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rogeriswater · 1 year

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Don't Leave Me Now

xxv

This work contains fictionalized versions of real events and people. Most details won’t be accurate to real life.

tags for this chapter: some sexually explicit language, jealous roger

July, 1968

~m.r~

We've been back in America as part of our tour. As of right now, we were in New York City. We were slated to be here for three days. Ronnie was excited about being back in New York. It was where she lived for five years and met Sandy. Right now, we were getting settled into our hotel. As always, I was with my sister. I wanted to room with Roger, but it would've been too suspicious. So he was stuck with David for now.

"I wish Sandy could be here" Ronnie sadly said. I knew she was missing her. It was clear that Ronnie cared about Sandy so much. "Hey, do you think maybe next tour, she could come along?"

We had a no spouses allowed rule when it came to this tour. That included the crew as well, and Ronnie was technically part of the crew, being our photographer. "I could definitely ask Rourkie about it"

Ronnie hugged me and then kissed me on the cheek. "You're the best sister anyone could ever ask for, pup!" Something in the room caught Ronnie's attention. "Hey, they have a record player in here!"

She immediately went to go snoop through some of the records they had. I grabbed my carton of cigarettes and stepped out into the balcony. I leaned against the railing as I smoked my cigarette. I watched all of the people passing below me. Most of them were couples. Some young and some old.

I wasn't alone for very much longer as my sister had come out to join me. "What are you thinking about, pup?" She asked me.

"Do you think I'm really in love with Roger?" I spoke my mind. "Or am I just desperate for attention that Billy's been depriving me of lately?"

"What is your heart telling you?" She asked me, playing the wise older sister card.

"I want to believe that a man other than my husband loves me" I confessed. "But another part of me believes that Roger is just bluffing when he tells me he loves me. That this is just some fun to keep each other satisfied when we're on tour. He's going to marry Judy and then that'll be the end of us"

"So you think Roger is just using you for his own personal gain?" Ronnie grabbed my shoulders and turned me around so that I was looking at her. "No man would look at you the way Roger does if he wasn't in love with you"

That eased me a little bit. We heard a knocking at our door. I stayed out on the balcony while Ronnie went to go answer it. I heard Roger's voice. The two of them talked for a minute before I heard his footsteps approaching the balcony. Two arms wrapped around my waist and I was being pulled against his broad body. We didn't need to talk. We just enjoyed each other's company.

I looked up at him to admire him. He was incredibly beautiful, even if he couldn't see it. But considering how many times he's been cheated on, it really does make you doubt yourself. I wouldn't understand that though, as Billy has never cheated on me. Still, I see something in Roger, not just in appearance but for who he is as a person. And Judy must see something too because she keeps pressing him on about marriage.

Roger caught me gazing as he had called me out on it. "Have I got something on my face?"

"No, I just like looking at you" I told him. "You're beautiful"

Roger held me tighter, if it was even possible, and then he buried his face into my neck. "I love you" He said. He grabbed my hair and pushed it out of the way. "I love you" He repeated. His lips touched my neck. I shuddered at the feel. "I love you" He kissed at my neck and started sucking. He was gonna mark me. He shouldn't, but I couldn't stop him. It felt too good.

"Roger, you can't—ah!—can't leave a mark.." I weakly told him. Fuck, I didn't think having your neck kissed like this could feel so good.

"If I can't put a ring on your finger, I need some other way to show everyone you're mine" He muttered possessively. Why was it so hot when he was possessive like that? He continued to kiss and suck at my neck until he was satisfied with the mark he left. He ran his finger against that particular spot. "Do you want to see it, darling?" He sounded pleased with himself.

"Roger, it better not be big!" I ran back inside and I went to look in the mirror. The love bite he left was darker and bigger than I was expecting it to be. "Roger, how the hell am I supposed to cover this up?" I scolded him.

"I was hoping that you wouldn't"

"Roger, I'm serious. People are gonna see it and get suspicious"

"Alright, calm down" Roger removed the scarf that was on his neck and he wrapped it around my own. "There you go" I looked in the mirror again. His scarf had managed to hide the love bite. I was relieved about that at least. I watched him in the mirror as he grabbed one of my cigarettes and lit it. He noticed me watching him and made eye contact with me through the mirror. "When we fuck tonight, you should wear the scarf"

"Bold of you to assume that we're gonna fuck in the first place" I teased him.

"We've fucked every night after every show, darling. I'd be more surprised if we didn't tonight"

"I'm surprised you haven't gotten me pregnant yet" I brought up. We were already cutting it close by not using a condom every time. One of these days, I was gonna end up pregnant all because Roger wouldn't pull out in time. "Maybe we should start using a condom" I could see Roger was a little disappointed with my suggestion. "Look at it this way, if you wear the condom, you can cum inside of me technically"

"Darling, you're making my cock hard" He groaned. I saw him rubbing his erection through his pants.

I bit my lip as I watched him. "I can see that"

His hand went to his zipper and he was about to pull it down when a knock on the door stopped him. He cursed as I went over to the door. "Who is it?" I called.

"It's me!" I heard Rourkie's voice.

"Oh, shit" Roger muttered. He wasn't supposed to be here right now, and if Steve caught him in here with me, we'd both be in shit. Roger quickly went to go hide in mine and Ronnie's bathroom.

Once it was safe, I opened the door. "Hi Rourkie!" I greeted him.

"Maggie" Steve smiled at me. He stepped inside and sat down on the bed. "You and Ronnie settled in okay?"

"We are, thank you" Steve looked around, probably wondering where Ronnie was. "She went for a walk"

Steve nodded. "And where is Roger?"

"Why do you think I know where he is?"

"Well, you two are always hanging around with each other" Steve shrugged. "Just thought you might know"

"If I see him, I'll let him know you were looking for him"

"Actually, let him know rehearsal is in three hours" Steve said. He got up to leave the room, patting me on the shoulder as he walked by me.

When Steve was gone, I walked over to the bathroom door. "Rog, he's gone. You can come out now"

As soon as I opened the door, Roger's lips were on mine. It nearly knocked me off of my feet but there was no way I was gonna fall with Roger's arms around my waist. When he pulled away, he looked at me with those lustful eyes. "Take your clothes off and get on the bed"

"What?"

"We've got three hours and I've got a hard cock" Roger grasped my jaw. The forcefulness of it turned me on. "Now take your fucking clothes off and get on the damn bed" I was about to start undressing when he stopped me. "But, darling, leave the scarf on"

...

I was feeling rather good by the time rehearsal rolled around. Maybe it was because Roger had fucked my brains out and made me cum three times. We went through all the songs at least once, while both Steve and Ronnie watched us from the front row in the audience.

Rick had needed me for something so I was sitting over at his keyboard with him. He was teaching me how to play. "So then, you're gonna press your fingers down on these keys" Rick guided me. He showed me what keys to play. When he was done, he took his hands away. "Now you play what I just played" I played what Rick had showed me, which was just a simple little melody. We both cheered when I copied it perfectly. "You're a natural!" He told me.

"Thank you!" I smiled.

"Are you sure you're not a musician?" He joked, bumping his shoulder with mine. He made me laugh again. When I looked up, my eyes met Roger's. He winked at me, making me blush and look down again. I don't think Rick had noticed though. "How's everything with Billy?" He asked me.

I tensed hearing him ask me about him. I faked a smile as I looked at Rick. "Billy and I are fine"

"That's good" He said, returning the smile.

I noticed Roger making his way towards us. "Rick, do you mind if I borrow Mags?"

"Be my guest"

I stood up and followed Roger. He lead me over to a part of the stage that was just out of view from everyone. The first thing he did, was move the scarf so that my love bite was visible to him. He smirked as he ran his thumb over it. "I should give you another one"

"Don't you dare!" I warned him. "It's bad enough I have to cover one up"

"I know you love it though, darling" He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me tight against him. "How many times?"

"How many times what?" I asked.

"Did you cum?"

"Three" Roger seemed pleased with my answer. His hand moved to grope my ass. "Why do you want to know?"

"I just want to make sure I'm being a generous lover is all"

I smiled and cupped his face. "You are the best lover I've had"

"Hopefully the only one you'll ever have, yeah?" He grabbed my hand and squeezed it gently. "I mean it, darling. I don't think I could stand to see you with someone else. It's already bad enough when I see you with him" I knew the him was referring to Billy. "It hurts me"

"It's only you, Roger" I said. I closed my eyes when I felt his face close to mine. His nose brushed against my skin, close to my ear and I felt his hot breath on my neck. "I fucking swear"

Our moment was cut short when we heard footsteps coming towards us. "I think they're over here!" It was Nick's voice. Roger and I quickly stepped back from each other as he came into our view. "What is it with you two always sneaking off?"

"We're not always sneaking off" I said.

Nick snorted. "Sure, you aren't. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you two are—"

Roger interrupted him. "What is it you need, Nick?"

"Steve wants us to do one more run through" He informed us before leaving the two of us be.

"I think we can continue this later" I tried telling Roger. But he had other plans. He grabbed my face and kissed me. It was soft and gentle. I couldn't help but melt. I loved the affection he gave me, even if we did have to hide it.

When he pulled away from me, he still held my face in his hands. He smiled at me. "You're perfect, you know? Woman of my absolute fucking dreams" He let go of me. "Come on then, love" He went back onto the stage.

I stayed behind for a moment to compose myself. I didn't realize that I had started crying until I felt a tear run down my cheek. I quickly wiped it away. I don't know why I was crying. Perhaps it was because this was the first time I ever felt truly loved by a man and I was scared to let it go. But, I knew that Roger and I wouldn't last forever. As much as he told me he wanted it to.

I walked back out on the stage. I took my place at my microphone and grasped it. We rehearsed our set again and I had no doubt in my mind it would be another perfect show like always.

...

We returned to the hotel after the show. The plan for tonight was to go out and celebrate another successful show with some drinks. However, we all wanted to relax for a bit before we did so. Ronnie and I got to our room. She excused herself to use the bathroom, while I stared at the phone. I debated on calling Billy. My husband was probably expecting to hear from me, as I promised I would call him after every show. I sighed, picking up the phone and dialing the number.

When the other line was picked up, I heard a voice I didn't expect to hear. "Hello?"

"Judy?" My eyebrows furrowed. "What are you doing there?"

"Hello Maggie" She greeted me. "Billy invited me over. With you and Roger gone, we both just needed some company"

"Oh"

"Would you like to talk to him? I can fetch him for you"

"No, that's fine. I just wanted to tell him that it was another great show"

"Alright then. If that's all, I'm going to let you go now" Just when I thought Judy was about to hang up, she spoke again. "Oh, and could you do me a favor and not tell Roger?" I didn't even get a chance to ask why before she hung up on me.

I just stared at the phone still in my hand, confused about what just happened. Ronnie emerged from the bathroom and she noticed. "What's wrong, pup?" She asked me.

"I tried calling Billy and do you know who answered the phone? Judy" I explained to her.

Ronnie's eyes widened. "As in Roger's girlfriend, Judy?"

"Yeah" I squeezed the phone in my hand, my knuckles turning white. Ronnie sat beside me on the bed. "You... you don't think there's anything going on between them, do you?"

"Don't tell me you're bothered by the idea" Ronnie scoffed.

"Why shouldn't I be!?" I snapped at her.

"Because you and Roger are doing the same thing!" She snapped back. "So what if Billy and Judy decide to indulge in their loneliness together?"

I can't believe she was saying it so casually. "You're telling me you wouldn't be devastated if you found out the man you've been married to for years was cheating on you with another woman?"

"It sounds like you still love him" Ronnie said. "But I know you don't, otherwise you wouldn't have fallen for Roger"

"That doesn't answer my question"

Ronnie sighed. "Of course, I'd be devastated. It would be hard not to be if you've been with someone as long as you've been with Billy"

"And there is something else. Judy told me not to tell Roger that she was there"

"Oh" Ronnie scratched at her head. "Yeah, that does seem a bit odd"

"Do I tell him?" I asked. "Every girlfriend he's had, they've ended up cheating on him"

Ronnie frowned. "Wow, I had no idea..." Of course she wouldn't. Nobody knows Roger the way that I do. "Maybe when we come back. Don't want to spoil a fun night"

"Yeah, you're right. But if Billy was cheating on me, I'd want to know" I saw Ronnie stiffen when I mentioned that. "What's wrong?" Before she could answer, there was a knock on our door. I went over to answer it, finding that it was Rick at the door.

"We're all ready if you two are" He told us. "We'll meet you downstairs in the lobby"

"Thanks, Rick. We'll be down shortly" Rick left, and Ronnie and I grabbed whatever belongings we needed. For me, it was important I had my cigarettes on me. When we were ready, we made our way down to the lobby. I immediately noticed Steve's absence. "Where's Rourkie?"

"He's trusting us on our own for the night" David explained. He reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulling out a big wad of cash. "But he did give us this!" He waved it around.

"Give me that!" Ronnie quickly snatched the wad and stuffed it in her purse. "You don't go waving cash like that around in a big city like this. I've witnessed one a few too many muggings"

"You've lived in New York before, right Ronnie?" Nick asked, throwing his arm over her shoulder. "You must know of a few clubs or two!"

Ronnie smirked, looking between all of us. "I know just the place"

...

Ronnie ended up taking us to this very lively nightclub. She chose this place specifically because it's where her and Sandy had their first date. We situated ourselves at a booth. I was squeezed in the very middle, right in between Roger and David.

"This is a nice place!" Rick shouted over the music and the rowdiness of the crowd.

Ronnie grinned. "I know, right! Sandy and I would come here every Saturday while we were living here" Since we all decided she was in charge of the money, she would be the one fetching our drinks tonight. We all told her what we wanted and she made her way to the bar.

Nick looked around. "Lots of pretty girls here, aren't there?" He mentioned.

"You, sir, are engaged" I reminded him.

"I meant we should find one for David. He is the only one of us who is single after all" Nick reached over to pat him on the shoulder.

David shook his head. "I don't need a girlfriend"

"Don't let your crush on Maggie stop you from getting laid" Nick said.

I giggled and I noticed David blushing, even in the low light. "I do not—" I could feel Roger tensing beside me.

"Hey, I think that one over there likes you!" Rick pointed at a woman sitting at a table with three of her friends. She was giggling and making eyes at David. He caught eyes with her and smiled.

The woman whispered something to her friends, and then she left her table. She walked over to us, smiling at the boys but giving me the dirtiest look possible. I just rolled my eyes. "My friends and I were wondering if you boys would like to join us" She asked. I knew that invitation clearly wasn't meant for me.

Rick, Nick, and David all looked at me, as if they needed my permission to go sit with some girls. "I don't know why you're waiting for permission from me. I'm not your mother" I told them. The three of them went to go join the girls but Roger stayed behind with me. "Not going to join them?"

"You know I'd rather sit with you" He told me, but I could see his eyes looking elsewhere. I followed his eyes and saw that they landed on a man.

"What's that poor man done to you, Rog?" I asked.

"He's been looking at you since you've walked in here" He said, irritation laced in his voice.

"How do you think I feel?" I asked him. I nodded over towards one of the friends of the girl who was making eyes at David. "Blondie over there has been pouting because you won't join her" He looked towards the girl. She smiled flirtatiously at him, but he couldn't be bothered. "I think you should go sit with her"

Roger looked at me like I was crazy. "Are you mad?"

"Not saying you have to fuck her. Just go sit with her and maybe dance with her a bit"

Roger sighed, rolling his eyes. "Fine, but I'm doing it for you" I could see he wanted to lean in and kiss me, but he refrained from doing so. He joined the boys and the girls. Blondie immediately reacted to Roger's presence, touching his arms and pushing her tits out.

I was left on my own, but I wasn't alone for long as someone had come to sit beside me. I looked and noticed it was the man Roger was glaring at. I must admit, he was handsome but nowhere near as handsome as Roger. "Hello" He greeted me.

"Hello" I smiled politely at him.

His eyes widened. "A British girl? What part of England are you from?"

"Well I was born in Surrey, but my current residence is in London"

"What brings you to New York?" He asked.

"You see those boys over there?" I nodded towards my bandmates. "I happen to be in a band with them. We're on tour"

"A beautiful British babe that happens to be in a band? Where have you been all my life?" The man scooted closer to me. "I'm Tony, by the way"

"Maggie" I gave him my name. I looked over to see if Roger had noticed, but he hadn't. Not that blondie would let him take his eyes off of her anyways. I had to admit, Tony seemed like a nice enough bloke to talk to, once I could get past the flirting.

"Hey, Maggie, where are the boys?" Ronnie had a tray of our drinks. "Tony? Oh my God!" She smiled at him.

"Ronnie!" Tony greeted her back. The two of them hugged.

"I see you've met my sister!"

Tony's eyes widened. "This is the Maggie you've been telling me about?"

"How do you two know each other?" I asked.

"Sandy and I were being harassed once but Tony came to our defence and punched the arsehole in the face" Ronnie explained. Both her and Tony laughed at the memory.

I smiled at that. "Well, anyone that's willing to defend my sister and her partner like that is okay with me"

Ronnie looked over her shoulder where she finally noticed. Blondie was practically in Roger's lap at that point. That wasn't the part that annoyed me. What annoyed me is that he didn't seem so bothered by it. His hand was resting comfortably on her lower back. Don't know why I'm bothered. I'm the one who encouraged him to go to her.

Ronnie let me and Tony be while she gave the boys their drinks. While Tony was talking, I kept watching Roger and blondie. Now he was whispering in her ear, and she was giggling, enjoying whatever he was saying. It made me angry. I grabbed Tony's hand. He seemed shocked, but happy at my action. "Do you want to dance?" I asked him.

"Sure!" He said. Tony and I stood up and made our way over to the dance floor. I had fun with him as we danced. Now, I wasn't interested in Tony either romantically or sexually but I could see us having a friendship. As Tony was spinning me, I caught sight of Roger making his way over to us, and he looked pissed.

"Excuse me mate, but what do you think you're doing?" Roger asked.

Tony blinked, clearly confused. "I'm sorry?"

Roger's fists clenched. "She's mine"

"Oh, I didn't—wait, are you Billy?"

"Don't even compare me to that arsehole" Roger seethed. Roger grabbed my wrist and pulled me aside, but he did it gently. "Maggie, how could you?" Even in the dim lighting, I could see his eyes tearing. "You promised you wouldn't cheat on me!"

"Tony and I were just dancing!" I explained. "Besides, you're the one who was getting too comfortable with blondie over there"

"I didn't want anything to do with her but you kept insisting that I sit with her" He grasped my face in his hands. "Fuck, Mags, you're the only one I want. And I want to be the only one you want"

"You are, Roger"

"Then divorce him" He sounded so pained when he said it. He sighed and shook his head. "Fuck, I'm sorry. I know, you still need time and I'm sorry, I just love you so much. I'm so scared of losing you" There was a difference when he told me he was scared of losing me, as opposed to when Billy told me the same. Roger's confession sounded genuine. He leaned in and I felt his hot breath on my lips.

"Roger, we're in public. You can't kiss me right now" I told him, despite how much I wanted him to.

"I don't give a shit" He said before his lips were clashing with mine. I tried pushing him away but it was no use. I melted into the deep and passionate kiss. When he pulled away, his forehead rested on mine and he grabbed my hands. "How about you dance with me instead, sunshine?"

"Of course I will" I said. We spent the rest of the night in the club just dancing and holding each other close. I wasn't sure if our bandmates had noticed our closeness, but at this point, I didn't really care. I had Roger in this moment.

...

Eventually we all made our way back to the hotel. David wound up bringing the girl he met from the club back with him. It was an awkward car ride as she kept glaring at me the whole time. Ronnie and I were getting ready for bed. She was in the bathroom brushing her teeth while I was sitting on my bed, combing out my hair. There was a knock on the door and I went to go answer it. It was Roger, wearing nothing but a pair of pajama pants that were hanging low on his waist. No matter how many times I've seen him without a shirt on, the sight of his body always made me blush.

"Sunshine, can I stay with you and Ronnie tonight?" He asked me. "David and his new friend are getting really friendly" He hinted. I let him in the room just as Ronnie walked out of the bathroom.

She stopped to look at Roger. "Jesus Christ, Roger. No wonder Maggie is into you"

"Ronnie, shut up!" I said. Roger couldn't help but laugh. God, his laugh. His laugh was beautiful. I looked at him again. He was beautiful. "Ronnie, is it alright if Roger stays with us tonight?"

"It's fine with me as long as you two don't end up fucking" She said.

Roger leaned in and purred in my ear. "No promises about that" He gave my ass a light smack before making his way to the bathroom.

I smiled, quite pleased with this whole situation. I sat back down on my bed while Ronnie got in hers. "Oh, pup, I hope it's okay but I gave Tony your phone number"

I blinked and looked at my sister. "What? Why?"

Ronnie frowned. "Because he seemed to really like you. And besides, you need more friends. Look, I'm not trying to set you two up, if that's what you think I'm trying to do. It just seemed like you two really hit it off. What's wrong, pup? I thought you liked him as well"

"I did, thank you" I said. I was sure Roger might have scared Tony off but I was wrong.

"Did you tell Roger about Ju--" Ronnie stopped herself when Roger came out of the bathroom. It fell silent as Roger climbed into bed with me. "Well goodnight, you two. I don't want to hear any moans or bed squeaking, alright?" Her lamp went out.

Roger reached and turned off the other lamp, leaving the room dark except for the moonlight peeking through the window's blinds. I turned so that I was facing my lover. The moonlight was hitting him perfectly, lighting up his eyes. His arm went around my waist and he pulled me against him, holding me close. I reached up to stroke his cheek. His eyes closed and he smiled. "Maggie Waters. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?" He murmured tiredly.

"Sleep, my love" I cooed to him.

"Only if you'll be here when I wake up"

"I promise" I felt the lull of sleep overtake me as well. "Roger?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you"

"I love you too" I stared at him as he slept. I thought about what I was questioning myself earlier on in the day. Roger wasn't just using me for personal gain, and it was silly of me to think so. He genuinely loved me, dare I say more than Billy ever has. Eventually, slumber got the best of me. I wouldn't remember what I dreamt about that night. All I know is that it was one of my best nights of sleep because I was in Roger's arms.

#roger waters #roger waters x ofc #roger waters fanfiction #pink floyd #pink floyd fanfiction #maggie robinson #dlmn #my oc

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mish-tique · 2 years

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Hi! Rose here! 🥺🌹

Oh god this is so late, SG gp was so exhausting, had to sleep right after it (but hey C^2 double podium! I missed those)

Gonna be live-asking for kinktober day 2, so SPOILERS after the rose line (even tho i'm very very late to the party)!!

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Respect so much for saying fuck u to canon

omega!max my beloved - the nests he'd have would be so full of redbull merch and hoodies stolen from older drivers, but really the best would be his hugs; yeah baby, youre an omega that can still win

“Are you always going to brood when you lose to an omega?” Max asks, “Because if so, the next few years will be hard.” <- OH!!! Love the confidence baby

“Some things are about me. And possibly us.” <- I really am loving the confidence and just going out there to claim what he wants

“What is it that’s stopping you from chasing something you want when you could chase a title a whole season long. Or did you give up on that too? Did you get so close by accident?” <- the dialogues really are WOW

Omega being in control in bed with an alpha! i support this so much

HANDS ON THIGHS!! Lewis' hands on Max's thighs <- it just looks perfect

"Max has a lot to say about that — he doesn’t need permission from anyone to come, but the words are his undoing as he’s pushed over the edge of pleasure and everything is white, the last thing on his mind telling Lewis off." <- hehe, bc at the end of the day, no matter the confidence, the brattiness, we're all just living in Lewis' world

I loved this!! I mean, I haven't read a good 4433 in a while, might go through ao3 to binge read some more. love LOVE the characterisations ( i really loved omega!max if u can't tell). “Oh baby, you come so prettily,” Lewis praises, “But we aren’t done yet.” this last line?! this killed me because then suddenly, after humoring the omega 'in charge' we know that in the next rouunds, it'll be him in charge and max would be just submitting

Using your emoji system, 🚔

As always, roses for you:

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

-Rose 🥺🌹

Rose sweety!! Hi! Hope you're doing well. And yes, let's just say that a C2 double podium is one of the few good things that came from yesterday's race because what a mess. It was sad that I had to drive bc otherwise I would've fully been able to get drunk. And don't worry, the party will continue to go on a month long so you'll be never late!!

canon is just a suggestion anyways

honestly. confident but bratty 2016 omega max was the only way I could write him but can you imagine that version of max as meek and submissive?? especially to an alpha like lewis? never. at least not until he's like two orgasms in.

Thank you!! I used to write fics with barely any dialogue but it's so much fun to add dialogue in porn

omega's on top!! the agenda i will continue into the neverending world

Tbh I was about to post that fic and that made me realize I hadn't posted any 4433 in a hot minute and when I checked, the last time was July. Whew, wild. Ngl the ship is dying a bit but that can't be that surprising when the bar was 2021 which had me running on anxiety, like, continuously.

Tbh, Lewis is still going to fight to be able to take over from Max. His nest his rules, remember? ehehe.

Thank you for the flowers sweetheart <33

#missha's kinktober #Rose Anon #🥺🌹#qued

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arolou · 3 years

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i’m genuinely not a hater and i don’t care what people ship, i’m like the world’s foremost of multishippers, but i legit can’t get l*lex to compute in my brain. i can see alex potentially being with any dude on this show except luke lmao like the general Way That Luke Is just does not mesh well (romantically) with the Way That Alex Is...like you’re just setting both of them up for hella frustration and annoyance. i love the headcanon that they dated for a few weeks/months back in the 90s because it’s so perfect, especially because exes that stay best friends is my jam, but thinking that they stayed together...? my brain Cannot Do It, it instantly blacks out whenever i try to contemplate it

#live ficcing #(DON'T RB PLS)#but i guess that's also partly bc i don't see luke as being anywhere near as sweet as a lot of people write him akjhsklghj #he like. ain't sweet #he can do it for julie and probably would try for other girls too but for a boy? for a boy that's also his bff? hell no #he's a trainwreck and inconsiderate and impatient and lacks tact and every other quality that alex /needs/ in a partner #not like 'oh no alex is a soft little woobie baby!!!~!' bc he's also a sarcastic little shit and stubborn as fuck in the best way #but we see how he turns into a puddle of mush whenever he's with willie!!! willie is the Softest Ever and he's absolutely perfect for alex #/that's/ what alex needs...not some dude that can't slow down long enough to realize he's not okay and gets impatient with him #that being said i love luke patterson with all my heart! that's my trash son! and he's fundamentally a good person he's just dumb #but i do Not want him dating alex akjdhksjgh #alex and willie?? PERFECT OBVS. alex and reggie?? hell yeah! alex and bobby??? tbh i could see it!!#even alex and nick in some weirdass AU?? sure why not??#but not alex and the Trash Boy #there's a reason that if i need a character to piss someone off in my fics i always pick luke akjhgkljhfg #i always make sure he either apologizes or fixes things or learns tho #but luke is really good with julie because he's completely smitten in a way i don't think he probably ever has been with someone before #if anyone is gonna get the very best version of him it's gonna be julie #and....CUT!! THIS HAS BEEN A RAMBLE!!! feel free to ignore this lol i was just Thinking #and like i said i don't begrudge people their ships #my brain is just v perplexed about this specific one akljgksjg

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a-clockwork-justice · 3 years

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Everything I Love About Loser Geek Whatever

So, not too long ago, it was the third birthday of Loser Geek Whatever. Yes, I know the single was released on November 30th 2018 and its considered the song’s official birthday, but the 26th July three years ago was the first showing of the 2018 Off-Broadway revival of Be More Chill and the first time Loser Geek Whatever was shown to the world in any capacity. Therefore, I consider that day to be the song’s unoffical birthday and I’ve been waiting to write down everything I love about it so here I am. (This was originally gonna be posted on the 26th July but I can’t make anything concise so it took longer than that).

I’ve gone on and on about what Loser Geek Whatever means to me personally, how a slew of random chance introduce me to it, got me deep into Be More Chill, introduced me to 90% of my current friends, and overall up-ended my whole life, but now it’s time to dissect the song itself and why it’s so great. As much as I adore Loser Geek Whatever, it could’ve easily been any other song that threw me down a rabbit hole and that I could’ve latched onto- no, wait, it couldn’t have been, because Loser Geek Whatever is unique in that way. I did about a year of music at A-Level so I’m gonna delve into some of the technical aspects here too. I’m chronicling this mostly for myself so I am going as deep as I see fit because this song is a treasure hiding yet more treasures. If you happen to love Loser Geek Whatever as much as I do, this’ll be your goldmine.

So, grab a snack my fellow fans, because here’s a comprehensive list of everything to love about Loser Geek Whatever in roughly chronological order. Long post incoming:

The song starts off strong from the first millisecond - I don’t know what instrument(s) they used but just listen to the single version again - that opening chord blares at you like a siren. It calls for your attention, screaming this is incredibly important, and indeed it is. That chord, an F chord, has no indication as to whether it’s major or minor - it’s just the tonic F with its dominant C and another tonic F above it. In other words, it’s unresolved, it hangs in the air. From a narrative standpoint, Jeremy is at a crossroads, torn between giving into the SQUIP or staying loyal to Michael, and the music paints this. It has the same effect on both the single and album versions - I always hold my breath as it holds, it’s the gap in this crucial transition for Jeremy between who he was and him becoming something he isn’t.

To continue the thread of musical painting, the melody line contains the accidental E-flat which doesn’t belong to the key of F major. This once again illustrates Jeremy’s uncertainty, but there’s more - the whole introduction is a slowed-down version of the Apocalypse of the Damned theme from Two Player Game, arguably the point in the show when Michael and Jeremy’s relationship was at its strongest. Jeremy’s recalling everything he had with Michael, but the slowing down of the melody shows hesitancy, along with highlighting the accidental E flat. These latter points of course aren’t unique to Loser Geek Whatever - they’re also in the section of Upgrade that twins with Loser Geek Whatever. I’m just laying out why they work so well.

I’m glad I waited until after I saw the show in London to finish writing this - I’m something of a Loser Geek Whatever purist, as made clear by my ire at them cutting it in half and tacking the end of Upgrade back on for the London version. I still enjoyed the show in London though and I’m glad I knew about this change ahead of time, because they did change something about the song that I think really worked - they added two notes in the bass to each bar, like heartbeats, which once again signifies Jeremy’s uncertancy and the importance of this major turning point.

It’s been firmly established by this point that Jeremy is a loser and he knows it. He doesn’t want to be a hero, he just wants to survive, but there’s a difference between that and feeling “inconsequential.” Jeremy is basically admitting that, in his eyes, it doesn’t matter to the world or anyone except Michael if he even survives or not. He’s not just a loser, or a geek - he’s a whatever, with no one caring who he is. And he’s felt this way for years - since middle school began. He’s now in his Junior year of high school - that’s five years of being in this state of being unnoticed at best and picked on at worst. He’s “the one who’s left out”. With just one little line, hell, one word, we’re given more layers as to why he so badly wants to change that.

Moving from the first verse to the chorus, we start to see Jeremy’s attitude shift, from being sad to being angry - he’s frustrated, resentful that he’s spent so long in this state (A lot of people have made similar comparisons about Will Roland’s Jeremy as a whole in relation to Will Connolly’s Jeremy and I think this song exemplifies that). He doesn’t deserve to feel this horrible - not now and certainly not for the next two years until he and Michael can be “cool in college.” When you think about it, what options does he really have? He could either give into the SQUIP or reject it and go back to where he was, still miserable and lonely. Yes, he has Michael and Michael is an amazing, kind, loyal best friend, but as many have pointed out, he’s also dismissive of Jeremy’s feelings of inadequacy whether he means to be or not, which only made Jeremy feel more lonely. Should Jeremy just expect to feel better about himself at some point before college? He’s waited for years, why would that happen at any other point?

More layers baby! Second verse, Jeremy rants on about his father’s advice about following his own instincts and how it’s gotten him nowhere he wants to be. Come to think of it, Michael’s advice about staying the same and waiting for their environment to change can be seen as similar - it’s arguably easier for Michael as he has two loving mothers who undoutably give him plenty of positive reinforcement. Meanwhile, Jeremy’s mother has left them, which likely instilled further feelings of not being good enough, and his father has fallen apart to the point where he can’t even put pants on, let alone step up to take care of his son, meaning that Jeremy likely isn’t going to take his advice very seriously, especially after it’s failed him so thoroughly. But to Jeremy, the problem isn’t necessarily the advice itself - it’s that it’s being followed by him. So now he’s going to turn around and put his life and every choice in something else’s hands, even if - no, especially if it goes against his own instincts. It still doesn’t feel quite right, it “feels bizarre”, but it’s getting him somewhere, so it has to be right in the most meaningful capacity, and to Jeremy, the “most meaningful capacity” is any capacity that isn’t his own.

Now the best line - the one about being a “normal, handsome guy”. Let’s get this on the table - Jeremy is trans. Will Roland himself said that he often thinks of the show’s young trans fans when he sings that line. Naturally, societal transphobia plus gender dysphoria would have a pretty catestrophic effect on the self-esteem of any growing teenager, even more so one in Jeremy’s situation for the reasons I’ve just laid out. He’s probably missed out on a lot of things that “normal” guys take for granted, with most girls barely looking in his direction, let alone in any positive manner. Jeremy’s own sexuality aside, it’s mostly society, and the SQUIP by extension, that considers scoring with girls to be a “manly” or masculine activity, and through Brooke treating him as dateable material, Jeremy feels better about fitting into society’s rules of how a man should be and act. This isn’t the only reason he feels good about Brooke finding him attractive, of course, but it’s just another layer that Jeremy sees more value in conforming to how society says he should be rather than in how he actually is.

I know I just said that the last point was about the best line, but honestly, there’s more than one best line in this song. The bridge is where we start to see Jeremy’s language becoming more technologically inclined - “prompt”, “command” and “bandwidth” are all terms used in computing and used to show how Jeremy is likening himself, or his intentions, to a computer, effectivly merging himself and his SQUIP into one entity and Jeremy willingly giving over his own individuality.

And HERE, we get to the kicker. I’ve talked a lot about layers throughout this whole essay, about themes and motifs building on each other. Jeremy is essentially peeling back the layers of his own situation and only finding reason after deeper reason after deeper reason as to why he should follow the SQUIP and not be a loser anymore. Now, he hits the core, the seed, the crux of it all - “The problem has ALWAYS BEEN ME!!” Everything he is, everything that makes Jeremy Heere himself, is and has always been wrong. This line is a gut punch and EVERYONE knows it - the performer always takes a few seconds to let it sink in before continuing.

As an aside, I wanna mention the differences between the single and the album versions of the bridge. The album version starts of quieter after the vocalising of the last chorus, and builds up to the climactic final line, while the single version is loud all the way through but gets even louder and punchier at the end. Both are good, but I personally prefer the single version - the album sounds like Jeremy is broken and desperate and on the verge of tears as he reaches his inevitable but ugly realisation. The single is also desperate, but it’s pleading and all-consuming and a THOUSAND times more powerful, I get chills every time I hear it. (Side note, the London version starts of loud like the single and ends quieter like the album, almost as if Jeremy is reluctant to admit what he truly believes about himself, and it’s easy to see why, it’s a damn harsh condemnation).

“Take a breath and get prepared” - Jeremy sings to both himself and the audience. The first half has been heavy and we need a breather. Yet just before he goes over the brink, he has second thoughts. His conscience, his own voice in his head, breaks through, warning him that his choice will have consequences for other people than himself. People will get hurt - Michael most of all. Not just by Jeremy ditching him; here’s something else - when Jeremy is the “cool dude”, he might end up being a bully to those who are losers just like him, cutting them down just as Rich’s SQUIP made Rich do to him. Who would be the perfect target for Jeremy’s potential future bullying? His former best friend and fellow loser, Michael Mell. It’s pretty damn likely that if the SQUIP hadn’t optic nerve blocked Michael, it would’ve told Jeremy to pick on him, and even though Michael has ostensibly been pretty good at brushing these things off before, the takedowns would hurt a LOT more coming from his former best friend - and we know this because IT ACTUALLY HAPPENS, granted without the SQUIP influencing Jeremy directly (also let’s just clear up that just because the SQUIP wasn’t on doesn’t mean its influence on Jeremy hadn’t disappeared - that’s not how emotional abuse works).

Twelve years of loyal friendship, of borderline unhealthy codependency … can he throw all that away for Christine, a girl he’s thus admired from afar and is only just starting to get to know as a person? Moreover, even if Jeremy gets Christine, what about himself, who he wants to be? He just wants to be something other than himself because he thinks that anything is better but … what? The cool dude, the hero or … whatever. He’ll take anything because he’s that desperate, but what about when he gets it? Will he finally be satisfied? Will it be worth failing his one real friend, an act so scummy that the only way he could possibly stomach it would be to somehow pretend he hadn’t done it?

But none of those questions matter to Jeremy now - he’s fully gaslit into believing that every thought and inclination that comes from himself is wrong and shouldn’t be followed. He needs to sync up with the SQUIP and the rest of the world and mute his own defective inner voice. When you think about it, the relationship between Jeremy and the SQUIP is one of the most intense abusive relationships ever put to fiction - we’ve seen emotional abuse and brainwashing before, but here, Jeremy is literally preventing from THINKING the wrong way because the SQUIP can detect his every thought. See what I mean when I say that doesn’t go away when the SQUIP turns off for a few minutes?!

Throughout all of this is the undercurrent of Jeremy wanting to get better. He’s been trying so hard for so long to have a better life, but nothing has worked. Not listening to his dad, not trying to get closer to Christine through theatre, and certainly not listening to Michael’s advice to wait until college. Why should he resign himself to even more time being miserable with no end in sight? After all, being cool in college isn’t a guarantee. After all he’s been through, it’s his turn to finally be cool, after an eternity of being someone he doesn’t want to be.

Another best line in this song - “I’m Player One.” As mentioned a few times in the show before, like in the Broadway upgrade, Jeremy feels lower even in his friendship with Michael - he’s Player 2 as the more experienced Michael is Player 1. As previously established, Jeremy admits that he’s “not the one who the story’s about.” Now he’s ready to finally take control of his life, be the main character and have good things happen to him, and that means cutting out Michael, the old Player 1. The irony here is that Jeremy is less like Player 1 and more like a video game avatar. In reality, the SQUIP is Player 1, making Jeremy do whatever it demands of him.

More best lines! The slew of insults towards the end serves not just as yet more gut punches for the audience but as a major catharsis for Jeremy - It’s telling that the insults get harsher as his rant goes on, from the “weirdo” to the “weakling freak” to the “failure” to the climactic “please don’t speak”. He’s unloading everything that he’s been carrying over the years, ripping out the bullets that have been embedded in his skin and re-opening all the wounds in the process, but he’s done with the pain and he’ll never ever let himself be hurt like that again, if he follows the SQUIP.

I’ve made a whole post about the significance of the best line “Please Don’t Speak” before so I’ll mostly be repeating a lot of what I said there because it’s been a while since that post and because I want to. Who would’ve said that to Jeremy? Probably not Rich or Chloe, it’s not like them. It had to have come from an adult in a position of authority that could’ve commanded Jeremy not to speak like that - one that apparently did so enough times for him to internalise those words like he did the others. (Even worse if it was more than one adult ...). Out of all of the insults, it’s easy to see how that can easily be the most scarring out of all of them - how would an adult let a child know they’re inadequate? By silencing them. Making it clear that their expression of self not only means nothing, but should be forcibly avoided. Put like that, it makes it much easier to see how and why Jeremy fell under the SQUIP’s influence so easily - telling it was hardly different from authority figures he’s experienced before. In even more sad irony, as Jeremy claims that he’s breaking free and letting go of his past as the “please don’t speak”, he’s just walking right into another, similar trap that he can’t easily escape from. The SQUIP literally vocal cord blocks him during The Play - if that doesn’t say “Please don’t speak,” what does?!

The climax is growing! The music shifts into the relative minor as Jeremy fully gives in to the SQUIP’s evil influence. This is the point of no return, the point where he’s literally being surrounded and overtaken - if you’ve seen this on stage or even just a bootleg, you’ll know what I mean, when the lighting shifts and the circuitry start closing in around him, it’s wonderful. The bass ascends, Jeremy declares once and for all that HE IS NOT THE LOSER, THE GEEK, OR WHATEVER, and he never will be again! As some have pointed out, the sequence of notes on the final “again” is the same as at the end of Be More Chill Part 2, except the last note is different. In BMC part 2, it goes further down by a minor third, but in Loser Geek Whatever, it rises up to the same note it started with. This foreshadows Jeremy’s fate - that he will eventually overcome the SQUIP and that he still has it in him to do so. Man, let me just point out how amazing that last belt is - it lasts for a full 15 seconds in a really high range and takes a LOT of control to bring it back up to the high B without breaking. This song really was written for Will Roland - his voice can pull it off seamlessly, but other actors and understudies have had to find workarounds. No disrespect to them, it’s a damn hard song and it kicks ass all the way through. Scott Folan apparently had trouble with it too, but on the day I happened to see him, he pulled it off without breaking, so props to him!

Overall, Loser Geek Whatever is my favourite song in Be More Chill and not just for its sentimental value to myself. It’s a genuinely deep, complex piece that earned every second of its six minutes. Loser Geek Whatever is definitely the missing piece the show needed - not only is it Jeremy’s solo song, it’s also his “I Want” song and, in a way, his 11 o’clock number all in one, as he’s having a major epiphany after going on a journey, albeit only half of one. It’s easy to see why Joe Iconis dubbed this his anti-Defying Gravity, but it’s also easy to draw parallels to No Good Deed - how both Jeremy and Elphaba vow to become something that society is forcing upon them rather than what they are, even if that society’s will is objectively worse for them. Loser Geek Whatever deserves a thousand times the recognition it has and I still wonder to this day what the fandom reaction would’ve been if it had been in the original soundtrack.

So, that was it. I’m not sorry it was this long.

TL;DR: Loser Geek Whatever is wonderful and anyone who doesn’t think so is wrong.

#be more chill #loser geek whatever #joe iconis #will roland #be more chill meta #music theory #broadway be more chill #be more chill 2.0 #be more chill 3.0 #musical theatre theory #tw depression #jeremy heere #michael mell #be more chill analysis #tw emotional abuse #trans jeremy heere

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natromanxoff · 3 years

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Queen live at Forest National in Brussels, Belgium - August 24, 1984

Some parts of the Hammer To Fall promo video were filmed during this show - the camera was filming the audience reactions during TYMD, Radio Ga Ga and Hammer To Fall. On the next day 20 fans from the Dutch fan club were invited to come again to the filming of the promo video.

At the gig, the band asked the audience to return the following day for the shoot. However, most likely assuming it was all a joke, the vast majority stayed away; in fact only a dozen fans turned up. Undeterred, the shoot went ahead anyway, with the band's performance that day interspersed with footage shot the previous night.

(x)

This is the first show of The Works tour.

According to the July '89 issue of Record Collector, Queen ran through about 40 songs during rehearsals. This list of songs rehearsed that didn't end up in the setlist comes from someone who worked on the tour:

Great King Rat (longer version), Brighton Rock (full song), I'm In Love With My Car, Sweet Lady, White Man, We Will Rock You (fast), Play The Game, Need Your Loving Tonight, Put Out The Fire, Las Palabras de Amor, Life Is Real (both Freddie solo piano and Freddie/Brian acoustic duet versions)

The keyboardist for this tour (and also the '86 Magic tour) is session musician Spike Edney. He would also lend some vocals to many songs and play rhythm guitar in Hammer To Fall. He and Roger Taylor would form a band called "The Cross" in 1987 which spawned three albums, and he would return to Queen in the 21st century to play on the tours with Paul Rodgers and Adam Lambert.

Spike was recruited in a very informal way by a Queen associate. He went to Munich for their first rehearsal in early August, wound up partying for most of the first night, and missed the first day's rehearsal. It later transpired that everyone else had. He recalls, "The next day, we all managed to get to it eventually, to the first rehearsal, and all the gear was set up. The stage was huge, and I thought "Oh well, here we go then" and we got to the first song , and what I'd forgotten was that they hadn't actually played together for two years. So they said, OK, let's try one of the new songs, I think it was Radio Ga Ga, and we started playing it, and course, I knew it, I'd been studying it for weeks. You know, 1,2,3,4 and we start and we get about a minute into the song and the whole thing collapses. And they all look at each other, you know, very sheepishly, and they say, "Anyone know how it goes?" and I say "well, actually, I know. I know how it goes" and they said "Ah". And so I started showing them the chords and everything and Fred looked at me and said "You don't know the words, do you?" and "Well, yeah I do actually" so then they all came round the piano and we spent the whole day just going through songs, and I thought, "I'm gonna be all right here, this'll be OK"!"

The show started very late, as the band were still doing soundcheck when they were supposed to go on. Apparently over the previous week there were few occasions when all four band members actually showed up for rehearsal. Many songs (likely those listed above) never made the setlist, and soundcheck was an extensive cramming session, particularly for the older material that they hadn't played in years.

Roger Taylor later reflected that this European tour was one of his favourites, and many fans cite the early Works setlist as their favourite ever played by the band. Three medleys are now played, two of which have revived many old songs: Killer Queen, Seven Seas Of Rhye, Keep Yourself Alive, Liar, Stone Cold Crazy and Great King Rat. Staying Power from Hot Space returns to the set, as does Sheer Heart Attack from News Of The World. Only half of Staying Power is played, and it runs into Dragon Attack, followed by an improvisation running into a more compact version of Now I'm Here compared to previous tours.

Many people who attended shows on this tour recall Queen having a very heavy sound, especially on songs like Liar and Stone Cold Crazy. By 1984 they had gained a reputation as being one of the best live rock acts in the business.

Six songs from The Works are performed each night, and the introduction tape is from the album track "Machines". After the heavy G chords are heard on the tape twice, the band walk on stage in the darkness to play the chords the third time, which leads into the brand new "Tear It Up". This is yet another effective opening to a Queen show, something they would perfect time and time again.

I Want To Break Free is performed each night in 1984-85 as the first encore, with Freddie coming on stage sporting a pair of huge plastic breasts under a pink shirt. Part way through the song, he would remove the breasts and twirl them around for a while before finally throwing them into the audience. Some souvenir! As a result of this gag, Another One Bites The Dust has been moved from the encore to be earlier in the set.

This tour showcases an incredible lighting rig and an overall setup mimics the movie Metropolis, from which scenes were used for the promo video of Radio Ga Ga last year. The huge wheels behind the stage (modelled after the ones on The Works album cover) rotate at mostly random times - usually because they are turned manually by various crew members such as Roger's tech Chris "Crystal" Taylor whenever they have a free moment (Freddie Mercury's assistant Peter Freestone told the tale in 2021):

“Yeah, I mean Rio was… amazing. The feeling from that crowd… you know, something like 350,000 people. Oh, you can’t beat that. And when you’re flying in a helicopter over that crowd, it was stunning. But the thing is, I know this sounds really, really stupid but [laughs]… one thing I will always, always remember from that tour was, remember, in the back of the stage you had these wheels that turned every now and then, not constantly but just every now and then. That was because there was… the guy looking after Roger’s drums and me who actually turned those wheels. And there was no set cue or anything that, “Oh, it has to start on this bar, on this song.” No, it was when he wasn’t doing anything and I wasn’t doing anything, we’d say “Ok, let’s go and do it.” And we turned the wheels for a couple of minutes and then left them alone. He had then to do something for Roger and I would just sit there like I always did. And then you’d go back and you’d turn the wheels, like a hamster. We were like hamsters…”

However, a crew member who worked on the tour recalls otherwise: "I do know local crew members were used on the UK shows and certainly (a number of) European gigs. The other thing is that Radio Ga Ga had a set piece with the cogs and lighting, using low ambient lighting and strobes to emphasise mechanical motion of the cogs during the instrumental break. Would Roger Taylor be happy with no one covering him/his kit during a show? Possibly Peter Freestone is remembering production rehearsals when any spare bodies might have been asked to operate the cogs?"

During vocal improvisations on this tour, Freddie would often include bits of "Foolin' Around" and "Living On My Own" from his pending first solo album, which he had been working on during this period.

Freddie now plays a Telecaster for Crazy Little Thing Called Love. It would remain like this through the Magic tour.

The band no longer bring a gong with them on the road. Roger now does a cymbal roll at the end of Bohemian Rhapsody.

A fan recalls hearing the band running through Tear It Up whilst queuing up to enter the venue.

Freddie's voice is in superb shape for this show, but it will quickly weaken as the tour progresses. As incredible as Freddie Mercury was, he certainly did not take care of his voice at times, especially in the mid-80s. After a couple years of heavy smoking, Freddie's voice now sounds a lot deeper and raspier overall.

Before It's A Hard Life, Freddie says, "I think tonight we're gonna do songs from just about every album that we've ever made. You heard some very early stuff from the first album. Right now I think we're gonna do something very new, and we'll see what you think of it."

Freddie does a vocal exchange with the audience before Staying Power, singing "Get Down Make Love" and "Gimme Some Lovin" a few times. The band would improvise bits of the latter a couple times in 1986.

This is the only show on the entire Works tour where Roger plays regular acoustic drums on Another One Bites The Dust (before which Freddie teases the audience with a bit of Mustapha). For the rest of the tour, he'd play electronic drums. He'd also integrate the electronic drum kit into a few other songs, like at the beginning of Hammer To Fall, where one might argue that his sounds don't appropriately complement the guitar to create the intense, heavy sound.

The band sound very tight on this opening night of the tour, with the only exception being the rough transition from Stone Cold Crazy to Great King Rat. The keyboard and guitar solos are integrated together for the first few shows of the tour, during which Brian plays a few bits from Machines. Spike Edney uses his vocoder (a Roland VP-330) for the "machines" and "back to humans" lines heard throughout the tour during this spot (he would use his vocoder for the "radio" lines in Radio Ga Ga as well). After this segment, Brian then gets a few minutes to play on his own as usual.

Parts of the promo video for Hammer To Fall were filmed during this show. Claims from some (even official) sources state that Freddie invited the audience back for (what would actually be "additional") filming the following day aren't true. Here is all that Freddie had to say before the song: "This next song we're gonna use in our next video. So everybody just go mad and maybe later you'll see one of you guys inside the video one day. Oh, just go crazy, take your clothes off. It's called Hammer To Fall." After the song, he simply says, "Good night, you guys!" as that was the last song of the set.

Here is a fan's recollection: "On the night of the gig, there was a camera mounted on an arm that would swing over the front rows of the audience during a few songs. These audience shots were taken during Tie Your Mother Down, Radio Ga Ga, and Hammer To Fall itself. I guess they also had a camera up in the box at the back of the hall [as there are a few shots of both the audience and the band]. I don't remember any cameras onstage during the gig - just the one mounted on the arm."

The Dutch fan club invited only about twenty of its members to attend the video shoot the next day. They were instructed by a roadie to sit quietly on a chair and not to move or approach the band members. After a few hours, Brian came over and had a chat with them, checking to see if they were enjoying themselves and if they were hungry. He then promptly ordered them some take-out!

A minute of Tie Your Mother Down from this show was later broadcast on the Belgian TV station "RTBF" (x) (x). An audience-shot video allegedly exists as well, containing five songs.

After years of speculation, the existence of more footage from this show was proven when bits of it were included in the promo video for Let Me In Your Heart Again in 2014. About 30 seconds of Somebody To Love (largely crowd shots) were seen. There is, however, no accompanying audio. (x)

The first photo is from the autumn 1984 Queen fan club magazine. Brian is seen with a watchful eye over the proceedings. Tour manager Gerry Stickells and his wife are also in the shot.

Pics 2 through 6 were submitted by Alessio Rizzitelli, and the seventh pic was taken by Dave Matkin.

(x)

#queen #queen band #roger taylor #freddie mercury #brian may #john deacon #queen concerts

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creativeashproductions · 3 years

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When Fate Intervenes // Luke Patterson

IN WHICH: Fate intervenes with a trio of musicians on the night that was supposed to be legendary. Fate puts the reader with a special ability that may or may not be able to save them. Fate puts a clairvoyant, an accidentally upsized pizza and thirteen year old oddly obsessed with a rock band.

Warnings: Swearing, food poison, death, and fluff

Words: 2.8k

A/N: Time to get rid of some fic ideas from my TOO LONG of a list. It’s Julie fault, she keeps encouraging each fic idea I tell her.

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Masterlist

The Orpheum, 1995

The line up comprised of countless girls wearing homemade band shirts for the new band performing. Your little sister, at thirteen years old, had pleaded for weeks if not three months to go watch it. It was odd since she was more in the pop scene than the rock music. Your parents would never let her go to the rock show at night, so it was you or no show. It took a promise of doing your chores for an entire month and her dessert for two months. That was why you stood beside Harper among the fangirls while you clicked through the camera you’d saved up for years.

“I’m so excited.” Harper buzzed dancing on your feet as the time on her watch dwindled down more and more.

Your eyes flitted from the screen to the ball of energy you called your little sister, “I can tell. Which one do you have a crush on?”

“Reggie. He’s the bassist and so fucking-sorry freaking cool.” Harper gushed, “A good portion of the fans are obsessed with the lead singer Luke. Bobby is the rhythm guitarist, and he’s a ladies man, but he’s sweet about it.”

“And you’d know that how?” You questioned letting go of the camera around your neck. Your e/c eyes meeting her matching pair of irises; well yours were a bit more vibrant.

“I just know.” Harper retorted before beaming as she roughly poked the pin she’d made herself, “This represents all of them. Red for Reggie’s plaid shirt he always has, orange for Bobby’s love of oranges, yellow for Luke’s energy and pink for Alex because he loves the colour!”

The pin had their band design with Sunset Curve on it with the words outlined with a sunset made up of red, orange, yellow and pink just as Harper had pointed out. By far, it was her best work, but that was expected from an art student at Los Feliz High School. An art school for artists and performers. You attended for photography and creative writing just as Harper attended for art.

“That might be your best work Harps.” You complimented your little sister who shivered in the cool night breeze. You didn’t even think about tugging off your warm jacket to place on her shoulders.

You’d rather be cold than your little sister no matter how much you fought with each other, the Y/L/N siblings had each other’s backs no matter what.

“Thanks.” Harper murmured, leaning closer, “So do I meet Reggie?”

Your eyes widened slightly at her subtle goading to a part of your life was cinematic. It was a piece of you that very few people knew about, only your parents and Harper. Like most of the women in your paternal lineage, you carried the ability to foresee events in the future. A clairvoyant.

“Harper!” You scolded the young teenager who blatantly was just over-excited to see the band she’d been talking about constantly.

Harper’s cheeks turned a cherry blossom pink under the crappy lighting from the marquee sign. Even in the light, you noticed the changes in her face as she matured into a young woman, her cheeks while still full didn’t have that baby cheek look now. You saw a stubborn zit that you could see under the makeup that didn’t entirely match her skin tone. It caused an ache in your heart to know that soon she’d have the experience of heartbreak.

“Sorry!”

“You told me these guys are my age. Need I remind you that you are thirteen? If anyone older than thirteen makes an advance I’ll put my softball skills to the test.” You sternly informed the shorter girl with the pout that screamed rebellion, “Just be a kid Harps.”

“Like you said Y/N, I’m thirteen. I’m not a kid anymore.” Harper dropped the attitude to adopt a more mature soft tone. You could see the tinge of sadness in her eyes at losing the part of life where it was easy.

“I know. I can wish you’ll stay that annoying little kindergartener that stole my clothing.” You chuckled, “You’ll always be the Stephanie to my DJ.”

The two Y/L/N siblings momentarily glanced around before hugging as quickly as possible, they still had reputations to uphold. Had you been actually paying attention, you and Harper would have noticed the commotion from the people behind you.

As you and Harper had the sweet moment, the very band performing had raced out the alley into the street. What brought you back to the surroundings was the pizza boy delivering the pizza box to you.

“Wait, we ordered a small!” You exclaimed finding the boy holding an extra-large pizza. You only received a shrug in response with the right change given back.

Two things happened with this food mistake, you didn’t have to pay more than what you actually ordered, and you still got the larger pizza. However, the Orpheum didn’t allow outside food, meaning you’d have to force-feed yourself all the pizza or trash more than half.

“We could shar-” Harper was cut off as a blinding white light became your focal point. Harper knew what was happening by the specific groan coming from your lips.

A nauseating scent of cheap meat, gas and chemicals flooded your sense of smell in the dingy alleyway. It was nighttime with a few people in the general vicinity with a dilapidated table and mismatched chairs on the walls’ edge. A poorly made sign with Sam & Ella’s and going by the vendor selling the hot dogs the name fit. Sam & Ella sounded like salmonella.

From a distance, you couldn’t quite hear the conversation between three male teens, but you had a bad feeling. They all migrated to a ratty couch that had been better days, a rat wouldn’t even crawl on it you swore.

The first boy had slicked back hair with rosy cheeks you dubbed innocent and cute that juxtapositioned his rocker attire. He had polished black leather shoes, pleather if his choice of food was an indication, a leather jacket and a red plaid shirt around his waist. His attention focused on the two guys beside him. In the middle, the boy had the blue hood of his sweater pulled over his messy brown hair as if hiding. Nothing stood out about him, and it seemed like that was intentional. On the other side, the last one was the tallest with his blonde hair hidden by the backwards black hat. A distressed dark grey jean jacket open to proudly display his pink hoodie. Each one wearing black pants and adorning rings.

“This is awesome, you guys. We’re playing the Orpheum!” The middle boy joyfully spoke head in the clouds instead of the questionable surroundings. He arguably had the loveliest smile you had ever seen, and his friends had nice smiles at that as well.

Yet even if this hadn’t taken place, however, it still felt like you were intruding on something incredibly private, “Why am I being shown this?”

Your question went unsurprisingly unanswered.

“I can’t even count how many bands have played here! And then ended up being huge!” He happily sunk into the back of the couch, thinking of all the bands he had CDs to in his room, “We’re gonna be legends!”

“Oh.” You breathed as you caught a whiff from the boys that quickly gave you the understanding of why you saw this. You could only smell what you had dubbed as death, the scent unchanging from the first time you’d encountered it.

The death stench accompanied a clairvoyant vision if the object of your vision was sick or about to die. The first time you encountered, it was a vision of two cars colliding, the sound of shattering glass and crunching metal, the scent of burning flesh overpowering the milder stench. The next morning school was cancelled after a teacher died in a car accident on the way to work.

“Eat up, boys. ’Cause after tonight, everything changes.” The only vocal one continued with his two friends silently listening. The trio toasted their food together.

“No!” You exclaimed as each boy took a bite. You held your breath, hoping that the inevitable in the vision wouldn’t occur.

Unfortunately, it was right away the warning appeared. The blonde one the most affected, “That’s a new flavour.”

“Chill, man. Street dogs haven’t killed us yet.” The leather jacket guy proudly spoke, the least one concerned.

Even the guy in the middle was concerned but ultimately continued eating.

“Stop it!” You shouted, but it was no use. As with every vision, you had the potential to stop it from coming true, but while in the vision, you couldn’t interact with the people or surrounding. No matter how much you wanted to slam the food out of their hands.

But one thing sends shivers down your spine. The one in the middle made direct eye contact with you. Something that had never happened before nor to any previous clairvoyants. He kept eye contact as he slowly grew sicker and sicker.

The three boys had no chance as the ambulance rushed to the alleyway to save them. The paramedics weren’t as quick as the vendors who’d already packed and fled to protect their own hides.

You watched as the paramedics did everything in their power to save the young teenagers with everything possible. Just like Luke sang in their last song, the boys felt the darker version of an electric hammer to the heart. The clocks freezing in place as they each took their last breathe in the oddest of deaths. You saw the blonde guy die painfully first before followed by the formerly hooded one, the terrified cries of the last one haunting your phantom ears.

How did three healthy teenagers die on the same night of the exact nature within minutes of each other without one surviving? Maybe it had something to do with the hot dogs chilling in the liquid that was a cesspool of bacteria compounded with tained condiments from battery acid.

You roughly came out of the vision shaking and pale-faced frantically scanning the surroundings. Harper had a grip on the extra large pizza box while the other tightly held yours to ground you in the present.

“Are you okay?” Harper softly questioned with the panic hidden inside her body. Harper knew that this vision had been one of the bad ones. The haunted look in your eyes hinting towards death in the near future.

“We need to go.” You frantically replied, grabbing the pizza that would hopefully have a hand in saving three hopeful teens.

Your gym teacher would be proud of the distance diminished and speed you kept towards the area that would further shatter you. Foreseeing death and sometimes unable to stop it always had a nasty impact on you.

“Where are we going?” Harper yelled, “We’ll miss the doors opening!”

“We’ll miss them if we don’t hurry up!” You shouted back at the disgruntled little sister but at the moment that didn’t matter.

What mattered was three hungry teenagers about to gorge themselves on death dogs if you didn’t make it in time. It appeared for the first time you’d actually manage to stop the deaths, unlike the previous three times.

“-tonight. Everything changes.” The chill-inducing rasp helped navigate you to the disgusting couch. Your cold hand slammed the hotdog from the blonde’s hand, the shocked reaction halting the other two.

“Don’t...eat...it.” You heaved bending over at the waist to catch your breath. Wheezing sounded from your little sister as the running and seeing her favourite band up close settled.

“Excuse me! I paid for that hotdog!”

“You’d be buying yourself death literally. Your dreams of playing the Orpheum would be extinct.” You sighed, chugging the water from the pocket of Harper’s backpack for a few seconds before the owner took it back.

“Okay, look I don’t know how you found us but-”

“You don’t have to believe me ’cause I sure as hell wouldn’t have but don’t jeopardize your dreams. Look my little sister wanted to see your show so I brought her and we ordered a pizza. They fucked up the order by giving us an extra-large pizza. We’ll barely eat a quarter of it, and the venue is strict on the rules.” You rambled using tour hands to elaborate the story before Harper roughly elbowed your ribs, “Ow!”

“Oops.” Harper faked a sugar-sweet smile for your benefit as the interaction with the three musicians slowly dove into embarrassment.

“-sorry. You’d be doing us a favour by not wasting our money and food. What do you say?” You hesitantly asked the trio who didn’t speak vocally; their eyes meeting in a silent conversation.

Reggie sighed as he begrudgingly dropped his hotdog in the bin near the couch, “Pizza outranks street dogs even if the dogs are heaven and to die for.”

“Literally.” You grumbled forcefully pushing the obscenely large pizza box into the middle one’s stomach, “I’m Y/N, this is my little sister Harper.”

“Hi.” Harper shyly waved with cheeks turning a dust pink concealed by the dark of the alleyway. The boys’ lips all quirked at the sudden contrast from the confident sister slamming her elbow in you to the bashful teen.

“I’m Luke. This is Reggie and Alex.” The hooded one, Luke, introduced his bandmates as best he could with his hands occupied by the pizza box.

Without the threat of death by the hot dog, you actually took the time to look at Luke with appraising eyes. His eyes were like oceans of blues, greens and even a brown that both exhilarated you; the desire of studying them not surprising. His smile outshone the sun on the hottest day in August.

“Nice to meet you.” You informed the trio with a beaming smile that matched your starstruck little sister. The interaction gave you the opportunity for immense and untiring future teasing on the teen that daydreamed of the bassist.

You had to admit the trio were incredibly attractive.

“Come back to the dressing room. We can eat there out of the cold.” Alex courteously invited the two formerly strangers. His blues sharing his pure intentions to repay you for saving their lives and offering pizza.

“Of course.” Harper nodded her head with her eyes barely meeting the ones of the boys. The shell was broken when Reggie piped up.

“That’s a really cool pin! Where’d you find it?”

Gated Community, Los Angeles, 2002

An off-tune humming filled the modestly sized home in the suburbs of Los Angeles, California with the sound of water splashing. Doing the dishes was a mindless chore that typically didn’t bother you, but the pain in your lower back protested. You’d have used the dishwasher, but the thing was perpetually breaking down. Didn’t seen essential to replace when washing dishes by hand was just as productive.

Or it was when you didn’t have the extra weight in your midsection, a symbol of your love with your husband. In fact, you would have avoided doing dishes if you hadn’t just used the last clean plate and glass at breakfast plus Luke hadn’t been home in the previous week.

Sunset Curve had gone on a press tour for the upcoming album and tour planned for next year.

“Oof.” You moaned as the little rascal once more hit your bladder, “Are you breaking electric guitars in there?”

“Not a soccer player?”

“With you as their father? Not likely.” You snorted as the sudden appearance of Luke became clear. You hadn’t been expecting him, “I missed you. We missed you.”

As had it since you first told him Luke’s warm hand came to rest on the front of your swollen belly. In a short month, you’d be cradling the newest member of the Patterson family with Luke singing the lullaby he solely made for baby P.

“Still haven’t given in?” The lead guitarist teased you with a beaming smile splitting his face, “Go sit down. I’ll finish the dishes.”

You didn’t need to be asked twice.

“I’m not abusing my clairvoyance to foresee our child’s gender, name and appearance.” You pointed one finger in his direction, “I refused Bobby’s pleading to see which models he would bed. The only time I did something like that was to reassure Alex that he would fall in love with a lovely guy.”

Luke’s heart burst with sheer adoration at how easily you had sunk into the friendship with the band after that one night. A night that had given birth to a friendship that slowly evolved into a romance and marriage. To this day, the group got together as much as possible.

“I love you.” Luke chuckled, “Even-”

“-if I came into your life like a completely crazy person?”

“We’re all a little crazy.”

Your house surely would be when a little tornado with Luke’s energy took over the home you’d made with Luke. The very home you would have more children and grow old together until soon you held your grandkids on your laps.

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sineala · 3 years

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Captain America: The Great Gold Steal

I wrote this up last week because I did not have access to my usual comics files but I figured I could review something that was just a book. So here is a review of the 1968 Captain America novel Captain America: The Great Gold Steal by Ted White, with an introduction by Stan Lee. I really liked it, actually! It was surprisingly good!

This novel features: Cover art of Captain America holding his shield in one hand and a very large gun in the other! A scene where the villains dramatically unmask Captain America and have absolutely no idea who he is! Captain America being extremely, extremely depressed about being in the future! Captain America dropping acid!

(I'm not kidding about the last part. In this novel there is a lot of LSD use. By Captain America. Talk about something the Comics Code wouldn't ever let you put in a comic book. Thank you, 1968.)

Faithful readers may remember that some time ago I posted reviews of Marvel prose novels from the 1970s. There was a line of prose novels featuring everyone's favorite Marvel superheroes, published by Pocket Books in the late 70s; I have reviews of the Iron Man, Captain America, and Avengers entries in the series; I liked the Iron Man one best, and I also have a Doctor Strange one I have not yet read. They're all short and action-packed paperback reads, of varying quality; the only one by anyone you might have heard of is the Avengers one, which was written by David Michelinie, who was actually writing the Avengers run at the time. That one was, um. An experience.

(Yes, it's "prose novel" because otherwise the assumption is "graphic novel.")

Marvel still publishes prose novels now, of course, also of varying quality; some are new plots and some are straight-up novelizations of comics arcs, which I guess is useful if you want to, say, read Civil War and not look at pictures at the same time. I also have a bunch of those that I could probably review if anyone wants. But, anyway, I personally am particularly intrigued by the older Marvel prose novels, both because the stories are all original and not retellings, and also because I often prefer the characterization found in older comics. And the older prose novels of course use the then-current characterization. So reading a Marvel prose novel from 1979 is like getting to read a brand-new comic from 1979, and that's a whole lot of fun for a nerd like me. Also do you know what's not subject to the Comics Code? Prose novels. So things can happen in these that definitely could not happen in comics of the same era.

This brings me to my current prose novel, which is something else entirely. I mean, okay, not really, it's still a Marvel prose novel. But it's not part of the same line. It's actually a lot older.

Bantam Books actually published Marvel prose novels in the late 60s. Yep, a full decade earlier. They published exactly two, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that they were probably not bestsellers. The first one, which I do not own and now sort of want to track down, was an Avengers novel in 1967, The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker. And then in 1968 they published the novel I am currently holding in my hands, Captain America: The Great Gold Steal by Ted White.

(I am still not sure why no one involved in titling this book thought of the word "theft.")

Judging by the back copy, it appears to be about Captain America foiling the villains' dastardly plan to steal gold from the Federal Reserve. Oh boy. Fun.

So this book is from 1968. The modern Marvel universe had kicked off just a few short years ago! Captain America was just getting his own solo book after the end of Tales of Suspense! And here's a novel about him, back when certain elements of his characterization were perhaps a little more flexible than they are today, by which I mean that the cover art -- which the internet informs me was painted by Mitchell Hooks -- is a striking full-body portrait of Captain America, head held high, shield in one hand... and a very large gun in the other. Hell, yeah. Not gonna see that in today's Cap comics, are you? It's amazing and I love it.

(Okay, you might see that in Ults. I'm pretty sure I have seen that in Ults, actually. But this is still cool.)

So the cover art is a definite plus, and apparently it's one of the few reasons anyone has ever heard of this novel. The other reason -- and the reason this is more expensive than the later novels, I assume -- is that Stan Lee's name is slapped on the cover, because he wrote an introduction. (I think I paid about $30 for this. The others were definitely under $20.)

All right. Here we go.

The first page is actually a brief summary of Steve's origin story, but not a version I was familiar with. Steve was born July 9, 1917 (yes, I was surprised too), was orphaned at a young age, and was a student at Columbia University (!) before Rebirth, which in this version is a gradual process that is also extremely body-horror. Steel tubing was inserted into the marrows of his bones. He was fed "high-protein compounds." Then they gave him a chemical that "gave him complete control over every nerve, muscle, and cell in his now-magnificent body." Sweet. Where can I get some of that?

The blurb also confirms his control over his own metabolism as well as his healing factor ("wounds would heal in half the normal time"), which is nice, because sometimes I wonder if canon even remembers the healing factor.

(I don't know why Marvel has this kink for filling people's bones with metal, though. It's not actually empty in there, guys! You need your bone marrow! How else do you want people to make new blood cells?)

The book is dedicated to "Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, without whom there would be no Captain America." Hey, Marvel, Joe Simon would like a word with you. I'm just saying.

The Stan Lee introduction is three paragraphs written in Stan Lee's, um, inimitable, distinctive and extremely florid narrative style -- if you've read any of his work, you know what I mean -- and making the point that Captain America is incredible and you will like him. If you are just discovering him for the first time, you will definitely like him. Okay. Thanks. I guess.

Oddly, the writing style here is substantially different than any of the other Marvel prose novels I've read; it doesn't immediately front-load you with exposition and a cast of colorful superheroes. It opens with a sort of James Bond spy-novel feel, running through a series of unnamed villains and bystanders, and a man who wants nothing more than to talk to Captain America but is killed before he can. Steve comes in halfway through the chapter, and he seems to be written for a reader who doesn't necessarily know who he is, and he isn't introduced as Captain America with his shield flying ahead of him to smite evildoers, or anything like that. He's just a tall, handsome blond guy who is reading a bunch of novels and is unsatisfied by all of them because all he can think of is the past. It's definitely an attitude I would expect from Steve in this era -- he is very much a Man Out Of Time here -- but it's also not how I expected the book to introduce him. You wouldn't even know he was Captain America by the end of the opening chapter, which then ends with a digression about the history of NYC subway tunnels. It's like it wants to appeal to someone who has watched a bunch of Man from UNCLE and just wants to read a cool thriller. Which is not at all what I was expecting.

By the beginning of the second chapter, of course, we discover that Steve is Captain America, as he changes into his uniform. The narration refers to him as Rogers when it's in his POV, if anyone is curious. He apparently keeps the cowl off in the mansion, because the cowl annoys him.

It was not so much that he needed to conceal his identity these days, because for all intents and purposes he had no other identity. Steve Rogers was officially dead, and had been for almost twenty years. Captain America *was* his identity. It was only when he donned the tight-fitting blue uniform with its shield chest-emblem, the red snug-fitting leather boots, and the heavy, yet pressure-sensitive red-leather gauntlets, that he began to feel real -- a complete human being.

Steve? Buddy, are you okay there? You're really not okay, are you, huh?

You see what I mean? They're really hitting the early-canon angst. Hard.

(Also it sounds like his uniform is a few sizes too small.)

We then get an expanded version of the backstory from the beginning excerpt. In this version of canon, Steve actually has an older brother, Alan, who is handsome and athletic and basically amazing, and when they are orphaned they are raised by their aunt and uncle. Steve gets TB twice as a kid, nearly dies from it, and when the stock market crashes, ends up separated from his brother and in an orphanage after his uncle loses everything.

(Honestly if I were writing this book, his brother would be the secret villain. Chekhov's Gun!)

Steve has glasses, gets bullied, is a nerd and an honor student, and studies law at Columbia because he wants to help stop fraudulent business practices and also fight organized crime. Legally, I mean. In a manner relating to law. I guess he's sort of like Daredevil. The lawyer part of Daredevil.

And then he joins Rebirth, and this is the part where I had to put the book down for several minutes, because Erskine's secret chemical, the key to making super-soldiers... is LSD.

Oh my God. You should see my face right now. My expression is, I am sure, indescribable. I'm trying not to wake the dog up laughing.

I just. Holy shit. This book is from 1968 in a way I definitely was not expecting. What the fuck, Marvel?

This project was headed by the brilliant biochemist, Dr. Erskine. His work with the endocrine system, and chemical body control, was well beyond that of his contemporaries. Only he, of all his colleagues, had fathomed the secrets of the Swiss Dr. Hoffman's 1938 discovery -- the mind-controlling LSD-25.

Let's just pause here for a few minutes and contemplate this.

I will point out that Albert Hofmann (yes, the book spelled his name wrong) didn't actually discover that LSD was a hallucinogen until 1943 when he accidentally tried it, but I am positive that 1968 here was a time when Some People were convinced LSD was a wonder drug. I'm still laughing. As far as I can tell, legal manufacturing of it stopped in 1965 so I am pretty sure that the author did not just decide to name a drug that had an ostensible legal therapeutic use, because it wouldn't have still had one by '68.

Anyway, in this version of events, Rebirth is a month-long process that involves a lot of vitamins, physical conditioning and training, and, yes, putting metal in his bones like he's the next Wolverine. They're filling his bones with stainless steel rods to make him stronger. That doesn't seem like a great idea to me, but I am also not sure about dropping acid to gain superpowers. Clearly I am not a genius scientist. Also Erskine knows what DNA is, apparently, because he's just that great. Anyway. Other than the metal, those all seem like relatively normal interventions. So far.

Now Steve has become fairly big and strong (and I guess he still has metal in his bones? this concerns me!) but they need to make him superhuman, so, yes, really, it's time to drop acid. Several pages of this book are devoted to describing Steve's acid trip. His acid trip is amazing and he discovers that he has conscious control of his entire body down to the cellular level. He can control the adrenaline in his bloodstream! He can tighten his muscle fibers! And when he's done tripping he still remembers how to do this, if not exactly on a conscious level, but he can still access the abilities. And that is how you make a super-soldier. It's LSD. Remember, kids, drugs are awesome! Do drugs!

Let's maybe take a few more minutes to think about this.

I just. I have no words. How did anyone at Marvel agree to print this?

I think for the most part superhero origin stories tend not to involve real drugs because people are generally aware that drugs they've heard of won't make you into a superhero. I guess this is what it looks like when you invoke the names of real drugs. They probably wanted something that sounded more realistic but somehow I don't think this was the best way to go. (Radiation, of course, will definitely make you into a superhero but I feel like most people have accepted that as one of the conventions of the genre.)

Anyway, after that Erskine gets killed by Nazis, of course, and Steve goes to war, and for some reason this book contains footnotes by Stan Lee himself listing the comics you can read all of this in. Just like the actual comics do!

We are introduced to Bucky, who for some reason is also from the LES in this version, although not anyone Steve knew before the war, and there is of course a description of Bucky's tragic death and Steve's subsequent icing.

They are really, really stressing the Man Out Of Time thing here:

No other man could have survived so fantastic a voyage through time. And no other man could feel so displaced by time.

He was a man twenty years in his own future. By rights, he should be nearly fifty years old -- nearly twice the age of his fellow Avengers. Yet his mind and his body were not yet thirty.

When the Avengers had brought him back to New York with them and insisted that, as an honored hero of the past, he join them, he felt a sort of melancholy homesickness for his own time and world.

We then get a few paragraphs with the usual being sad that he let Bucky down and got him killed, and also that he misses his family, and that Steve Rogers doesn't exist anymore, and that nobody is alive who remembers him, and that war is hell.

Hey, Steve, maybe the drugs you should do are antidepressants. Just a thought.

Also, this book is 118 pages and we're not out of the origin story flashback until page 34. I think there are some pacing issues here.

Actually, I lied, the flashback keeps going, but now we're up to the Avengers finding him, and I have to say that the list of things Steve finds strange about the future is kind of charming when the future is 1968. Men have long hair! Women have shorter skirts! Everyone is kind of blasé about rocket launches because there have been so many space missions now. (Oh, come on, you haven't even landed on the moon yet, 1968! You're not that blasé.) Color TV! And, excitingly, LPs! You can now listen to 36 minutes of consecutive music. (I actually don't know what previous standard he's describing that is a ten-inch record that holds six minutes a side because I don't think 45s are that big. Yeah, no, I just checked and 45s are seven inches in diameter. Hmm. Oh, never mind. He means 78 rpm, doesn't he? In my defense, the record player my family had when I was a kid didn't play those.)

The description of Steve coming into New York for the first time is definitely written by someone who knows New York, which is fun. There is generally a lot of local flavor to the setting of this book. That’s one of the best parts.

There is a brief summary of Steve's feelings about all the Avengers -- he is most impressed by Thor, which, I mean, fair, he's an actual god -- and Hank telling him all about how he can live in Tony's mansion. With Jarvis. Who Hank says is actually from Flatbush. Apparently Steve spent a lot of time at the NYPL branch at 5th and 42nd trying to catch up on history. And then of course the Avengers ditched him and gave him the Kooky Quartet, and for some reason they're not here right now either so it's just Steve being sad and alone and dealing with this mysterious dead guy. I think probably the book is also done explaining fiat currency now. This is definitely the weirdest Marvel novel I've read.

Anyway, we have now returned to what is ostensibly the actual plot. Steve shows up at the New York Federal Reserve Bank (I guess the theft is happening here and not, like, at Fort Knox) with the gold bullion that the dead guy from the beginning of the book had on him -- I think I got distracted by the LSD bit and forgot to mention that part, but the dead guy was carrying some US government gold -- because the actual plot is that villains are trying to tunnel into the bank vault and steal gold. Steve discovers this after he gets the bank manager to give him a tour. The bank manager tries to refuse, citing security concerns -- Captain America could be anyone under that mask, after all! Steve just smiles and says, "If I removed my mask, would you have any better idea of who I am?" and I guess that's a flawless argument because he gets his tour.

(I'm sorry, all I can think of is that one gif from the JLA cartoon where Lex Luthor bodyswaps with the Flash, announces that now that he's in the Flash's body he's going to discover the Flash's secret identity, then pulls off his own mask, stares at himself in the mirror, and says, "I have no idea who this is.")

Given that the theme of Steve's interior life in this novel is "Steve Rogers died twenty years ago" it seems even more sad that Steve is just walking around basically saying, yeah, well, I'm nobody. And apparently that is being reaffirmed for him by the narrative.

So Steve goes down the tunnels, takes out some of the bad guys, and gets himself knocked out and buried in a collapsing tunnel. Don't worry, he's gonna be fine.

A lot of this book, by the way, is from the POV of random people, like this bank guard who went with Steve into the tunnels:

He had wondered, briefly, if a man like Captain America ever knew the pinch of too many bills, had ever felt desperate over the arrival of yet another mouth to feed. But, of course, Captain America had no family, and would hardly concern himself with such matters. It didn't occur to Thompson to wonder if this in itself might not be something for which to pity Captain America.

Rude. I mean, come on, do we really need random characters telling us Steve is a sad sack whom nobody loves? Steve's already got that covered! (Also, how does this guy know Captain America has no family?)

Anyway, thanks to the power of LSD, Steve is going into a trance, amping up his metabolism (he loses "several pounds" in a few minutes), and making himself super-strong so he can dig himself out. Hooray. This is definitely how human bodies work. Also LSD. This is definitely how LSD works. Yes.

Steve then finds out that a couple of the guards who were with him in the tunnels died down there and he goes home and eats dinner while stewing in miserable guilt because he was responsible for their deaths. He's really not okay. I'm not sure the book actually understands how not okay they have made him. Then someone from SHIELD is on the phone for him and he is briefly cheered up by the thought that it might be Sharon although I think we should also note that the narrative makes it clear that at this point in canon Steve still doesn't know her name. Remember when that was a thing?

Alas, it is not Sharon; it's just a random SHIELD agent who happens to have information about the plot and asks to meet. Then, as Steve leaves to go to the meeting, we get two pages of exhaustive description about the mansion layout and how it's built relative to the surrounding buildings. It feels like this book was written by a frustrated city planner. But anyway, the meeting is a setup and the villains capture Steve.

They knock Steve out, drug him, take him to their hideout, and tie him to a chair. Except, once again thanks to the power of LSD, the tranquilizer they're using wears off way sooner than they expected and so Steve feigns unconsciousness and listens to them discuss their evil plans.

And then the villains unmask him and I swear it's exactly like that JLA gif:

Rogers heard footsteps scuffing across a thick carpet, and then Sparrow's voice again, almost directly over him. His ears still buzzed, but he fought to catch the elusive familiarity of the man's tone. He wished he dared open his eyes.

"This is a moment which I, personally, have long awaited," Sparrow said, his voice rising in triumph. "*The unmasking of Captain America!*"

Then, his nails scraping along Rogers' face, Sparrow dug his fingers under his cowl, and ripped it back. Rogers felt air strike his exposed cheeks and forehead. Then fingers clutched his blond hair and pulled his head back. "Behold!" Sparrow said.

Raven was first to speak. "Well, I dunno about you, Sparrow, but it rings no bells with me. I never seen him before."

Starling agreed. "His face means nothing to me."

"He could be anybody," said Robin. "What good does this do?"

Sparrow let Rogers' head fall back to his chest, and his voice when he spoke was defeated. "I don't know. Nothing, I guess. I always wondered. I felt, if these guys -- these costumed heroes -- wore masks, it must mean something."

"Captain America was missing for twenty years," Starling said. "That could mean the first one died, and this one took his place. He looks awfully young."

"Perhaps. It doesn't really matter. Let's get going."

(Yes, the villains all have bird-themed codenames. I have no idea why.)

This scene just makes my day. I love dramatic unmaskings. I bet they'd have been a lot happier unmasking Iron Man.

The villains then leave Steve and go to a power plant, where we switch POVs to one of the plant employees and get two entirely unnecessary paragraphs about his racist and anti-Semitic thoughts about his coworkers before the villains murder him. Great. Thanks.

Anyway, the villains cause a blackout, while meanwhile they've left Steve alone with the girl villain, and Steve is busy trying to persuade her that crime doesn't pay. He's moved from the "do you know what they'll do to you in prison?" theme onto "how exactly are you going to spend a billion dollars in gold bullion when it's illegal for civilians to possess? who are you going to do business with?" and then points out that gold is heavy and hard to transport, which is when she gets out a a knife.

The bad guys are off to steal the gold, and Steve has now successfully turned the girl they left him with, because she frees him. Of course, the first thing he does is put the cowl back on.

"Why do you wear that?" she asked.

"The mask?" He smiled. "It gives people something external to concentrate upon."

"But..."

"Without it, I'm just another ordinary-looking man. With it, I become a symbol. For some people it creates awe; for others, fear. Look at me. I'm different now, aren't I? With the mask on."

"Yes," she nodded. "You look -- bigger, somehow. Stronger. Fierce, implacable. You look a little scary."

"Exactly. You no longer see me as a person, but as a thing -- an Avenger. It can be a potent psychological weapon."

"They were so disappointed, when they took your mask off. As though underneath they'd find a famous person."

"Maybe that goes on TV -- handsome playboys, and all that. But I've been anonymous all my life. Even my real name would be meaningless to you, to them. No, the mask is part of the uniform, a psychological device. That's the whole story.

Now: let's get out of here. You have a good deal more to tell me yet, and we can't waste more time."

Bwahaha. In a few years, Steve's going to be pretty surprised about who superheroes are, I think.

STEVE, now: Superheroes definitely aren't secretly handsome playboys! That would be silly! STEVE, after Molecule Man: fuck fuck fuck FUCK FUCK I'm such an idiot

I'm definitely looking forward to that.

Also, not that the issue of Steve's psyche actually recurs after this, but he's once again having the narrative vindicate his belief that Steve Rogers is dead and whoever he is under the cowl doesn't matter. Steve, I don't think this is very healthy.

Steve then tracks down the villains stealing the gold, has some geopolitical thoughts about where the gold could be going (he thinks either South Africa or Russia for the best laundering potential) and then hides himself in the villains' trunk while they drive to Staten Island, which is where they're taking the gold out of the country from.

During the final confrontation, Steve finally gets to see the villains, and he discovers that the one in charge is in fact the director of the Federal Reserve Bank who Steve met at the beginning of this book. Gasp. But that's not all! He's also... the Red Skull!

Honestly, I was kind of surprised; I didn't think this was the kind of book where we'd get any known comic villains, but I guess it's always gotta be the Red Skull. I think he's the only one of Steve's big villains who likes to disguise himself; Zemo has obvious disguise issues and I imagine it's also hard to cover up Zola's Teletubby-esque television body.

Steve shoots one of the villains, because I guess that's what he does in this era of canon.

So the plot wraps up in, like, two pages, because for some reason all these early Marvel novels wrap up very fast. Red Skull, of course, attempts to escape and then disappears and his body is never found. The end.

Well.

That was definitely a book. That I read. Believe it or not, I actually think it was the best of these early Marvel prose novels that I've read so far, even if it was also the absolute weirdest; I thought the thriller-style plot was entertaining, I liked Steve and his Extremely Sad characterization, I obviously enjoy all the identity themes, I liked how very detailed the New York setting was, and I do like how they tried to treat it all seriously. I mean, sure, this did lead to LSD in the super-soldier serum in presumably the name of realism, but I felt like the book was trying to present superheroes in a way that didn't feel silly and also didn't really take for granted that the reader would automatically accept superheroes.

It felt like a book that was written hoping that people who weren't superhero fans would read it, if that makes any sense. And I thought that was interesting, because most modern superhero work that I can think of assumes they've got complete audience buy-in and everyone is willing to suspend their disbelief and we all know the genre conventions and are expecting people running around in brightly-colored spandex. Whereas this is more like a James Bond novel if for some reason James Bond were called upon to defend his decision to wear brightly-colored spandex instead of bespoke suits. But I assume no one read it, because Bantam never published a Marvel book after this one.

If you can actually find a copy of this one for a price you're willing to pay. I recommend it. It was delightful and way more solid than I thought it was going to be.

Also, come on, you know you want to read about Captain America's acid trip.

#posts i actually wrote

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caranfindel · 3 years

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Take these broken wings and learn to fly (15.20 coda)

het, but Wincest-compatible | about 2300 words | PG-13 for language | characters: sam winchester, sam’s blurry wife |

Julia has been widowed (God, what an awful word, widowed) for three years when she meets Sam. It’s a work-based friendship at first. She’s kind of lonely and sad, he’s kind of lonely and sad, and they gravitate toward each other. And then one evening they’re at a bar, the last ones left from an after-work happy hour, both of them drinking more than they should, and she thinks he’s kind and thoughtful and smart and he may be 10 years older than me but he’s still hot as hell and I enjoy being with him and I look forward to seeing him and maybe I should just… and she kisses him. He’s shocked; shocked enough to confirm that he wasn’t just hanging around hoping to make it out of the friendzone. And then he’s holding her face in his hands and he’s kissing her too.

It’s good. They’re good together. It’s not the earth-shattering, all-encompassing romance she had with Shaun. Julia knows she’ll never have anything like that again. Most people don’t even get one soulmate in their lives; no one gets two. And she knows Sam doesn’t have that same desperate love that Shaun had for her; she knows she’ll never have his whole heart. (She knows the woman he intended to marry was killed in a fire, she knows another woman he loved went back to her ex. She doesn’t know which of these women still owns that last piece of Sam’s heart.) But she loves Sam, and he loves her, and they get married.

(The sex is amazing. Sometimes he’s gentle, almost reverent, as if he’s afraid he’ll break her, and other times he’s fierce and passionate and almost tries to break her, and she loves both ends of the spectrum.)

She suggests they melt down her old wedding band to make a new one. It was an heirloom from her grandmother, a plain wide band of yellow gold that she loves, that she thought she’d wear for the rest of her life. But Shaun is the one who put it on her finger the first time. It doesn’t seem right to ask Sam to accept it now. A new band from the old gold seems like a good compromise. No, Sam says, I couldn’t ask you to do that. I know a way we can make it ours. He has the inside of the band engraved with the same symbol he wears tattooed over his heart, and makes her promise to never take it off. Bad luck, he says.

He’s such a contradiction. Scary smart, but as superstitious as an Appalachian grandmother. Calm and unflappable, but with a weirdly hyperactive startle reflex. Kind and empathetic, but capable of extreme violence when pushed to his limits (seriously, don’t walk your drunk ass up to Sam Winchester’s wife and lay hands on her, and don’t get mouthy when she tells you to back off) and just really, frighteningly skilled at that violence.

(A little frightening and also very sexy. Julia’s always had a thing for the hero type.)

They both have nightmares. One night Julia watches Shaun’s face melting under his gear and wakes with a cry of horror. Sam holds her as she tearfully describes living on the knife edge of constant fear that comes with loving someone whose job is literally running into burning buildings. I know, he says, over and over, even though he can’t possibly know. The irony of their first loves both dying in flames is not lost on her, but it’s not like his college girlfriend was a firefighter. It’s not like he watched her go to work every day and prayed she’d make it home alive.

Julia’s pregnancy is a wonderful surprise. She and Shaun had tried for over a year before she was widowed, and she just didn’t count on it happening with Sam. They agree not to name the baby after anyone they’ve lost. Let’s not name him after our pain, she says, and Sam is okay with that. (Or he isn’t. But ever since she showed him the positive pregnancy test, she’s known she could ask him for anything. She’s known he would rip out his heart and serve it on a platter if she asked for it.)

But they haven’t decided on a name yet when her water breaks four weeks early. When their perfect baby boy is born at 12:10 a.m., the nurse announces the date and time and Sam looks up at her in shock and blinks away happy tears and says it’s the 24th. It’s my brother’s birthday. Julia is flying high on endorphins; she loves this baby and she loves this man and she even loves his dead brother she never got to meet, and she says it’s got to be a sign; let’s name him Dean.

She takes off her wedding ring, just this once, to have Dean’s birthdate engraved on the inside. Sam does the same with his own ring. He insists they go to a jeweler who will engrave while they wait, rather than leaving the rings there. She waves a hand at her lumpy postpartum body. You afraid someone’s gonna make a move on all this if you don’t keep a ring on it?

He laughs at her and says you’re onto me, even though he’s the one who needs to be locked away, still with that long lean runner’s body and the amazing shoulders and the goddamn dimples. I just don’t like us being without them, he says. He is a sweet, sentimental fool and she adores him. He bends down to kiss her, carefully maneuvering the baby he’s wearing in a sling, and Julia looks at this man and this baby and this life she didn’t think she was get to have and knows she’s happier than she has any right to be. And she’s relieved when Sam slips the ring back onto her finger, this ring imbued with the men she loves, so maybe he’s not the only sentimental fool.

(One thing she loves about Sam is that he understands why she feels guilty that Shaun didn’t get to share this life with her.)

In July they light a little candle for Dean’s six-month birthday. When Julia wakes the next morning, Sam’s side of the bed is empty and cold. She finds him cuddling their sleeping baby in the living room. I got up to give him a bottle, Sam says. I guess I just fell asleep out here. His red-rimmed eyes and empty coffee mug suggest he didn’t actually sleep at all, but, well. They’re both battling their own private demons. If a night cradling the baby gives Sam some peace for whatever reason, she’s glad of it.

Sam’s fierce love for their child takes her by surprise. If Julia has 90% of his heart, his son has 110%. He parents with a vengeance, is the only way she can think of to describe it. Like he’s making up for something. She doesn’t feel slighted, but it’s impossible to ignore that ever since Dean was born, Sam’s prime objective has been to make sure the boy is happy and safe. Everything else comes second.

(When she notices Sam has been carefully marking his tattoo symbol onto Dean’s clothing, hidden near seams and always in a color that almost matches the fabric, she decides not to say anything. He gets a little funny about his superstitions sometimes.)

Sam desperately wants Dean to have a sibling, and they try for another one, but it doesn’t happen. Julia reminds him that they’re lucky to have even one child. That having a sibling is not a lifetime guarantee of companionship and love. She should know, after all, since Stephanie cut her off after she married that asshole Scientologist and decided she couldn’t have a relationship with anyone who wasn’t also in their stupid cult.

Dean has plenty of friends and tons of activities, which Sam encourages with an almost religious fervor, but he never pulls away from his parents. They have so much in common, Sam and his son. Instead of rebelling as a teenager, Dean seems to grow even closer to his father. They spend hours together, paging through the ancient books in Sam’s study (she hates them, they smell musty and make her sneeze) or driving in the old Chevrolet. They even travel together sometimes, visiting those friends of Sam’s that live up north somewhere. Julia met them at the wedding and they were perfectly nice, thrilled to death that she and Sam had found each other. But she always feels like an outsider when they’re around, like they’re part of something she’ll never understand. So much history, with Sam and the brother she never got to meet. They absolutely dote on Dean though, and he seems to love them too, so the boys’ trip to Sioux Falls becomes an annual event.

(Dean is 14 years old when he comes home from one of these trips with his own version of the tattoo.)

When Julia is diagnosed with cancer, Dean is 16 years old. Sam does his best to ensure life goes on as normal for their son but somehow never neglects Julia’s needs. He throws himself into research and is always on top of the latest treatment, always at her elbow with the top internet-recommended remedy for her side effects, making sure both she and Dean have everything they want and need, all the attention and support they can tolerate. She doesn’t know when, or if, Sam actually sleeps. When she feels up for it, he arranges experiences for the three of them. A week lying on the beach, a weekend in New York City, a night in the mountains looking at the stars. When we look back on this time, he says, I don’t want us to only remember how much it sucked. I want us all to have good memories too.

(She doesn’t know why he’s concerned about her memories. There’s a good chance she won’t have much time to enjoy them. But it’s good for Dean. She doesn’t want this to ruin Dean’s childhood.)

Sam insists Dean go away to college as planned. Julia agrees, although she’s kind of surprised he’s willing to let the boy out of his sight. Aren’t you going to miss him? she asks.

So much, he answers. But this isn’t about me, and what I need. It’s about him. They drive Dean to school in the ancient Chevrolet. Supposedly because the trunk has room for all of his stuff, but Julia is pretty sure it’s just one last sentimental road trip in the old thing before Sam retires it. When they pick Dean up at the end of the school year, it’s in her SUV. Dean promises his father, more than once, that he’ll restore the Chevy someday.

Five years after Julia’s diagnosis, she’s sitting in the doctor’s office learning that her last remission was her last remission. There are no more options. She has months, not years. Sam clutches her hand and nods, once, as if to say I should have known this would happen; I should have expected something like this. Then he takes her home.

It’s a blessing in a way, he says late that night, after a little too much to drink. Knowing what’s coming. Having time to say goodbye. You don’t always get that. And yes, she knows this as well as anybody does.

Sam has always been supportive of her choice not to contact Stephanie, but one day he says Jules, I promise I’ll never bring it up again. It’s just that I don’t want you to have any regrets. I don’t want you miss the opportunity to say things that you’ll wish you’d said. Julia isn’t sure Steph will speak to her. She’s not even sure she’ll have the same phone number — they haven’t spoken since Dad’s funeral, a year after she was widowed — but she makes the call. And Steph answers. And cries. And comes to visit, where she hugs and cries some more. Sam watches it all with a sad smile for a while, then disappears into the garage to sit in the old Chevy.

When Julia takes her last conscious breaths, Dean is holding one hand and Sam is holding the other. She squeezes her son’s hand and thinks I love you, dear boy, and I’m sorry I have to leave you. She squeezes her husband’s hand and thinks thank you for giving me this, thank you for taking care of me, thank you for loving me and letting me love you. Then she closes her eyes and lets the soft, warm darkness take over.

And then. Then she wakes to a cool breeze and the sound of chirping birds. She’s standing at a lake she recognizes. It’s Shaun’s favorite fishing spot. And Shaun is there, waiting for her. And everything is okay.

Sam does show up eventually. Julia’s sitting on the porch of the cabin with Shaun, enjoying the perpetual nice day (sometimes a spring morning, sometimes a fall afternoon, but always nice) when she hears the familiar rumble. It cant be, she thinks. It can’t be that old car. But it is.

I’m glad you found someone with good taste in cars, Shaun says, as Sam unfolds himself from the driver’s seat. He looks exactly as he did the day she met him; no glasses, only a little grey at his temples. Still tall and strong and beautiful. She runs to meet him and embraces him as Shaun watches from the porch.

You found Shaun, Sam says. I’m so happy for you, Jules. I really am. He doesn’t seem to have any intention of joining her (their) Heaven permanently, but he doesn’t seem to have anyone else with him either. Where is the dead girlfriend? How is this fair?

They talk about Dean, and Julia’s heart swells with pride over her strong, smart, kind, brave son. He’s like you, she says. He’s just like you.

Sam shrugs. He’s a Winchester.

But what about you? she says. You’re not — you’re not alone here, are you?

Nah, he says. I’m good. I promise.

(Eventually Julia meets the first Dean, and she understands.)

===

I know a lot of people have mocked Sam's blurry wife, but I actually have grown to love the concept. Because it means she can be anything we want her to be. And yeah, initially I liked the idea of her being Dr. Cara, or Eileen. But now I don't think that would happen. I think Sam would have to start fresh to have that kind of relationship. And I also like the idea of Sam's wife having her own soulmate somewhere, waiting for her, so she's not a huge part of Sam and Dean's shared Heaven. I mean, they're gonna visit, obviously. And then they'll go home to their soulmates.

The title is from "Blackbird" by the Beatles.

#spn #15.20 #my fic #episode coda #sam winchester

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saladbroth · 3 years

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this is seriously the weirdest fandom i have been in. bobby is not a good person in canon jatp? like why are you fighting people who don’t like him? people can dislike who they want to without attacking them

hi! first of all, i am not attacking anyone and attacking people is not my intention, and i’m sorry if it came off that way, i simply shared my opinion on bobby.

second of all, we don’t actually know bobby is not a good person? we see him in two scenes as bobby, and not many more as trevor, and in neither scene is he protrayed as a bad person or shows signs of being one. canonically, bobby was close enough to the boys to play unsaid emily with him, and he didn’t “steal” all the songs either because a) he’s the sole owner of sunset curve’s music after the boys died and b) bright, finally free and the start of edge of great was not on his albums. i know many people think of him as a bad person because as we see it, he didn’t give credit to sunset curve, but we only know of him through julie’s perspective and i highly doubt this man who’s traumatized enough to have an on-call therapist 25 years after the fact, would tell his daughter or her best friend about that stuff. i do believe trevor made some bad choices, and yes, the boys’ anger at him is justified but also they’re traumatized from dying and haven’t had the chance to work through that yet. it’s a shitty situation for everybody, but i personally don’t think jumping to conclusions about trevor/bobby and hating him as much as he is hated is the right thing to do.

for further exploration of that, i can strongly recommend this essay by @a-tomb-with-a-view

now. i’m not fighting people who don’t like him. people are allowed to dislike bobby, and while i don’t personally don’t understand that, they can do whatever they want. my post came from people demonizing him, and painting a 17 year old who loses his best friends and bandmates as a murdered and killer and from the massive amounts of unproportional hate bobby gets as a character. people are allowed to dislike characters, and if you simply dislike bobby because he’s not a vibe or you just do - that’s totally fine by me. but i’m not gonna sit here and watch people say he’s a killer/ he was jealous/ he planned this/ he wanted this, because it’s obvious trevor still struggles with the boys’ deaths and there is literally no basis for these claims, except for three nearly dead 17 year olds who get caught up in their feelings.

for the attacking part - i wasn’t attacking anyone. i’m genuinely curious as to who i supposedly attacked with my post. i don’t hate people who dislike bobby, i just very much don’t like people in this fandom demonizing him on no solid basis.

if this is about the race thing, which i’ve seen people take issue with: i’m not saying everybody who dislikes bobby is racist, because that’s bullshit. characters can be disliked regardless of skin colour or ethnicity. but this fandom has a track record of disliking and dismissing characters of colour (willie, julie, flynn) and thus it seems a bit suspect when a character who, in his younger version, is played by a man of colour, gets demonized and hated on disproportionally to the (white) actual villain of the show. it just seems suspect and i simply pointed that out. if you feel attacked by that, then i suggest not blaming me, but rather examining your own behaviours and biases, because you probably aren’t a horribly racist person, but white people have internalized biases and need to work against that, even if it is uncomfortable, and i’m not saying this to attack anyone, but that kind of thing can influence how we think about people and characters.

my intention was never to attack anyone, and i don’t have issues with people who dislike bobby. my issues lie with demonizing a character we know very little about, and basing that hate on points that can be disproven fairly easily. that is all.

#jatp #bobby wilson #trevor wilson #sunset curve #long post #alex mercer #reggie peters #luke patterson #julie and the phantoms #julie and the himbos #we answering asks #pls y'all i have anxiety just don't demonize him and we're gucci

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dream-a-little-bigger-x · 3 years

Text

Parallels | Chapter 18

Add yourself to my taglist! | Here’s my masterlist! | Parallels Masterlist

Characters: OC! Violet Grace Dawson, Luke Patterson, Julie Molina, Carrie Wilson, Bobby Wilson, Reggie Peters, Alex Mercer, Flynn nolastname, Willie nolastname, Nick Danforth-Evans, Dirty Candy

Guideline: Sunset Universe is the universe in which Sunset Curve is famous and Violet is friends with Carrie, Julie and Flynn. Candy Universe is the universe in which Dirty Candy is more famous and Sunset Curve has broken up.

Song(s) used: When The Sun Goes Down - In The Heights | Make You Believe - Little Mix

Warnings: Lots of crying, bit of angst, goodbyes

Words: 3,983

The tension during the rest of rehearsal was real. No one really knew what to say, so they just kept themselves busy with the music they were making together. Today might just be the very last time they’d be able to do this with Violet.

That same night, Violet had dreamt about a song. Something in the pit of her stomach told her it was Rose’s song, but she wasn’t certain anymore. It was a hazy dream. As though the connection she had with her universe was fading.

“Can’t believe I didn’t notice it wasn’t actually you,” Luke said when he and Violet were the first ones in Julie’s garage. He knew she was going to be early, so he had come early, too, as he wanted to have a chance to talk to her, alone.

He’d startled her ever so slightly as she was busying herself with the song she had written with the memory of the hazy dream in the back of her head. Though hearing his voice and seeing his gorgeous face and bright eyes immediately calmed her down.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Violet replied softly whilst Luke took a seat next to her on the piano stool. A spot they’d found themselves in a lot of the time.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I understand it wasn’t easy to tell anyone. I probably wouldn’t have believed y–” A soft jolt went through Violet again, shutting him up straight away. “Sorry.”

Violet shot him a smile, telling him it was all good. She didn’t quite know what to say to him. Today was their last day together, she could sense it in the pit of her stomach. And there was so much she wanted to say before she went away for good. There was so much she wanted to tell him.

“Have you figured out how to get back yet?” he then asked solemnly. He didn’t want her to leave, he liked this version of Violet a lot better than the bitchy, sassy girl he’d had a crush on since Middle School but wasn’t reciprocated.

She softly nodded her head and showed him the song in her notebook. “I think it came to me in a dream, but I’m not sure anymore. My connection with the other universe seems to be getting weaker…”

“Make you believe again?” he asked, scanning the paper.

“Mmh,” she hummed. “I think because my unfinished business was getting the band back together, I made you guys believe in music again…” she trailed off because there was more to her theory, more than she wanted to say. More than she could say.

Luke let out an airy chuckle, “Well, you made me believe something else too.” His eyes landed on Violet with that sweet, tender smile plastered on his face. She had been wishing for Luke Patterson to look at her like that for years.

His eyes then flick down to the piano, that same smile playing on his lips. Violet could swear there was a slight blush coloring his cheeks. Then, as Violet felt her heart clench, Luke’s voice floated through the garage.

“When the sun goes down You're gonna need a flashlight You're gonna need a candle”

With a small smile on her lips, Violet responded.

“I think I can handle that”

Luke chuckled at this, looking back up at Violet.

“When you leave town I'm gonna buy you a calling card”

As the next words rolled off Violet’s lips, Luke felt his heart beat faster.

“'Cause I'm falling hard for you”

Violet let her eyes fall on the garage door, reminding herself of what was awaiting her. The two of them then bounced back and forth, responding to each other’s sentences.

“I go back today”

“And I will try to make my way”

“Out west to California”

“So we've had this summer”

“And we've got each other Perhaps even longer”

Luke suddenly got up from the stool, capturing Violet’s attention again. His voice sounded stronger, more powerful. So powerful, it sent shivers down Violet’s spine.

“When you're on your own And suddenly without me Will you forget about me?”

“I couldn't if I tried”

Luke grabbed Violet’s hands, pulling her up from the stool as well and guiding her towards the middle of the garage.

“When I'm all alone And I close my eyes”

“That's when I'll see your face again”

“And when you're gone You know that I'll be waiting when you're gone”

Violet pulled him closer, to make sure the message she wanted to convey came through to him.

“But you're here with me right now”

“We'll be working hard, but if we should drift apart”

Tears pooled Violet’s eyes, thinking about not seeing Luke anymore. Not this Luke.

“Lukas”

“Lemme take this moment just to say”

“No, no”

“You are gonna change the world someday”

“I'll be thinking of home”

She took a step closer towards him, their chest pressed together as their voices blended together into a gorgeous harmony.

“And I'll think of you every night At the same time”

Not being able to withhold himself anymore, Luke’s hands reached up to Violet’s cheeks, pulling her closer until their lips collided in a passionate, long-awaited kiss. The world seemed to spin around them as their lips moved in sync. Her hands had to grip at his shirt as she was afraid she’d fall if she didn’t.

As they came back up for air, Luke pressed his forehead against hers. Their voices floating through the garage once more in a soft mumble. They only had eyes for each other. As though they were the only people in the world.

“When the sun goes down When the sun goes down When the sun goes down”

The loud, ear-piercing squeals erupting from the garage doors caused the two of them to snap up out of their dream-like state. At the door stood all six of their friends. Alex and Bobby had their hands pressed against Reggie’s mouth while the girls were jumping up and down in excitement.

The leather jacket-clad boy pushed the hands of his friends off him, “FUCKING FINALLY!” he screamed out, flailing his arms in the air. “Pardon my French,” he then added, a little more subdued whilst straightening his jacket.

A blush spread across Violet’s cheeks. She hadn’t wanted to kiss him. She did. But she also didn’t. She was leaving today and she wasn’t going to see him again anytime soon. This kiss was going to haunt her for the rest of her life, knowing she wasn’t going to kiss him ever again.

“I found a way to get me back,” she then said, moving away from Luke and back to the piano where she had left the notebook with the song scribbled down in it. “I think – the dream was a bit hazy. But I do believe this was a song Rose wrote to get herself back.”

Julie perked up at this and made her way to Violet, who showed her the song. “My mom wrote this?” she asked in a whisper. Violet nodded. “Would you mind if I kept this? You know, after…?” She didn’t even have to finish that sentence for Violet to hum in assent.

“So, guide us through it,” Alex told her, climbing behind his drum kit.

She had to heave in a deep breath before she could start explaining the song. She started with the beat, then the rhythm, then the melody and then she went through the lyrics with the girls.

“How does this work then?” Flynn questioned after they had received the information. “You’re just gonna disappear and the Violet from this universe is just gonna appear?”

“I don’t know,” Violet sighed. “We’re gonna have to let the universe do its work. All we can do is try…”

“Can I… say something, before you go?” Julie asked solemnly. After receiving a nod from Violet, Julie continued. “I wanna say thank you… You brought me closer to my mom, in a way. You brought me and Carrie back together. You gave me the best summer ever, since my mother died last year. You made me believe in the power of music again. So, thank you, Violet.”

A teary smile etched its way to Violet’s face. She didn’t quite know what to say to that, so instead, she wrapped Julie up into a tight hug. “You are amazing, Julie Molina. Never stop shining,” she whispered before the two broke apart. The both of them had tears streaming down their faces.

The next person to wrap her up into a hug was Flynn. It was abrupt and Violet didn’t have enough time to register who had scooped her up, but the cotton candy perfume that wrapped her up was a dead giveaway. “Thanks for bringing my Julie back,” she whispered.

“Thanks for bringing me back,” Violet whispered back and then it was Carrie’s turn to hug. “Thanks for this crazy adventure, Care.”

“Thank you,” Carrie responded.

Then, Bobby, Reggie and Alex hugged Violet at the same time. “Thank you for bringing the band back,” Alex said before pressing a kiss to her hair. The boy had always towered over her, which she had loved. Especially when he hugged her. Because he’d always kiss the top of her head.

“You guys gonna continue as Sunset Curve again?” Violet asked when they pulled away.

“No,” Bobby replied. “We’re gonna go on as Violet Sunset. You’ve brought us back together, it’s only right we honor that.”

A wide smile broke on Violet’s face whilst tears rolled down her cheeks. “Take enough breaks from each other, yeah? And talk to each other when something’s bothering you. I don’t wanna be hearing you breaking up again, okay?”

The three boys nodded their heads, all three of them with tears pooling their eyes.

“We’re gonna miss you, Violet Dawson,” said Reggie, wiping his tears with the sleeve of his leather jacket. “A whole lot.”

As the boys stepped aside, Luke moved over towards her. He was already crying, which had Violet crying even more. “You’re gonna change the world someday,” he whispered with a small chuckle while grabbing her hands. “Like you changed mine.”

“I’m gonna think of you every day, Luke Patterson. Don’t ever forget me, okay?”

He smiled, “I couldn’t if I tried,” he responded before dipping down and kissing her. The saltiness of their tears mingled with the passion and love in their lips. It was a bittersweet feeling. Kissing him. Saying goodbye to him.

“Shall we do this?” Luke then asked when the two pulled away again.

Violet gave him a nod before he pressed a kiss to her forehead and grabbed his guitar again. The others took their spots again, ready to start playing this song. They didn’t even know if it was going to work, but even if it didn’t, they had another great song they could add to their setlist for the next gig.

Violet counted the girls in as the first part would be a capella. Their voices blended together perfectly, bouncing off these garage walls for the very last time.

“Ah ah ah Ah ah ah Ah ah ah I'll make you believe again”

The boys then chimed in on their instruments whilst Julie took the first verse and made it hers.

“Down on your knees She made you feel like you're worthless You just don't deserve this, no no How does it feel? To think that you gave all you could Wish you did but you would”

Carrie then took the pre-chorus for her account while Violet prepared herself for the chorus by wiping underneath her eyes. She probably looked like a raccoon by now, but she wasn’t sure if she cared.

“I'll be the ears you talk to The doors you walk through The arms to hold on to You're safe with me”

Flynn and Violet joined in with Carrie and Julie on the chorus. While Julie interacted with Reggie and Flynn with Bobby, Violet focused on the space ahead of her. She couldn’t look at Luke. Not right now. It would hurt too much.

“Your hearts been stolen Eyes weren't open Trust is broken But I'll make you believe again Make you stronger So we'll live longer You've lost your faith in love But I'll make you believe again”

In a moment of weakness, she turned her head to her left, where Luke stood. His eyes flickered with both love and sadness. She finally grabbed the mic from its stand and turned towards him completely, singing the next verse.

“Where do you run? Who do you turn to, it burns you cause you though that she was the one She threw it away Left you with nothing but pain You won't feel love again”

Leaving this universe was going to burn. This was her place, these were her people. It made her realize that she had been born in the wrong universe. A universe where she felt out of place all her life. While this universe was one where she felt right. She felt great. She felt at home.

This wasn’t the right thing to do for her, but it was for the other Violet. They had to restore the balance. They had to switch back. There was no going back now.

A knock to his bedroom door caused Alex to startle a little. He was working on a song by himself, being inspired by Violet’s songwriting and felt the need to create something himself. And then the angel herself stood in his doorway.

“Am I interrupting something?” she asked with a smile.

Alex smiled. “No, not at all, come in!” He patted a spot on the bed as an invitation for her to sit down. “I’m working on a song,” he said proudly. “Would you mind checking it out and bestowing me with some of your wisdom?”

Violet smiled and leaned over, so she could read along with him.

Tell mе, am I broken? I can never lеave Biting on my tongue and Checking if it bleeds Oh, is it lost on me? All the things I believe Something like an omen I can never keep Moving on and on, so very bittersweet Is it lost on me? All the things I don't need

“This is amazing, Lex,” she whispered. “It’s raw, it’s real. Definitely has a ton of potential to become a big hit.”

The smile on Alex’s face was wide and bright and warm. “Thanks, but I don’t think it’s something we’re ever gonna be allowed to put on an album.”

Violet knew immediately what he meant. Their management was shit. Neither of them was allowed to come out, all four of them hiding in the shadows without ever being able to completely, unapologetically be themselves.

“You need a new manager,” Violet told him matter-of-factly.

Alex chuckled. “I don’t think –” he started his sentence, but Violet didn’t let him finish.

“No, Alex, I’m serious. I know you guys tried really hard to get a manager in the first place, but this isn’t what a manager should be like. You should be able to live your life the way you want to, with Willie. Being out and proud to the world because that’s who you are. And who you are is fierce and amazing and fantastic.”

A single tear rolled off Alex’s cheek. “I’m gonna miss you, Violet,” he whispered before wrapping his arms around the girl’s body. He buried his face in her neck whilst she rubbed soothing circles on his back and tried not to cry herself.

“I’m gonna miss you too, Alex,” she whispered back and then, “Promise me you’ll talk to the boys about finding a new manager? About coming out to your fans? About being the authentic you?”

The boy nodded his head while disentangling himself from the hug. “I promise. Thank you… For making me believe there’s still good in the world.”

Violet smiled at this. That was exactly what she needed to hear.

“Let’s get to the music room, yeah? Time for this bitch to get back home.” She proudly pointed at herself at the word ‘bitch’ before getting up and reaching out a hand towards Alex.

Intertwining their pinkies together, Alex and Violet made their way down to the basement where everyone else already was. A nervous flutter went through her stomach. She was going to have to say goodbye to this lot. The people she had come to love. The people that had become her best friends. Even more so than the people in her own universe.

“Hey guys,” Violet started, capturing everyone’s attention. They all looked at her with interest and solemn flickers in their eyes. Except Luke. He was scowling. She knew he hated her for having to leave. He hated her for lying to him. For keeping a secret. For making him fall in love with her and then disappearing. “Before I go… I just wanted to say thank you for making me feel at home here. Especially you girls, I know I said some things that I didn’t mean and that it wasn’t easy for you to believe me. So, thank you for making this adventure a little more bearable.”

“Thank you for giving us the best summer ever,” Julie replied before leaping up towards Violet and wrapping her up into a hug. Carrie and Flynn followed her example, throwing themselves into the group hug together.

Giggles filled the space while tears rolled down their faces. These girls had found a special place in Violet’s heart and she was going to miss them even though they were back home, too. It wouldn’t be the same.

Violet carefully pushed the girls off her, facing the boys now. “I just wanna say one thing to you boys: get a new management team. Stay true to yourself. Be yourself. Keep writing absolute tunes and travel the world. If I ever do get back here, make sure you’re on your world tour, yeah?”

The boys chuckled and even Luke let out a small huff.

“We’re gonna miss you, Vi,” Reggie stated and opened his arms for her to walk into. He wrapped her up into a hug, then took a step aside for Bobby and Alex to do the same. When they broke apart, the boys stepped aside and Luke appeared in front of her.

Her heart skipped a beat upon seeing him. He still looked angry. He didn’t even look at her. This wasn’t how she wanted to say goodbye to him. Not with him being mad at her.

“Luke,” she started softly. This was the other’s cue to move to the other side of the rehearsal space, just so the two could have some sort of privacy. “I’m sorry for not telling you sooner. I’m sorry for all the hurt I caused. I’m sorry for–” Luke swallowed her last words by pressing his lips to hers.

It was sudden and Violet wasn’t sure what was happening at first until his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer. She melted into the kiss. She melted in his arms. She completely melted into him.

All the sexual tension, the jealousy, the daydreaming about him,... it all washed away with one kiss.

“I had to do this once more before you left,” he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers. “I know you can’t stay, but please, come back when you can?” he asked but his voice could barely carry. These were words just for Violet. No one else should be hearing them.

“I’ll try,” she whispered back and wiped the single tear off his cheek before it could fall.

There was so much more they wanted to say to one another, but no words could ever possibly describe it. So instead, Luke wrapped Violet up into a hug. Her arms snaked around his waist, her face buried in his neck as did his in hers. She inhaled his scent one last time. He pressed his lips in her neck to taste her one last time.

Soon enough, the others engulfed the couple into a group hug. All of them were crying. All of them felt the pain and sadness of a goodbye. This was the hardest goodbye they ever had to endure. Harder than saying goodbye to family before heading off on tour.

This was goodbye forever.

“Okay, let’s do this,” Violet whispered, disentangling herself from her friends.

Wiping at their eyes, everyone took their spot and their instruments. Violet guided them through the song a few times. Explaining the chords and notes. Explaining which verse was whose. All while her chest hurt and she felt like crying even more.

This was the last time they were ever going to sing together. The last song as a band. The last song ever. She didn’t want it to end, but as they went through verses and choruses, the end came nearer and nearer.

“I'll be the ears you talk to The doors you walk through The arms to hold on to You're save with me”

Violet felt a tingle in her toes. Would this be the feeling she felt before zapping back to her universe?

“Your hearts been stolen Eyes weren't open Trust is broken But I'll make you believe again Make you stronger So we'll live longer You've lost your faith in love But I'll make you believe again”

The boys slowed down with the instruments as Violet’s voice chimed through the amps. The girls quickly joined into a beautiful harmony that sent shivers down everyone’s spine.

“I'll give you the strength that you need to forget I'll be the last thing that you would regret Make you believe in love again”

The tingling feeling in her toes rose up to her legs, then her stomach to eventually nestle in her chest. It felt as though Violet was floating through the air and she had to shut her eyes. She was scared that if she kept them open, everything would disappear in front of her.

“Ah ah ah Ah ah ah I'll make you believe again”

“Oh oh oh Oh oh oh”

“I'll make you believe”

The tingle in her body disappeared and when Violet opened her eyes again, she wasn’t in Julie’s garage anymore. She was in a spacious room, surrounded by the people she knew best; Flynn, Julie, Carrie. Even the Sunset Curve boys were there. The actual Sunset Curve boys. She knew she was back. Luke wasn’t wearing his comfort flannel anymore and wore a sleeveless shirt instead with the orange beanie she had come to love.

“Oh oh oh Oh oh oh I'll make you believe again”

The confused looks on their faces told her they weren’t sure if it was really her or her parallel self. They exchanged glances with one another, trying to figure all of it out.

“Your hearts been stolen Eyes weren't open Trust is broken But I'll make you believe again Make you stronger So we'll live longer You've lost your faith in love But I'll make you believe again”

“Oh oh oh Oh oh oh I'll make you believe”

The boys quit playing their instruments, so it was just the girls’ voices that carried through the room. The four were facing each other and judging from the way Violet was looking at them with that proud, ‘I missed you’ smile on her face, they were pretty certain it was her.

“Ah ah ah Ah ah ah I'll make you believe again”

Violet lowered her microphone and panted from exhaustion. “Gosh, I’ve missed singing with you.”

“It’s really you?” Carrie asked. “Our Violet?”

“Yeah,” Violet whispered. “It’s me, it worked. It actually worked.” She was a little surprised herself.

“Welcome home, Violet,” said Alex from behind his drum kit.

Home. She was home.

Everything Taglist:

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JATP Taglist:

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Luke/Charlie Taglist:

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TAGLIST | MASTERLIST | PARALLELS MASTERLIST

#parallels #jatp #julie and the phantoms #luke patterson #oc! violet grace dawson

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husbandomail · 3 years

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Could you make a headcanon/short scenerio about the og bakugan brawlers + mira, keith, ace, baron and gus having a game night? I need smth funny and cute about them spending some family time so just do whatever you imagine it could happen when you put all of them in a room to play family games lol. I hope you'll have fun doing this 😃

Getting everyone together for a game night is pretty rough— Shun and Ace pretend they’re too busy to spend time with the group, Baron has no idea how any of these human board games work, and his erratic energy combines with Julie’s to overwhelm everyone very loudly. It’s gonna be chaos.

Marucho and Runo do their best to explain the rules of each game; eventually, though, everyone gets restless, and Dan just insists they can check the manual if anyone has a question. Someone makes the mistake of suggesting they start with Monopoly— they barely get a half-hour in before the shouting starts.

Okay, Monopoly is banned. Keith puts it on the tallest shelf and glares at anyone who tries to get it back down. From there, Julie tries pulling out an older version of that Mall Madness board game, but only Runo and Mira are interested in humoring her. It takes them awhile to walk Mira through a first round, because she still doesn’t understand human malls at this point.

While the girls are doing that, the guys pull out card games, and Marucho and Baron wander over to the wall of game consoles. They’re probably the most relaxed of the group; Marucho boots up Mario Kart and Baron gets happily wrapped up in the colors and sounds. Even though it takes him a long time to understand the game and the controller in his hands, he’s not a sore loser, and just has fun.

Ace and Shun end up butting heads over every card game they try to play— it ranges from War to Uno, and they’re constantly accusing the other of cheating somehow. Well, once the accusations start flying, they start actually cheating, although neither of them is very good at it; cards up sleeves, shaking the table to mess everything up. Dan isn’t going to be left out of the chaos, and Keith and Gus didn’t know the rules to begin with, so suddenly they’re all more invested in comically rigging the game instead of playing properly.

#bakugan #battle brawlers #new vestroia #headcanons #imagines #anon

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rebellionbeach · 3 years

Text

HELLO apparently July 28th is the release date for Down to Earth therefore in honor of its 42nd birthday I wanna do a ranking of all the songs based on my personal preference of course.

(I’m only doing songs from the original studio release sorry no Bad Girl or Weiss Heim but they’re both sexy ;))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwCsMQWkN3g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7YOM4gx3RE (spark don’t mean a fire aka the alternate version don’t worry it’s beautiful)

8. No Time To Lose: Starting off this list we’ve got the second song off this record and it isn’t bad in anyway. In fact, it’s very upbeat and energetic, especially with Graham’s absolutely stunning vocals. However, compared to the rest of the list I feel it falls just a bit short. The lyrics themselves are actually pretty dark looking at them with examples such as, “It ain’t no lie, you’re hurting and you don’t know why.” Don’t know what Roger or Ritchie were going through but damn, anyway, musically the song is also very strong. The guitar riff is addicting but I feel it’s the combination of, again, Graham’s vocals and Cozy’s monstrous drumming that gives this song so much energy. Not bad at all from a song that’s at the bottom of a list.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P17ct4e5OE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v0bDfZytwk (Russ Ballard version, it’s really good)

7. Since You’ve Been Gone: Listen, I know many may judge this choice but I didn’t put this song at the bottom because of one, the sentimental value it has, and two, it’s not a bad song at all. Okay, it’s not the best as well but Russ Ballard made a beautiful song about heartbreak that is only made greater by this glorious lineup. I’ve actually listened to Ballard’s originally version and while it isn’t bad, I feel that Graham really helped cement this song and really put Rainbow on the charts. I especially enjoy the interlude section that drops into a sweet ballad type tone before dropping back into the chorus. Graham’s versatile vocals are well-equipped to amplify this song to a new level and not only that but without this song I probably would have never started listening to Rainbow. Although very commercialized and maybe too light to many, this song holds a special place in my heart and I do love it dearly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2XDORONuuY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmQBKq0d_-I (Cozy Powell mix, yes it’s exactly what you’d think it would sound like if the drummer was the producer)

6. All Night Long: The second real commercialized song on this album and honestly the last. However, where it differs from the other is that this song still has big traces of that hard rock attitude that Rainbow had emerged into. That simple yet beautiful riff that gets stuck in your head, Cozy’s powerful drumming, Graham’s powerhouse vocals, I mean what else do you really want from a song. Just from that opening riff you feel that rush of just pure hard rock energy shiver through your body. It really is just a fun hard rock song that, although may not be anything too complex, isn’t bad at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeVFTeXs1o8

5. Danger Zone: Danger Zone always stood out to me as a very interesting and different song. Don is absolutely phenomenal in this song, especially his keyboard solo which Ritchie follows up upon to make a beautiful instrumental section. I’d be remiss to not mention Graham who hits at some of his highest parts here. This song really showed off the prowess of his full vocal abilities, hitting high notes with all the strength you’d expect from a hard rock singer. The actual lyrics of the song are quite beautiful as well I believe. Parts such as, “Don’t understand when you’re looking for a dame but it’s only a heartbreak away. And you’ll learn, faking has no return.” Really suspecting some mental instability from either Roger or Ritchie at this point...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8FcrH1lDeY

4. Eyes of the World: Many may be surprised why this song isn’t higher up the list but trust me, I have good reasons. Eyes of the World is definitely a highlight piece in this album and really is a final goodbye to the Dio era of Rainbow. The subject manner is very of that era and really feels like it could have been sung by Ronnie. I think to many this song helped alleviate the fears that Rainbow had gone fully vapid with it’s material (though we’ll see how that sentiment drags on throughout the next few years) Don Airey truly deserves the limelight here for that incredible keyboard intro that just sucks you into that dark world of evil. He really makes this song something truly special. Cozy Powell is phenomenal throughout all these tracks but especially in this track where he’s at his home environment and just listen to the interludes between the chorus and verse, just incredible. Then to our man of the hour, Graham Bonnet, he just absolutely kills it here. He puts so much passion and emotion into the vocals that I find it strange how anyone could possibly still doubt him as a suitable vocalist for the band. Ritchie’s solo here as well is probably one of my favorites off of this album just really makes this song something truly special. I often like to compare this piece to the Gates of Babylon or Tarot Woman to Down to Earth with an incredible keyboard intro and other-wordly themes of evil and darkness that make it a classic Rainbow tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU__fm6QFvk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzQZoOvzzNo (Ain’t A Lot of Love In the Heart of Me, it’s brilliant and honestly parts are somewhat better than the final version lol)

3. Love’s No Friend: I remember reading an article that talked about this song being Rainbow’s Mistreated. That description always had stayed with me and while I partially agree with the statement, I also think this song is very different from the former. Yes, both deal with heartbreak and emanates a grandiose sense of grievance from that sentiment however it differs in how that sentiment is delivered. Mistreated, as stated by Blackmore, is really just a guitar song. The relies both on David’s great bluesy voice that can conceive that anguish in his voice like no other vocalist can (love ya Dave) and Blackmore’s just heart-wrenching solo at the end which is probably one of the most emotional guitar solos I’ve ever heard. With Love’s No Friend I find that it’s more of a complete package having all elements of the band contribute to the piece. Not that but the lyrics are much more refined in this song. I often find Mistreated’s lyrics very stale and boring since they’re basically just “I’ve been mistreated, I’ve been abused,” and the only reason they get away with that is because of David’s incredible vocal performances. Trust me, Graham’s an incredible performer as well but these lyrics have much more substance to them and I feel just stands taller as a complete song. Speaking of Graham, this is probably his strongest performance in the album. You know what part I’m talking about if you’ve listened to this song but THAT part is just wow, that solidified him as one of my favorite vocalists of all time. The entire song is really just a masterpiece and really just stands as one of the best Rainbow tunes in my opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1LvViMLKNo

2. Makin’ Love - Oh this song, how can I express my love for this song in ways that I haven’t already before. Well if you didn’t know before, I put this as #5 on my top 5 Rainbow tunes and I still stick to it. Let me just say, this is one of my favorite intros to any songs ever. Don Airey is just magical in this entire album (and his entire career) but he especially shines here. The simple yet beautiful little touches he adds throughout this song really makes it so much more profound. That, once again, addicting Blackmore riff that just goes on throughout the song making the listener feel as if they’re going through a lonely yet sentimental walk down memory lane. It kind of almost reminds me of one of my favorite Rick Springfield songs, Written In Rock, in that manner. I guess I’m just a sucker for a pretty love ballad but man does Graham make it even better. The man just had the perfect voice for these types of songs (please listen to Will You Be Home Tonight as an example) and he’s able to convey those vulnerable tones in his voice while maintaining that strong hard rock attitude like I’ve seen no other singer be able to. I didn’t even mention the sudden shift during the pre-chorus that’s complimented with Cozy’s ferocious cymbal playing. Overall, I’m just a sucker for a nice love song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRLHHftZEJA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eRLQyXzZ1Y (the live Alcatrazz version because Yngwie is a cocky little piece of work and gets his guitar unplugged for 1 minute of the song, Graham is a beast here)

1. Lost In Hollywood - The magnum opus, probably not only the greatest Rainbow song but one of the greatest songs ever written and produced. I’ve already gone into detail about this song in my overall album review but just on first listening you can definitely tell that this song is something else. The energy, the tempo, is almost seems rushing like they’re running out of time on the record to give everything they wanted to show to the listener. The lyrics sort of remind me of Super Trouper (the Deep Purple one okay) if Super Trouper was an overdramatic and grandiose love ballad. It’s obvious that the song is talking about the overbearing nature of becoming famous and the sacrifices one has to make to get to the mantle. One of my favorite song lyrics of all time perfectly exemplify this through, “I’m gonna lose control, if I’ve been losing you to pay for rock and roll.” They’re lost in Hollywood, not just the actual place but the lifestyle that befits every star. I still think that Super Trouper as a song is a more profound piece on the effects of stardom as a whole but this song as well is beautifully written to talk about those themes in maybe not so personal manners. The song really is just a beautiful showcase of the talents that were the Mark 4 lineup of Rainbow and stands in my eyes as one of the finest pieces of music ever created.

Yeah, I’ve probably over exaggerated enough. Once again, I’m very biased here but I’m also speaking with my own tastes and experiences in mind. Despite the constant lineup changes, Blackmore always seems to find the most top-notch musicians and I believe this lineup truly exemplified that. It’s a shame that they couldn’t continue on but at least we got this album as a glorious reminder of what 5 musicians can do with enough talent and probably alcohol.

Also, the hallmark of all live performances: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5VPzJlUKVc

#rainbow #rainbow band #ritchie blackmore #cozy powell #don airey #roger glover #graham bonnet #well it's not july 28th anymore #i love this lineup dearly #graham is my ichibansan #look forward to the 28 page thesis on why graham bonnet was the best rainbow vocalist up next

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argumentl · 3 years

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The Freedom of Expression, radio version - Ep 41, July 2016 - Underwater band Aquasonic, Tracking a spouse with GPS, Ichiro beats Pete Rose's world record.

Kaoru starts by commenting about how close he came to not being able to play Utafumi on the last show. He thinks Hiranabe was talking so much on purpose. He then asks listeners to contact the show as usual, and reminds them of the ongoing new jingle campaign. He will play some more entries on the show once he has a few more gathered up.

Kaoru's first topic is about a 5-piece band from Denmark named Aquasonic, who perform music entirely submerged in water tanks. They have specially designed instruments, and use no oxygen tanks, but come up for breath at timed intervals during the performance. Kaoru thinks this band is cool. Joe says the sound that they produce is very mysterious, and Kaoru agrees. He is pretty perplexed as to the types of instruments and methods the band uses. Joe comments that when we usually hear music, it comes via vibrations in the air, but with this we are hearing the sound vibrate through water. Rather than the freedom of expression, this is more like seeing the possibility of expression increase. It may be possible to produce sounds in this way that human ears have never heard before. Watching the video of the band's performance, Kaoru felt an entirely new sensation, and felt inspired in regards to the possibilities that are out there. Joe mentions that he recently interviewed a musical saw player on his other radio show, who claimed that when he played his music in the mountains, the bugs and birds sang out in unison with him. Joe thinks that in this age of everything digital, there is a whole world of discovery waiting to be unlocked in the natural world. Kaoru mentions that playing underwater could also be different if done in the sea, due to the effect of the waves etc. The vibrations in the sea would be different from in a water tank. Joe thinks that although this idea comes with a certain physical danger (being submerged underwater), its great if something that has been overlooked for so long could give new creative ideas. Maybe he is a bit of a romanticist. Kaoru repeats that he finds this idea quite fascinating, and Joe suggests using underwater music as this show's bgm. Kaoru replies, no, this is not possible.

Tasai joins them next for the Tokyo Sports corner. He congratulates Kaoru on the public revelation of the new single.

His first news story is about the comedian/impressionist Kintalo, who gave some marriage advice to her newly married friend, Yashiro Yu. The advice was, 'Don't track your husband with GPS'. The reason for this is that Kintalo herself had used GPS to track her own husband 24/7, and it had soured thier relationship. Joe is not surprised that it affected thier marriage. Tasai questions the idea of a woman wanting to spy on a man who she likes 24/7. Kaoru says it works both ways though, it would be just as bad for a man to spy on a woman. He also says this type of thing infringes on the relationship of trust between close people.

Kami then joins the conversation to say that he agrees with using GPS to track a spouse. Joe and Kaoru disagreeing with the idea makes them look like they are guilty of something. Kaoru says even if he is not guilty of anything, he just doesn't want anyone to know if he's been to the amusement park, and rode on the roller coaster or that type of thing. Kami insists that there are so many deceptive people out there, its definitely better to track them. Joe asks Kami how he would feel if he was tracked with GPS by a girlfriend. Kami says he would be completely happy with that. He isn't like Joe. Joe says its not really the GPS thats the problem, its just not a nice feeling when someone doubts you. Kami says there is nothing about him that would get him into trouble if discovered, so Joe asks in that case, why does he use that weird voice? Kami gets angry and accuses Joe of discrimination. This is his natural voice! Kaoru suggests that Kami, being a god, ought to know the whereabouts of everyone anyway, even without gps. Kami says he does, and that is why he's happy to wear a gps device himself. Joe asks Kami if he can see what Hiranabe is doing right now. Kami says he can, he is out drinking. Tasai confirms that this is true. Kami then repeats his assertion that anyone who refused to be tracked with gps must be harbouring some kind of guilt. Tasai admits he wouldn't like to be tracked skipping work or something, and says that everyone has little things to be guilty about in this way. Joe aks Kami if he's never skipped work on his night-shift. After a very brief, but telling pause, Kami says he has never skipped work. The others get the feeling that he probably has. Before leaving, Kami comments on how short the new song Utafumi was, and Kaoru has to remind him that this was the promotional edit. version.

Tasai's next story relates to baseball, specifically that Ichiro has overtaken Pete Rose's world record of 4256 hits. This is a total of his combined hits from in Japan and the USA, which causes some people not to recognize the record. Pete Rose himself does not recognize it, comparing hits in Japan to high school hits. On the other hand, some point out that fewer games are played in Japan than in the states, which makes Ichiro's tally all the more impressive. Kaoru says that record or not, there are always gonna be people who are stingy about this kind of thing. Tasai says that even Japanese comedian Ariyoshi had half-jokingly called Rose a piece of trash over this issue. Kaoru states that a record is still a record, to which Tasai responds that Ichiro could claim the world record and Rose could claim the major league record.

Kami then appears again to suggest that Ariyoshi's use of the word 'trash' (クズ/kuzu) could be a play on words with the food 'kuzu' (*I think*). Joe aks Kami if has any records of his own. Kami says his record is that he has never skipped work, and never been late for work. The others are not that impressed with this. Kami ends up calling them all 'trash' too.

To close the show, Kaoru plugs the release of Utafumi, and the upcoming DSS tour. He mentions they will play at Nakano Sun Plaza for the last time during this tour, as the venue is due to close. They will also play new music other than Utafumi on the tour. They may even play some of the songs that were rejected from the new album. Next he mentions that a 'Best of' album is in the works for the following year, reminds listeners of the new jingle campaign, and plugs his blog. He says his blog is due to feature a guest for the first time, namely LM.C's Aiji. Joe asks Kaoru if he has any summer vacation plans before the next tour starts in September. Kaoru says he will only be in Tokyo working on new music, so maybe they could think of something special to do for this show. Kami appears once again to tell them to wear a gps device if they make any plans. Joe suggests Kami must be late for his night shift by now, but Kami says he has taken the day off. Also that Dir en grey shouldn't worry about being tracked with gps because they surely have nothing to hide. Kaoru says he prefers to remain a little mysterious. They finish by repeating thier desire to make some kind of summer plan for the show. Kami will have to take time off to avoid being late for work, which is the exact opposite of Hiranabe who is unapologetically late for everything.

Songs - Dir en grey/Utafumi, Snot/Joy Ride.

#dir en grey #the freedom of expression #radio

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holyhellpod · 3 years

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Holy Hell: 3. Metanarrativity: Who’s the Deleuze and who’s the Guattari in your relationship? aka the analysis no one asked for.

In this ep, we delve into authorship, narrative, fandom and narrative meaning. And somehow, as always, bring it back to Cas and Misha Collins.

(Note: the reason I didn’t talk about Billie’s authorship and library is because I completely forgot it existed until I watched season 13 “Advanced Thanatology” again, while waiting for this episode to upload. I’ll find a way to work her into later episodes tho!)

I had to upload it as a new podcast to Spotify so if you could just re-subscribe that would be great! Or listen to it at these other links.

Please listen to the bit at the beginning about monetisation and if you have any questions don’t hesitate to message me here.

Apple | Spotify | Google

Transcript under the cut!

Warnings: discussions of incest, date rape, rpf, war, 9/11, the bush administration, abuse, mental health, addiction, homelessness. Most of these are just one off comments, they’re not full discussions.

Meta-Textuality: Who’s the Deleuze and who’s the Guattari in your relationship?

In the third episode of Season 6, “The Third Man,” Balthazar says to Cas, “you tore up the whole script and burned the pages.” That is the fundamental idea the writers of the first five seasons were trying to sell us: whatever grand plan the biblical God had cooking up is worth nothing in face of the love these men have—for each other and the world. Sam, Bobby, Cas and Dean will go to any lengths to protect one another and keep people safe. What’s real? What’s worth saving? People are real. Families are worth saving.

This show plugs free will as the most important thing a person, angel, demon or otherwise can have. The fact of the matter is that Dean was always going to fight against the status quo, Sam was always going to go his own way, and Bobby was always going to do his best for his boys. The only uncertainty in the entire narrative is Cas. He was never meant to rebel. He was never meant to fall from Heaven. He was supposed to fall in line, be a good soldier, and help bring on the apocalypse, but Cas was the first agent of free will in the show’s timeline. Sam followed Lucifer, Dean followed Michael, and John gave himself up for the sins of his children, at once both a God and Jesus figure. But Cas wasn’t modelled off anyone else. He is original. There are definitely some parallels to Ruby, but I would argue those are largely unintentional. Cas broke the mold.

That’s to say nothing of the impact he’s had on the fanbase, and the show itself, which would not have reached 15 seasons and be able to end the way they wanted it to without Cas and Misha Collins. His back must be breaking from carrying the entire show.

But what the holy hell are we doing here today? Not just talking about Cas. We’re talking about metanarrativity: as I define it, and for purposes of this episode, the story within a story, and the act of storytelling. We’re going to go through a select few episodes which I think exemplify the best of what this show has to offer in terms of framing the narrative. We’ll talk about characters like Chuck and Becky and the baby dykes in season 10. And most importantly we’ll talk about the audience’s role, our role, in the reciprocal relationship of storytelling. After all, a tv show is nothing without the viewer.

I was in fact introduced to the concept of metanarrativity by Supernatural, so the fact that I’m revisiting it six years after I finished my degree to talk about the show is one of life’s little jokes.

I’m brushing off my degree and bringing out the big guns (aka literary theorists) to examine this concept. This will be yet another piece of analysis that would’ve gone well in my English Lit degree, but I’ll try not to make it dry as dog shit.

First off, I’m going to argue that the relationship between the creators of Supernatural and the fans has always been a dialogue, albeit with a power imbalance. Throughout the series, even before explicitly metanarrative episodes like season 10 “Fan Fiction” and season 4 “the monster at the end of this book,” the creators have always engaged in conversations with the fans through the show. This includes but is not limited to fan conventions, where the creators have actual, live conversations with the fans. Misha Collins admitted at a con that he’d read fanfiction of Cas while he was filming season 4, but it’s pretty clear even from the first season that the creators, at the very least Eric Kripke, were engaging with fans. The show aired around the same time as Twitter and Tumblr were created, both of which opened up new passageways for fans to interact with each other, and for Twitter and Facebook especially, new passageways for fans to interact with creators and celebrities.

But being the creators, they have ultimate control over what is written, filmed and aired, while we can only speculate and make our own transformative interpretations. But at least since s4, they have engaged in meta narrative construction that at once speaks to fans as well as expands the universe in fun and creative ways. My favourite episodes are the ones where we see the Winchesters through the lens of other characters, such as the season 3 episode “Jus In Bello,” in which Sam and Dean are arrested by Victor Henriksen, and the season 7 episode “Slash Fiction” in which Dean and Sam’s dopplegangers rob banks and kill a bunch of people, loathe as I am to admit that season 7 had an effect on any part of me except my upchuck reflex. My second favourite episodes are the meta episodes, and for this episode of Holy Hell, we’ll be discussing a few: The French Mistake, he Monster at the end of this book, the real ghostbusters, Fan Fiction, Metafiction, and Don’t Call Me Shurley. I’ll also discuss Becky more broadly, because, like, of course I’ll be discussing Becky, she died for our sins.

Let’s take it back. The Monster At The End Of This Book — written by Julie Siege and Nancy Weiner and directed by Mike Rohl. Inarguably one of the better episodes in the first five seasons. Not only is Cas in it, looking so beautiful, but Sam gets something to do, thank god, and it introduces the character of Chuck, who becomes a source of comic relief over the next two seasons. The episode starts with Chuck Shurley, pen named Carver Edlund after my besties, having a vision while passed out drunk. He dreams of Sam and Dean larping as Feds and finding a series of books based on their lives that Chuck has written. They eventually track Chuck down, interrogate him, and realise that he’s a prophet of the lord, tasked with writing the Winchester Gospels. The B plot is Sam plotting to kill Lilith while Dean fails to get them out of the town to escape her. The C plot is Dean and Cas having a moment that strengthens their friendship and leads further into Cas’s eventual disobedience for Dean. Like the movie Disobedience. Exactly like the movie Disobedience. Cas definitely spits in Dean’s mouth, it’s kinda gross to be honest. Maybe I’m just not allo enough to appreciate art.

When Eric Kripke was showrunner of the first five seasons of Supernatural, he conceptualised the character of Chuck. Kripke as the author-god introduced the character of the author-prophet who would later become in Jeremy Carver’s showrun seasons the biblical God. Judith May Fathallah writes in “I’m A God: The Author and the Writing Fan in Supernatural” that Kripke writes himself both into and out of the text, ending his era with Chuck winking at the camera, saying, “nothing really ends,” and disappearing. Kripke stayed on as producer, continuing to write episodes through Sera Gamble’s era, and was even inserted in text in the season 6 episode “The French Mistake”. So nothing really does end, not Kripke’s grip on the show he created, not even the show itself, which fans have jokingly referred to as continuing into its 16th season. Except we’re not joking. It will die when all of us are dead, when there is no one left to remember it. According to W R Fisher, humans are homo narrans, natural storytellers. The Supernatural fandom is telling a fidelitous narrative, one which matches our own beliefs, values and experiences instead of that of canon. Instead of, at Fathallah says, “the Greek tradition, that we should struggle to do the right thing simply because it is right, though we will suffer and be punished anyway,” the fans have created an ending for the characters that satisfies each and every one of our desires, because we each create our own endings. It’s better because we get to share them with each other, in the tradition of campfire stories, each telling our own version and building upon the others. If that’s not the epitome of mythmaking then I don’t know. It’s just great. Dean and Cas are married, Eileen and Sam are married, Jack is sometimes a baby who Claire and Kaia are forced to babysit, Jody and Donna are gonna get hitched soon. It’s season 17, time for many weddings, and Kevin Tran is alive. Kripke, you have no control over this anymore, you crusty hag.

Chuck is introduced as someone with power, but not influence over the story, only how the story is told through the medium of the novels. It’s basically a very badly written, non authorised biography, and Charlie reading literally every book and referencing things she should have no knowledge of is so damn creepy and funny. At first Chuck is surprised by his characters coming to life, despite having written it already, and when shown the intimidating array of weapons in Baby’s trunk he gets real scared. Which is the appropriate response for a skinny 5-foot-8 white guy in a bathrobe who writes terrible fantasy novels for a living.

As far as I can remember, this is the first explicitly metanarrative episode in the series, or at least the first one with in world consequences. It builds upon the lore of Christianity, angels, and God, while teasing what’s to come. Chuck and Sam have a conversation about how the rest of the season is going to play out, and Sam comes away with the impression that he’ll go down with the ship. They touch on Sam’s addiction to demon blood, which Chuck admits he didn’t write into the books, because in the world of supernatural, addiction should be demonised ha ha at every opportunity, except for Dean’s alcoholism which is cool and manly and should never be analysed as an unhealthy trauma coping mechanism.

Chuck is mostly impotent in the story of Sam and Dean, but his very presence presents an element of good luck that turns quickly into a force of antagonism in the series four finale, “Lucifer Rising”, when the archangel Raphael who defeats Lilith in this episode also kills Cas in the finale. It’s Cas’s quick thinking and Dean’s quick doing that resolve the episode and save them from Lilith, once again proving that free will is the greatest force in the universe. Cas is already tearing up pages and burning scripts. The fandom does the same, acting as gods of their own making in taking canon and transforming it into fan art. The fans aren’t impotent like Chuck, but neither do we have sway over the story in the way that Cas and Dean do. Sam isn’t interested in changing the story in the same way—he wants to kill Lilith and save the world, but in doing so continues the story in the way it was always supposed to go, the way the angels and the demons and even God wanted him to.

Neither of them are author-gods in the way that God is. We find out later that Chuck is in fact the real biblical god, and he engineers everything. The one thing he doesn’t engineer, however, is Castiel, and I’ll get to that in a minute.

The Real Ghostbusters

Season 5’s “The real ghostbusters,” written by Nancy Weiner and Erik Kripke, and directed by James L Conway, situates the Winchesters at a fan convention for the Supernatural books. While there, they are confronted by a slew of fans cosplaying as Sam, Dean, Bobby, the scarecrow, Azazel, and more. They happen to stumble upon a case, in the midst of the game where the fans pretend to be on a case, and with the help of two fans cosplaying as Sam and Dean, they put to rest a group of homicidal ghost children and save the day. Chuck as the special guest of the con has a hero moment that spurs Becky on to return his affections. And at the end, we learn that the Colt, which they’ve been hunting down to kill the devil, was given to a demon named Crowley. It’s a fun episode, but ultimately skippable. This episode isn’t so much metanarrative as it is metatextual—metatextual meaning more than one layer of text but not necessarily about the storytelling in those texts—but let’s take a look at it anyway.

The metanarrative element of a show about a series of books about the brothers the show is based on is dope and expands upon what we saw in “the monster at the end of this book”. But the episode tells a tale about about the show itself, and the fandom that surrounds it.

Where “The Monster At The End Of This Book” and the season 5 premiere “Sympathy For The Devil” poked at the coiled snake of fans and the concept of fandom, “the real ghostbusters” drags them into the harsh light of an enclosure and antagonises them in front of an audience. The metanarrative element revolves around not only the books themselves, but the stories concocted within the episode: namely Barnes and Demian the cosplayers and the story of the ghosts. The Winchester brothers’s history that we’ve seen throughout the first five seasons of the show is bared in a tongue in cheek way: while we cried with them when Sam and Dean fought with John, now the story is thrown out in such a way as to mock both the story and the fans’ relationship to it. Let me tell you, there is a lot to be made fun of on this show, but the fans’ relationship to the story of Sam, Dean and everyone they encounter along the way isn’t part of it. I don’t mean to be like, wow you can’t make fun of us ever because we’re special little snowflakes and we take everything so seriously, because you are welcome to make fun of us, but when the creators do it, I can’t help but notice a hint of malice. And I think that’s understandable in a way. Like The relationship between creator and fan is both layered and symbiotic. While Kripke and co no doubt owe the show’s popularity to the fans, especially as the fandom has grown and evolved over time, we’re not exactly free of sin. And don’t get me wrong, no fandom is. But the bad apples always seem to outweigh the good ones, and bad experiences can stick with us long past their due.

However, portraying us as losers with no lives who get too obsessed with this show — well, you know, actually, maybe they’re right. I am a loser with no life and I am too obsessed with this show. So maybe they have a point. But they’re so harsh about it. From wincestie Becky who they paint as a desperate shrew to these cosplayers who threaten Dean’s very perception of himself, we’re not painted in a very good light.

Dean says to Demian and Barnes, “It must be nice to get out of your mom’s basement.” He’s judging them for deriving pleasure from dressing up and pretending to be someone else for a night. He doesn’t seem to get the irony that he does that for a living. As the seasons wore on, the creators made sure to include episodes where Dean’s inner geek could run rampant, often in the form of dressing up like a cowboy, such as season six “Frontierland” and season 13 “Tombstone”. I had to take a break from writing this to laugh for five minutes because Dean is so funny. He’s a car gay but he only likes one car. He doesn’t follow sports. His echolalia causes him to blurt out lines from his favourite movies. He’s a posse magnet. And he loves cosplay. But he will continually degrade and insult anyone who expresses interest in role play, fandom, or interests in general. Maybe that’s why Sam is such a boring person, because Dean as his mother didn’t allow him to have any interests outside of hunting. And when Sam does express interests, Dean insults him too. What a dick. He’s my soulmate, but I am not going to stop listening to hair metal for him. That’s where I draw the line.

Where “the monster at the end of this book” is concerned with narrative and authorship, “the real ghostbusters” is concerned with fandom and fan reactions to the show. It’s not really the best example to talk about in an episode about metanarrativity, but I wanted to include it anyway. It veers from talk of narrative by focusing on the people in the periphery of the narrative—the fans and the author. In season 9 “Metafiction,” Metatron asks the question, who gives the story meaning? The text would have you believe it’s the characters. The angels think it’s God. The fandom think it’s us. The creators think it’s them. Perhaps we will never come to a consensus or even a satisfactory answer to this question. Perhaps that’s the point.

The ultimate takeaway from this episode is that ordinary people, the people Sam and Dean save, the people they save the world for, the people they die for again and again, are what give their story meaning. Chuck defeats a ghost and saves the people in the conference room from being murdered. Demian and Barnes, don’t ask me which is which, burn the bodies of the ghost children and lay their spirits to rest. The text says that ordinary, every day people can rise to the challenge of becoming extraordinary. It’s not a bad note to end on, by any means. And then we find out that Demian and Barnes are a couple, which of course Dean is surprised at, because he lacks object permanence.

This is no doubt influenced by how a good portion of the transformative fandom are queer, and also a nod to the wincesties and RPF writers like Becky who continue to bottom feed off the wrong message of this show. But then, the creators encourage that sort of thing, so who are the real clowns here? Everyone. Everyone involved with this show in any way is a clown, except for the crew, who were able to feed their families for more than a decade.

Okay side note… over the past year or so I’ve been in process of realising that even in fandom queers are in the minority. I know the statistic is that 10% of the world population is queer, but that doesn’t seem right to me? Maybe because 4/5 closest friends are queer and I hang around queers online, but I also think I lack object permanence when it comes to straight people. Like I just do not interact with straight people on a regular basis outside of my best friend and parents and school. So when I hear that someone in fandom is straight I’m like, what the fuck… can you keep that to yourself please? Like if I saw Misha Collins coming out as straight I would be like, I didn’t ask and you didn’t have to tell. Okay I’m mostly joking, but I do forget straight people exist. Mostly I don’t think about whether people are gay or trans or cis or straight unless they’ve explicitly said it and then yes it does colour my perception of them, because of course it would. If they’re part of the queer community, they’re my people. And if they’re straight and cis, then they could very well pose a threat to me and my wellbeing. But I never ask people because it’s not my business to ask. If they feel comfortable enough to tell me, that’s awesome. I think Dean feels the same way. Towards the later seasons at least, he has a good reaction when it’s revealed that someone is queer, even if it is mostly played off as a joke. It’s just that he doesn’t have a frame of reference in his own life to having a gay relationship, either his or someone he’s close to. He says to Cesar and Jesse in season 11 “The Critters” that they fight like brothers, because that’s the only way he knows how to conceptualise it. He doesn’t have a way to categorise his and Cas’s relationship, which is in many ways, long before season 15 “Despair,” harking back even to the parallels between Ruby and Cas in season 3 and 4, a romantic one, aside from that Cas is like a brother to him. Because he’s never had anyone in his life care for him the way Cas does that wasn’t Sam and Bobby, and he doesn’t recognise the romantic element of their relationship until literally Cas says it to him in the third last episode, he just—doesn’t know what his and Cas’s relationship is. He just really doesn’t know. And he grew up with a father who despised him for taking the mom and wife role in their family, the role that John placed him in, for being subservient to John’s wishes where Sam was more rebellious, so of course he wouldn’t understand either his own desires or those of anyone around him who isn’t explicitly shoving their tits in his face. He moulded his entire personality around what he thought John wanted of him, and John says to him explicitly in season 14 “Lebanon”, “I thought you’d have a family,” meaning, like him, wife and two rugrats. And then, dear god, Dean says, thinking of Sam, Cas, Jack, Claire, and Mary, “I have a family.” God that hurts so much. But since for most of his life he hasn’t been himself, he’s been the man he thought his father wanted him to be, he’s never been able to examine his own desires, wants and goals. So even though he’s really good at reading people, he is not good at reading other people’s desires unless they have nefarious intentions. Because he doesn’t recognise what he feels is attraction to men, he doesn’t recognise that in anyone else.

Okay that’s completely off topic, wow. Getting back to metanarrativity in “The Real Ghostbusters,” I’ll just cap it off by saying that the books in this episode are more a frame for the events than the events themselves. However, there are some good outtakes where Chuck answers some questions, and I’m not sure how much of that is scripted and how much is Rob Benedict just going for it, but it lends another element to the idea of Kripke as author-god. The idea of a fan convention is really cool, because at this point Supernatural conventions had been running for about 4 years, since 2006. It’s definitely a tribute to the fans, but also to their own self importance. So it’s a mixed bag, considering there were plenty of elements in there that show the good side of fandom and fans, but ultimately the Winchesters want nothing to do with it, consider it weird, and threaten Chuck when he says he’ll start releasing books again, which as far as they know is his only source of income. But it’s a fun episode and Dean is a grouchy bitch, so who the holy hell cares?

Season 10 episode “fanfiction” written by my close personal friend Robbie Thompson and directed by Phil Sgriccia is one of the funniest episodes this show has ever done. Not only is it full of metatextual and metanarrative jokes, the entire premise revolves around fanservice, but in like a fun and interesting way, not fanservice like killing the band Kansas so that Dean can listen to “Carry On My Wayward Son” in heaven twice. Twice. One version after another. Like I would watch this musical seven times in theatre, I would buy the soundtrack, I would listen to it on repeat and make all my friends listen to it when they attend my online Jitsi birthday party. This musical is my Hamilton. Top ten episodes of this show for sure. The only way it could be better is if Cas was there. And he deserved to be there. He deserved to watch little dyke Castiel make out with her girlfriend with her cute little wings, after which he and Dean share uncomfortable eye contact. Dean himself is forever coming to terms with the fact that gay people exist, but Cas should get every opportunity he can to hear that it’s super cool and great and awesome to be queer. But really he should be in every episode, all of them, all 300 plus episodes including the ones before angels were introduced. I’m going to commission the guy who edits Paddington into every movie to superimpose Cas standing on the highway into every episode at least once.

“Fan Fiction” starts with a tv script and the words “Supernatural pilot created by Eric Kripke”. This Immediately sets up the idea that it’s toying with narrative. Blah blah blah, some people go missing, they stumble into a scene from their worst nightmares: the school is putting on a musical production of a show inspired by the Supernatural books. It’s a comedy of errors. When people continue to go missing, Sam and Dean have to convince the girls that something supernatural is happening, while retaining their dignity and respect. They reveal that they are the real Sam and Dean, and Dean gives the director Marie a summary of their lives over the last five seasons, but they aren’t taken seriously. Because, like, of course they aren’t. Even when the girls realise that something supernatural is happening, they don’t actually believe that the musical they’ve made and the series of books they’re basing it on are real. Despite how Sam and Dean Winchester were literal fugitives for many years at many different times, and this was on the news, and they were wanted by the FBI, despite how they pretend to be FBI, and no one mentions it??? Did any of the staffwriters do the required reading or just do what I used to do for my 40 plus page readings of Baudrillard and just skim the first sentence of every paragraph? Neat hack for you: paragraphs are set up in a logical order of Topic, Example, Elaboration, Linking sentence. Do you have to read 60 pages of some crusty French dude waxing poetic about how his best friend Pierre wants to shag his wife and making that your problem? Read the first and last sentence of every paragraph. Boom, done. Just cut your work in half.

The musical highlights a lot of the important moments of the show so far. The brothers have, as Charlie Bradbury says, their “broment,” and as Marie says, their “boy melodrama scene,” while she insinuates that there is a sexual element to their relationship. This show never passed up an opportunity to mention incest. It’s like: mentioning incest 5000 km, not being disgusting 1 km, what a hard decision. Actually, they do have to walk on their knees for 100 miles through the desert repenting. But there are other moments—such as Mary burning on the ceiling, a classic, Castiel waiting for Dean at the side of the highway, and Azazel poisoning Sam. With the help of the high schoolers, Sam and Dean overcome Calliope, the muse and bad guy of the episode, and save the day. What began as their lives reinterpreted and told back to them turns into a story they have some agency over.

In this episode, as opposed to “The Monster At The End Of This Book,” The storytelling has transferred from an alcoholic in a bathrobe into the hands of an overbearing and overachieving teenage girl, and honestly why not. Transformative fiction is by and large run by women, and queer women, so Marie and her stage manager slash Jody Mills’s understudy Maeve are just following in the footsteps of legends. This kind of really succinctly summarises the difference between curative fandom and transformative fandom, the former of which is populated mostly by men, and the latter mostly by women. As defined by LordByronic in 2015, Curative fandom is more like enjoying the text, collecting the merchandise, organising the knowledge — basically Reddit in terms of fandom curation. Transformative fandom is transforming the source text in some way — making fanart, fanfic, mvs, or a musical — basically Tumblr in general, and Archive of our own specifically. Like what do non fandom people even do on Tumblr? It is a complete mystery to me. Whereas Chuck literally writes himself into the narrative he receives through visions, Marie and co have agency and control over the narrative by writing it themselves.

Chuck does appear in the episode towards the end, his first appearance after five seasons. The theory that he killed those lesbian theatre girls makes me wanna curl up and die, so I don’t subscribe to it. Chuck watched the musical and he liked it and he gave unwarranted notes and then he left, the end.

The Supernatural creative team is explicitly acknowledging the fandom’s efforts by making this episode. They’re writing us in again, with more obsessive fans, but with lethbians this time, which makes it infinitely better. And instead of showing us as potential date rapists, we’re just cool chicks who like to make art. And that’s fucken awesome.

I just have to note that the characters literally say the word Destiel after Dean sees the actors playing Dean and Cas making out. He storms off and tells Sam to shut the fuck up when Sam makes fun of him, because Dean’s sexuality is NOT threatened he just needs to assert his dominance as a straight hetero man who has NEVER looked at another man’s lips and licked his own. He just… forgets that gay people exist until someone reminds him. BUT THEN, after a rousing speech that is stolen from Rent or Wicked or something, he echoes Marie’s words back, saying “put as much sub into that text as you possibly can.” What does Dean know about subbing, I wonder. Okay I’m suddenly reminded that he did literally go to a kink bar and get hit on by a leather daddy. Oh Dean, the experiences you have as a broad-shouldered, pixie-faced man with cowboy legs. You were born for this role.

Metatron is my favourite villain. As one tumblr user pointed out, he is an evil English literature major, which is just a normal English literature major. The season nine episode “Meta Fiction” written by my main man robbie thompson and directed by thomas j wright, happens within a curious season. Castiel, once again, becomes the leader of a portion of the heavenly host to take down Metatron, and Dean is affected by the Mark Of Cain. Sam was recently possessed by Gadreel, who killed Kevin in Sam’s body and then decided to run off with Metatron. Metatron himself is recruiting angels to join him, in the hopes that he can become the new God. It’s the first introduction of Hannah, who encourages Cas to recruit angels himself to take on Metatron. Also, we get to see Gabriel again, who is always a delight.

This episode is a lot of fun. Metatron poses questions like, who tells a story and who is the most important person in the telling? Is it the writer? The audience? He starts off staring over his typewriter to address the camera, like a pompous dickhead. No longer content with consuming stories, he’s started to write his own. And they are hubristic ones about becoming God, a better god than Chuck ever was, but to do it he needs to kill a bunch of people and blame it on Cas. So really, he’s actually exactly like Chuck who blamed everything on Lucifer.

But I think the most apt analogy we can use for this in terms of who is the creator is to think of Metatron as a fanfiction writer. He consumes the media—the Winchester Gospels—and starts to write his own version of events—leading an army to become God and kill Cas. Nevermind that no one has been able to kill Cas in a way that matters or a way that sticks. Which is canon, and what Metatron is trying to do is—well not fanon because it actually does impact the Winchesters’ storyline. It would be like if one of the writers of Supernatural began writing Supernatural fanfiction before they got a job on the show. Which as my generation and the generations coming after me get more comfortable with fanfiction and fandom, is going to be the case for a lot of shows. I think it’s already the case for Riverdale. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the woman who wrote the bi Dean essay go to work on Riverdale? Or something? I dunno, I have the post saved in my tumblr likes but that is quagmire of epic proportions that I will easily get lost in if I try to find it.

Okay let me flex my literary degree. As Englund and Leach say in “Ethnography and the metanarratives of modernity,” “The influential “literary turn,” in which the problems of ethnography were seen as largely textual and their solutions as lying in experimental writing seems to have lost its impetus.” This can be taken to mean, in the context of Supernatural, that while Metatron’s writings seek to forge a new path in history, forgoing fate for a new kind of divine intervention, the problem with Metatron is that he’s too caught up in the textual, too caught up in the writing, to be effectual. And this as we see throughout seasons 9, 10 and 11, has no lasting effect. Cas gets his grace back, Dean survives, and Metatron becomes a powerless human. In this case, the impetus is his grace, which he loses when Cas cuts it out of him, a mirror to Metatron cutting out Cas’s grace.

However, I realise that the concept of ethnography in Supernatural is a flawed one, ethnography being the observation of another culture: a lot of the angels observe humanity and seem to fit in. However, Cas has to slowly acclimatise to the Winchesters as they tame him, but he never quite fit in—missing cues, not understanding jokes or Dean’s personal space, the scene where he says, “We have a guinea pig? Where?” Show him the guinea pig Sam!!! He wants to see it!!! At most he passes as a human with autism. Cas doesn’t really observe humanity—he observes nature, as seen in season 7 “reading is fundamental” and “survival of the fittest”. Even the human acts he talks about in season 6 “the man who would be king” are from hundreds or thousands of years ago. He certainly doesn’t observe popular culture, which puts him at odds with Dean, who is made up of 90 per cent pop culture references and 10 per cent flannel. Metatron doesn’t seek to blend in with humanity so much as control it, which actually is the most apt example of ethnography for white people in the last—you know, forever. But of course the writers didn’t seek to make this analogy. It is purely by chance, and maybe I’m the only person insane enough to realise it. But probably not. There are a lot of cookies much smarter than me in the Supernatural fandom and they’ve like me have grown up and gone to university and gotten real jobs in the real world and real haircuts. I’m probably the only person to apply Englund and Leach to it though.

And yes, as I read this paper I did need to have one tab open on Google, with the word “define” in the search bar.

Metatron has a few lines in this that I really like. He says:

“The universe is made up of stories, not atoms.”

“You’re going to have to follow my script.”

“I’m an entity of my word.”

It’s really obvious, but they’re pushing the idea that Metatron has become an agent of authorship instead of just a consumer of media. He even throws a Supernatural book into his fire — a symbolic act of burning the script and flipping the writer off, much like Cas did to God and the angels in season 5. He’s not a Kripke figure so much as maybe a Gamble, Carver or Dabb figure, in that he usurps Chuck and becomes the author-god. This would be extremely postmodern of him if he didn’t just do exactly what Chuck was doing, except worse somehow. In fact, it’s postmodern of Cas to reject heaven’s narrative and fall for Dean. As one tumblr user points out, Cas really said “What’s fate compared to Dean Winchester?”

Okay this transcript is almost 8000 words already, and I still have two more episodes to review, and more things to say, so I’ll leave you with this. Metatron says to Cas, “Out of all of God’s wind up toys, you’re the only one with any spunk.” Why Cas has captured his attention comes down more than anything to a process of elimination. Most angels fucking suck. They follow the rules of whoever puts themselves in charge, and they either love Cas or hate him, or just plainly wanna fuck him, and there have been few angels who stood out. Balthazar was awesome, even though I hated him the first time I watched season 6. He UNSUNK the Titanic. Legend status. And Gabriel was of course the OG who loves to fuck shit up. But they’re gone at this stage in the narrative, and Cas survives. Cas always survives. He does have spunk. And everyone wants to fuck him.

Season 11 episode 20 “Don’t Call Me Shurley,” the last episode written by the Christ like figure of Robbie Thompson — are we sensing a theme here? — and directed by my divine enemy Robert Singer, starts with Metatron dumpster diving for food. I’m not even going to bother commenting on this because like… it’s supernatural and it treats complex issues like homelessness and poverty with zero nuance. Like the Winchesters live in poverty but it’s fun and cool because they always scrape by but Metatron lives in poverty and it’s funny. Cas was homeless and it was hard but he needed to do it to atone for his sins, and Metatron is homeless and it’s funny because he brought it on himself by being a murderous dick. Fucking hell. Robbie, come on. The plot focuses on God, also known as Chuck Shurley, making himself known to Metatron and asking for Metatron’s opinion on his memoir. Meanwhile, the Winchesters battle another bout of infectious serial killer fog sent by Amara. At the end of the episode, Chuck heals everyone affected by the fog and reveals himself to Sam and Dean.

Chuck says that he didn’t foresee Metatron trying to become god, but the idea of Season 15 is that Chuck has been writing the Winchesters’ story all their lives. When Metatron tries, he fails miserably, is locked up in prison, tortured by Dean, then rendered useless as a human and thrown into the world without a safety net. His authorship is reduced to nothing, and he is reduced to dumpster diving for food. He does actually attempt to live his life as someone who records tragedies as they happen and sells the footage to news stations, which is honestly hilarious and amazing and completely unsurprising because Metatron is, at the heart of it, an English Literature major. In true bastard style, he insults Chuck’s work and complains about the bar, but slips into his old role of editor when Chuck asks him to.

The theory I’m consulting for this uses the term metanarrative in a different way than I am. They consider it an overarching narrative, a grand narrative like religion. Chuck’s biography is in a sense most loyal to Middleton and Walsh’s view of metanarrative: “the universal story of the world from arche to telos, a grand narrative encompassing world history from beginning to end.” Except instead of world history, it’s God’s history, and since God is construed in Supernatural as just some guy with some powers who is as fallible as the next some guy with some powers, his story has biases and agendas. Okay so in the analysis I’m getting Middleton and Walsh’s quotes from, James K A Smith’s “A little story about metanarratives,” Smith dunks on them pretty bad, but for Supernatural purposes their words ring true. Think of them as the BuckLeming of Lyotard’s postmodern metanarrative analysis: a stopped clock right twice a day. Is anyone except me understanding the sequence of words I’m saying right now. Do I just have the most specific case of brain worms ever found in human history. I’m currently wearing my oversized Keith Haring shirt and dipping pretzels into peanut butter because it’s 3.18 in the morning and the homosexuals got to me. The total claims a comprehensive metanarrative of world history make do indeed, as Middleton and Walsh claim, lead to violence, stay with me here, because Chuck’s legacy is violence, and so is Metatron’s, and in trying to reject the metanarrative, Sam and Dean enact violence. Mostly Dean, because in season 15 he sacrifices his own son twice to defeat Chuck. But that means literally fighting violence with violence. Violence is, after all, all they know. Violence is the lens through which they interact with the world. If the writers wanted to do literally anything else, they could have continued Dean’s natural character progression into someone who eschews the violence that stems from intergeneration trauma — yes I will continue to use the phrase intergenerational trauma whenever I refer to Dean — and becomes a loving father and husband. Sam could eschew violence and start a monster rehabilitation centre with Eileen.

This episode of Holy Hell is me frantically grabbing at straws to make sense of a narrative that actively hates me and wants to kick me to death. But the violence Sam and Dean enact is not at a metanarrative level, because they are not author-gods of their own narrative. In season 15 “Atomic Monsters,” Becky points out that the ending of the Supernatural book series is bad because the brothers die, and then, in a shocking twist of fate, Dean does die, and the narrative is bad. The writers set themselves a goal post to kick through and instead just slammed their heat into the bars. They set up the dartboard and were like, let’s aim the darts at ourselves. Wouldn’t that be fun. Season 15’s writing is so grossly incompetent that I believe every single conspiracy theory that’s come out of the finale since November, because it’s so much more compelling than whatever the fuck happened on the road so far. Carry on? Why yes, I think I will carry on, carry on like a pork chop, screaming at the bars of my enclosure until I crack my voice open like an egg and spill out all my rage and frustration. The world will never know peace again. It’s now 3.29 and I’ve written over 9000 words of this transcript. And I’m not done.

Middleton and Walsh claim that metanarratives are merely social constructions masquerading as universal truths. Which is, exactly, Supernatural. The creators have constructed this elaborate web of narrative that they want to sell us as the be all and end all. They won’t let the actors discuss how they really feel about the finale. They won’t let Misha Collins talk about Destiel. They want us to believe it was good, actually, that Dean, a recovering alcoholic with a 30 year old infant son and a husband who loves him, deserved to die by getting NAILED, while Sam, who spent the last four seasons, the entirety of Andrew Dabb’s run as showrunner, excelling at creating a hunter network and romancing both the queen of hell and his deaf hunter girlfriend, should have lived a normie life with a normie faceless wife. Am I done? Not even close. I started this episode and I’m going to finish it.

When we find out that Chuck is God in the episode of season 11, it turns everything we knew about Chuck on its head. We find out in Season 15 that Chuck has been writing the Winchesters’ story all along, that everything that happened to them is his doing. The one thing he couldn’t control was Cas’s choice to rebel. If we take him at his word, Cas is the only true force of free will in the entire universe, and more specifically, the love that Cas had for Dean which caused him to rebel and fall from heaven. — This theory has holes of course. Why would Lucifer torture Lilith into becoming the first demon if he didn’t have free will? Did Chuck make him do that? And why? So that Chuck could be the hero and Lucifer the bad guy, like Lucifer claimed all along? That’s to say nothing of Adam and Eve, both characters the show introduced in different ways, one as an antagonist and the other as the narrative foil to Dean and Cas’s romance. Thinking about it makes my head hurt, so I’m just not gunna.

So Chuck was doing the writing all along. And as Becky claims in “Atomic Monsters,” it’s bad writing. The writers explicitly said, the ending Chuck wrote is bad because there’s no Cas and everyone dies, and then they wrote an ending where there is no Cas and everyone dies. So talk about self-fulfilling prophecies. Talk about giant craters in the earth you could see from 800 kilometres away but you still fell into. Meanwhile fan writers have the opportunity to write a million different endings, all of which satisfy at least one person. The fandom is a hydra, prolific and unstoppable, and we’ll keep rewriting the ending a million more times.

And all this is not even talking about the fact that Chuck is a man, Metatron is a man, Sam and Dean and Cas are men, and the writers and directors of the show are, by an overwhelming majority, men. Most of them are white, straight, cis men. Feminist scholarship has done a lot to unpack the damage done by paternalistic approaches to theory, sociology, ethnography, all the -ys, but I propose we go a step further with these men. Kill them. Metanarratively, of course. Amara, the Darkness, God’s sister, had a chance to write her own story without Chuck, after killing everything in the universe, and I think she had the right idea. Knock it all down to build it from the ground up. Billie also had the opportunity to write a narrative, but her folly was, of course, putting any kind of faith in the Winchesters who are also grossly incompetent and often fail up. She is, as all author-gods on this show are, undone by Castiel. The only one with any spunk, the only one who exists outside of his own narrative confines, the only one the author-gods don’t have any control over. The one who died for love, and in dying, gave life.

The French Mistake

Let’s change the channel. Let’s calm ourselves and cleanse our libras. Let’s commune with nature and chug some sage bongs.

“The French Mistake” is a song from the Mel Brooks film Blazing Saddles. In the iconic second last scene of the film, as the cowboys fight amongst themselves, the camera pans back to reveal a studio lot and a door through which a chorus of gay dancersingers perform “the French Mistake”. The lyrics go, “Throw out your hands, stick out your tush, hands on your hips, give ‘em a push. You’ll be surprised you’re doing the French Mistake.”

I’m not sure what went through the heads of the Supernatural creators when they came up with the season 6 episode, “The French Mistake,” written by the love of my life Ben Edlund and directed by some guy Charles Beeson. Just reading the Wikipedia summary is so batshit incomprehensible. In short: Balthazar sends Sam and Dean to an alternate universe where they are the actors Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, who play Sam and Dean on the tv show Supernatural. I don’t think this had ever been done in television history before. The first seven seasons of this show are certifiable. Like this was ten years ago. Think about the things that have happened in the last 10 slutty, slutty years. We have lived through atrocities and upheaval and the entire world stopping to mourn, but also we had twitter throughout that entire time, which makes it infinitely worse.

In this universe, Sam and Dean wear makeup, Cas is played by attractive crying man Misha Collins, and Genevieve Padalecki nee Cortese makes an appearance. Magic doesn’t exist, Serge has good ideas, and the two leads have to act in order to get through the day. Sorry man I do not know how to pronounce your name.

Sidenote: I don’t know if me being attracted aesthetically to Misha Collins is because he’s attractive, because this show has gaslighted me into thinking he’s attractive, or because Castiel’s iconic entrance in 2008 hit my developing mind like a torpedo full of spaghetti and blew my fucking brains all over the place. It’s one of life’s little mysteries and God’s little gifts.

Let’s talk about therapy. More specifically, “Agency and purpose in narrative therapy: questioning the postmodern rejection of metanarrative” by Cameron Lee. In this paper, Lee outlines four key ideas as proposed by Freedman and Combs:

Realities are socially constructed

Realities are constituted through language

Realities are organised and maintained through narrative

And there are no essential truths.

Let’s break this down in the case of this episode. Realities are socially constructed: the reality of Sam and Dean arose from the Bush era. Do I even need to elaborate? From what I understand with my limited Australian perception, and being a child at the time, 9/11 really was a prominent shifting point in the last twenty years. As Americans describe it, sometimes jokingly, it was the last time they were really truly innocent. That means to me that until they saw the repercussions of their government’s actions in funding turf wars throughout the middle east for a good chunk of the 20th Century, they allowed themselves to be hindered by their own ignorance. The threat of terrorism ran rampant throughout the States, spurred on by right wing nationalists and gun-toting NRA supporters, so it’s really no surprise that the show Supernatural started with the premise of killing everything in sight and driving around with only your closest kin and a trunk full of guns. Kripke constructed that reality from the social-political climate of the time, and it has wrought untold horrors on the minds of lesbians who lived through the noughties, in that we are now attracted to Misha Collins.

Number two: Realities are constituted through language. Before a show can become a show, it needs to be a script. It’s written down, typed up, and given to actors who say the lines out loud. In this respect, they are using the language of speech and words to convey meaning. But tv shows are not all about words, and they’re barely about scripts. From what I understand of being raised by television, they are about action, visuals, imagery, and behaviours. All of the work that goes into them—the scripts, the lighting, the audio, the sound mixing, the cameras, the extras, the ADs, the gaffing, the props, the stunts, everything—is about conveying a story through the medium of images. In that way, images are the language. The reality of the show Supernatural, inside the show Supernatural, is constituted through words: the script, the journalists talking to Sam, the makeup artist taking off Dean’s makeup, the conversations between the creators, the tweets Misha sends. But also through imagery: the fish tank in Jensen’s trailer, the model poses on the front cover of the magazine, the opulence of Jared’s house, Misha’s iconic sweater. Words and images are the language that constitutes both of these realities. Okay for real, I feel like I’ve only seen this episode max three times, including when I watched it for research for this episode, but I remember so much about it.

Number three: realities are organised and maintained through narrative. In this universe of the French Mistake, their lives are structured around two narratives: the internal narrative of the show within the show, in which they are two actors on a tv set; and the episode narrative in which they need to keep the key safe and return to their own universe. This is made difficult by the revelation that magic doesn’t work in this universe, however, they find a way. Before they can get back, though, an avenging angel by the name of Virgil guns down author-god Eric Kripke and tries to kill the Winchesters. However, they are saved by Balthazar and the freeze frame and brought back into their own world, the world of Supernatural the show, not Supernatural the show within the show within the nesting doll. And then that reality is done with, never to be revisited or even mentioned, but with an impact that has lasted longer than the second Bush administration.

And number four: there are no essential truths. This one is a bit tricky because I can’t find what Lee means by essential truths, so I’m just going to interpret that. To me, essential truths means what lies beneath the narratives we tell ourselves. Supernatural was a show that ran for 15 years. Supernatural had actors. Supernatural was showrun by four different writers. In the show within a show, there is nothing, because that ceases to exist for longer than the forty two minute episode “The French Mistake”. And since Supernatural no longer exists except in our computers, it is nothing too. It is only the narratives we tell ourselves to sleep better at night, to wake up in the morning with a smile, to get through the day, to connect with other people, to understand ourselves better. It’s not even the narrative that the showrunners told, because they have no agency over it as soon as it shows up on our screens. The essential truth of the show is lost in the translation from creating to consuming. Who gives the story meaning? The people watching it and the people creating it. We all do.

Lee says that humans are predisposed to construct narratives in order to make sense of the world. We see this in cultures from all over the world: from cave paintings to vases, from The Dreaming to Beowulf, humans have always constructed stories. The way you think about yourself is a story that you’ve constructed. The way you interact with your loved ones and the furries you rightfully cyberbully on Twitter is influenced by the narratives you tell yourself about them. And these narratives are intricate, expansive, personalised, and can colour our perceptions completely, so that we turn into a different person when we interact with one person as opposed to another.

Whatever happened in season 6, most of which I want to forget, doesn’t interest me in the way I’m telling myself the writers intended. For me, the entirety of season 6 was based around the premise of Cas being in love with Dean, and the complete impotence of this love. He turns up when Dean calls, he agonises as he watches Dean rake leaves and live his apple pie life with Lisa, and Dean is the person he feels most horribly about betraying. He says, verbatim, to Sam, “Dean and I do share a more profound bond.” And Balthazar says, “You’re confusing me with the other angel, the one in the dirty trenchcoat who’s in love with you.” He says this in season 6, and we couldn’t do a fucken thing about it.

The song “The French Mistake” shines a light on the hidden scene of gay men performing a gay narrative, in the midst of a scene about the manliest profession you can have: professional horse wrangler, poncho wearer, and rodeo meister, the cowboy. If this isn’t a perfect encapsulation of the lovestory between Dean and Cas, which Ben Edlund has been championing from day fucking one of Misha Collins walking onto that set with his sex hair and chapped lips, then I don’t know what the fuck we’re even doing here. What in the hell else could it possibly mean. The layers to this. The intricacy. The agendas. The subtextual AND blatant queerness. The micro aggressions Crowley aimed at Car in “The Man Who Would Be King,” another Bedlund special. Bed Edlund is a fucking genius. Bed Edlund is cool girl. Ben Edlund is the missing link. Bed Edlund IS wikileaks. Ben Edlund is a cool breeze on a humid summer day. Ben Edlund is the stop loading button on a browser tab. Ben Edlund is the perfect cross between Spotify and Apple Music, in which you can search for good playlists, but without having to be on Spotify. He can take my keys and fuck my wife. You best believe I’m doing an entire episode of Holy Hell on Bedlund’s top five. He is the reason I want to get into staffwriting on a tv show. I saw season 4 episode “On the head of a pin” when my brain was still torpedoed spaghetti mush from the premiere, and it nestled its way deep into my exposed bones, so that when I finally recovered from that, I was a changed person. My god, this transcript is 11,000 words, and I haven’t even finished the Becky section. Which is a good transition.

Oh, Becky. She is an incarnation of how the writers, or at least Kripke, view the fans. Watching season 5 “Sympathy for the Devil” live in 2009 was a whole fucking trip that I as a baby gay was not prepared for. Figuring out my sexuality was a journey that started with the Supernatural fandom and is in some aspects still raging against the dying of the light today. Add to that, this conception of the audience was this, like, personification of the librarian cellist from Juno, but also completely without boundaries, common sense, or shame. It made me wonder about my position in the narrative as a consumer consuming. Is that how Kripke saw me, specifically? Was I like Becky? Did my forays into DeanCasNatural on El Jay dot com make me a fucking loser whose only claim to fame is writing some nasty fanfiction that I’ve since deleted all traces of? Don’t get me wrong, me and my unhinged Casgirl friends loved Becky. I can’t remember if I ever wrote any fanfiction with her in it because I was mostly writing smut, which is extremely Becky coded of me, but I read some and my friends and I would always chat about her when she came up. She was great entertainment value before season 7. But in the eyes of the powers that be, Becky, like the fans themselves, are expendable. First they turned her into a desperate bride wannabe who drugs Sam so that he’ll be with her, then Chuck waves his hand and she disappears. We’re seeing now with regards to Destiel, Cas, and Misha Collins this erasure of them from the narrative. Becky says in season 15 “Atomic Monsters” that the ending Chuck writes is bad because, for one, there’s no Cas, and that’s exactly what’s happening to the text post-finale. It literally makes me insane akin to the throes of mania to think about the layers of this. They literally said, “No Cas = bad” and now Misha isn’t even allowed to talk in his Cassona voice—at least at the time I wrote that—to the detriment of the fans who care about him. It’s the same shit over and over. They introduce something we like, they realise they have no control over how much we like it, and then they pretend they never introduced it in the first place. Season 7, my god. The only reason Gamble brought back Cas was because the ratings were tanking the show. I didn’t even bother watching most of it live, and would just hear from my friends whether Cas was in the episodes or not. And then Sera, dear Sera, had the gall to say it was a Homer’s Odyssey narrative. I’m rusty on Homer aka I’ve never read it but apparently Odysseus goes away, ends up with a wife on an island somewhere, and then comes back to Terabithia like it never happened. How convenient. But since Sera Gamble loves to bury her gays, we can all guess why Cas was written out of the show: Cas being gay is a threat to the toxic heteronormativity spouted by both the show and the characters themselves. In season 15, after Becky gets her life together, has kids, gets married, and starts a business, she is outgrowing the narrative and Chuck kills her. The fans got Destiel Wedding trending on Twitter, and now the creators are acting like he doesn’t exist. New liver, same eagles.

I have to add an adendum: as of this morning, Sunday 11th, don’t ask me what time that is in Americaland, Misha Collins did an online con/Q&A thing and answered a bunch of questions about Cas and Dean, which goes to show that he cannot be silenced. So the narrative wants to be told. It’s continuing well into it’s 16th or 17th season. It’s going to keep happening and they have no recourse to stop it. So fuck you, Supernatural.

I did write the start of a speech about representation but, who the holy hell cares. I also read some disappointing Masters theses that I hope didn’t take them longer to research and write than this episode of a podcast I’m making for funsies took me, considering it’s the same number of pages. Then again I have the last four months and another 8 years of fandom fuelling my obsession, and when I don’t sleep I write, hence the 4,000 words I knocked out in the last 12 hours.

Some final words. Lyotard defines postmodernism, the age we live in, as an incredulity towards metanarratives. Modernism was obsessed with order and meaning, but postmodernism seeks to disrupt that. Modernists lived within the frame of the narrative of their society, but postmodernists seek to destroy the frame and live within our own self-written contexts. Okay I love postmodernist theory so this has been a real treat for me. Yoghurt, Sam? Postmodernist theory? Could I BE more gay?

Middleton and Walsh in their analysis of postmodernism claim that biblical faith is grounded in metanarrative, and explore how this intersects with an era that rejects metanarrative. This is one of the fundamental ideas Supernatural is getting at throughout definitely the last season, but other seasons as well. The narratives of Good vs Evil, Michael vs Lucifer, Dean vs Sam, were encoded into the overarching story of the show from season 1, and since then Sam and Dean have sought to break free of them. Sam broke free of John’s narrative, which was the hunting life, and revenge, and this moralistic machismo that they wrapped themselves up in. If they’re killing the evil, then they’re not the evil. That’s the story they told, and the impetus of the show that Sam was sucked back into. But this thread unravelled in later seasons when Dean became friends with Benny and the idea that all supernatural creatures are inherently evil unravelled as well. While they never completely broke free of John’s hold over them, welcoming Jack into their lives meant confronting a bias that had been ingrained in them since Dean was 4 years old and Sam 6 months. In the face of the question, “are all monsters monstrous?” the narrative loosens its control. Even by questioning it, it throws into doubt the overarching narrative of John’s plan, which is usurped at the end of season 2 when they kill Azazel by Dean’s demon deal and a new narrative unfolds. John as author-god is usurped by the actual God in season 4, who has his own narrative that controls the lives of Sam, Dean and Cas.

Okay like for real, I do actually think the metanarrativity in Supernatural is something that should be studied by someone other than me, unless you wanna pay me for it and then shit yeah. It is extremely cool to introduce a biographical narrative about the fictional narrative it’s in. It’s cool that the characters are constantly calling this narrative into focus by fighting against it, struggling to break free from their textual confines to live a life outside of the external forces that control them. And the thing is? The really real, honest thing? They have. Sam, Dean and Cas have broken free of the narrative that Kripke, Carver, Gamble and Dabb wrote for them. The very fact that the textual confession of love that Cas has for Dean ushered in a resurgence of fans, fandom and activity that has kept the show trending for five months after it ended, is just phenomenal. People have pointed out that fans stopped caring about Game of Thrones as soon as it ended. Despite the hold they had over tv watchers everywhere, their cultural currency has been spent. The opposite is true for Supernatural. Despite how the finale of the show angered and confused people, it gains more momentum every day. More fanworks, more videos, more fics, more art, more ire, more merch is being generated by the fans still. The Supernatural subreddit, which was averaging a few posts a week by season 15, has been incensed by the finale. And yours truly happily traipsed back into the fandom snake pit after 8 years with a smile on my face and a skip in my step ready to pump that dopamine straight into my veins babeeeeeeyyyyy. It’s been WILD. I recently reconnected with one of my mutuals from 2010 and it’s like nothing’s changed. We’re both still unhinged and we both still simp for Supernatural. Even before season 15, I was obsessed with the podcast Ride Or Die, which I started listening to in late 2019, and Supernatural was always in the back of my mind. You just don’t get over your first fandom. Actually, Danny Phantom was my first fandom, and I remember being 12 talking on Danny Phantom forums to people much too old to be the target audience of the show. So I guess that hasn’t left me either. And the fondest memories I have of Supernatural is how the characters have usurped their creators to become mythic, long past the point they were supposed to die a quiet death. The myth weaving that the Supernatural fandom is doing right now is the legacy that will endure.

References

I got all of these for free from Google Scholar!

Judith May Fathallah, “I’m A God: The Author and the Writing Fan in Supernatural.”

James K A Smith, “A Little Story About Metanarratives: Lyotard, Religion and Postmodernism Revisited.” 2001.

Cameron Lee, “Agency and Purpose in Narrative Therapy: Questioning the Postmodern Rejection of Metanarrative.” 2004.

Harri Englund and James Leach, “Ethnography and the Meta Narratives of Modernity.” 2000.

https://uproxx.com/filmdrunk/mel-brooks-explains-french-mistake-blazing-saddles-blu-ray/

#transcripts #supernatural #supernatural podcast #<60mins #this is first and foremost a podcast about cas and misha collins

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jafreitag · 3 years

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Grateful Dead Monthly: Gaelic Park – New York, NY 8/26/71

Fifty years ago today, on Thursday, August 26, 1971, the Grateful Dead played a concert at Gaelic Park in New York City.

Gaelic Park is located at West 240th Street and Broadway, five miles north and east of Yankee Stadium, in the Bronx. In 1926, the Gaelic Athletic Association purchased it to host the Gaelic Games. What are Gaelic Games? I’m a sliver Irish (just learned that a few years ago from a cousin who did some DNA stuff), but I didn’t know about such games until I asked the Google machine. Here you go, from the Wiki:

“Gaelic games (Irish: Cluichí Gaelacha) are sports played in Ireland under the auspices of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). They include Gaelic football, hurling, Gaelic handball and rounders. Women’s versions of hurling and football are also played: camogie, organised by the Camogie Association of Ireland, and ladies’ Gaelic football, organised by the Ladies’ Gaelic Football Association. While women’s versions are not organised by the GAA (with the exception of handball, where men’s and women’s handball competitions are both organised by the GAA Handball organisation), they are closely associated with it.”

Some to unpack there. What’s Gaelic football? It’s basically rugby. (The rules are probably way different, but this is a music blog, so don’t judge.) And hurling? Rugby with a small ball and sticks that look like sporty pizza paddles. (Again, don’t judge.) Gaelic handball? Racquetball, except you use your hands and you’re outside, not in some bougie health club from the ’80s. Finally, rounders? It’s actually alot like baseball. Pretty cool.

Why were the Dead there? A 9/2/71 piece in the Village Voice by Carman Moore, now archived on the Grateful Dead Sources blog, said that Gotham promoter Howard Stein, a Bill Graham competitor who booked the Dead to play at the Cap Theater in Port Chester, NY and the Academy of Music in NYC, had turned “the drab little Riverdale soccer field … into a summer rock mini-festival.” (Check out the poster above.) Moore’s writing has an early-70s sizzle, and he refers to his colleague, now-legendary rock scribe Robert Christgau. Here’s an excerpt:

“Last week’s Grateful Dead concert up at Gaelic Park was a usual Dead session, meaning that the band-to-fan-to-band electro-chemical process for which rock music is famed was on like high mass at Easter. Although I think I know most of the time what they are doing musically (Christgau will like this notion); I don’t quite understand them electro-chemically. Like the New York Knicks of two seasons ago, they can do excellent things together though they are not a group of deathless superstars. Garcia gets his songs across, but he can’t sing, and Bob Weir’s voice rises to about average…maybe better when he gets to screaming and the music sweeps him along. I still find it difficult to recognize the Dead songs that aren’t “Truckin'” or “St. Stephen” one from the other. I am not one of their fans, but seem to be one of their admirers. Their music speaks in a special language to their live listeners, and that language has the vocabulary of everybody else, but a convoluted syntax all its own. The note sequences are not completely dependent upon musical factors but are also dictated by how involved the band feels and also upon what kind of heat the audience is giving off. I’m trying to get to some essences of this thing.

The drama of a Dead concert revolves around the fact that wherever the band plays they know that a certain number (several tons) of their partisans will be there and that their crowd knows the Dead potential to excite them, but they also know that the Dead may not get into gear until the crowd begins to apply some heat, and so forth. Both parties also know that the concert will be long enough and informal enough for anything to happen on either side of the footlights, and so audiences improvise (smoke, go to the hot dog stand, kiss and snuggle, cheer, dance, listen like star-struck fools) just like their musician friends on stage (who play light and funny for awhile, retire backstage awhile, stand around, or get lost in a piece and turn on the heavy jets). Like good lovers, the Grateful Dead know the secrets of good foreplay, taking your time, surprising the partner for awhile, and then just reacting for a spell.”

The timing of the show seems odd. The band was on the East Coast in July, but began August back in Cali – LA, SD, Berkeley – before a three-night run at Chicago’s historic Auditorium Theater. Then they trekked back to NYC. Our resident Deaditor ECM explains that aspect: “This show was supposed to be played the day before the Yale Bowl concert on July 30, but some issues with the equipment trucks and/or weather prevented it from happening from the scheduled date. There are a few stories on the web about people who didn’t get the message (no twitter back then!) and dropped some acid only to show up to an empty stadium. Haha!”

Moore said that the show reminded him of “a high school stadium I used to know – low stands, unfulfilled infield grass, mud holes here and there, beer sold at one end in some quantity.” He continued:

“The formal shape of the concert was a general crescendo, light at the beginning and heavy-groovy at the end – not a shooting-star, call-the-law finale, just a heightened physical-emotional climate…the goods delivered as promised…sort of like good preaching in a church known to be a happy place. I did not enjoy their country-westernish opening tunes; maybe they didn’t either, because the pieces were awfully short. But by the three-quarter mark they had involved themselves, the crowd, and me too.

First they got the rhythm engaged and finally, courtesy of Jerry Garcia’s lead and interplays with Lesh and Weir, they went into the soloing and jamming which are the real magic music territory of this band. Much is made of the Dead soloists, but it became clear to me by last Thursday that bassist Phil Lesh plus those two drummers create the atmosphere that makes the Dead thing possible. The drummers were exceptionally understated, but Lesh kept bopping and thrumming away, heavily at all times, until his patterns were consistently getting the other players off. In the middle of “St. Stephen” there was a special coming together: Lesh had found a nice ambiguous but compelling set of licks; Garcia eased into a solo; Weir strummed a cross-time lick over all of it; it built; it quieted; Garcia started to play strange classical kind of lines; the drums dropped out; the audience got quiet; nothing at all could be predicted for a minute or so; then Lesh began to grope his way out with two chords and rhythms which began to regularize; audience began to jump and then to clap; guitars began to straighten out; the band came home to the cheers of the fans. Good music-making. The listener goes home without a little tune to whistle, but he hears music. As if they were finishing off some personal solos based over the last riffs heard, the fans went out of Gaelic Park without a thousand encores and without a lot of fuss on the streets outside.

It’s all very interesting, surprising, and I guess mystifying as before. All I know is that the Dead, or their fans, or the combination of both lure you into planning to return when they’re all assembled and back in town again.”

Apparently, there was some grief about bootlegs at this show. The GD Sources blog has a post that archives a 10/6/71 piece by the excellently-handled Basho Katzenjammer (Basho, the 17th Century Japanese haiku master; Katzenjammer, the German word for hangover) that gripes about an army of 200# “muscle freaks” at the direction of tour manager Sam Cutler liberating a handful of tapes from 100# weakling Johnny Lee. It’s a truly fun read. An excerpt:

“The biggest piece of shit spewing from Cutler’s mouth is about the reasons the Dead have for being so pissed off: they don’t like the quality (remember Garcia’s line in “I Got No Chance of Losin”? He says, “I’m only in it for the gold.” Yeah, music has a way of being more honest than the artist intends it to be at times…) The “quality”? Anyone who has bought a bootleg recently will know and agree that the bootleg stereo album called “Grateful Dead” is one of the best underground products yet. The tape was taken from a concert the group did at Winterland, on the coast a few months back. Yeah, Garcia fucks up a bit on “Casey Jones,” and Pigpen’s ego may have been deflated a bit by his voice coming over poorly on “Good Loving” but that was a concert. You do a concert and you stand by your performance, good or bad. That’s show business.

This effete artistic bullshit doesn’t matter anyway … When you’re out to get all the money you can out of your gigs, like the Dead seem to be (like all the groups seem to be) you might be accused of being a bit piggish; when you use strong-arm shit to insure that you get every last penny that you deserve — by making Amerikan standards — you are a Pig. Jerry Garcia, is that you?

Nobody buys that anti-bootleg shit about the artistic integrity of the artist in saying what goes out. One, you stand by your performance; two, even if you don’t want to, Jerry, somewhat, and say “all your private property is fair game for your brothers (especially when they sell records of concerts that don’t compete with coming releases) and your brother (who’s gonna continue to dig you as we live off your comets we’re gonna keep ripping you off because it is possible. As simple as that.” If you and Cutler and Stein continue your shit, though, we’ll just have to sing the song the same old way, you guys being put in the position of being the same old reactionary establishment that we’re all ripping off. It’s all around. You break your back playing gigs for ten years and suddenly success is staring you in the face. Bread: lots and lots of bread. You turn your back on your poor, ripping ’em off roots and start to tighten up. You’re in the biggest rip-off industry around, but no one cares as long as they’re having fun.

Money. That’s the whole story, isn’t it? If these were other times, in another land under a different set of rules maybe you could justifiably complain about the people who want to give your recorded performances out free because you didn’t screen them and pick out the sections you didn’t like and do them over for the cat, ’cause no one charges for their music, and because the means of production belong to the people, and they can turn out all the good sounds they can, and you have a natural right to screen all releases. But we’re here. Now. You guys are making millions — or soon will be. Money is power, especially as the concept of money is crumbling nation-wide and power freaks like Stein are cornering the market on it. The channels that the green-power the Dead bring in travel aren’t the healthiest for the generations of revolution to come. Stein is one of these hopeful images of a freak with a chance to change things positively gone sour, who uses all his power to consolidate his power; who’ll go to any extremes to insure the natural expansion of that power. Fuck him. Fuck you.”

Speak, Basho! Quaint that the beef about bootlegs back then was sound quality, rather than copyright. Stuff got figured out at some point, I think. Like when Bobby shut down the LMA, lmao.

Ed featured part of this show in the 2016 edition of his epcot 31 Days of Dead project. Here are his listening notes, which are typically spot-on (and better than than the not-quite-on-the-bus commentary from Mr. Moore):

“Less than three weeks after Pigpen’s definitive performance of Hard To Handle at the Hollywood Palladium (8/6/71), the Grateful Dead play the final date of their summer tour in 1971 at Gaelic Park in the Bronx. It will be Pig’s last show until December and the last time the band will ever perform in their original quintet configuration of Jerry, Phil, Pig, Billy and Bobby. By September, Keith will be rehearsing with the band to assume a full-time role on the keys. Perhaps anticipating his absence, Pigpen leads the band through 6 of his songs including the rarely-played Empty Pages and the last Hard To Handle. It is also one of the last performances of Saint Stephen, until the band revived it in 1976 with a major facelift, never to be played the same way again. When you consider these historical milestones along with the departure of Mickey Hart and the closings of the legendary Fillmore East and West earlier in the year it makes you realize that this concert carried a little more weight than anyone could have ever foreseen at the time. It truly was the end of a chapter in the life of the Grateful Dead. As you listen to each song you can’t help but feel a certain degree of nostalgia.

For me, the hidden gem of the show is the outstanding version of Uncle Johns Band. Jerry’s first guitar solo is an absolute joy to hear. His notes sing with irresistible melody and happy sunshine which perfectly capture the nostalgia of those carefree early years. If you listen closely you can hear Pigpen playing the wood claves.”

Speaking of Pig, this show features the second and final performance of Empty Pages. The NYS Music blog, which has a nice write-up of this show, describes it as a McKernan original that “pairs his traditional crooning style with a slow blues jam that’s nicely peppered with fiery guitar licks from Garcia. It’s a true rarity and a shame that the band wouldn’t be able to further develop this one.”

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I feel like this was a try-hard post. It might be tl;dr, idk. Here’s the true goodness…

Transport to the Charlie Miller remaster of the soundboard recording HERE.

More soon.

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