favourite song. ALSO the end “i like my bed but it likes you too”??? kills me. personifying something so love-driven (bed!) just hiTS. i just have the most fun with this song :D

3. tornado warnings

lying to your therapist to convince yourself something is true was a little bit too relatable lol. "I'll drive you home you drive me crazy" then combined with "I'll call you out You call me "baby"" no I can't handle it.

4. bad for business

the concept as a whole is something I find really interesting and relatable. sadness selling? you’re only worth something when you’re writing/drawing/painting about the saddest/lowest points of your life. Or getting inspiration from those points. It’s just something I struggle with a lot because I always feel like I create best when I’m at some of my lowest points (definitely my brain lying to me but we move). So like what’s the point of happiness if it’s not benefitting me in a ‘productive’ way? and then I argue with myself because??? there is so much wrong with that train of thinking especially since I LOVE people simply being happy? and I love art centred around that. a simple domestic fic or a painting that’s just two people chilling in the kitchen with tea? that’s my shIT. and that is the shit! just vibing and enjoying yourself is the goal! I’m likely reading too much into it and forming a personal attachment to it so I don’t want to put it low. what the song touches on is something I am so fascinated with and deal with a lot :)

5. Vicious

One of the first songs I gravitated towards upon first listening to the album. “everyone thinks you’re an angel but shit I would probably use different wording” mmmMmMm. the distortion leading up to “I was only the next one to take your love songs as a promise” and that whole section just scratches my brain so nicely. there’s something so cathartic about borderline sing-screaming :D

6. Read your Mind

a very fun-paced song. “you’re not my friend and baby you never were”. Is this higher up because she says baby? maybe so. Ms Carpenter, please call me baby, respectfully. bUT also it’s a really interesting take on a lack of communication because you'd expect it to sound slower. that contrast gets me in a good way. I am a sucker for juxtaposition yUM.

This where the list gets a little bit dicey because I went back on forth with these rankings a LOT.

7. Nonsense

no, but I do love this song??? why are you here bestie?? it’s so fun and the riffs 🥺 the ad-libs 🥺 “bleh-blah-bleh” 🥺 Shakespeare who? “I had to jump the octave *proceeds to jump the octave*??? SHOCK HORROR GASP

8. how many things

the start is so funny “you used a fork once it turns out forks are fucking everywhere” sksksksks comedic genius I swear. and then back into the emotional whiplash with “I, I wonder how many things you think about before you get to me” as someone who romanticises past relationships (platonic and romantic) ahah this song mmmmmmm it hurts. “remember when you left once? that never made much sense to me.” wrecked me. wrecked ME. and "your corner in my mind is well established"????

9. decode

form imitating lyrics gets me so hard. “the gaps and the silence” with the pause? yeah that hit me over the head and stole my money and I'm totally cool with that. once again, Shakespeare who??? this song is so underrated. "being myself did that emasculate you"?????????????? Over-analysing (also the way she sings over-analysing ashdajdgahd) things is sort of my MO.

10. because i liked a boy

“I’m a home wrecker I’m a slut” “dating boys with exes no I wouldn’t recommend it” mmmMmm YuM but then tying back to emails i can’t send? an emotional whiplash honestly but also a very fun song to listen to. (I don't know how this song ended up here but I have just changed things three times so we are not touching it).

11. bet u wanna

i know I'm the worst. why is this in the bottom three? This song is hot I won't deny (the baseeeee), but I simply do not vibe with it as much as the others at this point in time. Maybe that'll change one day but for now, she sits here.

12. skinny dipping

shoutout oat milk! This is so low because we heard it so long ago I think? I did read that it's so awkward because it's imitating the conversation she's having with her ex and I do love that.

13. fast times

I have never liked fast times ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't even really have a specific reason why?? the music video is great but I just don't gravitate towards this song.

I really do love this album and this was so hard and it will likely change at a whim (except for you fast times 👀 *insert luke saying I’m heartless with those*) but this is definitely some of her best, if not her best, writing to date imo (sue me you will always be famous to ME), so that makes sense.

The only part of this that was easy was the top three and the bottom three. The middle can and will change at any time. 6-10?? they switched constantly aH.

What's your ranking? <3

#i am so sorry for the length of this 💜#I love sabrina carpenter!#if you ever wanna talk about her hit me up 😌💗#clearly I have so much to say that are basically incoherent fragments #how many times did I say fun #please don't let that deter you #I feel like that one taylor swift lyric: hey kids spelling is fun!#what a dark time #anways #hope you enjoyed that myle 💜#alice answers #sabrina carpenter

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a-moth-to-the-light · 2 years

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i've been listening to a lot of music lately, and i have some random thoughts!

Yena's Smartphone -- I didn't love how quiet Yena's vocals sounded in the chorus of "Smartphone" at first listen: it prevented the song from hitting as hard as it could have for me, but I adjusted to it very quickly and haven't stopped humming the chorus since. I really like how the song leans so heavily into noisy pop-rock (probably because of the popularity of "Lxxk 2 U" earlier this year!). I've also been listening to "Lemon-Aid" from the album, and it's exactly what I wanted but didn't quite get from "Loveade" by VIVIZ, which has me predicting that "Lemon-Aid" will become a favorite of the summer!

Lizzo's Special -- I've listened to about 3/4 of the album, which I was really looking forward to because I thought "About Damn Time" was super fun, and so far I've added "2 Be Loved" to my playlists because WOW that chorus does something to me! I think Lizzo doing retro was a fantastic idea--her vocals sound especially strong over big 80's pop arrangements, especially those "Out of Touch"-sounding synths in "I Love You Bitch". Unfortunately, this album also reminded me that I don't really enjoy her voice when she raps (which is strange given that I tend to enjoy rappers who are considered obnoxious) so I'm not sure how many songs here will have staying power for me.

MUNA's MUNA -- I put off listening to this album for over a month, despite how much I've liked their past work, but once I finally checked it out, I made up for lost time with obsessive replaying of "Silk Chiffon". The album feels conceptually the same as Saves the World, their last album, half big emo synth and half soft sad guitar, but I don't mind that because, well, the formula is awesome, and the songs on MUNA weigh just as heavily on me as their predecessors. No, that isn't normally what I want from music, but to me it's really not a MUNA track if I don't gasp when the chorus hits and mumble the verses in a state of deep melancholy for days afterward! If you're looking for songs with especially vicious intensity, I would recommend checking out "No Idea" and "Runner's High" first :)

Hyuna's Nabillera -- I feel like Hyuna is the only artist who took everyone's complaints about noise music to heart, and I'm so sad about it. Like NO HYUNA ITS OKAY WE WEREN'T TALKING ABOUT YOU YOUR LOUD OBNOXIOUS MUSIC HAS ALWAYS BEEN FUN ITS OKAYYYYY. But I think the backing track to "Nabillera" is really interesting, despite how much softer it is than my favorite songs of hers, so I bet this one, and maybe even some of the album tracks, will start to grow on me!

Woo!ah!'s Joy -- I have never become this attached to an entire woo!ah! release, despite my intense love for some of their other songs, and I can't really explain why this specific one works for me. Maybe I'm missing Twice and (*sobs*) Gfriend this summer, and woo!ah!'s saccharine vocals fill the hole they've left in my heart while I anxiously await Twice's comeback later this month. There's also some absolutely stunning instrumentation in this album, especially in "Go Away" (that simulated choral effect paired with the beat drop is super cool!), so I'm hopeful about how these tracks will age!

Majiko's "Kosaten" -- Very meh :( I enjoy listening to it well enough, but I forget pretty much everything about it once it ends. I'll just keep listening to "Fantasy"!

And, finally, exciting news! Loona's "Pose" has fought its way from the lowest category in my song-ranking system to the second-highest! Turns out I really, really like it!

#yesterday was a bad day for chronic pain so this is my comfort post!#music chats #yena #yena smartphone #lizzo #hyuna #muna #wooah #majiko #loona

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watermelonlipstick · 3 years

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Hot Blood

This was written as a request for an anon who asked:

hi! i was wondering if you could write a dean fic where he’s with the reader in their car and hot blood by kaleo comes on, the reader sings along, their voice is really good, and dean realizes he’s in love w the reader

First of all, great song! I hadn’t heard a ton of Kaleo before, but I’ve put them into my rotation so thanks for the recommendation! I hope it’s okay that I took a few liberties with the format because it felt right with the angle; it’s from Dean’s point of view so the reader is in third person.

Title: Hot Blood

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 1251

Summary: Hearing the reader sing along to Kaleo makes Dean realize his feelings about her are a lot more complex than he’s ever realized.

Warnings: swearing, pining, fluff, sexual frustration?

“The fuck is this?” Dean asks as she turns up the radio.

“The band’s called Kaleo—you’ll like them, they’re from Iceland!” she yells, starting to groove and hum along as the volume starts pounding through the speakers. She doesn’t hear when he repeats her—Iceland?

When she starts singing along to the radio her voice is somehow not what he expected—lower? Higher? He can’t even really tell, but that wasn’t the thing anyway, it’s that she’s…haunting. That’s it. The song is up tempo, the kind of rock beat he can tolerate even if it’s a poor facsimile of the greats, and that’s the crux of the hypnosis as she sings. Somehow, even howling along to a repetitive chorus, wind blowing the hair back from her face with the window of the Impala cracked a few inches, sides of her thumbs tapping the drumline out over the thighs of her jeans, it’s like she’s chanting a spell, triggering that deep-primal interconnectedness of a particularly vicious exorcism or bit of creation magic.

Maybe that’s just the closest he can get to placing it. The shock of how fucking good she is notwithstanding—and she is seriously good, makes Dean think of Janis and Chrissie Hynde and maybe even Joni Mitchell who he knows is a genius even if he might never admit it aloud—appreciating a killer singer never makes Dean feel like this, like he has to consciously focus on the road after the hundreds of thousands of hours he’s driven in his life for the way his brain wants to forego everything else on earth for that fucking voice.

Thank God for the bridge or Dean might’ve missed the turn, nothing else on the miles of wheatfields surrounding them he could even pretend to be distracted by but her. As it is, he takes it a little tight, and she smoothly reaches a hand through the open window to brace herself on the doorframe as the Impala carves out some rural dirt. Momentum shifts her a few inches across the leather toward him, sweet-salty shampoo and cherry chapstick scent of her dusty in the dry late summer afternoon wrapping him up like a boa constrictor, like tentacles, and he’s gotta immediately stop that connection because tying this moment to his Japanese erotica is going to fry his brain so bad he might actually have to pull over.

“See? I knew you’d like it,” she half-howls over the radio, laughing like nothing in this world matters except whether Dean’ll listen to some dumb song for her, and the sliver of tongue that catches the glisten of sunlight as she does is making Dean feel sort of queasy the way he did at 16, snuck into a bar with his dad as a reward for a hunt gone well and trying his best not to stare at the soft swells of the bartender’s body as she shook a tumbler of Vegas bombs, winking at him from across the room. John had made some half-joke about being careful with girls like that and Dean knew he was just being confronted with his son growing up, but he’d heard him loud and clear—a girl like that will drive you crazy, make you eat yourself up with want from the inside out. In that bar he’d been grateful for the low lighting and high top table to shield the physical weakness of his want but he’s a grown ass man now and he thinks maybe going crazy wouldn’t be so bad, maybe he could throw Baby in park and all the good karma he’s ever racked up would bless him in that moment, let him taste that tongue catching tiny sparks of sun beautiful and dirty and impossible to resist like a diamond from the dark mine of her mouth, feel that fucking voice vibrate under his fingertips as he tangled himself into the brambles of her.

And then the bridge is over. She’s turned the volume back up and is pulling exaggerated rock star faces as she sings to him. It takes a second before Dean realizes smile you fucking idiot and is sure he’s grimacing, hopes that the sunny day is enough to cover the flush he can feel in his cheeks and what the fuck is wrong with him? She’s not a siren, not some fuck-you-so-good-you-don’t-care-if-she-boils-your-bunny chick across a smoky bar, those jeans aren’t magic and in fact they were washed with his, ‘I don’t want to do a whole load, just let me throw my shit in with yours’ while she sat on the laundromat counter in worn cartoon pajama pants. That tongue—fuck, her tongue, why does this fucking song have so many “L” sounds in it—is the same one that sticks out round and juvenile like Charlie Brown’s when she’s reading something complicated.

When the song ends Dean’s white knuckling the steering wheel like he’s in a tropical storm and he can’t help but feel relieved. Back to the safety of his tapes, who would never try to pull whatever black magic bullshit that was on him. He takes a deep breath and promises himself to get laid at the next chance he gets lest he seriously fuck up like some hormone-stupid teenager. She’s put in a Chicago B side and he says a silent prayer because that’s exactly the kind of soft-sappy he needs to counteract this. Enough even that he trusts himself to confirm that it’s over, that momentary frenzy nothing but a blip of testosterone fueled by her disclosing a hidden talent. Maybe he can even compliment how well she sings without sounding like he wants to crawl inside her.

He almost does a double take when it’s still—like that, filter of unbelievable need unmoved from any part of her and he wants to fucking eat her alive, let her flay him open and wear him like a coat if that’s what she wants and he knows he is so fucked. She’s turned down Chicago to tell him something cool Sam figured out about snow spirits and yeti mythology the other day and it’s all he can do to focus on the right times to make vaguely affirmative noises or smile, because he’s trying to work out in his head how he’s going to be able to keep his brother from reading on his face how bad he’s got it the second they walk through the motel door. For all he knows Sam is going to say some slick shit about how he’s happy Dean’s finally figured it out for himself, the fucking know-it-all.

It takes a second for him to catch it when she asks him a question, and she looks a twinge concerned when he doesn’t respond right away. Gonna have to do better than that, dumbass. “Sorry, what?”

“You feeling okay? You look like you’re going to be sick.”

Not if I can help it. “Yeah, sorry. Just, ah, need a sandwich or something, I’m starving.”

She throws her head back into the seat to laugh and a million coins pouring out of a Vegas jackpot couldn’t sound more precious. “We ate like an hour ago!” She shakes her head teasingly back at him, wide smile beaming like a dentist’s ad. “I fucking love you, dork.”

He knows it’s not what she means, but he lets the words make his blood run hot.

Thanks again for reading! If you liked it, check out my Masterlist or send me a request!

Tags: @sams-sass @vxnderlindes @deanwinchesterswitch @akshi8278 @itsjensenanddean @flannellover67 @weepingwillowphoenix @tj-drinks-tea @whatareyousearchingfordean @winchest09 @winchestergirl2 @samwisethegr8 @nobxdy @nurse-sarahrn @lovers-in-japan-reign-of-love @deanwanddamons @stressedoutkitten @winchestershiresauce @tatted-trina6 @percico-heronstairs @downanddirtydean @queenoftheunderdark @lyarr24 @wonder-cole @that-one-gay-girl @fairlyspnfanfic @treat-winchesterswith-kindness @mimaria420 @muchamusedaboutnothing @pvnsie @dean-winchester-is-a-warrior

And as always, if you want to be on my taglist, were on the taglist and changed your handle, or I lost track of it, please let me know!

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pear-pies · 3 years

Photo

Placebo in Rock & Folk magazine - April 2003

Words by Jerome Soligny, photos by Carole Epinette

Wonky translation under the cut:

These three did it all. Shot with the QOTSAs and posed with Indo. They survived "Velvet Goldmine" and the Top Bab. They come back after the ordeal of the fourth album. Danger interview: “Jerome, what if you came out?” They ask our charming reporter.

"We do not regret anything"

Everything begins again with "Bulletproof Cupid", a punky instrument that pulls everything off. Then "English Summer Rein", mechanico-depressive spinning punctuated by twisted keyboards, and "Sleeping With Ghosts", the lament which advances while blistering during cooking, confirm the tone. Against all expectations, because you never know how will age the groups that the previous album installed at the Top, Placebo took over. And stuffed it in an iron glove. Further on, "The Bitter End" tumbles through yapping guitars which would stick to the hatches the thickest of the sailors. Be careful, Placebo is on the way out of being one. At the end of the record, Brian Molko, Stefan Olsdal and Steve Hewitt do not even run out of steam. The cows. They drop a "Centerfolds" which frolic like a cynical top under a shower of saving doubts. What augur still other perspectives.

The fourth album: a horror for all who have faced it. Often a stupid trap. Returning from the Gothic directly inherited from the glam of pageantry and from these hasty and harmful certainties which congest the face and the veins, Placebo publishes its first real great disc. Oh, not the marvel of wonders, not the album from the third millennium, but something very strong, compact, tenacious in listening, which proves that the future is indeed there, in front, where the light is most blinding. Calfeucée in their Parisian hotel (the Costes, of course), our three lads do not make the blow of the revelation, of the luminous questioning. Simply, they now think with their heads, a good plan most often Likewise, reality no longer frightens them, and it is probably she who is hiding behind this "Sleeping With Ghosts" which relates the sorrows only for the better. melt into hopes At the moment when rock brings us back to life and when we just want to ask them everything, the Placebo have decided to say everything. Not even in a hurry, they settle down on the couch, ready to talk like never before. Despite new batteries embedded in the carcass, the Panasonic barely a Brian Molko: Hey Jerome, you came to talk to us this time when you had not come to the previous album ...

Rock & Folk: Uh yes but I was there for the first two, that says a lot, right?

Brian Molko: Certainly, I also believe that over time, we finally appreciate the true nature of the problem: we were mainly criticized for the sound of the previous album, which I can understand but, paradoxically, it is the one that brought us to the Top.

R&F: Legitimately, we have the right to expect a lot from the people we love: while "Black Market Music" sounded a bit like a sequel, this new record is all about a renaissance.

Brian Molko: Actually, we were finally able to live a little. After having existed in a small bubble for a very long time, we forced ourselves to take an eight-month break. The album-tour rhythm put us on the sidelines: we no longer had normal contact with anything. We were losing ourselves. We have fully lived the old cliché which claims that we spend the first years of our life writing a first record and six months on the second. It turned out to be very true. We had to get back to the situation of the first album, see friends, go shopping, look at the buildings in our city.

R&F: So the freshness would come from there ...

Brian Molko: Yes, and it was essential spiritually, emotionally and physically.

Steve Hewitt: We had to be in tune with reality again.

Brian Molko: In fact, we find ourselves in a bit of the same state of mind as when we released "Without You I'm Nothing", although "Sleeping With Ghosts" is a lot less gloomy. The heroin has since stopped leaking. In fact, I feel like I've pulled myself out of what I consider my second teenage years, between twenty and thirty. I conquered the self-destruction, exorcised some demons, understood what had happened to me. I held on to what I had learned. As a human being, I am now able to continue living, to try to answer the big questions posed by existence.

R&F: Maybe that's why the melodies are needed this time. It took me four records to get a favorite Placebo track.

The whole group in chorus: Which one?

R&F: "Protect Me From What I Want", of course ...

Brian Molko: The most paradoxical is that this song dates from the end of the "Black Market Music" sessions. I was not married at the time, but I was trying to get out of a particularly vicious divorce.just started. Then we wait for the lyrics, which don't arrive, it's rather intriguing. We especially wanted to avoid the big Rican producer side, we needed someone who shakes us up a bit. Jim could do that because he comes from dance and his pedigree is impressive. We have all his records at home, Bjôrk, Massive Attack, Sneaker Pimps and especially DJ Shadow. It is believed that guitar rock can only evolve by incorporating new genres, this is the only way to remain a modern rock band. At home, we practically only listen to hip hop.

R&F: Still, he didn't betray you.

Brian Molko: No because he actually brought out our rock side, which I'm particularly proud of. In fact, because we always wanted to control everything, it was not easy to be forced, to do certain things backwards, to walk on the head. But in truth, that's what we wanted: yes, there was some tension in the studio but we all took advantage of it. The challenge is necessary and it is also valid for the public. We opened up and rediscovered ourselves.

Stefan Olsdal (emerging from his chair): We found ourselves in front of the mirror, at the foot of the wall: someone had to kick our ass.

Brian Molko: Jim was like, "Why are you doing this?" We would answer him: "Because we always do it like that!" He would say: "All the more reason not to do it."

Stefan Olsdal: On the first day, he messed up all the demos, changed the tones, the tempos ...

R&F: Like Brian Eno ...

Steve Hewitt: Yeah, but with a lot more compassion. Eno is a bit (silence) ... We don't really like being told our actions, but at the same time, we are still young, still absorbing. Jim knew how to preserve us while making a modern sound.

R&F: Modern and rock'n'roll at the same time, a characteristic which does not necessarily apply to all the young groups in The which recycle the past gently but are convinced to have found the virus of the AIDS.

Steve Hewitt: Placebo doesn't belong to any current, has nothing to do with fashion.

R&F: You always pose as outsiders.

Brian Molko: It's the only way to survive.

Steve Hewitt: These bands, like The Strokes, play the nostalgia card.

Stefan Olsdal: And what happens next? I would not like to be in their place.

Brian Molko: If you want good New York pop, you better listen to Blondie.

R&F: In 2003, 11 seems that you have abandoned all the androgynous paraphernalia, sexual ambiguity, glam references ...

Brian Molko: I think today everyone knows what there is to know. Our sexual inclinations haven't changed, and we still wear makeup. It is just more expensive and better applied. We are ourselves, in our music and in private. I went through my travelo period (in French in the interview - Editor's note), and I understood that being androgynous was not wearing skirts. It is a way of being on the spiritual plane. It is not an image but a state of mind.

Steve Hewitt: It's like being punk, it's an attitude.

Brian Molko: At the same time, I don't regret any of my eccentricities. I grew up in the spotlight and it all kind of makes me smile.

Stefan Olsdal: People still talk to us about certain outfits or positions, as if it still shocks them.

R&F: Yes, and particularly in France, a particularly homophobic country which bumps heartily on gay artists.

Brian Molko: And you, coincidentally, you still hang out with.

Stefan Olsdal: Jérôme, it's coming out time (laughs) ...

Brian Molko: All that has to change, that all of France becomes gay (laughs)!

R&F: "Protect Me From What I Want" precisely, here is a title heavy with meaning. What was the idea behind this song?

Brian Molko: For me, it's a study of the pathological need people have to copulate, the search for meaning in copulation. As if bachelors or monogamists were aliens. As if we were only one when we were two. The song is about the fact that one relationship has destroyed me but I can't help but look for another ... why do I keep coming back to this?

R&F: Wow, we're bathing in philosophy here!

Brian Molko: Yes and it's the same elsewhere in the record: in "Plasticine", I insist on the fact that you have to be yourself above all while asking myself all these questions. Why do we have to do a lot of forbidden things, bad or harmful?

R&F: It's therapy in public.

Brian Molko: At least I find some balance in it. These are not songs about compassion or self-pity. They came out like this because it was vital for me. I am in this privileged situation where I can express myself and the world hears me. Otherwise, I would be really frustrated and I would have suffered a lot more in the last fifteen years.

R&F: Music saved your life.

Brian Molko: Sure.

Steve Hewitt: Everyone: I think we can say that. Without Placebo, we would not be not even alive.

Brian Molko: Spitting it all out is not necessarily the right solution. There are things with which to live. In fact, I've always been afraid to go see a psychiatrist ...

R&F: Yet, listening to you speak earlier, you could have the feeling that Jim Abiss acted a bit like a shrink with you.

Brian Molko: That's right. You could say that.

R&F: At a time when Bush and Blair want to play World War III, what attitude do you adopt? What do you think of these Englishmen who left for Iraq to constitute a human shield?

Brian Molko: Let's say we stand together. We participated in the March for Peace on February 14th with Damon Albarn and 3D from Massive Attack. We were also surprised that so few groups mobilized, which increased our desire to participate tenfold.

R&F: Do you consider that it is the role of the artist to give voice in such circumstances?

Steve Hewitt: Yes, in the sense that we can help with general motivation.

Brian Molko: I'm very interested in seeing if Blair is going to let Bush bomb Iraq with the British present on the soil of the country. If he ever allows that, the consequences will be dire.

R&F: It will only be one more religious war, in the name of oil and money ...

Brian Molko: It seems absurd that we can still fight for that. And curiously, nobody speaks more, or almost, of Bin Laden. Wouldn't it all come from him, by chance, as a huge consequence of September 11? On the other hand, we have such a feeling that Bush wants to finish the job that daddy started. Its image is so bad that it needs at least one war to restore its image.

Steve Hewitt: And reinvigorate its dying economy.

R&F: The method is lamentable, deceitful. Like those employed by the recording industry which claims to be doing well by selling pop in damaged boxes to ignoramuses.

Brian Molko: The ability of this job to ingest people, bribe them and then spit them out is impressive. This is what happened here at Canal +.R&F: Business is the beast.

Brian Molko: All these pre-made artists are young and naff ...

Steve Hewitt: They'll all end up in a labor camp for ex-pop stars.

R&F: Warhol was talking about fifteen minute glory, we're brutally passed to fifteen seconds.

Brian Molko: We should have called them Karaoke idols from the start.

Steve Hewitt: And it only works because of the TV ...

R&F: Who washes the poor, helpless brains.

Steve Hewitt: You can tell how much people want to think less

R&F: And spend less. For many, music should be free: one in five thirteen-year-olds doesn't know that a disc doesn't have to be a computer-burnt puck. Some are flabbergasted when they see a cover for the first time.

Stefan Olsdal: And those who don't buy records put pressure on those who have them to pass them on at all costs, just long enough to copy them.

R&F: Exactly.

Brian Molko: That's why we blame Robbie Williams so much. Scooping 80 million pounds off EMI and then declaring that pirating music is a fantastic thing just makes him want to stick a chunk in his face.

R&F .: And then piracy is not a matter of environment. It's not a suburban thing. There are rich kids who find it normal to burn 80 CDs during their weekend and sometimes sell them to their friends ...

Brian Molko: What do these people believe? That we are there, the face in the stream with a syringe stuck in the arm singing "La Vie En Rose"? And who will pay for our children's school? Not them, anyway. Our mentality is quite different: we always want to buy records from people we love, from our friends. Personally, we are partly out of the woods, but it will be particularly difficult for new groups to make a living from music in five or ten years.

R&F: Come on, we're not going to leave each other on this, a little humor won't hurt anyone. If you were to be banned from any of these three things, which would you choose: making music, making money or making love?

Steve Hewitt (almost tit for tat): I would stop making money, without hesitation. It's because I love music and sex too much. And then, well, you have to choose.

Brian Molko (completely overwhelmed): Oh damn, that's not true. What a dilemma!

R&F: No Brian, that doesn't count, make an effort (laughs).

Brian Molko: Ah, I don't know. And then if. I would stop making money and get on well with someone super rich.

R&F: Or you would be pimp ...

Brian Molko: Yes, that's it. Good plan.

Stefan Olsdal: Stop making love does not mean to stop loving ...

Brian Molko (preparing his shot): And we can always masturbate (general laughter).

Stefan Olsdal: OK then, I would stop making love.

R&F: Okay, it will be written in black and white for all eternity.

Brian Molko: Will we live long enough to regret it? This is the real question.

*COLLECTED BY JEROME SOLIGNY

[Inset, Trash Palace]

Already present on the first album by Trash Palace which he had adorned with his presence one unhealthy recovery of "I Love You, Me No More "in duet with Asia Argento, Brian Molko is coming to re-stack. This time he cosigns directly "The Metric System " with Dimitri Trash Palace Tikovoi, an electro saw boosted to bleeps fundamentals available in two remix and its clip on an enhanced single recently published at Discograph. The result is particularly (d) amazing and sounds good logical, like of Placebo cyber.Placebo in Rock & Folk magazine - April 2003

#the cows.#placebo #brian molko #stefan olsdal #steve hewitt #the metric system is so chaotic i love it

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success-and-corruption · 3 years

Text

Macabre Album Review

DEG's second album! Oh yeah!

Track 1: Deity

This first track is definitely very interesting. It starts with a sleigh bell and then quickly turns into ominous chanting of some sort. Very spooky but also very different from their previous work which shows how versatile these five musicians are. The chanting eventually stops and we're met with heavy guitars and bass with Shinya playing a steady beat and Kyo vocalizing with a woman’s voice eerily making sounds. It sounds like he's gasping for breath (see what I did there)? That section ends and a clean guitar is played for a few seconds before the song goes back to the heavy riff after the chanting but this time Kyo sings in Russian to the tune of Johannes Brahms' "Fifth Hungarian Dance." This song definitely feels very religious to me which I suppose fits because the case for Macabre has prayer (?) beads in it.

I think Deity showcases DEG’s experimental side and sets the foundation for the rest of the album and it shows that DEG took a very different turn and became a bit darker.

Track 2: Myaku

Is this track in 3/4? 4/4? 5/4? 6/4?

Yes to all of the above. In the booklet it's indicated that this song was written by DIR EN GREY so no individual member wrote it specifically but the band definitely had some fun with time signatures in this one. Myaku was released as a single which is a bit different from the album version but I'm not reviewing the single. This song definitely departs from their late 90s VK sound which in my opinion is a good thing as it showed that DEG wanted to become more serious musicians. Plus, this track has one of my favorite basslines but I never got around to learning how to play it. Myaku is a chaotic song but it fits very well with Macabre.

Track 3: Wake/Riyuu

My boy Die does it again. This song is one of my favorites on the album and despite it being written by a guitarist, Toshiya’s bass really drives this track but we can’t forget the soaring guitars in the beginning and in the chorus. Kyo’s vocals are also great. Fantastic rhythm, instruments that all work very well together, and Kyo’s clean vocals? What’s not to like? This song really gets me moving for some reason. Not nearly as chaotic as Myaku, but Wake/Riyuu provides a nice structure and a consistent time signature (4/4) which is good contrast in my opinion.

Track 4: Egnirys Cimredopyh +) An Injection

Everyone probably knows this by now by Egnirys Cimredopyh = hypodermic syringe backwards. Despite that, this song isn’t about intravenous drug use. Kyo references a “white powder” a lot in this song and in one part of the song he sings “I started to speak to the wall with my lower half” (of course he sings that in Japanese) so I think this song is about abusing a drug called kakuseizai and... ejaculating onto a wall? To my knowledge cocaine isn’t very popular in Japan and kakuseizai (roughly translated to “stimulant” in English) is a type of methamphetamine that is used to improve pleasure during sex. Anyway as the lyrics progress it’s clear that the person in the song is battling between his good and bad side. They’re aware that their drug use is stripping them of their sanity but can’t stop and eventually gives in and “kills” the good side. In regards to the musicality of the song, again I really like the bassline (probably because I play bass) but the solos in the song, both bass and guitar, are seriously lacking in substance for me. However the rest of the song is fun to move around to i.e. it has a nice rhythm.

Track 5: Hydra

“I wanna be an anarchist”

“Dead born”

“Sid Vicious, suspicious”

What are those lyrics??? This song is another experimental one with electronic sounds throughout. It’s also fast-paced and has another chant near the end of the song that breaks it up nicely. Lyrically there’s not much I have to say but this song is definitely one of DEG’s most interesting sounding. I’m sorry that I don’t have more to say.

Track 6: Hotarubi

Hotarubi... what a beautiful song. It was very clearly written by Shinya. This track is, in my opinion, one of DEG’s best ballads but I think it goes on for too long but that’s just a very minor complaint. The strings complement the rest of the instruments and the part from 2:40-3:42 is stunning, with a surprising violin solo and a woman breathily vocalizing. Everything in this song works so well together except for the loud buzzing halfway through and Hotarubi never fails to evoke an emotional response within me. If it weren’t too long for my liking I would listen to it on repeat. At a certain point I just get bored. Also I think this song would be better suited towards the end of the album where the songs become more melodic.

Track 7: 【KR】cube

I’m not sure what【KR】cube means but what a fun song. Toshiya starts it out with that funky bass that we all know and love and then it transforms into a fast-paced song with a very nice rhythm on the guitars and Kyo’s clean vocals come in which is always nice to hear. I like the speed and rhythm of this song as it offers a pleasant difference from Hotarubi which is a very slow song. The chorus is very catchy as well

Kururi, furari, fuwari, kurari

Kururi, furari, fuwari, kurakurari

and so on. The music video is fun for this one. We love Hitman Die.

Track 8: Berry

This song is easy to figure out from the beginning dialogue of an English girl apologizing but then promising to blow her parents’ head off like raspberry jam (spoiler: she does at the end of the song). This one has more of a punk vibe and it’s kind of a fun song. What I can say is that I’ve never heard a song that features parents yelling at a child as part of a breakdown. It’s a good song but in my opinion it doesn’t really fit with the Macabre sound.

Track 9: Macabre -Sanagi no Yume wa Ageha no Hane-

WOW what a song this is. I believe that this eleven minute prog rock masterpiece was the first song I learned on the bass (go big or go home). I love Shinya’s drums in the beginning and as soon as the other instruments come in you just know you’re in for a journey. This song has a great composition with all of the instruments and vocal layers but I suppose I should get into the specifics. The beginning (after the drums) starts with guitars that, in my opinion, portray a certain sadness while the bass drives the the song. Kyo’s voice is great in this one and also portrays that same sadness. After the first two verses clean guitars come in which is a nice contrast from the beginning but this song truly comes alive during the instrumental breakdown where there’s a guitar playing a repeating riff while insects buzz and a church organ plays in the background. It then switches to Kaoru and Die playing the same notes but alternating between electric and acoustic guitars. The breakdown ends with a very beautiful solo and Kyo singing in a higher register and making slurping sounds which makes sense if you follow the lyrics. There’s a bass solo which is always nice to hear.

I think I’ve written too much about this song so I’m going to go on to...

Track 10: Audrey

What exactly were they trying to accomplish here? Country rock? It doesn’t fit with the album and it doesn’t even fit with DEG’s sound in general. I never listen to this song so I don’t have much to say about it.

Track 11: Rasetsukoku

This song fits much better with Macabre, but only marginally. It’s definitely more speed metal which at this point in DEG’s music career hasn’t really done. It’s fun to listen to but the composition is quite simple and it tends to be sort of repetitive. I do like the bass in the beginning but the guitars in this song are kind of boring to me. Maybe I should give it more credit.

Track 12: Zakuro

I have mixed feelings about this song. It’s very emotional but maybe too emotional. It starts out kind of slow but I like Kaoru and Die’s parts in the beginning because they harmonize very well. I think this song has one of the most beautiful guitar solos they’ve ever written and it conveys the sadness that is the central focus of this song. My problem with it (and it’s a minor one) is that it’s definitely better live.

Track 13: Taiyou no Ao

Another favorite on this album. Once again there’s a great bassline and while the song itself sounds sort of like a pop song the lyrics are rather sad. The prominent bass complements the guitars and if Shinya wanted a workout routine he could play this song a few times and he would get pretty buff. Can you imagine a buff Shinya? Neither can I. It just seems like his drums never stop for almost the entire song. It’s a nice way to close the album because it contrasts with the very dark-sounding Deity and it leaves me feeling good, albeit a bit sad because of the lyrics.

So that’s it. Can you tell I got a bit tired near the end? All in all I give this album 7/10. It’s a great album but there are some real duds in my opinion but it’s not my least favorite by any stretch. I’ll be reviewing all ten albums so you’ll find out which one I like the least...

As always feel free to comment your thoughts! I would like to connect with my followers a bit more.

#I have a very important licensing exam coming up #so my thoughts are more focused on academics #dir en grey #Macabre #album review #tw drugs

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junipedia · 3 years

Text

OK SO HERES THE FIRST 2 CHAPTERS I KNOW THEYRE NOT GREAT BUT ITS FINE

Hunting season

Dull. This day feels dull. I mean that’s how Oregon weather usually is, grey thick clouds layered over the sky like a weighted blanket threatening to fall with water at any moment. Heavy underbrush making the already crowded woods feel even more claustrophobic. Sneakers seeming to sink further into the wet moss with every step like the woods itself was trying to reclaim you. The snap of a twin you'd hear every once and awhile filling your imagination with every reason besides a rational one as to what it could have been. As unsettling as the woods here are, they bring a sense of comfort and peace like even if something was watching you out there it had no fowl intent with you. Night on the other hand was when those vicious creators came out to prowl. Those snaps of trees turning into something that could be hunting you, chasing you. The paths you thought you knew so well turning into a maze of inkyblack darkness that's reaching out for you…

The snapping sound was louder today than it usually was. My face pointed towards the tops of the dying trees, half expecting to see something looking back at me but just being met with a flock of geese flying overhead. The snapping started up suddenly, whipping my face back down to eye level trying to see through the thick ferns and weeds. It sounded like a bulldozer headed straight for me. “Oh my fucking god, Athena” i let out the heaviest sigh of relife once I saw the fluffy tail zig-zagging around. I stood upright and rubbed my face, someone must have let her out after I had already left. The only way back to the house was the way I had come. Which was a steep forgotten road that always seemed to stay a bit to be taken care of for being abandoned. Athena rushed past me hitting the breaks when she got to the bottom of the hill. She stopped though her always wagging tail stopping and dropping in between her legs. I stopped. She only ever did that if she was scared or was seeing something she didn't like. I just stood and watched her. If there truly was a threat there she would let me know, show some sign that the area was suddenly dangerous. it couldn't have been a person because if that was the case she would have started barking. In less than a minute her tail was back up and she was trotting away like she was only seconds ago.

“That's a big dog” perched between the underbrush a person sat hunched over making intense eye contact with the canine. He dealt with big dogs but he'd usually know about them beforehand. Well, it wasn't like he DIDN'T know about Athena. He'd been out here watching this family for a while now. He didn't have any tv or media so he liked watching the family's he was camped near for however long he was staying. He'd been in these woods for a while playing cat and mouse with the hunting dogs that the people on this hill owned. Watching this family was the only source of entertainment. He thought it was funny how they argued almost exactly how his family would have, the only reason it was different was that instead of these parents holding it against each other they would sweep it under the carpet only to let it bubble over and resurface in later conversations. The oldest was the most fun to watch. Seeing how each day she drove herself into the ground trying to be the best for everyone just to let them down like she had feared. He thought her name was ironic because it held so much truth, she was just a scared little bunny adopted by wolves trying to also just be a wolf. He stared back at the dog waiting for it to do something. He'd actually grown fond of the pooch so it brought a sliver of warmth when she didn't bark or snarl at him.

“Athena!” I walked to join her, giving her a scratch behind the ears. She wasn't acting strange anymore meaning whatever had spooked her must have left before i could see it.

Walking away I popped my knuckles against the opposing hand.

Pop crackle snap

I stopped, those were cracking joints but. Not my joints. I turned back in the direction id came from. Athena was already long gone from the house so if something was there I'd have to see for myself. I raised my hand up near my face pressing down on one of my fingers until it let out a loud pop. I waited but sure enough a louder crack came from in front of me somewhere. Hesitantly taking steps forward i'd let out a pop only for it to be followed by a louder more aggressive one. I crouched down thinking it could have been in the trees. I brought my hand to my chin and turned it, letting out a chorus of snaps.

Silence. A slow breath escaped me from relief that is until a grotesque song of crunches and bones grinding together. I turn my heaad my eyes meeting with wide crazed one frantically trying to focus on me but the spastic movemts of its shoulders and neck making it hard to look at one thing. I couldn't even make a noise, i knew there was a homeless camp near my house but i had never actually seen any of them. It grabbed my shoulders so tight it was painful. My back hitting the ground causing the air to slip out of my lungs. Its shoulders were still rapidly moving as it pressed its hand around its jaw covering my mouth. My hands shot up and tried to push at its face and chest. I didn't know what to do. It was on me weighing me to the ground. The hoodie it had on covering its body type hiding how strong it could really be. There was nothing i could do, it was obviously stronger than me.

Something must have switched in my brain to say “move idiot if you don't you'll probably die in these woods” I opened my mouth as wide as i could, biting down on the top of its hand. Blood seeping into my teeth and gums. The strong taste of iron filled my mouth as I heard the crunch of the bone I had hit. A mixture of saliva and blood pooling out of my mouth all around and down my chin. It didn't move, didn't even flinch.

Bears trap

He panicked. What else was he going to do, his tics had ever reacted that badly before to someone else's. He held her down, his hand almost covered half her face. He tried to tilt his head to look at her but it just came off as more jerks and pulls from his muscles`just like a bunny” he thought, if he moved his hand just right it could break her in just an instinct. Just like that she’d be gone. His thoughts were interrupted by the crunching of his hand. He watched her try and basically chew her way away from him. “The bunni thinks she's a wolf now” he watched her for a second again before taking his other hand and picking up a good sized rock.

“This is it” I watched him raise the rock, tightly closing my eyes. The only thing I felt was an extreme headache before I just went numb and limp.

“Why is it so cold” was my first thought when I started coming again. Sitting up the familiar sound of a tent zipper opening caught my attention. I tried to sit up and got trapped in the thin sleeping bag I had been in.This was the first time I had seen him at least somewhat up right. He was at least a foot taller than me, leaning into the tent like he was the one cautious of me. He crawled into the tent looking at me, his eyes not as crazed as before but still holding a feeling that at any moment this bomb could go off. He didn't speak as he inched closer and closer. He then reached his hand out. His finger shook as I leaned back but was trapped by the tent. A hot pain running through my back as he touched my forehead where the rock must have hit me. The mask covering his mouth hid what emotion he was truly portraying at the moment. The hand he touched my head with was bandaged, reminding me of the bite I had given him. I raised my hand and wiped my mouth, sticky red blood still coming off meaning that it really hadn't been all that long since all that had happened but just long enough to get dark and colder outside. I opened my mouth but didn't even get a chance to speak before he beat me to it “just dont just dont yell” it took me back to hear him.

This obviously isn't an adult just by the voice. His voice was raspy and almost menacing. Even if he was my age he was still just a kid. We didn't say anything for a while, just analyzing each other like it was a mutual agreement that we would let each other realize what was actually happening before doing anything rash. Yeah, he may have basically kidnapped me but that didn't mean I had to be a dick to him. I don't know how long we stared at each other, it could have been hours or only minutes but after that he crawled further into the tent and simply laid down. Almost like he was just watching me to see if i would do anything to try and leave or get away from him. The only thing keeping the tent illuminated was a small battery operated lantern that was barely bright enough to light up the small tent. He sat up again and looked at me just to turn the lanter off. I could hear him shifting around, maybe to take his mask off. We just laid in silence for what felt like forever. “Aren't you cold” even though I was staying quiet it sounded like I was yelling in the small tent. There was no answer for a moment just the sound of him moving around again. I thought maybe he was asleep before I heard a deep inhale. “no” there was a long silence again before he spoke ”are y-you cold cold?” i hesitated before answering “yeah….i guess i am pretty cold”.

Again there was silence before he moved. I felt him come closer to me before feeling one of his arms touch me. This wasn't right. Not even twelve hours ago he had been the one to bash me over the head with a rock to take me to whatever kinda temporary camp this was. He must have read the room because he stopped and waited. I really took a moment to think about what was happening. Everything was happening way too fast but at the same time the little I've seen of him has shown me that even if he is my age he's clearly unstable. If I didn't let him do what he wanted he could blow at any moment and I really don't know what he's capable of.

He waited for another moment before moving towards me again. He stiffly wrapped his arms around me, even though it was awkward and uncomfortable the warmth he gave off was a nice change from the harsh forest cold.my mind must have just fallen unconscious at some point because the next thing i knew the tent was lit with the dull sunlight that was managing to come through the overlay of clouds. He wasn't next to me anymore but the smell of smoke burned my nose as I could hear the sound of fire crackling and snapping outside the tent.I slowly unzipped the front and peaked out. He was sitting with his back to the tent facing the homemade fire pit that he had made.

Toby hated the fire. He hated all the pain that it has caused him but it was something that he simply couldn't avoid. One of the things he liked about the fire now was that he could tame it, control when it grew and when it withered away. He looked down at his bandaged hand. He hadn't slept last night, he was too nervous to make even the slightest movement just in case it would wake her. The warmth she had given off was...new. “Why did you let me hold you?” he spoke down into his hands, the zipper making him turn around to face her.

They both froze like deer in the headlights again.

No mask. He wasn't wearing his mask right now. He looked so normal. He just stared at me for a while and I stared back at him. Him turning back towards the fire was enough for me to snap back out of it. He poked the fire with a stick, moving a few blackened sticks around to stir up the fire causing embers to rise up into the early overcasted sky. I scurried around him and sat on the opposite side of the fire, watching him through the flames. His eyes shot up at mine like he suddenly felt my eyes on him. His stare was so intense i wouldn't say lifeless no, there was something buried deep behind those eyes doing something to him. I looked back down into the fire, what was there to talk about? Did he even want to talk? I just want to go home.

“Were you cold l-last last night?” I looked at him furrowing my eyebrows together. ‘This man bashes me in the head with a rock but is worried I was too cold?’ I shifted my weight, pulling my legs closer to myself. “I was fine.” There was a long silence after that before either of us even thought to move. He was the first one to move, getting up and grabbing something from the tent. “Where are you going?” he actually seemed shocked that I asked “getting more fire-wood” the moment he said that my eyes snapped back towards the fire. This could be my chance to run.

#ben drowned #creepypasta #creepypasta x reader #eyeless jack #jeff the killer #ticci toby #toby rogers #jane the killer #slender man #creepypasta wallpaper #creepypasta fanfiction #fanfic #self insert #x reader

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dustedmagazine · 4 years

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Punk’d History, Vol. VIII: This Machine [blank] Fascists

Photo by Richard Young

It has the appearance of a worrisome pattern: any number of punk rock’s founding figures embraced the symbolics of Nazi Germany. Ron Asheton, an original and indispensable member of the Stooges, played a number of gigs wearing a red swastika armband, and liked to sport Iron Cross medals and a Luftwaffe-style leather jacket. Sid Vicious loved his bright scarlet, swastika-emblazoned tee shirt, and Siouxsie Sioux, during her tenure as the It-Girl of the Bromley Contingent, mixed her breast-baring, black leather bondage gear with a bunch of “Nazi chic.” And how many early Ramones songs (inevitably penned by Dee Dee) referenced Nazi gear, concepts and geography? “Blitzkrieg Bop,” “Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World,” “Commando,” “It’s a Long Way Back to Germany,” “All’s Quiet on the Eastern Front,” and so on—for sure, more than a few.

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“Appearance” is the key term. Poor Sid lacked the sobriety and smarts to have much of a grasp of fascism as an ideology. Siouxsie was just taking the piss, and gleefully pissing off the mid-1970s British general public, for much of whom World War II was still a living memory. Asheton and Dee Dee? Both were sons of hyper-masculine military men. Asheton’s father was a collector of WWII artefacts, and the guitarist shared his father’s fascination. When the Stooges adopted an ethos and aesthetic hostile to the late-1960s prevailing Flower Power rock’n’roll subculture, the Nazi accoutrement seemed to him fitting signs of the band’s anger and alienation. Dee Dee hated his father, an abusive Army officer who married a German woman. Dee Dee spent some of his youth in post-war West Germany, in which Nazi symbols were highly charged with anxiety and vituperation. Casual veneration of Nazis was a convenient way to reject the triumphal ennobling of the Good War, and of the military men associated with its traditions. And (as Sid, Siouxsie and Asheton also noticed) it really bothered the squares.

None of that makes the superficial use of the swastika or phrases like “Nazi schatzi” any less offensive — it simply underscores that in the cases noted above, the offense was the thing. The politics weren’t even an afterthought, because the political itself had been dismissed as corrupt, boring or simply the native territory of the very people the punks were striking out against. If that’s where the relation between punk and fascism ceased, there wouldn’t be much more to write about.

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The post-punk moment in England provided opportunities to rethink and restrategize the nascent détournement of Siouxsie’s fashionable provocations. Genesis P-Orridge and the rest of Throbbing Gristle were a brainy bunch, and their play with fascist signifiers was a good deal more complex. The band’s logo and their occasional appearance in gun-metal grey uniforms clearly alluded to Nazism, with its attendant, keen interests in occult symbols and High Modernist representational languages. TG’s visual gestures were also of a piece with an early band slogan: “Industrial music for industrial people.” Clearly “industrial people” can be read as a highly ironized coupling: the oppressed workers marching through the bowels of Metropolis were a sort of industrial people, reduced to the functionality of pure human capital. TG seemed to impose the same analysis on the middle-managers of Britain’s post-industrial economy, and their uncritical complicity in capital’s cruelties. But it’s also possible to argue that industrial people are industrious people; like TG, industrial people (middle managers, MPs) can get a lot of stuff done. They can produce things. They can make the trains run on time. And what sorts of cargo might those trains be carrying? What variety of conveyance delivered the naked “little Jewish girl” of “Zyklon B Zombies” to her fate?

To be clear: I don’t mean at all to suggest that TG was a fascist band. Like their punky contemporaries, TG traded in fascist iconography in a spirit of transgressive outrage, expressing their hot indignation with equally heated symbols. And other British post-punk acts flirted with fascist themes and images, ranging from ambiguous dalliance (Joy Division’s overt references to Yehiel De-Nur’s House of Dolls and to Rudolph Hess; and just what was the inspiration for Death in June’s band name?) to more assertive satire (see Current 93’s appealingly bonkers Swastikas for Noddy [LAYLAH Antirecords, 1988]). But a more problematic populist undercurrent in British punk persisted through the late 1970s. The dissolution of Sham 69—due in large part to the National Front’s attempts to appropriate the band’s working-class anger as a form of white pride—opened the way for a clutch of clueless, cynical or outright racist Oi! bands to attempt to impose themselves as the face of blue-collar English punk. And literally so: the Strength through Oi! compilation LP (Decca Records, 1981) featured notorious British Movement activist Nicky Crane on its cover. It didn’t help that the record’s title seemed to allude to the Nazis’ “Strength through Joy [Kraft durch Freude]” propaganda initiative.

Of course, it’s unfair to tar all Oi! bands with an indiscriminate brush. A few bands whose songs were opportunistically stuck onto Strength through Oi! by the dullards at Decca Records — Cock Sparrer and the excellent Infa Riot — tended leftward in their politics, and were anything but racists. But for a lot of the disaffected kids sucking down pints of Bass and singing in the Shed at Stamford Bridge, it wasn’t much of a leap from the punk pathetique of the Toy Dolls to Skrewdriver’s poisonous palaver.

In the States, a similarly complicated story can be recovered:

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In numerous ways, hardcore intensified punk’s confrontational qualities, musically and aesthetically. The New York hardcore scene made a fetish of its inherent violence, which complemented the music’s sharpened impact. So it’s hard to know precisely what to make of the photo on the cover of Victim in Pain (Rat Cage Records, 1984). If inflicting violence was an essential element of belonging in the NYHC scene, with whom to identify: the Nazi with the pistol, or the abject Ukrainian Jewish man, on his knees and about to tumble into the mass grave?

Agnostic Front seemed to provide a measure of clarity on the record, which included the song “Fascist Attitudes.” The lyric uses “fascist” as a condemnatory term. But the behaviors the song engages as evidence of fascism are intra-scene acts of violence: “Why should you go around bashing one another? […] / Learning how to respect each other is a must / So why start a war of anger, danger among us?” That’s a rhetoric familiar to anyone who participated in early-1980s hardcore; calls for scene unity were ubiquitous, and the theme is obsessively addressed on Victim in Pain. But the signs of inclusivity most visibly celebrated on the NYHC records and show flyers of the period were a skinhead’s white, shaven pate; black leather, steel-toe boots; and heavily muscled biceps. Those signifiers clearly link to the awful cover image of Strength through Oi! The forms of identity recognized and concretized in the songs’ first-person inclusive pronouns have a clear referent.

Agnostic Front wasn’t the only NYHC band to refer to and engage World War Two-period fascism. Queens natives Dave Rubenstein and Paul Bakija met at Forest Hills High School—the same school at which John Cummings (Johnny) befriended Thomas Erdelyi (Tommy), laying the groundwork for the formation of the Ramones. Rubenstein and Bakija also took stage names (Dave Insurgent and Paul Cripple) and formed Reagan Youth. But unlike the Ramones, there was nothing tentative or ambivalent about Reagan Youth’s politics. Rubenstein’s parents, after all, were Holocaust survivors. The band’s name riffed on “Hitler Youth,” but specifically did so to draw associations between Reagan and Hitler, between American conservatism’s 1980s resurgence and the Nazi’s hateful, genocidal agenda. Songs like “New Aryans” and “I Hate Hate” accommodated no uncertainties.

Still, it’s interesting that Victim in Pain and Reagan Youth’s Youth Anthems for the New Order (R Radical Records, 1984) were released only months apart, by bands in the same scene, sometimes sharing bills at CBGBs’ famous matinees of the period. And while Reagan Youth toured with Dead Kennedys, it’s Agnostic Front’s “Fascist Attitudes” that’s closer in content to the most famous punk rock putdown of Nazis.

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It’s odd what comes back around: Martin Hannett, whom Biafra playfully chides at the track’s very beginning, produced much of Joy Division’s music, moving the band away from its brittle early sound to the fulsome atmospheres of the Factory records, and to a wider listenership. “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” similarly addresses a formerly obscure, tight scene opening to a greater array of participants, some of whom were attracted solely to hardcore’s reputation for violence. Like “Fascist Attitudes,” the Dead Kennedys’ song itemizes fighting at shows as its chief complaint, and as a principal marker for “Nazi” behavior. Biafra’s lyric eventually gets around to somewhat more focused ideological critique: “You still think swastikas look cool / The real Nazis run your schools / They’re coaches, businessmen, and cops / In a real fourth Reich, you’ll be the first to go.” The kiss-off to punk’s vapid romance of the swastika (it “looks cool”) complements the speculative treatment of a “real fourth Reich.” Both operate at the level of abstraction. The casual, superficial relation to the symbol’s aesthetic assumes a sort of safety from the real, material consequences of its application. And the emergence of a fascist political regime is dangled as a possible future event. That speculative futurity undoes the “real” in “real Nazis.” The threat is ultimately a metaphorical construct. The Nazis are metaphorical “Nazis.”

Still, it’s the song’s chorus that resonates most powerfully. So much so that the song has found its way into other artworks.

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Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room (2015) is frequently identified as a horror film on streaming services. We could split hairs over that genre marker. The film gets quite graphically bloody, but there’s no psychotic slasher killer, no supernatural force at work. And cinematically, the film is a lot more interested in anxiety and dramatic tension than it is in inspiring revulsion or disgust. It terrifies, more than it horrifies. What’s especially compelling about the film (aside from Imogen Poots’ excellent performance, and Patrick Stewart’s menacing turn as charismatic fascist Darcy Banks) is its interest in embedding the viewer in a social context in which the Nazis are a lot less metaphorical, a lot more real. In Green Room, the kids in the punk band the Ain’t Rights are warned about the club they have agreed to play: “It’s mostly boots and braces down there.” And they understand the terms. What they can’t quite imagine is a room — a scene, a political Real — in which fascism is dominant. Their recognition of the stakes of the Real comes too late. The violence is already in motion. In that world, the Dead Kennedys song provides a nice slogan, but symbolic action alone is entirely inadequate.

OK, sure, Green Room is a fiction. Its violence is necessarily aestheticized, distorted and hyperbolized. But perhaps the film’s most urgent source of horror can be located in its plausible connections to the social realities of our material, contemporary conjuncture. You don’t have to dig very deep into the Web to find thousands of records made by white nationalist and neo-fascist-allied bands, many, many of which deploy stylistic chops identified with punk rock and hardcore. You can listen. You can buy. (And yeah, I’m not going to link to any of that miserable shit, because fuck them. If you do your own digging to see what’s what, be careful. It’s scary and upsetting in there.) It feels endless. And the virulent sentiments expressed on those records are echoed in institutional politics in the US and elsewhere: Steve King (and now Marjorie Taylor Greene, effectively angling for her seat in Congress), Nigel Farage, Alternative für Deutschland, elected leadership in Poland and Hungary. Explicit white supremacist music also has somewhat more carefully coded counterparts in much more visible media (the nightly monologuing on Fox News) and in very well-positioned, prominent policy makers (Stephen Miller, who’s on the record touting “great replacement” theory and is a big fan of The Camp of the Saints). It’s a complex, ideologically coherent network, working industriously to impose and install its hateful vision as the dominant political Real.

Sometimes it feels as if no progress at all has been made. Maybe we’re moving toward the reactionaries. Contrast Skokie in the late 1970s with Charlottesville in 2017. And now if the Neo-Nazis have licenses for their long guns, they can strut through American streets wearing them in the name of “law and order.” It’s even more disturbing that a subculture that wants to clothe itself in “revolution” and “radicalism” is so tightly in league with institutional politics. Say what you will about Siouxsie’s Nazi-fashion antics, no one suspected that her prancing echoed political activity, policy-making or messaging in Westminster.

So what’s a punk to do? It’s certain that a vigorously free society needs to preserve spaces in which unpopular speech can be uttered and exchanged. Punk should pride itself on defending those spaces. But speech that operates in conjunction with an ascendant political power and ideological agenda doesn’t need defense or energetic attempts to preserve its right to existence. In October of 2020, that speech (in this case, speeches being written by Miller, texts by folks who have spent time in Tucker Carlson’s writer’s room and songs by white supremacist hardcore bands) has become synonymous with political right itself.

So now more than ever, it’s important to be active in the public square, to stand up to the fascists and to say it, often and out loud:

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Jonathan Shaw

#dusted magazine #punk'd history #jonathan shaw #punk rock #siouxsie and the banshees #throbbing gristle #agnostic front #dead kennedys #green room #mdc

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unibrowzz · 3 years

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Mod (finally) reviews all 67 winners of the Eurovision Song Contest Part VI: The 00s

So I gave the 2000s a lot of shit back when I was rewatching them, mainly because the contests became much longer now with the introductions of so many more participants that semi finals had to be introduced, and also because the song quality nosedived. With the televote now in full control of who won, all you really needed to do to get a good result was either send somebody well known in your geographical area, and/or send something weird that would stand out amongst 40+ participants.

This is where the illusion of “bloc voting” came from.

So song, quality for the most part, was compromised in favour of either sending an attention-grabbing vote trap or just somebody famous. But that’s enough about the contests overall, how’s about them winners?

2000- Fly on the Wings of Love

Country: Denmark

Artist: Olsen Brothers

Language: English

Thoughts: I wonder how it feels to wait nearly 40 years to win again only to win as a complete surprise with a song 100/1 in the odds. Must be weird. My feelings towards this song are… kinda mixed. It sounds like the kind of song you swear you’ve heard before over a million times, be it in advertisements, on the radio, being played by buskers or bored guitar kids at parties. But at the same time it feels so completely different compared to other winners and, Hell, even other Eurovision songs at the time. It’s a very striking and recognisable song when talking about Eurovision music, sure. It’s very chill, and relaxed, and the singer has a bizarre voice which somehow sounds heavily autotuned even when he’s performing live.

Is this my personal winner for this year? Not really

If no, what is? Sweden- Roger Pontare- “When Spirits are Calling my Name”

Personal ranking (out of 67): 46th

2001- Everybody

Country: Estonia

Artist: Tanel Padar & Dave Benton

Language: English

Thoughts: And this folks, is what you call a guilty pleasure. I avoided this song for a while because I just knew it was objectively terrible. I knew this barely qualified as a song, that most of it was just two mismatched dudes shouting at each other over a disco track, that the lyrics aren’t that great at all… Et cetera. And yet, trashy as it is, I still really like this song. I don’t really know why, maybe it’s my barely-hidden desire to be an obnoxious contrarian, maybe it’s because the chorus has some fairly decent lyrics (especially for an eastern European entry), maybe it’s because it’s catchy… Or maybe because it’s fun, I dunno.

Is this my personal winner for this year? 2001 really sucked tbh

If no, what is? Honestly yeah, this song shreds

Personal ranking (out of 67): 13th

2002: I Wanna

Country: Latvia

Artist: Marie N (Or, Maria Naumova)

Language: English (I think…?)

Thoughts: You want a song which hasn’t aged well? Well here you go. I’m sure this song was MUCH more bearable back in 2002, but listening to it now is just... What on Earth is she even saying?? I don’t think I’ve heard a song with such garbled lyrics before. On my first listen, I couldn’t even distinguish what language this song was in, and when I finally realised it was in English… good Lord, the lyrics are complete nonsense. And the rhyming? It’s non-existent. The funny thing is Marie herself speaks really good English, so why this song sounds like it was run through Google Translate five times and sung by someone who only started learning English 5 minutes ago is beyond me. But enough about the terrible singing, lyrics and butchery of the English language, does this song have anything else going for it? Not really. I’d put this song into the same category as “Diva”, in that it’s trying desperately to be the next big disco track of its decade, but it just never reaches the crescendo it sets out to achieve. It just drunkenly fumbles around until it ends. What a graceful entry.

Is this my personal winner for this year? No

If no, what is? United Kingdom- Jessica Garlick- "Come Back"

Personal ranking (out of 67): 59th

2003- Every Way that I Can

Country: Turkey

Artist: Sertab Erener

Language: English

Thoughts: Ah yes, the original ethnopop winner. I’m still not 100% sure what ethnopop is, but I’m guessing it’s just slang for the kind of music you’d hear in a gay bar whilst on your holidays. Not that I would know. This is yet another winner where it took me a good few listens to properly enjoy it since I thought the lyrics were a bit… bad. But unlike those other songs, I got into this one way back in (checks playlist) 2014, and I still haven’t managed to fall out of love with it, so to speak. I still really like this song, I’d go as far as to say it’s in my top ten favourite winners in fact. A statement which still hasn’t changed after I watched the 2003 contest recently in July of 2020, so hooray for that. And ethnopop isn’t really a genre I tend to gravitate towards, but I think what makes this song stand out to me at least is how heavy it is. This is a very slow song when you look at its BPM, and the beat just pounds loud and clear all throughout it. It’s not as obnoxious or in-your-face as other songs of its genre, it’s its own thing and that’s what makes it a cut above the rest for me.

Is this my personal winner for this year? Yes

If no, what is? N/A

Personal ranking (out of 67): 5th

2004- Wild Dances

Country: Ukraine

Artist: Ruslana

Language: English

Thoughts: Ah yes, the superior Ukrainian winner. This song is kind of similar to the one above, in that just like “Every Way that I Can” this is a big, stampy dance number, only this time with the distinction that the lyrics were written in 30 seconds rather than a few minutes. It doesn't get lazier than this folks. But I'm willing to forgive lazy lyrics if the song can distract me from them, and thankfully this song can. Plus it’s not like this song needs good lyrics anyway, I get the feeling the focus is more on the beat and instrumental more than anything. And luckily I’m a sucker for that.

Is this my personal winner for this year? Yes

If no, what is? N/A

Personal ranking (out of 67): 7th

2005- My Number One

Country: Greece

Artist: Helena Paparizou

Language: English

Thoughts: I’ll give you “My Number One crawled so Fuego could run”, more like My Number One won so Fuego could pull up the rear in second place behind a song full of chicken noises. But I’m getting ahead of myself. This song I feel is the one which really popularised that… certain brand of Eurovision song. The female-led, east Meditteranean origin, “Yas queen slay” brand of Eurovision song. Yanno. The true gay bar song. Which is, as I said earlier, not really a genre I like nor care for. Do I like this song? Eh. Kinda. I can’t really bring myself to hate it, since I have some good memories associated with it, but... … Well, I wouldn’t go out of my way to listen to it, put it that way. It feels kind of aggressive, and not in a way I’m all that comfortable with. The way she snarls that she’ll “get vicious” if her love isn’t reciprocated especially doesn’t sit right with me. Like I don’t want to be a That Guy™ who says people would get offended if a man sang that line, but it still puts me off a bit.

Is this my personal winner for this year? No

If no, what is? Hungary- NOX- “Forogj, Viláj!”

Personal ranking (out of 67): 36th

2006- Hard Rock Hallelujah

Country: Finland

Artist: Lordi

Language: English

Thoughts: My mother always asks me “how did this win?” And I always tell her, “Well it’s been nearly 15 years since it won and you still remember it, so clearly it left an impact on people.” So, obviously, this is a gimmicky entry; without the giant monster costumes I highly doubt this would’ve even qualified, let alone won with what was then a record-breaking score. After all, rock/metal songs don’t tend to fare well at this contest. Even with the drunk European public in full control of the vote, most of them are lucky to even make it onto the left side of the scoreboard, and getting into the top ten? Forget it. It's too niche of a genre for it to have broad appeal, especially given how a lot of viewers (in my experience at least) DO tend to be older and more conservative, shall we say. Now, I'm not an expert on rock or metal myself, so I can't really say whether this is a good representation of the genre or whether this is what outsiders THINK it's like, but even to my untrained ear this does sound very tongue-in-cheek. Like I don’t want to go so far as to say this is a parody of metal music, but it definitely doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously. The song, I mean. Apparently the band is very serious about their monster aesthetic; but I digress. That said, I do have a soft spot for whatever sub-genre of metal this is, so I don’t mind this one in the slightest.

Is this my personal winner for this year? This or Croatia

If no, what is? Croatia- Séverina- “Moja Stikla”

Personal ranking (out of 67): 30th

2007: Molitva

Country: Serbia

Artist: Marija Serifovic

Language: Serbian (Translation: “Prayer”)

Thoughts: Ah, this one takes me back. This was one of the first Eurovision songs I remember truly falling in love with way back in 2013. I must’ve been about 16 or 17 at the time, heavily into dark, edgy music, and this song was just pure heaven for me. Ticked all the right boxes. It’s dark, it’s brooding, it’s sultry, the vocals are stellar, the lyrics are incredible; like, I wanted the title of this song tattooed on my wrist, I loved it so damn much, I just wanted to declare to the world that I loved this song. But that was then, how do I feel about it today? Obviously not the same, tastes evolve over time and after a while I wasn’t so easily suckered into this song’s spell like I used to be. But at the same time, I can’t deny that this is a fantastic song across the board, and one I still like despite it being my edgy favourite from back when my taste in music was terrible. Plus this is also the best-sung song of the 2000s, but that’s like being the tallest person in a room full of toddlers.

Is this my personal winner for this year? Yes

If no, what is? N/A

Personal Ranking (out of 67): 3rd

2008: Believe

Country: Russia

Artist: Dima Bilan

Language: English

Thoughts: Ah yes. The song that finally made Terry Wogan quit after 30 years of “commentating”. The song that proved to the people of the UK once and for all that the contest was rigged to favour certain countries and that countries in western Europe would never win again. Was it worth it? Not really, but I’m not complaining. Now, I don't like Wogan's commentary at all, but really? This song? This is the straw that broke the camel’s back? This song isn’t bad per se, it’s just… Very underwhelming. And outdated. Like I can smell the 2000s off this one and it smells like Lynx body spray and hair gel. It's stuck in that awkward phase where it's too old to be cool, but not old enough to be retro, and it’s forever doomed to be a product of its time. It’s just an average, generic, “I have a dream and I can achieve it” pseudo-ballad; nothing outstanding or special. The performance feels very stale and formulaic too. The only way to describe it is it’s what I imagine an American person would THINK a winning Eurovision song would be like based on what they get told by their European pen pals. Dated music, hot Russian men, over the top presentation, like this just reeks of what outsiders (or British people, for that matter) think Eurovision is made of. On a different note, mediocre and dated as this song may be, I can still kinda see how it won (and no, it has nothing to do with Russia’s international relationships). Dima himself is a very… unique performer; one who performs with the questionable energy of an overexcitable children’s YouTuber, and his dramatic and exaggerated movements make this whole performance a bit of a blast to watch. But that doesn’t really save how painfully bland the song is.

Is this my personal winner for this year? No

If no, what is? Latvia- Pirates- "Wolves of the Sea"

Personal ranking (out of 67): 48th

2009: Fairytale

Country: Norway

Artist: Alexander Rybak

Language: English

Thoughts: I’m not going to lie, my feelings towards this song are incredibly mixed. There’s a lot of appeal here, with wild violin solos, swooping vocals and a pounding beat, as well as a very singalongable chorus; like, this is a good, solid song. But… something here just doesn’t gel with me. This, to me, is one of those “good by default” songs that’s a solid ‘A’ across the board, but something’s just… missing for me. There’s not enough here for me to go out of my way to download and listen to this on a regular basis. It's in the same boat as “Waterloo” in that I don't dislike it, because it’s still a good song, but I can't say I like it either, because it’s such a default "best Eurovision song”, so I can’t sincerely say I like it. Am I making sense? Probably not. But basically my thoughts are “it’s good, but it’s not my kind of good.”

Is this my personal winner for this year? Ehhhhhh

If no, what is? Germany- Alex Swings, Oscar Sings- “Miss Kiss Kiss Bang”

Personal ranking (out of 67): 29th

#final round tomorrow ayyy #eurovision #mod's winner reviews #esc winners

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shemetan · 4 years

Text

rapper hc part 1

hi guys!!! so i’ve had this idea in my head forever and just didn’t have anyone to share it with but i told hedy about it yesterday and she scammed me into creating tumblr acc and sharing it here lol but when i went to write it down i realized that i have a lot more to share so it’s gonna be just the 1st part for now, which was the only thing i had in my mind originally but now i’m working on expanding it.

i have a lot of ideas from the songs and this is no exception. this time the inspiration was NF - an amazing rapper and song writer. his songs uncover so much trauma and the things he raps and sings about are so real for a lot of us that you can’t help relating to them. NF’s real name is Nathan which also played part in this idea. lyrics of the songs are what the hc is based on so please listen to the songs i mention and pay attention to the lyrics.

ok i don’t wanna waste more of your time bc the hc is big as it is so without further ado let’s dive into it. p.s. it’s the first time i do a thing like that so im sorry in advance for any inconsistencies or the general drama:)))

TW!! (everything is just mentioned, nothing too graphic) physical abuse, verbal/emotional abuse, alcohol, drinking, drug addiction, overdose, death from overdose, kidnapping, torture (beating, skin burning, cuts – all of it not descriptive), violence, breaking one’s own bones, putting bastards to prison. also NF’s lyrics got a lot of triggers and cover very serious issues so if you decide to listen to some more of his music be careful with that. some of the things mentioned in the songs i’ve used here: depression, grave digging, guns, blood (in a non-violent way).

neil’s story: he grew up in an abusive family. his father was drinking a lot and abused him physically and verbally saying that he was nothing and nobody and would not amount to anything in his life. he despised neil’s love for music and laughed at him. he also hit him more when he noticed anything related to neil’s passion (neil humming some melody or listening to music in his headphones or trying to create smth). his mother tried to protect him but she couldn’t do much bc of her drug addiction. she overdosed during his last year in hs and surprisingly left him some money. when Nathan found out about that he was enraged and beat the shit out of neil so he would give him that money. to run away from his father neil goes to university to study his passion – music. he’s always had some kind of knack for creating music and rapping and now he could explore it more and not be afraid of nathan. he tries to overcome his trauma and even makes some friends (the foxes).

during the freshman year andrew and neil spend a lot of time together. they find the reflections of their hurt in each other and they find understanding. they share some of their past and their traumas; their view of the world and their dreams. andrew feels like he is falling because he’s never met anyone like neil. slowly there are soft touches and furtive glances but neither is ready yet to cross that line.

neil seemingly gets better even though there are a lot of hard moments on the way. however at the end of his freshman year nathan finds him and he and his cronies kidnap and beat neil up for Mary’s money keeping him in the basement for several days. this money is all neil’s got to survive and build his life so he doesn’t say anything and thinks of the ways to run. im not good with making up torture techniques and nathan is not so imaginative here but they still leave neil with scars on his face, his torso and hands (mostly burns from cigarettes, iron, cuts from glass bottles). by the end of the third day neil is physically and morally exhausted so he gives up and transfers all the money to them (he’s got a little of it left on his other acc) and they drunk on their win leave him in the basement. he breaks his fingers to get out of the handcuffs and gets out through the small basement window and runs outside. not long after that he collapses from all the exhaustion and blood loss and someone notices him. they call the cops and the ambulance. after that nathan and his cronies are put into prison and neil is left with almost no money. he leaves the state and a year later with a lot of effort, practicing and self-advertising he successfully signs with a music label under the name N/A.

andrew’s story: tilda didn’t give him up but was a shitty mother (obv) with drug addiction. andrew and aaron’s parents were divorced and their father didn’t live with them but tried to be there when he could. andrew started creating music as an outlet bc tilda’s boyfriends were physically abusing him and he tried to protect aaron from that. he and aaron were close bc they only had each other but andrew still didn’t share his trauma with aaron trying to protect him from that hell. of course he was only a child and couldn’t always take aaron’s place in beating but most of it lay on him. while at hs they became a band with the help of nicky and performed with their songs were they could and tried to self-advertise and wymack (he’s the head of the music dep at uni and also one of the profs) noticed them and offered them partial scholarships. they had some money left after tilda’s overdose (they lived for some time with their father after her death) so they went to get actual education on music production (at this point I don’t care how plausible it sounds, just don’t think too much about it ok lol)

the story:

ok so nathaniel once went to uni with the foxes (is there such a major as music production and singing or smth?) but at the end of his freshman year he disappeared. he was not very sociable so no one really cared where’d he go except for the foxes with whom he became somewhat friends. 1-2 years later he pops up as a new young and very talented rapper named N/A and he’s got burn scars all over his face and hands which he doesn’t hide so very intriguing right??? nobody knows much about him and that his name stands for Neil Abram so they take it literally as ‘no data available’ or smth (hedy also proposed “not applicable”!). foxes are like WTF we know that guy!! and wymack is also like isn’t that nathaniel??

Andrew’s become a huge fan of neil’s music. only renee knows that andrew’s been listening to neil’s songs non stop bc he can relate so hard to them and they just hit him right where it hurts. at the end of their last year they have like a huge final concert or smth and wymack organizes it to be held in one of the palmetto clubs. at the same time neil is coming back to Palmetto bc he is nostalgic of the time he spent in the uni with the foxes and he wants to escape his real life for a moment. he wants to visit the city and reminisce and he believes that none of the foxes really remembers him bc he was a nobody. I know the plot is getting ridiculous but bear with me

so it’s the evening of the gig and the students perform their music (songs, instrumentals, as solos/duets/bands etc). andrew majorly produces rap songs at this point and he performs in duet with renee with their song (NF’s “Can you hold me”). everyone is like shit it was so good but then andrew performs his solo song (NF’s “How could you leave us”). aaron is standing there and is a fucking mess bc he never knew andrew was that affected by their past and their mother’s death bc he never showed it and didn’t ever want to talk about his issues. (be warned this is a heart-wrenching song and it fits fucking perfectly). after that andrew almost runs outside for a smoke, trying to light a cigarette with his shaking fingers and thats when he sees a strange all covered up figure in a black hoodie entering the club but also cautiously looking over their shoulder like they don’t want to be caught. andrew ever the protective one follows him but loses in the crowd of the low lit club. 10 mins later there is quiet and the figure goes on stage – obv its neil. “Intro III” starts playing.

andrew is in awe and he’s never heard this song before so it must be new. he also never saw neil perform live so he cant really move bc the performance is so powerful and magnetic. *neils sitting on one of the disconnected amplifiers in the dark and the music starts building up. At 2:00 of the song after the words “I mean, what are you, outta your mind? 'Cause both of us will be, come on, let's go outside!” he pulls off his hood, his movements are fierce and aggressive and he’s almost screaming in the mic. at words “You had me scared for a second, I thought we were diggin' my grave” theres his fathers smile, vicious, crazy and cruel – thats how he remembered it spending 3 days in that basement. (fyi in the song NF’s talking to his fear and they go back and forth).*

andrew is mesmerized, the foxes are in shock, the whole crowd does not understand who that is but they watch with open mouths. the song ends and the crowd goes wild. that’s when neil starts talking.

“hello palmetto. this is a great concert you got and some of you guys are fucking talented. my name is neil and I used to go to PSU a long time ago so you prolly don’t know me but professor wymack out there let me come here on this stage and sing a couple of my songs for you. one of them is my old song, and another is new but they both tell my story and I hope you like’em”.

people cheer and applaud and after a moment another song starts playing. its the one andrew knows (it’s Paralyzed). the atmosphere gets way calmer but everyone is just as hypnotized. during the chorus neil is standing under the dim lights, head turned up facing the ceiling, eyes closed, his scars are illuminated. he looks almost peaceful but there’s pain and apathy showing on his face and in his posture. the song ends and neil leaves the stage. andrew cant make his legs move but he has to meet neil (he just realized that neil’s shared his name with them and it wasn’t “nathaniel” and andrew’s got so many questions).

he forces himself to move and almost runs backstage. neil is already leaving but andrew stops him by grabbing him by his arm. they stand there looking at each other, andrew panting, his body shaking a little, neil wide-eyed.

“Andrew…” he whispers obviously surprised by seeing Andrew here.

“Nath- Neil.” suddenly Andrew cant ask a single question. he’s got so many that it feels like a waste of time to ask them one by one. Neil looks down at where Andrew is still grabbing his arm and Andrew lets go off him like its burnt him. “You are here” he lets out on the exhale like he still can’t believe it.

Neil averts his eyes and puts the hood of his sweater on his head so that the shadows obscure half of his face. “Yeah” he replies and after a few seconds follows with hesitant “How are you?” It is a stupid question, Andrew thinks but he answers nonetheless with simple fine. Neil holds his head low, and Andrew can’t help but wonder if Neil doesn’t wanna look him in the eyes after his disappearance so many years ago or if he simply doesn’t want to see Andrew’s face. Both options hurt him but he doesn’t have the heart to ask.

the end of part 1. come yell at me on twt or here hihi

#aftg #aftg headcanon #NF #akathemusicgod #rapper!neil #rapper!andrew #hcs #rapper au #rapper hc #andreil

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themonotonysyndrome · 4 years

Text

“All teenagers scare the living shit out of me.”

I... have no excuse. I need a fic where Silver sneaks off to be a rebellious teenager without Lilia or Malleus knowing as well as being a good senpai with a hidden, fun side. Warning: it’s pretty long and yay for MCR’s songs. Anyway, enjoy.

Sneaking out of the Diasomnia dorm is so easy once you’ve memorised every corner, hallways and the occasional night owl wandering about like a pale ghost underneath the moonlight.

It’s also a lot easier once you mastered the silencing spell. Especially if your room is a floor beneath two powerful and ancient Faes and below is another Fae known to read late into the night when he couldn’t sleep.

After slipping the red jacket on, Silver ties his hair into a small ponytail and checks his reflection at the vanity table one last time. His eyeshadows are fine so he just adjusts his hair a little to let the bangs framed his face a lot neater before grabbing his phone and wallet.

Silver turned off the lamp on his bedside table and immediately, his room is thrown into darkness. Only the soft moonlight reveals him standing at the door, his hand on the doorknob as he tries his best to listen to any sound outside. Malleus would already be fast asleep, judging by the hour. Lilia would also be fast asleep after pulling a four-day all-nighter playing video games with Ortho. Sebek had mentioned during lunchtime that he’s exhausted from helping the other First Year students of their dorm studying, so he’d probably turn in early tonight.

When he could hear nothing, Silver cast a silencing spell on himself as soon as he exits his room. The hallways look so eerie at night with the swaying green flames from the candles. The thorny vines creeping up the walls and ceilings cast long shadows underneath the soft light. The dorm would spook anyone meant not to be here, but Silver has become accustomed to sneaking between the shadows of Diasomnia that nothing but Lilia’s footstep can startle him.

Once he reaches a dead end in the hallway on the ground floor, Silver gently presses one of the bricks hidden behind the thick tapestry and the brick wall reveal a hole that’s big enough for him to slip out to the back of the dorm.

The cold night air envelop him as soon as he steps outside with the moon hanging high and full in the starry night sky. It’s a quiet, peaceful night and more importantly, one of the rare nights that Silver is fully awake for once and he plans to take advantage of it.

Silver raises an open palm to summon a couple of fireflies to lead him through the forest. The little creatures shine a brilliant shade of dark green light; strong enough to illuminate the path for him. The occasional hoot of the owls and crickets accompanied him as he walks deeper into the forest towards his destination.

However, he instantly froze when he heard something unexpected somewhere near him. A couple of voices dispels the quiet evening.

“ - right way?”

“Pretty... sure. I’ve walked... way... a couple... time now!”

Silver frowns. He ducks underneath a thick branch and hides behind a tree as the voices gradually become louder and clearer. The green fireflies disperse at a flick of his finger.

“Are you sure we aren’t lost?” Silver knew that voice. It’s that human student from the Ramshackle dorm - Yuu.

“Yeah, Ace. Isn’t this the way to the Dwarf’s Mine?” Another First Year student - Deuce - chimed in.

“Of course we aren’t lost! Look, it’s just a couple more steps, and we should be on the path towards the back entrance of the campus, alright?’ Ace assured them. He then leads the way, and the two hurried after him, the flashlight from their phones pierce through the darkness in front of them.

‘What... are they doing?’ Silver wondered as he watches them going further away from the same path that he’s on. He has a feeling that they too, are planning to sneak out of campus, but they’re going the wrong way, just like Yuu suspected. He bit his lower lip and then sigh, mind already made up.

Without hesitation, Silver went after them. There are monsters that lurk in this forest, and the ones that only reveal under the cover of the night tend to be vicious and nasty. Despite not being from the same dorm, it wouldn’t sit well with him as a Second Year student if he lets a bunch of newbies gets hurt if he could help it.

And when Ace let out a shriek, Silver quickens his steps and prepare his magic.

“What the fuck is that!?” Deuce shouted, eyes wide open in shock. Ace is on the ground, flat on his ass with Yuu and Deuce in front of him.

A large slime-like shadow monster with multiple red eyes and way too many mouths loom over them. As it bares its razor-sharp teeth and prepares to pounce on them, Silver shouted.

“Get down!” He ordered and threw a large fireball at the monster. Fortunately, Yuu and Deuce were smart enough not to question and quick enough to duck.

The creature let out an unnerving shriek of pain, but the fire refused to snuff out. The teacher had covered this particular monster during the first semester for the Second Year curriculum, so Silver knows how just how to defeat. He raises the fire higher and hotter until the monster bubbles and evaporates into soft smoke.

The green fireflies returned and circled them to ward off any more surprises.

“Silver-senpai?” Yuu called out, tilting his head in both relieve and confusion. “What are you doing here so late at night?”

“Isn’t that supposed to be my question?” Silver countered instead. Folding his arms, he then asks, “Shouldn’t it be common sense to stay away from the forest? Especially at night?”

At least Yuu had the decency to look bashful. Ace, however, managed to shake off his fear to reply, “You haven’t answered him, Silver-senpai. And why are you wearing such cool clothes for? Wait... are you going to the Mystic Elixir too?”

“Ace!” Deuce hissed, but that was all Silver needed to know.

“What!? You’re thinking about it too!”

“G-Guys...”

Silver sighs. He really didn’t expect this; looks like Azul wasn’t kidding that this trio tends to bring trouble wherever they go. Still, maybe he can work something out...

“Actually, I am.”

His blunt and honest admission shocks them. “Whoa... I didn’t know that Silver-senpai is the kind of person to break the rules.” Deuce said in awe with a hint of respect.

Silver just shrugs. He’s aware of the school’s impression of him and his family; rather than getting annoyed, he let them think what they like. “What I do in my free time is my own business. Now, since we’re both breaking the rules and planning to go to the same place, our little trip to the city is going to be a secret just between us. Got it?”

“C-Crystal, Silver-senpai!”

“Of course, Silver-senpai!”

“...Yes, Silver-senpai.”

Silver nodded. “Good. Follow me.” He turns around to return to the previous path with the First Years meekly walk behind him. “Have you three been to the Mystic Elixir before?” He asks.

“We overheard it from Cater-senpai and got curious.” Deuce explains. “He said that it’s the only nightclub that doesn’t care about your age.”

“Have you heard about it, Silver-senpai?” Yuu interjects. The boy’s eyes glint underneath the light of the fireflies. Is he genuinely incapable of using magic like the Mirror of Darkness said?

“Been there a couple of times.” Silver admits. This results in a chorus of awe and questions, but he put a stop to it with a raise of his hand. “Ground rule: I’ll take you guys there, but you guys are not allow to drink. If I see any you disappear from my line of sight or do anything besides dancing and talking, I’ll haul your asses back here. Understand?” He demands, trying to sound as firm as he can. Hopefully, they’ll take his words seriously; he doesn’t have much practise other than arguing with Sebek.

The trio murmurs, “Yes, Silver-senpai.” Good enough.

When they reach far enough from the campus, Silver calls for a transportation portal from their area straight to the street where the nightclub is. If they were within the boundary of the college, the headmaster would sense the portal immediately, which is why they needed to be out of the radius to leave safely.

“I’m so excited!” Ace exclaim with a wide grin. “This is going to be the best night ever!”

“As long as we listen to Silver-senpai rules and don’t stay too long, it should be fine...” Deuce quietly assure himself, but Silver could see him fidgeting with excitement and eagerness.

Yuu said nothing. Though he kept sneaking glances at Silver; wanting to say something but stop himself every time. Silver made a mental note to ask him if they had the chance.

As soon as they step into the portal with Silver being the last, the Mystic Elixir appear before them. The building is large, circular with three floors and a rooftop lounge. The main entrance holds up the name of the nightclub in bright purple lights with the walls flashing a myriad of soft colours and music can be heard blasting inside.

“Oh wow, look at the line!” Ace pointed out. Like any other typical Saturday night, the club had a long line of people eager to get in. “It’ll take forever for us to get in at this rate!”

“Just follow me.” Silver simply replied and went around the building. The First Years continue to trail after him like ducklings; their excited chatter muffled. Away from prying eyes, they slip into an alley beside the building where an imposing bouncer is guarding a small door.

When he saw Silver, he peers over his sunglasses. “Oh-ho, the guys and I’ve been wondering when you would show up, Argentum. There’s even a bet running that you ran off to some other clubs at the other side of the city.” The Minotaur said with a friendly grin.

Silver rolled his eyes. “It’s only been four months. Anyway, is Hansel in tonight?”

“Heck yeah! He’s manning the bar on the ground floor with a couple of new girls. There’s a new menu that I think you’re gonna like.”

The two chatted for a few more minutes before he laughs at Silver’s sarcastic quip and opens the door for them; barely batted an eye at the three kids behind him as they shuffle in.

“Does Silver-senpai knows a lot of people in the city?” Deuce couldn't help but ask when the door close behind them. Silver leads them through the dimly lit hallway to where the music and people shouting and singing is.

“No.” Silver answered, and that’s that. When they finally reach the dance floor, Deuce and Ace gape at the sight. Music blares from every corner of the large room, the bright and colourful LED lights pulse from the ceilings, walls, and the entire floor is crowded with all sorts of creatures; some were dancing, some were playing cards and drinking at the tables while others made their way to the neon stairs for the rooftop lounge.

“Now this is a party! C’mon, c’mon! Let’s dance, guys!” Ace urged and grabbed both Yuu and Deuce with him to the dance floor. Silver watch them mingle with the crowd before heading towards the bar where it’s a little quieter.

Hopping onto one of the stool, Silver is immediately greeted by the bartender, Hansel. “Argentum! Good to see you again. How have you been? Busy?” The man said brightly as he tucks away a shot glass. Behind him, Silver could see two girls handling the other patrons.

“Had to study for a test.” Silver said. He hid his identity whenever he sneaks out of Raven Night College in case Lilia or Malleus caught wind of his little late-night adventures. A small part of him knew that although Lilia wouldn’t mind him hanging out with his own group of friends, the old man would definitely put his foot down as soon as he mentioned Mystic Elixir.

It’s baffling how overprotective the old man can sometimes be. You’d think he’s old enough to make his own decisions.

There’s been a lot of shady events that happened in Mystic Elixir ever since its grand opening. Being one of the very few nightclubs with very few rules, anything can happen here. Agreements, truces and even death. Though Hansel enigmatically smiles and said nothing when Silver wanted to confirm the last rumour.

But despite the nightclub’s infamous reputation, Silver actually enjoyed it here. Watching all sort of creatures dance the night away and even chatting with some interesting strangers over a glass of Icy Polaris about this and that can be fun.

When Hansel slides him a shot of Poison Harbinger, Yuu sat on the vacant stool beside him. Like before, he made a poor attempt trying to hide his curious glances despite looking at the non-alcoholic section of the menu. So Silver decide to nip that in the bud.

“Do you like sweets?” He suddenly asks.

“Umm... I don’t really mind them, Silver-senpai.” Yuu said after some thoughts.

Silver nodded. “Then I suggest either a Dea’s Kiss mocktail or Priestess Lemonade.”

Yuu decides on the first suggestion, and one of the girls begin to prepare his order. “Has enough of dancing?” Silver asks after a sip of his drink.

“I was starting to get sweaty.” Yuu admits. “I’ve never been to a nightclub before. Not even in my... world.” He pauses and then, “Not unlike Silver-senpai.”

“This is my fourth time here, but I’m not much of a dancer. I’m just here for the drinks.” Silver said, raising his glass for emphasis. Hansel cheers.

“Still... even though I’m still new here, I always thought that Silver-senpai prefers a much more... quiet scene.” Yuu said with a tilt of his head.

Silver turns around to face the dancing crowd. Despite the writhing bodies, he could see Ace and Deuce without a problem. “I do enjoy hanging out with Lilia-san and the others. But I’m also a curious person. Just like your friend, I heard about this place and wanted to check it out and found myself experiencing something new.”

Hansel returns with Yuu’s order. He eyes the drink; inside the tall glass is a swirl of purple galaxy with sparkling black dots that oddly reminds her of onyx. A single red rose petal floats on the surface of the drink. The drink looks pretty rather than delicious, to be honest, but he takes a sip nonetheless. His eyes widen when a pleasant sweet taste burst on his tongue. It faintly tasted like blueberries and something else entirely.

“Does Lilia-san knows you’re here?” Yuu finally ask.

Ah, Silver was wondering when he would ask that. “No.” He said after the sweetness of his drink burns his throat. As long as he can remember, Silver’s world consists of Lilia and Malleus; they the ones who taught and raised him everything they knew. They watch him grow when they themselves don’t, and over time, Silver can feel the difference between them.

Don’t get him wrong; Silver dearly love them as his parents, and they in return treat him as theirs. It’s unconventional, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. But after enrolling to Night Raven College, Silver sees them not only as parental figures but also his senior students.

Awkward is an understatement whenever the other students witnessed Lilia teasing him like how a father would and Malleus would scoop a portion of his food to his plate during lunchtime in the cafeteria. It’s during those moments that Silver is grateful for Sebek’s presence and would gladly humour him whenever he’s upset with something.

Yuu said nothing and they enjoyed their drinks in silence. The topic then shifted to something lighter; about classes, magic and the difference between their world. Silver couldn’t comprehend a world without magic, and despite knowing nothing of their histories, Yuu grasps his explanation surprisingly quick.

It’s almost as if he’s heard of them before.

When midnight came and went, the First Year trio were beginning to wear out from dancing and the intense atmosphere. Around 2 in the morning, they decide to return home. Silver paid for their drinks much to the their protest, but Silver easily brush it off, claiming that since it’s their first time, it’s a treat from him.

As they made their way back to the back entrance of the nightclub, Yuu took one last glance at the dance floor behind him. Just like the moment they arrive, he sees a young man with short auburn hair with red tips and russet brown eyes stare at them from one of the private booth.

No, Yuu suddenly realises when the stranger turns his head slightly. Not them, but at Silver.

Apologies for any grammatical errors or spellings. It was 2AM when I was writing this. Hope I managed to get Silver right

#twisted wonderland #silver #fanfic #oneshot #mc #ace trappola #deuce spade #twst #lilia vanrouge #malleus draconia

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pvtrichors · 3 years

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RUDY PANKOW , 22 , HE/HIM/HIS , CIS MAN | hey is that MONROE ST. THOMAS ? i think i’ve seen the 23 year old walking around THE CUT , so i guess that means they’re a POGUE ? apparently if the weather’s right, you can find them SNEAKING A JOINT INSTEAD OF A CIGARETTE BREAK , which makes sense since they’ve got the whole SCARS THAT WILL TELL STORIES IF YOU LET THEM, A SMILE THAT IS BROKEN BUT STILL BEAUTIFUL & A CANVAS SPLASHED IN THE SAME COLOR AS BRUISES thing about them . if people had background music , their song would definitely be CROWDED PLACES BY BANKS

monroe is very much the definition of what you expect to find when you come into the cut. that being said, there are different layers to him, some that are more hidden than the others. on one hand, he’s the boy who was a proud all star for the highschool football team, the all american version of what the dream is supposed to look like. on the other, he’s the same one who couldn’t afford to get himself to the away games, or the guy that can quote you poetry from memory, when he gets just high enough, each person usually gets a piece of him, a version, but never the full fledged experience, because he knows just what it is like to be “too much”, therapy has told him that, for better or for worse.

while plenty of people seem to think that his stint in rehab, something that he does not bother to hide from most of the general public, would have taught him not to drink or smoke, that is hardly the case. he instead learned that he can’t always use them as coping mechanisms, which means that he’s had to learn other avenues to get out the weight of his emotions, one of which happens to be art, you know, when he’s not busy crying in the privacy of the shower like the rest of us.

due to what happened in the car crash with his mother and sister, he has a plethora of scars sprinkled across his shoulders. while that doesn’t stop him from spending a good portion of time shirtless when the weather permits, the people that actually ask about them are usually met with avoidance, and sometimes even aggression. there are some things he will never really know how to talk about, no matter how long it’s been since he woke up in that hospital bed. speaking of scars, monroe is also painfully aware of the ones that came from his brothers experience coming out, and part of that, forces him to be very open about his own sexuality, or rather, blunt about the interest in people regardless of their genitals (and you can fight him about it, too, these hands are free ninety nine, always)

WC1: the exception to the rule, is the name of the game here. this is someone who despite monroe’s usual tendency to never really show his hand, sees through his bullshit, and actually knows him. however far that relationship goes, or will do, is definitely up to us and we can see where it leads, chemistry wise, but this is someone who is unbelievably special to him. he usually doesn’t admit it easily, or in the usual ways, and probably still tries to avoid them when they get a little too close, but usually ends up running right back in less than 24 hours. they even seem to have learned to understand that, or at least accept it, but feel free to torture him a little bit after he tries to run.

the middle children are the ones that are born with tragedy in their bones. They always said that Monroe absorbed all his sisters hurt in the womb, his very first act somehow becoming one of protection. To him, the statement now rang with bittersweet irony, but that’s the story’s tendency to get ahead of itself. In the beginning they were the perfect picture of the American dream, the one that was bought and sold, embraced with open arms. Sure, the floors in the old beach house were always dirty, and his father worked longer than he ever should have had to in order to keep their plates full, but they made it. Caroline started working again after the kids had all started school, breathing a sigh of relief with Kase finally passed that milestone birthday that would allowed her to begin taking the steps to contribute.

by then, his older brother had already begun taking on the family’s burdens, a nervous habit that had long since been coined as the family curse. He knew now that it was guilt that drove him to take that step, a strange since of misplaced shamed in the secret he was about to reveal to them all. The night that the words left his lips, they all remember it differently. It was a confessional that should have been met with love and support, but the scar that the two eldest boys were left with was one that had no chance at healing. The only part of the memory that seemed intent on sticking around was the sound of skin meeting skin in a vicious chorus, and the darkening bruises mixed with blood that formed as a direct result of the backhand that would eventually become the soundtrack to their demise.

that’s right, his brother came out to his family, and David’s first reaction was to take his feelings out on Smith physically, in front of the entire family. It didn’t matter if the bible had fanned the flames of his intolerance, or taught him some misplaced wrong rooted in sexuality, what did matter? Caroline wasn’t going to stand for it. Two weeks later, David left without a word, or a single cent, in his wake. The abandonment of his family seemed easy, and they never received the decency of an apology or even the watchful eye of shame. Nothing, not a single word, and his name became a welcomed taboo in the story, dad was the dirtiest curse word to ever leave any of their lips.

monroe didn’t talk about the nightmares that plagued him in the weeks after, but Smith always seemed to be awake right in time to shake him out of them. The silent agreement to keep secrets between siblings, a small bond that eventually cemented the lines of love between the two. It was no surprise to anyone that he followed in the footsteps of Smith, soon confessing his own struggles, but for him? There were welcome arms, acceptance was offered in free fall, because he needed it, and maybe it was that helped them all heal from the things that they still didn’t know how to speak of. What it didn’t do, was fill the gap that was created by their fathers (if you could even call him that) absence. Eventually, all five of them learned what it was like to be hungry, all the things that Caroline had desperately been trying to keep them away from. Some lessons weren’t meant to be learned, she’d say.

smith graduated high school the same year, a full ride scholarship he could never take, meaning that Monroe was the next to fall victim to the aforementioned curse that came with crushing weight on the shoulders of every member, but especially him. Life seemed to have a fucked up way of changing lanes, though. Caroline was running late, in the rain, to one of her many jobs. It was an unfortunate side effect of her newly minted single motherhood, after all. Dallas was in the car, to be dropped off at the baby sitter, but they would never make it there. The skidding sound of wet tires on warm asphalt, the high pitched screams of metal twisting metal, it all added another track added to the symphony of this tragedy.

you’re so lucky. It’s a miracle. The statements are repeated over and over, like a broken record, but they turn his stomach every time. A miracle, any God, would have either sent him away with his sister, the one he had been born trying to protect, and his mother, who would have died for him time and time again. The first time he told this to a therapist, the change in their expression announced what would be his first forced commitment, something that no one expected, and it tore all his buried scars wide open. Maybe that’s why they say rehab always feels like you’re bleeding out.

two months later, the only thing he was permitted out for was the funeral. His brothers came to visit three times a week, and often, they would cling to each other like the the last straws left in what felt like a burning building. After month three, he was released with false promises of therapy, with fake smiles that said he would take care of it, and the only reason he did seek out a way to cope was to honor the memory of his mother. he finally learned that he wasn’t an addict, but he needed to learn the secret of moderation. he needed to learn a lot of things, and now was going to be the start of that, including how to be a little more unapologetically himself.

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mistyproductions · 4 years

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My fave Red Velvet songs (Girl group with the best B-sides)

WELCOME, FINALLY to the second part of my k-pop opinion series. Today I’m talking about everyone’s fave gg don’t you lie: Red Velvet!!! Plz enjoy~~

BAD BOY MV AAAAH!!! lol...

Automatic: The best song from their very first EP, Ice Cream Cake. The sexy vibe is really good, like their velvet side is my favourite of the two, I just like the style and smoothness of their vocals and the calm atmosphere it brings. The chorus is the best part with them all singing together, and the MV is so laid-back too it’s just them in a car for most of it which I love, it’s so random lol.

Campfire: Seriously, I don’t know what it is about this song, but I really like it. Also, can we appreciate Irene’s rap part? The first time I heard it I was blown away, aah I think she’s my bias, though I’ve never really had a solid bias for this group. Just a nice chill song with good vocals, as always.

Red Dress: The hype in this song is unreal, and the beat is very enjoyable to listen to. I like to listen to Red Dress if I’m feeling down because the energy in it is really something else.

Lady’s Room: Seulgi talking in the beginning pulled me in right away, even though I don’t know what she’s saying I feel like she’s inviting me to come over to her house for a drink, I dunno. But this is such a girl power song that is a shout out to your best friends. (And all the gals out there) I really like the cute attitude of the whole thing and the care-free spirit too!

Russian Roulette: I love the MV for this song, and the whole vibe of it overall. The seemingly cute appearance with a darker meaning, that’s what I like about a lot of red velvet songs, the girls seem innocent/meek/cute, but can be vicious and violent, as depicted in this MV when they literally try to KILL Seulgi lol.

Sunny Afternoon: A mostly unknown B-side, one that I love so so much, like I dunno how to explain it. I have listened to SA more times than I kinda wanna admit, it’s just a really catchy, perfect summer bop all about finding a cute guy to spend a nice afternoon with, teehee.

Zoo: My fave song from their first summer EP, it’s whacky, entertaining, and so much fun. Their summer vibes are just really unique to them, and this song shows it the best in my opinion. Plus Irene and Yeri’s rap parts before the final chorus just kill me in all the good ways.

Talk to me: This song has such Ariana Grande vibes, and I LOVE Ari, so of course I love this song. I always find a way back to this song, and I don’t know why it’s one of my faves from their Rookie EP, but it just is, I cannot really explain it.

Little Little: The soft emotions of this song are sweet to listen to, and the bass line kills so good! The girls’ vocals are actually strong but still soft and reserved at the same time I dunno how to explain it.

Bad Boy: ONE OF THEIR MOST ICONIC, KICK-ASS SONGS. I love Bad Boy so, so much, and all of the hype the MV got when it was first released was definitely deserved! The vocals are out of this world, like Wendy and Seulgi really stole the show in this song, they will never fail to disappoint me in terms of their vocal talent.

Sunny Side Up: SUNNY SIDE UP, SUNNY SIDE UP-UP! Ok, in all seriousness, the first listen automatically made it my fave song of their ReVe Festival Pt. 1 EP. Just, I don’t really need to explain it, all Reveluv adore this song, you can ask any of us and we’ll say this song SMASHES.

친구가 아냐 (Bing Bing): Similar to Red Dress in the sort of hype feeling you get when listening to it, it’s super catchy and a great listen, a super underrated song that honestly deserved a lot more than it got, I dunno it just does deserve more!

So Good: My fave song from their Really Bad Boy EP, I know many people din’t really like this EP that much, but this song really got to me. All 5 of the members’ vocals shine really well and the instrumental is a BOP.

Butterflies: BUTTERFLIES BUTTERFLIES. The cute vibe of this song and the breathtaking atmosphere really did pull me in the first listen. I’dd have to say the best part of this song was Irene and Yeri’s rap parts, yes, just that, damn I’m really starting to think Irene is my bias now lol.

Perfect 10: This song is super sexy, like that’s the one word that constantly comes to mind when listening to P10. I just cannot get over their second studio album that is Perfect Velvet, it’s just too amazing and choosing my faves was actually kinda hard, but that’s why like half of the songs are on this list cause I have too many faves.

My Second Date: The feeling I get from listening to this song is one I will probably never have irl (I’m almost 20 and STILL have never had a boyfriend, lol) but it was still a great listen, the producers know what they’re doing man. The instrumental is energetic and enjoyable!

Look (봐): Bwa, bwa, bwa~ The vocal line honestly killed it with this song, the late 90s early 2000s dance feeling I get from Look is honestly so iconic and it’s just a bop in all the right ways. Irene and Yeri’s vocals were even super smooth and amazing also, so there’s that.

Kingdom Come: The first part by Irene automatically made this one of my absolute faves of their second studio album. Kingdom come is so, so iconic, from the vocals, hypnotic vibe, and amazing instrumental, just, ugh so good!!!

About Love: Joy honestly stole the show with this one, her vocals AND rap part are my fave parts of the song and the meaning is super cute, and even if this is from their velvet album I still get kind of red vibes cause this song sounds a little more innocent than some other Perfect Velvet tracks.

THE ENTIRE IRENE/SEULGI EP, PERFECTION!!! This iconic duo’s debut was just out of this world honestly, and all of the songs are probably in my fave RV songs. Though imo: Monster < Naughty. Hee hee.

Yes, enjoy my spiral of realising that Irene is now officially my bias lol. That’s my opinions about my fave Red Velvet songs, all done! Like I said with my Ateez post, this is my opinion and if your fave RV song isn’t here plz don’t get mad cause this is MY OPINION. Reveluv are a pretty chill fandom though so I’m not too worried about anything, anyways thx for reading this if you are, xxx, - Misty.

#red velvet #fave songs #my opinion

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