#gay british band my beloved

[chosetherose]

Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus immediately hit me as being strongly sonically reminiscent of a song by The Smiths. which might just be a case of, well there are only so many chords in the world and patterns end up repeating. but I’d like to ponder what I think the connection could mean, in case it is in fact an intentional reference.

It sounds like the song ‘Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want’ which is as the title sounds, a straightforward heartfelt plea that the narrator’s luck will change for once in his life: ‘See the life I’ve had, can make a good man turn bad’. In Taylor’s song as soon as I heard the notes of the piano motif, and particularly the strumming pattern of the guitar, my mind kept itching for it to lead into the instrumental from the end of the Smiths song, as if they have a similar chord progression or something. maybe someone more musically minded can explain what I’m hearing? I looked up the chords and both songs are a lot of Fmaj, C and G, but many songs share chords and sound totally different so it feels like there’s more that I can’t articulate.

Some context for those not familiar: the songwriter and lead singer of British 80s band The Smiths was Morrissey. he’s since done some imo bad solo stuff and veered alarmingly right wing as he’s aged, much to the distress of Smiths fans who initially admired him for using his cutting wit to be outspokenly left wing, pro-animal rights, anti-Margaret Thatcher etc.

For decades he didn’t explicitly come out, but was vaguely assumed to be gay because of his lyrics (e.g. songs like This Charming Man and Hand in Glove). since he wasn’t out or labelled a ’gay singer’ he was able to become this very popular symbol amongst straight men for championing an alternative, soft, intellectual masculinity for them to identify with. known for his depressing (but also clever and humorous) poetic lyrics, and performing holding bouquets of flowers. I’ve seen a video where blokes from the audience surge up out of the crowd one by one to kiss his cheek while he sings, as if he’s their deity of allowing men to get in touch with their feelings.

Around 2013 he came out as bi / ‘attracted to a small number of humans’ in a memoir. the tone of the press around it is like ‘Morrissey finally kind of admits he’s gay, eye-roll no surprise’. The thing is, he’s no one’s bi hero because by the time he came out he’d gained his current reputation as a rude dickhead whose politics have devolved into anti-immigrant bigotry among other heartless bad takes. the press like to use his song title ‘Big Mouth Strikes Again’ as a headline when he chimes off, he has the total opposite of Taylor’s cautious approach to voicing opinions publicly.

Again, I don’t know if Taylor’s making this musical reference intentionally, or if hearing the connection is just a me thing. but it’s interesting that Morrissey’s career is defined by being a beloved sexually ambiguous poet who became so different from his early persona and politics that many fans who worshipped him now talk about separating art from artist in order to keep enjoying the songs they love. both his similarities and differences to Taylor strike me as thematically relevant to our TTPD discussions.

Or perhaps just hearing the lyrics to Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want can help add a dimension of understanding to Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus. Taylor’s wistful tone of voice and longing ‘what if’ lyrics certainly fit the sentiment, and thinking about the two songs together adds to the depth of her weariness and desperation. I hope someone talented also picks up on the similarities because I’d love to hear a mashup some day.

Anon, I’m really impressed by all the thought you put into this. What an interesting back story for Taylor to potentially connect to.

It’s all way over my head though - I didn’t know of this song before your ask - so I’m hoping others will chime in.

#CTRask

[backintimeforstuff]

Tag Game

Thank you for the tag @ellivia and @justice-for-queequeg!!!! (I am DAYS late doing this lmaoo whoops)

Favourite Painter: Van Gogh 🥰 (I'm biased from that one Doctor Who episode)

Favourite Writer: Francis Pryor!!! He's a British Archaeologist who's famous here for doing documentaries and writing books and I literally LOVE his explanations about history :DD (context: I have a history degree and have read my fair share of terribly written books full of terrible takes but he hits the nail on the head every time.)

Favourite Band: Lots!!! Scouting for Girls, MCR, McFly, Busted, all your standard early 2000s suspects

Favourite Meal and Drink: Literally anything with pasta? Also I am one of those weird people who only drinks water-

Favourite Outfit Aesthetic: The emo phase I had in 2007 has me in a chokehold so I still wear skinny jeans :((( Although I saw my friend the other day while i was wearing rainbow braces and she said "why do you look like a gay lumberjack?" so there's that.

Favourite Singer: not to out myself as a swiftie or anything but 👀 folklore my beloved ✨

Favourite Item I Own: I have this half-finished embroidery project that I inherited from my grandmother when she passed away (who inherited it from HER mother, who didn't finish it either); and it's the insignia of my great grandfather's regiment who were rescued from Dunkirk during the Second World War. The thread and the needles and embroidery hoop are literally from the 1940s and I hope someday I get to finish it :)

Favourite Perfume: Am I still using my Charlie Red? YES (you can prise it from my cold dead hands)

Tagging: at this point I have no idea who's done it or not already so LITERALLY ANYONE who wants to do it !! <3

#ty!!! #tag game #tagged #mine

[spicy-shibe]

🕯️🕸️Hello and welcome to The Moth Cave🕸️🕯️

You can call me Mountain or Mitchell! I’m 19, Agender and my pronouns are they/he/moth/moss. I’m a copinglink to Mountain Ghoul from the band ghost and V2 from ultrakill!

I’m not going to stick to any one specific thing I made this blog as my space to word vomit and post abt all the things I like <33 (mostly ultrakill, dungeon meshi, helluva boss atm)

Feel free to talk to me whenever I like talking 2 ppl <33 (even tho I’m kinda ass at it 💀💀)

Likes:

Arctic monkeys (AM, FWN and TBHC <33)

ULTRAKILL (I HEART GABEV1 AND V2 IS LITERALLY ME IRL)

The Band Ghost (Mountain, rain, aether, copia and Terzo my beloveds)

IC3PEAK

Watcher/Buzzfeed unsolved

Goth music (xmal Deutschland, ghost dance, crimson scarlet and dance macabre r my current fave bands) I’m a baby bat!!

FNAF!!! (<3333 glamrock chica, toy chica, toy Bonnie, foxy and Michael afton my absolute baby girl)

The Mandela catalog (I’d kill for Cesar, Jonah, Sarah and I’m an Adam Murray apologist)

MLP (I’m a Luna and fluttershy kinnie 😔)

TOH!!( I’m also a Lilith clawthrone kinnie☹️ and hunter my beloved)

HALLOWEEN!!! AND AUTUMN IN GENERAL TBH

Dark academia (autumn and cryptid academia as well)

Cryptidcore (Mothman and Fresno night crawlers r my faves)

MY OCS<333 and writing/painting/drawing them (and just art in general)

I’m a Dan and Phil Stan forever tbh those r my dads, if they go I go

Electric guitar

Welcome home (Eddie and Frank r the only characters ever)

My chemical romance (danger days and the black parade are so good U G H)

Helluva boss and hazbin hotel (mentally ill abt the sexy gay British bird)

ULTRAKILL!!!

Dungeon meshi!!! (Kabru is me irl btw, if u even care)

DNI:

Proshippers

Homophobes/transphobes

Racists

Nsfw agereg/ddlg

If ur gonna be a dick abt literally anything I like 💀💀

Any sort of anti recovery accounts (like thinspo or those who feed into others psychosis etc etc)

MAPs

That’s all for now and thanks for reading!! <33

#introducing myself #pinned intro #introduction #copinglink #arctic monkeys #the band ghost #dark academia #halloween #fnaf #my little pony #the owl house #dan and phil #ic3peak #baby bat #goth

[obsessedlovebird]

Okay I'm drunk as fuck. Yeah it's ten am on a Wednesday morning, your point? LET ME BE DRUNK AND SAD. SO WE'RE DOING THIS WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT.

Internet friends I'd call to my wedding and Why.

@thejinx : we're the going to karaoke the fuck out of lovejoy and cause chaos. Set stuff on fire. Alexa play Main character syndrome.

@shetheyvinyl @milonotthefish (my beloved who has not a tumblr anymore. May their blog rest in peace) @grocerystoreghost @theramblesofvie @cobble-stone @goatsodaz @gay-lovesongs we're stealing the band's instruments and doing los camp songs

@cryptid-tree you're. Literally obligated to speech and make sure I don't fall over and die while drunk.

@justaburnedoutskank also obligated to speech and get drunk with me.

@cor-is-a-mess just. Yes. We'll talk about how sad we were that it wasn't wilbur. Plus being british.

@sunflowerteaofficial YOU'RE OBLIGATED TO PLAY A SONG AND DANCE WITH ME BELOVED.

@placetofangirl the only chill person I can animatedly rant to about how crazy everyone else is being. I'll keep the breezer specifically for you.

@altdoppelganger you owe me a dance too. Plus we also have have have to just raid the dessert counter before it's ready.

@glitter-skeleton-uwu Also who I'll run to chill out with when jinx starts setting shit on fire.

@dyke-crossing I just think you'd be very funny to invite. Just. Yes.

#Drunkbird #idk why i did thid #ist funny

[sweetest-devotion]

DAVID DAWSON'S FULL INTERVIEW WITH THE TIMES

The British actor David Dawson stars in this autumn’s hotly anticipated film My Policeman, about a gay affair in the repressive Fifties. His co-star? A certain global pin-up called Harry

Ordinarily in David Dawson’s line of work, when you take on a new project – a play, or a film, or a TV show – “You have a meet and greet and a big read-through with coffee and cake or whatever,” he says. When the actor signed up to My Policeman, however, the country was still deep in Covid, and meeting, greeting and sharing cake in person was firmly out. “It’s a very bizarre thing when you’re then told you’re going to be on a Zoom discussing scenes with a very, very famous person. And you think, ‘How weird is life?’

He’s not exaggerating. The very, very famous person he was about to meet – albeit virtually, initially – was the world’s celebrity crush, the former boy-band member turned fashion plate whose current sellout stadium tour looks set potentially to continue indefinitely. He’s the star of two of the most talked-about films of the year; a man who can send the internet into a tailspin over whether or not he spat on his co-star, Chris Pine. He is one Harry Styles.

Adapted from the novel by Bethan Roberts – and based loosely on the author EM Forster’s 40-year relationship with a married policeman, Bob Buckingham – the film stars Styles as Tom, a sexually confused copper in Fifties Brighton who meets and marries schoolteacher Marion (Emma Corrin) while simultaneously conducting a clandestine relationship with worldly, sophisticated museum curator Patrick, played by Dawson. It is a tragic love triangle with a wholly non-equilateral apportioning of sex. By which I mean: poor Marion.

Forty years later, Marion moves Patrick into the cottage she shares with Tom to care for him following a stroke, much to Tom’s consternation.

As with Tom and Patrick, there was an age gap between Forster and Buckingham, who was 28 when he met the 51-year-old author of Howard’s End and A Room with a View, beginning what Bethan Roberts has called “a functioning triangular arrangement… sharing their beloved Buckingham”.

And, like Marion, Buckingham’s wife, May, nursed Forster in his later years; after a stroke in 1970, the writer moved into the Buckinghams’ home in Coventry.

“I now know that he [Forster] was in love with Robert and therefore critical and jealous of me and our early years were very stormy, mostly because he had not the faintest idea of the pattern of our lives and was determined that Robert should not be engulfed in domesticity,” May Buckingham later wrote. “Over the years he changed us both and he and I came to love one another, able to share the joys and sorrows that came.”

“We had three weeks of rehearsal, which is unusual, and was so useful to build a friendship and a chemistry with Emma and Harry,” says Dawson, the 40-year-old’s soft Widnes accent a dramatic departure from the aesthete Patrick’s clipped vowels.

How much of that three weeks was spent on the extensive sex scenes between him and Styles? “A good few days, actually,” admits Dawson. “Michael [Grandage, the director] brought on board an intimacy co-ordinator and it was very much a collaboration. It felt like a beautiful dance. And me and Harry promised each other on day one that we would always look out for each other, that we would always continue to check in with each other. Harry and I wanted those scenes to be the best they could be.”

“So much of gay sex in films is two guys going at it, and it kind of removes the tenderness from it,” Styles has said of the film. “There will be, I would imagine, some people who watch it who were very much alive during this time when it was illegal to be gay, and [Michael] wanted to show that it’s tender and loving and sensitive.”

Dawson – who has appeared in a raft of period dramas including Peaky Blinders, The Borgias and The Last Kingdom, the adaptation of Bernard Cornwell’s The Saxon Stories in which he played King Alfred – had limited experience of sex scenes in his career to date. “I’d done Secret Diary of a Call Girl when I was young, and I did sex in that, but no, I hadn’t done many intimate scenes before this.”

This is also his most high-profile role by some stretch. Is he prepared for the attention that his steamy scenes with Styles – whom he has called “a true professional and a gentleman” – are about to bring him? “I’ve not really thought about that, actually,” he says. I don’t believe him for a second.

Dawson arrives at the studio in east London in black skinny jeans, boots and a blue trench coat, an indie-band frontman’s floppy fringe and cheekbones you could grate parmesan with. He’d make a great understudy for Brett Anderson from Suede.

“It felt so strangely personal to look at your life and think, ‘How would I have coped?’ ” he says of playing Patrick, settling on a leather sofa with an oatmilk Americano. “How lucky I am not to worry that my reputation could be destroyed, or I could lose friends.”

He and his fiancé, Josh, a mental health nurse and author, got engaged just before Covid struck and plan finally to marry next year; he sports a large, black onyx engagement ring next to the silver McQueen snake ring his family bought him for his recent 40th birthday. The couple – plus Dodger, the French bulldog – are in the process of moving from north London to Manchester to gain a garden and be closer to their families. “The pace is slower, you can breathe more. And I’m sick of sharing a wheelie bin,” he says, grinning.

What he loves about Patrick, though, is that, “He has an awful lot of pride in his sexuality even though he’s living during this time. He knows who he is and he’s not ashamed of it. He’s developed this persona out of necessity, not only to survive but to thrive – in terms of his ambitions but also in terms of being respectable in this society.”

He is at pains to stress that even though it’s a period film, “I hope we don’t think that everything’s OK now. This film makes me acknowledge how incredibly privileged my generation is to have the freedoms and the rights we have. There are many people around the world where these laws and the society that Patrick lives in is the reality right now.”

The film is shot across two time periods, 40 years apart, with the elder Patrick played by Rupert Everett (the elder Tom is played by Linus Roache and Marion by Gina McKee). Everett, now 63, who publicly came out at 30, has repeatedly stated that he believes doing so derailed his Hollywood career. “It was a huge issue,” he has said. “There’s only a certain amount of mileage you can make, as a young pretender, as a leading man, as a homosexual.”

He has even gone so far as to advise fellow actors not to come out for fear of ruining their film prospects. “It’s not that advisable to be honest,” he has said. “I would not advise any actor necessarily, if he was really thinking of his career, to come out…” He has called Hollywood “an extremely conservative world” that “pretends to be a liberal world”.

“I really do hope it’s changed,” says Dawson. “Maybe I’ve just been lucky. I’ve been with the same agent since I came out at drama school in 2005. So I know I’ve got their support.”

He also pays tribute to his “legendary parents, who’ve always been there. It’s an incredible thing and I acknowledge that a lot of my friends and a lot of people do not have that in their life.”

Though he identifies as an introvert, growing up his performative streak was obvious from a young age. “I’d raid my mum’s black wool box, I’d get tinfoil and a coat hanger and be seriously Captain Hook.” His first major role? “Joseph. My mum made me a beautiful staff and I had a really lovely tea towel from Marks & Spencer. But I was a very serious Joseph,” he says, laughing. “I told the shepherds off for not focusing properly.”

He was heavily involved in local am-dram, but not only acting. At 16 he wrote his first play, Divorced and Desperate, which ran at the Queen’s Hall Theatre in Widnes for three nights. “I was obsessed with Rik Mayall. He was one of my heroes, so it was quite anarchic and bizarre.” A year later he wrote and starred in The Boy in the Bed, “about a boy who was pretending to be bedridden, is obsessed with Marilyn Monroe and who was abusing his home carer – it was really dark”, at the Tower Theatre in Islington, a production funded, in part, by Barbara Windsor and Julie Walters. He’d written – somewhat improbably – to the two actresses to ask for financial backing. “I loved the Carry On films when I was little and Peggy Mitchell was iconic, so I always loved a bit of Babs, and Julie because she’s long been a hero,” he says of his benefactors. “I never expected a reply. I think I had that ‘f*** it’ attitude where you just try. It was quite brave of them to give money to a 17-year-old…”

By then he’d moved to London where, after failing to get a place at Rada, he spent a year as a silver service waiter. I’m about to offer my own experiences of silver service ineptitude at provincial hotel weddings, but Dawson’s gigs were a cut above. “I worked for the Beckhams and Princess Anne, at marquees in the grounds of Beckingham Palace and Sotheby’s. We had to sign a lot of confidentiality things.”

He got into Rada the second time round in a class alongside Tom Hiddleston and Andrea Riseborough. His first professional role on graduation was understudying Kevin Spacey in Richard II at the Old Vic. “It’s a weird thing, being an understudy. You cross your fingers a bit. I’m sure that’s not the case for all understudies, but I certainly was hungry to play Richard II.” I ask what it was like working with Spacey – long before the actor was accused of misconduct. “I didn’t really get to… We were kind of supporting artistes, the people I was with, so we never really got to work with any of the lead actors,” he demurs.

Dawson is equally cautious about commenting on the accusations of “queer baiting” (the practice of hinting at but not actually depicting same-sex romance or representation) that have been levelled at his co-star Styles, whose brand is built on sexual ambiguity. “I think everyone, including myself, has their own journey with figuring out sexuality and getting more comfortable with it,” Styles told Rolling Stone earlier this year. “It’s not like, ‘This is a gay story about these guys being gay.’ It’s about love and about wasted time to me.

“Sometimes people say, ‘You’ve only publicly been with women,’ and I don’t think I’ve publicly been with anyone,” Styles went on to assert. “If someone takes a picture of you with someone, it doesn’t mean you’re choosing to have a public relationship or something.”

Dawson spends time mulling over the subject. “I appreciate that who I am playing – [someone] who absolutely understands who he is in the world – that as a gay man I got to play that part,” he says eventually. “But in terms of who he is playing, it’s kind of ambiguous. Harry’s playing someone who doesn’t quite know who he is. The problem with Tom – and he’s the one who causes all the problems – is that he doesn’t know who he is throughout his whole life.” He stops for a beat. “I’m not saying that about Harry, by the way.” Nor is he criticising Tom. “I understand that he was growing up in a time where you were not allowed even to think about alternatives.”

Audiences may disagree that only Tom causes problems; Patrick’s motivations might seem questionable too. “I’m really excited by projects where an audience will find their relationship with the people that they’re watching conflicted at times – because they’re only human,” says Dawson. “They make mistakes, like all of us, or they make bad decisions. But I hope in My Policeman that you understand it’s the world in which they’re living that has made them make those decisions.”

When making My Policeman, Dawson spent a lot of time, he says, reflecting on his first lead role on television. He played Tony Warren, the creator of the long-running soap in the BBC drama The Road to Coronation Street in 2010. “He was openly gay in 1960 and he was only 24.

“I suppose when you look at My Policeman as a modern person you might have a certain element of anger or feelings of sadness about that period,” says Dawson. “But Tony used to take me for dinner and he would tell me what it was like being a young man then.

“He told stories of romance and passion and that being something quite sexy. It shows the strength of that community to find joy in a time that was incredibly difficult.”

My Policeman is released in cinemas on October 21 and streams on Prime Video from November 4

#the times #David Dawson #MP #my policeman #MP promo #Tom Jackson #michael grandage #Bethan Roberts #Harry styles #acting

[seeingteacupsindragons]

I'm curious about your preferences, which are your 5 favorite and 5 you liked the less YuuMori arcs and why?

I would like to underscore this list, before I answer this question, that this is based solely on the amount of enjoyment I got out of a specific arc, and is not a reflection of the arc's narrative importance or writing.

Favorites

The Final Problem: I love the...everything. The drama. The devotion. The friendship moments. The loyalty. The "wow this is gay."

The Adventure of the Empty Hearts: So. Many. Sappy brother moments. So much. So much Sherliam potential. So much Getting The Band Back Together. So much found family. So much good food holy shit.

The Noahtic: I really like how much we learned about William and the way he operates in this one, plus bonus Sherlock's arrival.

The Adventure of the One Student: Sherliam trying to parent a teenager. Sherliam having a coded debate and trying to feel each other out. Pining. Remembering William's day job. Professor William. Thanks.

The Two Detectives: More of Sherliam competing, but with Louis this time! Good stuff, good stuff.

Least Favorites

The Sign of Mary: So it turns out reading about rich, white, racist British men is a lot less interesting when I know William's not about to appear and murder people. This one was a slog.

The White Knight of London: Neither Adam Whiteley nor Milverton particularly compel me as characters.

A Study in "S": Sorry, Sherlock, but this arc was the first departure from my beloved William and it would've been best slightly shorter. You have to ease me into things like that.

The Phantom of Whitechapel: Mostly because I felt like I got bait-and-switched with Sherlock not really doing much.

A Scandal in the British Empire: This one was another long one without much William, and there were long chunks of things like...Sherlock...shopping that I wished at the time were much shorter so we could get back to drama. Another one that was just a bit of a slog, but it has a lot more highlights than some of the others on this list.

#Yuukoku no Moriarty #Moriarty the Patriot

[chooseyouovereveryone]

Pride Month: Why Glee’s Santana and Brittany were so important in my coming out process

Hi everyone!

In a couple of weeks time it will be a year since I fully accepted my sexuality and stopped lying to myself after a whirlwind 10-year process. Over the weekend I was reflecting and decided to write something to commemorate that, plus it’s the last day of Pride Month so it feels fitting!

Anyone who knows me, will know how much I love “Brittana” on Glee. They were the 1st positive representation I saw of myself on screen back in 2010, and I owe so much to them, and they really have been a light and a source of comfort for me throughout this whole crazy process.

Representation is so important, and can help people more than we realise, so I wanted to highlight that and talk about the deep impact they had on me. I know for certain my life would have been a hell of a lot more confusing and frightening without them, and I can never thank Naya Rivera and Heather Morris enough for so accurately portraying the roles of Santana Lopez and Brittany S.Pierce.

It feels very much full circle to even be writing this, considering where I was this time last year, but it felt very cathartic to write. So for anyone who reads this short novel, I hope you enjoy reading my story. It felt really personal and I hesitated sharing it, but I figured you never know, maybe it could help someone else who feels like I used to.

Hold tight- because it’s a journey!

[TW: for any fellow fans of our beloved Naya reading this, it does touch on her passing a little bit towards the end, but if you want to avoid you will know when it’s coming and it’s easy to skim over]

When I was growing up, I never had the realisation I was gay. It’s only now, that I look back in hindsight that I notice all the signs. Like the way I would become just a little too infatuated by some of my friends, and how the first time I ever got butterflies from a kiss was when one of my friends kissed me on the forehead on my 14th birthday because we were doing “silly makeup” on each other, and she wanted to leave a lipstick mark to complete the look. It was completely innocent, but to me it felt way more exciting than the sloppy first kiss I’d shared with a boy, and all the ones following that. But still, nothing clicked in terms of my sexuality. I did like boys, the ones at school were just lame, I figured. A few of my friends were in agreement so nobody ever questioned anything, including myself.

One thing about me that people did question was the way I became infatuated with female celebrities. I was big into girl bands, never boy bands like the rest of my friends. When I say I was obsessed with one particular British girl band, I mean I was obsessed, and clearly it went beyond just loving their music. If I had fangirled over say The Jonas Brothers or Westlife (I’d say One Direction but they were a little before my time) nobody would have said anything because it was the “norm” for girls to like boybands, but I was known for loving girlbands and pop princesses and that caused comments like:

“You must be a lesbian because you’re so obsessed with that band”

“Why do you like them so much, do you fancy them?”

They were just typical comments from 16-year-old boys who would say anything to get a raise out of you, let’s face it I wasn’t their only target, so I’d shrug them off. It was “different” and “uncool” to like the music and band I was into at the time, but I didn’t care. I certainly wasn’t going to pretend to like something just because everyone else did, which is something all my friends seem to note as a positive to this day.

“What I like about you is that you’re never afraid to like what you like. Even if you’re the only one that likes it, you keep authentic to yourself “.

That’s a compliment I’ve heard on more than one occasion from the people who love me the most, and it is true, I’m not one to follow the crowd. But what’s interesting is the way I managed to keep such a big part of me locked inside for so long.

But going back to obsessing over girl bands, although I did shrug these comments off at first, I noticed the more it was said the more I’d overanalyse and become defensive over it. Sometimes my friends would just be joking with me, but I began to get way too sensitive over it. Being drawn to female celebrities over male celebrities when you’re a girl yourself doesn’t necessarily make you queer (though in my case it definitely was a sign), but your reactions to people questioning the depth in which you love them is probably a major clue. 

So, the age of 15/16 was the first time I was confronted with the notion I wasn’t straight. Friends thought they were joking with me while having no idea of the inner turmoil I was experiencing every time said joke was brought up. But I couldn’t be a lesbian, could I? I didn’t “look” like a lesbian. It seems strange to say this being from a major city in the UK (it’s not like I was from a small town in the middle of nowhere), but I really didn’t know or experience many lesbians growing up, or queer people in general. The first time I ever found out what a lesbian was, I was around 9 and playing in the street with friends. One of my friends’ cousins had come by to play that day, and her mum had a girlfriend, but we were all under the impression she was just a friend until that day when one of the older kids said they were lesbians.

“What’s a lesbian?” I asked curiously.

“It’s a woman who loves other women instead of men” my friend told me.

“That’s...odd” I thought. At that time my family were very “nuclear”, I had a mum and a dad who were married and one sister, but I definitely learned more about different types of families a couple of years later when my parents broke up. 

Needless to say, that was still the only representation I had of lesbian women when I was 15/16 and questioning all those jokes and assumptions my friends made about me. Add that to the stereotype that “all lesbians were butch”, and I confidently convinced myself I couldn’t be gay. I was extremely femme presenting to the fact I refused to wear trainers as a child (thank God I grew out of that because trainers are so comfy!), I hated any sport that wasn’t dance and to go with my stereotypical girly girl persona I made it known how much I loved the colour pink (that’s something that hasn’t changed).

I don’t remember anybody in my high school being gay, but in my last year there, a group of the “emo kids” came out as bisexual. This was quickly brushed off as a phase and people would say:

“They’re only saying that for attention. It’s just another one of their personality traits to get noticed”.

Of course, this was extremely damaging for people to assume, but that was the general consensus. It didn’t make it any easier when some of those kids did in fact take those statements back and say that actually, it had just been a phase, but maybe they were just scared? Who knows, my whole outlook on it was just live and let live. I never cared what people labelled themselves as, I just knew I couldn’t relate to any of it. In short, my high school experience was pretty sheltered in terms of people coming out and being queer seemed like something really rare and foreign to me. Just to break up the UK school system up for any people reading this who are not from here, it generally goes like this:

Primary School (4-11)

High School (11-16)

College/Sixth Form (16-18)

University (18+)

You grow up a lot during high school, and it kind of makes me envy the US system of having middle school to break that time up. 5 years is a long time to be around the same group of people (sometimes longer if you went to the same primary school). I think maybe the lack of high school coming outs could have been down to our schooling system and the fact that by the time hormones and feelings and realisations come into play, your most likely in the middle of high school and you don’t want to “rock the boat” with a group of people you’ve essentially grown up with, knowing that you’ve probably got another couple of years left with them if you aren’t accepted. Most people seemed to use college/sixth form (it’s the same thing just different names but for ease I’ll just refer to it as college from now on) as their chance to forge “new identities” for themselves, or the opposite, be authentically them. College was a chance to be around new people and make new friends, and leave people from high school behind, so it made sense that more people used college to come out then rather than high school. To be clear, that’s not to say that a different schooling system would make coming out any easier. It’s just something I observe about the schooling system I was in, but I can’t speak for other people both in my country and in others. Coming out is hard, period, especially in high school. I just wonder if my experience of those first realisations in my last year of high school, would have been different if I had more exposure to it at that time. Maybe I wouldn’t have shut the idea down so confidently.

I did get some more exposure though later that year, when still in my last year of high school, I started watching Skins. Skins is a British TV drama that follows the lives of a group of teenagers starting college, and it was all the rage for me and my friends since we were months away from our own college experiences. All the teenagers had different storylines, but I became particularly drawn to the storyline of Naomi and Emily, who ended up hooking up and subsequently falling in love. It captured all the things I now love in a WLW storyline, denial, fear, and angst but ultimately a happy ending (until a few years later when they did a reboot and completely trashed that happiness but that’s another story for another time).  At the time I couldn’t relate to it because I’d never experienced those feelings myself, but I was definitely drawn to it in some way and couldn’t figure out why. I rooted for Naomi and Emily to be together more than I did any of the straight couples in the show (ding ding ding, another hindsight sign), and found myself eagerly awaiting the next season to find out what would happen to them. Naomi and Emily weren’t super feminine like me, but they also didn’t look like the stereotype I had of lesbians in my head. They were just regular girls you’d see on the street (shocking, I know), so that was interesting.

A few months later my own college experience started, and that’s where I began to have a few more realisations. I still didn’t realise I was gay, but I encountered things that made me question my sexuality more. My heart would race a little as I allowed myself to think about it, then I’d push it back down again until the thoughts inevitably clouded my mind again. One of the biggest realisations was the developing feelings I started to get for my best friend at the time. We’d been close for the past couple of years by this point and we were the kind of best friends that “told each other everything” and did everything together, but college made us even closer. While all our friends had gone to the designated college that most people went to from my high school, me and my best friend branched off on our own and went to one that only a couple of other kids from our school were going to. This somewhat segregated us a bit from our friendship group, and we grew even closer. I didn’t initially realise it was a crush that I had on her, or maybe I just wasn’t willing to admit it, but the closer we got the more I started to realise how being around her made me feel happier than any of the boys I was dating or how jealous I’d get whenever she mentioned her boyfriend. Sometimes I’d even fantasise about what it would be like to kiss her, but then I’d swiftly shut that down again and blink a few times to get rid of the image.

When we did meet up with our high school friends, we’d talk about all the usual stuff. College, boys, upcoming parties, what we had been watching on TV.

“Has anybody been watching that new TV show Glee?” one of my friends asked. 

A few of my other friends nodded agreeably but I just shook my head. I didn’t really know much about this show (it was still new and before Glee mania had hit).

“What!? Mel, it’s so up your street! They sing every episode; it’s made for you!” 

Granted I had a love for performing arts, musicals and just music in general. Knowing what I know now, this show was made for me, but at the time I just shrugged it off. That’s the thing about me, because I’m so authentic to what I like, I rarely can be swayed to watch something even if the rest of the world is. I have to be drawn to watch it myself, and for whatever reason, I just wasn’t that interested. I didn’t even give it a try and knew nothing about the show other than the fact it seemed cheesy as hell. Little did I know how much it was going to change and enrich my life with one particular storyline, around a year later.

I caught my first glimpse of the show in the break room at my Saturday job. I only saw the part where Rachel sings to Mr Schue (1x10) and it was enough for me to roll my eyes and turn it over. Apparently, I was so offended by it, I wrote a Facebook status that said:

“Just saw an episode of Glee at work where one of the pupils sings a love song to her teacher. Why would anyone watch this cheesy crap!?”

Well, think again 16-year-old Mel, that cheesy crap might just become important to you.

As I mentioned earlier; at 16 I was dating boys. The whole “I don’t have a boyfriend because high school boys are lame” didn’t work quite so well in college. Now we had a bigger social circle, and we were going to parties all the time and my friends had started becoming more interested in boys. Naturally I had to do the same. I wasn’t confident around guys at first, and I had 0 confidence in myself so I always compared myself to my friends and told myself they were much prettier than me and that the guys would want them, not me. But in college, guys did actually seem to like me, and I began to thrive off that attention. The more I eased myself into dating guys, the more confident I felt about myself, so much so that I became known as the “serial dater” amongst my friends from the ages of 17-19. Here’s the kicker though, I never had feelings for any of these guys. I think it was easy to convince myself I did, because when we’d break up, I’d feel some sense of loss, but I now realise it was never a loss of that person. It was a loss of the validation they gave me. A kick to my ego. I couldn’t bear the thought of my friends thinking I’d been dumped and feeling sorry for me, so I’d swiftly move onto the next guy.

Rewinding a bit to talk about the first boy I properly dated a couple of months into starting college. He’s the only boy I’ve convinced myself I was in love with, purely because my best friend who had been with her boyfriend for quite some time at that point, had said she was in love. When she told me that, I became obsessed with fast forwarding the process. If she was in love, I had to fall in love. I don’t know if it’s because of the crush I had on her or the fact I was subconsciously panicking that I couldn’t feel for boys what my friends were feeling and wanted to prove otherwise, or maybe both, but I became obsessed with finding not just a boyfriend but being in love. And I wanted everyone to know about it. So, when I went to a party one night which I was told would be filled with boys we’d never met before, I made it my mission to make one of them my boyfriend, and that’s exactly what I did. I made a point to let everyone know that I was no longer single and had bagged a guy, but it was painstakingly obvious that I loved the idea of him more than anything else. Whenever we’d hang out, he’d suggest we go to his room but I always used to make excuses so we could stay downstairs and chat to his mum instead. That must have been such a buzz kill for him, but in truth, I just didn’t feel comfortable around him when it was just the two of us. Of course, that wasn’t the picture I painted to my friends. Ironically, I did lose my virginity to him, but only because I felt like I needed to prove something to myself and to the people around me. I remember telling myself that now I was 16 and legal I needed to hand my v-card over fast, which is ridiculous looking back, but still it’s not something that I massively regret or that had a lasting impact on me. Hindsight is just a funny thing.

What did hurt, was when shortly after that, he broke up with me for another girl. Again, I wasn’t hurt to lose him as a person, and I didn’t think I was going to marry him and be with him forever, but I was humiliated that I’d slept with him and got dumped like that. I kicked off at him big style, and what he said was pretty jarring.

“The whole time we were together you were cold towards me and showed barely any emotion, now I’m finishing it, you suddenly care?”.

He hit a nerve with that, but I didn’t show it, I just continued to go off at him about how much of an idiot he was. I seized my opportunity to act like a woman (or girl) scorned, letting everyone know that I knew what it was like to be in love and to have my heart broken. I almost used it to my advantage as if I was in some secret club, the first out of my friends to experience “true heartbreak”. Some of my friends hadn’t had their first love yet, and this must have felt so patronising to them, but in hindsight I know exactly what I was doing. If I could convince everyone, including myself, that I’d had my heart broken by a guy; I had to be straight. 

This “heartbreak” also provided me with another excuse, because now I could tell people to back off when it came to talk about dating. I was too “heartbroken” to date anybody else at the moment, so the spotlight was off for a while. What’s funny is there really was no spotlight. I had a heightened sense of my dating life because I was insecure about it and created my own pressure around it all. When people asked if I was dating anyone new or if I liked any guys, they were just making friendly conversation, but I went into defence mode. Even though I hadn’t worked out I was gay yet, something innately told me I needed to cover my tracks. This later paved the way for my serial dating stage that I mentioned earlier, which came at the right time because I was still feigning heartbreak a year after that breakup, and I think my friends were tired of hearing about it and willed me to move on. What they didn’t know is that I wasn’t heartbroken in the slightest, just a little humiliated and pissed off. This was all just a big façade I was presenting, and no one had even scratched the surface because I was that good at it. 

In the serial dating phase which started at around the age of 17 and in my second year of college, is when I started thinking more about my ex-boyfriend’s words around me being cold towards him. I had claimed to love him, and I was cold towards him, so how was I going to love anyone else? I told myself maybe he wasn’t the right guy after all, and that I’d find that warm mushy feeling, but the more I dated the more I realised how hard it was for me to emotionally connect with guys. The physical aspect wasn’t so bad, because I could at least get a confidence kick out of it and it gave me something to tell my friends about, but the emotional side I was completely lacking. I enjoyed the early stages of dating, the nice restaurants, the compliments, and the uncertainty of where it was heading, but the minute someone became serious about me, I freaked out. I didn’t understand why I would withdraw so much when a guy I was dating laid his feelings on the line or why I would cringe when they sent me nice messages. It always just felt wrong, and like I was forcing myself to feel something unnatural.

“Maybe I’m just a cold person” I figured. But anyone who knows me would tell you that’s quite the opposite and having had authentic feelings for women later down the line, I can 100% confirm that I’m a certified soft simp when I’m in love.

While navigating the serial dating phase and my emotional intolerance to guys, I was also juggling final year A-Level exams, university applications and ever-developing feelings for my best friend. My jealousy now extended to not only her boyfriend, but her old best friend, who had suddenly cropped back into her life and in my eyes “was stealing her away from me”. They started doing a bunch of stuff together without me, and I resented the fact I was now competing with not one but two people, to be the most important person in her life.  It was an unhealthy approach to have, but one that might have been different had I had more of a handle on my feelings and knew the reason I felt so strongly towards her. I did start to toy with the idea that I liked her as more than a friend, but I only ever let myself think it for a few fleeting moments, before shutting it down again. And if I did like her, she was the only girl I liked, because I definitely wasn’t bi or gay. I wasn’t a fan of Paramore, but ironically “The Only Exception” made its way into my top played songs that year.

The second season of Skins with the Naomi and Emily (Naomily) storyline had aired by now, and again I was drawn to it, but couldn’t fully establish (or admit) why. I was drawn to female/female relationships, I could at least admit that. I’d always loved certain friendships and dynamics in the girl band’s I’d liked, so what so wrong with me appreciating a WLW relationship? It didn’t mean that I was into women. That’s what I’d tell myself, but I still felt a secret shame in enjoying and being intrigued by those types of storylines.

At that point, Naomily was the only one I’d watched, and as much as I loved it they were a victim of what many WLW ships are victims of. Cheating. They had a happy ending in the end (at least at that point), but it tainted the positivity of their storyline. Them being the only ship I had watched all changed in around late 2010/early 2011. I was scrolling through Twitter and saw that the word “Faberry” was trending. I’d seen this word a few times before on my timeline and wondered what the hell it meant, so I googled it.

“What is Faberry?”

I’m surprised I didn’t see it was related to Glee and shut it off then and there, but on seeing it was a name for a relationship between two female characters on the show, my interest was piqued. I fell into a rabbit hole and started reading more about it, and quickly learned that they weren’t actually together on the show, but it could be building up to it. I also learned that there was another WLW ship on the show called Brittana, and their storyline actually had been picked up. I was intrigued and ended up YouTubing both ships, to see what all the fuss was about.

I first watched a compilation of Faberry clips, but it didn’t really resonate with me at all, these two were barely friends let alone anything more. Then I got to Brittana. It was a video summing up their whole story so far, and the backing track was an instrumental version of Unfaithful by Rihanna. At first it was kind of annoying, but as I got into the video, I enjoyed how the music really added to the drama of it all.

I watched their story unfold, how they started out as best friends sharing secret glances and touches, the revelation that they had been hooking up, right up to the scenes in 2x04 where Brittany started talking about feelings and Santana pushed her away, only to later get jealous when Brittany went off with a guy (Artie). The video ended around there because that’s where the storyline was up to, and I found myself hooked and wanting more. I needed to know what happened to them and if they were going to get together. I needed to know if Santana was going to admit the obvious feelings she was secretly harbouring for Brittany.

I re-watched the video a couple of times and was shocked at how much I related to it. With Naomily I was certainly drawn to it, but Brittana struck something different. 

First of all, it had the best friend to lover’s trope, something I was highly interested in, probably because of the secret feelings I had for my own best friend.

Secondly, these two shattered every single stereotype I had in my head of what I was conditioned into thinking queer woman looked like. Naomily scratched the surface of this slightly, but I thought they were a rarity. It felt good to see girls so feminine liking other women. I wasn’t there yet with admitting I liked women myself, nowhere near, but subconsciously it must have been there because I felt a surge of representation from the minute I saw them on screen.

Thirdly, Santana Lopez.  To say I was instantly captivated by her, was an understatement. I naturally just gravitated towards her, and I’d never felt so drawn to a fictional character. I sensed her vulnerability and almost wanted to reach into the screen and hug her and tell her that I knew how she felt. I could see in her what I was starting to recognise in me. She was a confused and somewhat insecure girl who put on a mask to show the world she was confident, she had status, she was important. I saw it in the way she used guys like I did, to feel better about herself. The scene after she sleeps with Finn really hit home for me, how she seems vulnerable and detached after something so intimate. It echoed my own emotional aversion to boys, but we could all see from her reactions in 2x04 that she was hopelessly in love with her best friend, again like me.

In hindsight, the two of us were big victims of compulsory heterosexuality, and even though she was a fictional character I had never related to someone as much as I did her in that moment. It was a little overwhelming, and I didn’t know where her storyline was going to take her, nor did I know where my own story would take me. But I decided in that moment, we’d find out, and go on that journey together.

Just like that, I was a Gleek. A Brittana poster quickly got added to my wall, to add to all the ones I had of my favourite girlband. I was dating a guy at the time, and he was around at my house and in my room, and as usual I was seated so far on the edge of the bed that if I moved, I would have been on the floor. He glanced around my room then looked back at me. 

“Are you sure you’re into men?” he frowned.

That instantly got my back up and I went into defence mode.

“Obviously! What makes you say that?” (the fact you’re clinging on for dear life to the edge of the bed just so you don’t have to sit too close to him could be a reason but carry on...)

“It’s just your room is full of posters of girls...”

I didn’t even have a response, because it was true, but I felt my cheeks burn at the revelation. The next day I went into town and bought the largest poster I could find of a male celebrity, it ended up being someone from a British boyband. In my head, that one poster was going to make up for all the dozens of other posters I had of the numerous girls I fangirled over. The next time he was over I looked proudly at the poster.

“Do you like my new poster? I’m obsessed with him” I smiled smugly.

“Uh...yeah I guess” he responded; I mean what else was he going to say?

In my head I had successfully covered my tracks, so thank you Aston Merrygold from JLS for being my beard for a good few years.

I only started watching Glee for the Brittana storyline, but the more I watched, the more I actually enjoyed the show in its entirety. It wasn’t just “cheesy crap” after all, it had a good message behind it, and the music performances were insane. I still maintain to this day that the reason I’m as invested as I am in this show is because of Brittana (I also really love Quinn), but I still think it’s a great show that I probably would have succumbed to watching and enjoyed anyway, had that storyline not been a thing.

But that storyline was a thing, and I was in it, hook line and sinker. I had started watching in Season 2, that frustrating limbo of barely any Brittana, and watching Britt date Artie. I’d say I’m quite a patient person, and I sure as hell developed that skill from being a Brittana fan. I watched as Santana grew increasingly more erratic with the guys she was dating, and how she became desperate for a boyfriend as the storyline neared its peak, and again I saw so much of myself in her.

That peak came with episode 2x15, and it was an episode that changed my life. In the episode, it’s made clear that Brittany and Santana are still hooking up behind Artie’s back, and Brittany confronts Santana about what they’re doing and what it means for them. Santana is defensive and refuses to talk about her feelings at first. Later, she agrees to talk to her teacher Holly Holliday, with Brittany. What Holly said to them really struck a chord with me.

“It’s not about who you are attracted to ultimately, it’s about who you fall in love with”.

I could always appreciate an attractive guy, but I could never connect emotionally with them or imagine falling in love with them. By contrast I had all these feelings for my best friend. It was another lightbulb moment that really put things into perspective for me and got me to really think about things.

Holly also told them that they should use music to try and start a dialogue going, since talking about these feelings was proving really hard for them, Santana especially. From that, came Landslide, a song chosen by Santana to express how she felt.

Brittany’s reaction of pensively watching Santana expose herself through song, finally understanding how Santana felt after all that time hiding and denying it, was much like how I felt as a viewer watching it unfold. We got to see Santana’s walls come down little by little, from the minute she took a deep breath right before she started to sing, to the end where she is overcome with emotion and starts to cry. 

“Time makes you bolder” is one of the key lyrics in the song, and it appeared that time was making Santana bolder, as we saw her come to terms with those feelings she’d been denying to herself for so long. It’s an iconic song that can be interpreted in many ways, but I always saw it as Santana building her life around the idea of her being straight and being afraid to let that persona slip but accepting that ultimately, time was passing her by, and she needed to be authentic with herself and with Brittany.

“I’ve been afraid of changing ‘cause I’ve built my life around you. But times makes you bolder, children get older and I’m getting older too”.

Santana finally let her walls down for long enough to let Brittany know how she truly felt, but it wasn’t long before they were back up again, right after Rachel pointed out the performance was laced with sapphic charm. But that didn’t matter, because Santana had made the first steps in admitting something to herself, and I was so inspired by her bravery. I cried the first time I watched it, and it still moves me to the tears to this day. It was a poignant moment for Santana, and it was a poignant moment for me too, because it was the first time I admitted to myself inside my head that I liked girls too. I told myself that maybe one day, I could be brave like Santana was.

Little did I know that the next scene would show Santana getting even braver, as she boldly admitted to Brittany that she was in love with her and wanted to be with her. My own heart beat watching her do that, and moments later when the rejection came, I felt every bit of her heartbreak. The way that Naya Rivera captured that emotion was astounding.

“He’s just a stupid boy!” Santana said to Brittany, when Brittany admitted that although she loved Santana too, she couldn’t be with her because she was with Artie.

I felt every.single.word.

As the storyline progressed, Santana really came into her own in terms of her self-acceptance. She admitted to herself that she was a lesbian, and when Brittany and Artie split up, she pulled yet another emotionally beautiful performance when she sang Songbird. This time she didn’t need Holly in the middle shielding them and doing most of the singing, and there was no audience, just Santana and Brittany. 

“I feel that when I’m with you it’s alright, I know it’s right”.

The way she so confidently sang that line, again really resonated with me, because it made me feel like if my feelings for girls felt “right”, then it was okay to feel like that. Watching Brittany and Santana’s love story unfold really diminished some of that fear I felt, because how could watching something that brought me so much joy, be wrong or bad? Their love was too beautiful to be anything but a positive. At that time, I’d never experienced my own love story and the joy it could bring, all that stuff that made the fear of being “different” worth it. So instead, I lived vicariously through their happiness.

The storyline was realistic in that although Santana was heading towards acceptance, she wasn’t ready to be out to the world. She could be honest with her feelings internally and share that with Brittany now, but in school she was using a beard and portraying herself straight. It was very relatable, and it mirrored how I was feeling in that I’d started to accept things in my own head, but I’d never acted on those feelings or told anyone how I was feeling.

That all changed a short time later when I met someone who quite literally rocked my world. We were just friends at first, but we got very close very quickly, and there was an underlying chemistry between us from the start. By now I had started university but was still living at home because my uni was close by. She went to university in one of my favourite cities, London, and she had accommodation there. I found myself down there all the time, and even though at first, I said it was because I loved being in London, I knew there was more to it than that. Whenever I was back at home, even if it was just for a couple of days, I was moody and felt like my life was on hold until I was with her again. Spoiler alert, this relationship was actually really unhealthy and co-dependant, but we live, and we learn. Your first love is always going to be super intense, and this one definitely was. By now the crush on my high school best friend was all but forgotten, and we’d kind of drifted apart when we went to university and realised we didn’t have so much in common anymore. 

My new friendship with this new girl really felt like it was building up to something, and 6 months into our friendship, we kissed for the first time. Shortly after that we hooked up for the first time after a night of drinking, and it felt so right, and was in stark contrast to the times I had been with men. Whenever I had hooked up with a guy, I always had this awful feeling afterwards, like I needed to get away fast. Even though it felt so right on the night, I definitely didn’t feel the same way the next morning. When we woke up, I panicked more than I’ve ever panicked before, and I was so relieved when she left for class. It wasn’t a compulsory class, and usually I would have convinced her to skip it, but I needed space from her in that moment. We both did.

When she was gone, I pulled out my phone and in true gay panic style, I googled:

“I just had sex with a girl, am I a lesbian?”

Note to self. Google can’t define your sexuality, only you can do that.

We didn’t acknowledge what had happened and things felt so awkward between us that we both made excuses to cut our trip short and I went home the next morning (I’m surprised I even hung around for the extra night). There was a noticeable tension between us, and we weren’t texting each other the way we usually would. I missed her friendship and feared I had ruined everything, and I felt desperately lonely, like I had no one I could have talked to about this. In hindsight, I have the most incredibly supportive people around me and I know I could have talked to any one of them, but the fact is I just wasn’t ready to. Instead, I turned to the one thing that I knew I could trust to ease out my confusion and give me hope in my newfound situation and pulled up YouTube to rewatch a bunch of Brittana scenes.

Eventually, the tension between us both dissipated. We already had a bunch of things pre-booked like concerts and a trip to Amsterdam with 2 of my friends, so we had to get past it. We just brushed it aside and acted like it never happened. I was disappointed because I had actually started to come to terms with it (something I largely put down to the hope that watching Brittana gave me). It less frightened me, more excited me, but it seemed like we were just staying friends and writing it off as a drunken mistake. That all changed a few weeks later when we ended up hooking up again. Still, we didn’t talk about it, but I respected that it was hard to talk about. Neither of us were at the point of acceptance, so I understood how scary it was to verbalise what had happened between us. Soon our hook ups became a regular thing, but still we never talked about it, it was like some unspoken secret between us. That started to get really hard for me because I was falling in love with her and not knowing what we were or talking about our feelings, while at the same time trying to make sense of it myself, was mind-numbingly confusing. Any time I tried, she would shut me down so fast, and got super defensive. I still didn’t feel like I could talk to anyone, so again I would turn to Brittana.

I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve been holed up in my bedroom with my laptop on, YouTubing the same scenes I’d seen time and time again with tears streaming down my face, hoping it would all turn out okay in the end. They felt like my only comfort and hope in a really confusing time in my life, and I clung to that storyline and watched it unravel, as if it would give me the answers to my own plight. So much of that storyline mirrored my own, best friends with benefits turned lovers, the denial element of it all and the fact they never talked about what they were doing but kept on as normal. I had always related to Santana, but for the first time I found myself relating to Brittany too. Like me, Brittany had to be patient with Santana, and when I re-watched the scene of her trying to get Santana to do a duet with her in 2x04, only for Santana to completely shut her down and snap at her, I completely related to the anguish she felt. Not only could I relate to Brittany in the situation I was in, but I also saw a lot of my friend in Santana, and it helped me remain patient and understand her more. I knew that like Santana, she was probably just struggling, so if she didn’t want to talk or label what we had it didn’t necessarily mean she didn’t like me. I had an inkling she did because whenever I showed an interest in anyone else (usually a guy because I was still conforming to comp het even though my actions with her said the opposite), she’d get jealous. I even found myself trying to make her jealous on purpose, which was hella fucked up, but it was the only way I could validate she liked me. Yet another weird instance of the Brittana storyline mirroring what I was going through, when Britt uses Artie to make Santana jealous and it becomes evident she does have feelings for her after all. 

The Brittana storyline really was my shining light in those days, because by this point they were out and proud and in a happy relationship. It wasn’t the perfect storyline, it had way too many stereotypical scissoring references and they royally messed up Santana’s all important coming out episode, but it was a beacon of light for me in a time when I was finding my own situation hard. If they could get through what they had and end up happy, maybe one day, we could too. 

Even though Santana’s coming out episode was handled poorly, the one stand out scene in that episode was watching Santana bravely come out to her Abuela. Once again, I felt every word as she described her feelings and the inner torment she’d been carrying in keeping this a secret, and Naya delivered that dialogue so powerfully. Naya became someone so important to me in those years, because through my obsession with Brittana, I developed an interest in Naya and Heather Morris who played Brittany, outside of the show. Heather was always a little more reserved, but Naya was very much in the public eye, and I made sure to catch up on everything she did. What I really adored about Naya, alongside her talent, her humour and just her all-round awesomeness, was her fierce advocacy towards the LGBTQ+ community.  I still hadn’t talked about my feelings to anyone, and even though Naya was a celebrity and someone I didn’t know personally, I felt I had an ally in her. She was someone I could turn to and feel hope from, when I felt like I couldn’t turn to anybody else. Of course, I never physically turned to her, I didn’t write a letter to her or anything like that (though I wish I did), but she gave a lot of advice in interviews that I held dearly to my heart. 

It doesn’t surprise me to hear stories from so many people who say she was the first person they came out to. It must have been strange for her to have total strangers relay something so personal, and she had every right to be weirded out, but instead what did she do? She sent fans signed photos of her in her underwear on Valentine’s Day. I remember with great fondness a story about a girl who met her in Manchester and told her how her storyline had impacted her and gave her the courage to accept herself as gay. Admitting that to Naya was the first time she had said it out loud, and Naya wiped her tears as she cried and commended her on her bravery. Hearing stories like that always melted my heart, and still do. Naya was a real one, and I owe so much of who I am today, to her.

I think one thing that all of us queer ladies who were invested in Brittana loved about Naya so much, was the fact she had actually pushed for that storyline. Initially the writers had intended for Brittana to hook up as a joke, but Naya was quick to realise how important that storyline was and pushed for it to be taken seriously. Representation for queer women was so few and far between at the time, and it’s a bold move for any actress just starting out to question directorial decisions, let alone when it’s 2010 and the TV show in question is “family-friendly”. It was a move that quite frankly could have cost Naya her career (at the time she wasn’t even a series regular), but even someone as professional and career driven as her, put the feelings of an entire generation of queer women above all else.

“It started off as this funny thing like ‘oh yeah, she just randomly hooks up with her friend Brittany’, but I kind of was encouraging them to make it more serious and not play around with it, because there are people out there that it’s not a joke to, it’s their real life”.

- Naya Rivera, Access Hollywood (2011)

In addition to that; Naya did so many more things for the LGBTQ+ community. She presented the GLAAD awards twice and worked with LGBTQ+ organisations like The Trevor Project. She never missed an opportunity to tell us all how loved and valid we were, and how much we meant to her, like the time she wrote a love letter to the community for Billboard. She knew how important Brittana was to so many of us, and she protected our hearts when asked about new love interests for Santana.

“The Brittana fans are pretty die-hard, so I wouldn’t want to upset them”.

- Naya Rivera, Proactiv (2011)

She was the captain of the Brittana ship and constantly fed us with photos and small spoilers on Twitter where she could. She was inundated with “marriage proposals” from love-struck queer girls in her meet and greets, and she graciously humoured and accepted every one of them. She also used to provide such amazing advice. I was enamoured by her interviews at Giffoni Festival in 2013, because she spoke such wisdom there as she answered questions from her fans. You could see from those videos alone the impact she had on other girls like me. When asked her advice for coming out, she said:

“More than anything, life is too short, so you really just have to be happy. Be yourself because who you are is amazing and beautiful, so just continue to do you”.

- Naya Rivera, Giffoni Film Festival 2013

She also talked about how she felt portraying this character and helping people come to terms with their sexuality was what she was put on this earth to do. She was hyper aware of the impact and importance her character and storyline had, and she did everything in her power to make us feel seen and validated.

Hearing Naya talk about being authentic to yourself made me feel bolder, and in early 2014 I told some of my friends about the FWB arrangement I had going on. It was scary to admit I was in love with a girl, but all my friends were incredibly supportive and sweet. It felt good to have people I could confide in about my confusing situation. We still didn’t talk about what we were doing or labelled ourselves, and it was really beginning to eat me up inside. Speaking of labels, I hadn’t quite come to terms with labelling myself either. Some people never label themselves, and that’s okay, but for me it was always a fear thing. I think by now I innately knew I was gay, but I couldn’t admit or except that. I’d go between saying I just had this one exception for this one girl (clearly ignoring my previous high school best friend crush), or sometimes if I was feeling extra brave I’d say, “Well I don’t really like labels, but I guess if I had to, I’d say I’m bisexual”, but I definitely wasn’t gay. I’m not sure why it was so hard for me to come to terms with being a lesbian, when I idolised a fictional character who was an out and proud lesbian, but I guess I just wasn’t there yet.

It felt good to be able to talk to my friends, because the beacon of light that was Brittana had been taken away. They broke up in Season 4 due to long distance, and I’ll never forget the feeling of having that representation and happiness ripped away. After everything they had been through, they were over. A few months before that, Skins had returned for a one-off special and killed Naomi off, so that completely ruined Naomily for me, and another ship I liked from a British TV soap (Sophie and Sian) had their storyline end with cheating and a breakup. Brittana were always different, and gave me hope for a happy ending, but when they broke up I began to feel like being gay meant I was headed for a life of pain and misery. Luckily the Glee writers rectified that, and they got back together a couple of months after I came out to my friends, I was elated. Best coming out present EVER!

A few months later I experienced one of the darker sides of sharing my secret; being outed. Even though I wasn’t as close to my high school best friend, we were still in touch, and I told her what was going on with the girl I’d been hooking up with. In all honesty, she kind of guessed it, but I swore her to secrecy. Clearly she didn’t keep to that promise, because at her 21st birthday party, her boyfriend approached me and said:

“Hey Mel, why don’t you just admit you’re a lesbian?”

My face burned instantly, and I’ll never forget the feeling of anxiety that rose in my chest. People around clearly heard because they started to stare and whisper, including my friend’s family members who I had known for years. I remember feeling so angry because her family knew before my family even did, and I just felt so humiliated, like I was suddenly talk of the party. I started to hyperventilate, and luckily one of my friends caught on and whipped me out of there fast. When we were both alone I started crying and told her everything, she was one of the friends I hadn’t yet told, but she was so supportive and I’ll never forget her actions on that awful night. When I told my other friends who hadn’t been there what had happened, they were pissed, but of course I knew that none of them could fully understand. I knew there was always one person I could relate to though, even if she was fictional, and that was of course Miss Santana Lopez. I had watched that scene of her being outed by Finn many times; but I never envisioned I’d have the same thing happen to me a few years later. But Santana coped with it, and I knew that ultimately, so would I.

It was almost scary how much the Brittana storyline mirrored my own, but I was so thankful that it did. I didn’t have the happy relationship part nailed down, but things had definitely progressed. Me and my friend were now less FWB more unofficial relationship. We didn’t see other people at this point, only each other, and I had ended up transferring to university in London to be closer to her, so we lived together and shared a bed together every night. It felt like a relationship, just one that we didn’t label. We were finally at a point where we acknowledged what we had, but one day I was alarmed when she said:

“I like what we do, but I could never be with a girl properly, like in a relationship”.

My heart sank when she said that because I felt like we were making progress. Then she’d confuse me again and go and say something completely contrasting and we’d talk about future baby names or joke about getting married one day. It was a head fuck to say the least, but those moments where we’d plan our dream wedding, made all the confusion worth it. Meanwhile in the Glee universe, Brittany and Santana really were getting married. It was the perfect happy ending to their story, they’d been through so much together, and we were finally seeing them come full circle and get married on screen. Season 6 was a Brittana fans dreams, and it filled me with so much hope to see them have that positive ending. It’s so rare to see, as I touched on earlier, so many on-screen WLW relationships feature cheating, betrayal, or death. Brittana never had any of that. Like any other couple, they had their struggles and their ups and downs, but they never betrayed one another. Their ending showed that love really did conquer all <3.

Going back to my own “relationship”, we were at a point where we lived in each other’s pocket, but university was coming to an end and that was scary for us because we didn’t know where life was going to take us. Much like in Glee, where Santana finds out Brittany won’t be graduating as planned when she does, and she’s scared about where that will leave them. To buy us some more time, we ended up applying to a programme that would allow us to live and work in America over Summer.  We chose to go to California, my favourite place in the world, and I was so excited about going on this adventure together. I even dared to think we could be authentically us over there, without worrying about people from our “real life” finding out about us. It could have been a great new chapter for us in our story, but what happened was the opposite, when we found out that she didn’t get a place on the programme. I was successful, but she wasn’t, and instead they offered her a place on a programme at the other side of the country in Florida. I had never considered doing this without her, and I couldn’t even fathom the idea of spending 4 months away from her. In hindsight, we were completely unhealthy and co-dependant on each other, and that time apart from each other would be the best thing we ever did. At the time though, I was crushed. We even plotted that I would drop out of my programme and ask to switch to the Florida one, but our parents got suspicious that I’d miss out on such an opportunity, so we decided to go ahead as planned. Friends wouldn’t ordinarily be this attached to one another, and we didn’t want anyone figuring out we were more than just friends. I just hoped the distance would make us stronger and wouldn’t push us apart, but when I said goodbye to her in the airport the day I was leaving, I had this strong gut feeling that this was the end of the road for us and I wouldn’t see her for a very long time. We promised nothing would change between us, but in the end, I was right to trust my gut.

Much like Brittana, distance did in fact push us apart, but the details weren’t all the same. Santana broke up with Brittany because she was worried about the impacts of distance, even though they both knew they’d never betray one another. In my own story, I definitely felt betrayed. Even though we sure as hell acted like we were in a relationship, this girl and I hadn’t put a label on it, so maybe I had no right to feel hurt or betrayed, but you can’t help the way you feel. A month into her programme she met a girl and started hooking up with her, making sure to tell me all about it. I was at work when I read the message and I’d never felt a physical pain in my heart like it, and I actually had to run to the bathroom to throw up. I’d sworn blind I had my first heartbreak when I was 16, but if only I knew then what real heartbreak felt like, because now I for sure knew. At first I thought that maybe it was another jealousy game because I didn’t get why she was so hell bent on telling me all the details, but soon after she announced they were in an official relationship and that was the part that really hurt. I felt like there must have been something wrong with me, that despite everything we’d been through she couldn’t officially commit to me, but after 5 minutes with another girl she had a girlfriend. What about all those times she’d told me she could never properly be with a girl? What about all those wedding plans and baby names too? In hindsight, and having now spoken about everything honestly, I kind of get it. Admitting she was gay and committing herself to a relationship with me was scary for her because I was part of her everyday life. In America she was in a bubble, around people who didn’t really know her, and she felt more like she could be herself for the first time. A lot of her friends out there were out and proud lesbians, and they instilled a new confidence in her. It hurt so bad at the time, but now I’m glad that she had that experience because it allowed her to finally shut down her defences and be authentically her. What I’d gotten years ago with Brittana, she’d never really had until that moment, and now she’s an openly gay woman in a happy relationship. We’re actually really good friends now, and it felt good to close that chapter properly and talk about everything openly and honestly, but it took us 3 years to get there. As soon as she got a girlfriend, we naturally drifted apart and didn’t see each other for 3 years. What felt like the worst thing in the world at the time, actually ended up being the best thing for us, because we both needed to get out of the toxic situation we were in and truly find ourselves.

Although I was heartbroken, what helped me is the fact I was living on a sunny California island at the time. My days were often too busy for me to dwell over things, and I had a bunch of new friends who were all so supportive and coaxed me through it. Even though it was a hard time, I actually had the best summer of my life on that island and travelling around America for a month after. Before I set off on my travels, in my last few days on the island, I found out Naya was doing a book signing in LA. LA was only an hour by boat, and I went there all the time, and of course I was dying to meet her. The issue was that I couldn’t get the time off work since it was my last few days, so I didn’t end up making it. I was gutted because I felt like meeting Naya at that time would have been so cathartic, and I really wanted to tell her in person how much she meant to me. I figured though that the timing wasn’t right, there was nothing I could do, and I’d meet her another time. Of course, I never did get to meet Naya, and to this day it haunts me that I didn’t push more for time off and go to that signing. I never got the chance to properly tell her what she meant to me, but I can only hope she somehow knows, from wherever she is in heaven.

After the breakup, if you could even call it that since we weren’t “official”, I swore myself off girls. I wasn’t in the head space to date anyone anyway, but I made sure to let everyone know that I was done with girls, and that my next relationship would be with a guy. It’s almost like that relationship made me back track in my sexuality. I was so hurt by it all that I tried to avoid the fact I was gay, because loving girls meant pain. Obviously, I was being irrational, you can’t choose your sexuality and who you fall in love with, and I learned that all too well when I ended up falling for my straight best friend.

The best friend in question wasn’t someone I had known a long time, but we shared a room in America together and got close so quickly. We also travelled America together after, and decided whilst there that when we got home, we’d both save up and move to Australia together for the year. Travelling with someone really does intensify a bond, and she had been such a great support to me over my heartbreak, so I connected with her really quickly. I can’t pinpoint when I started to get feelings for her, but I know that when we got to Australia whatever I was feeling multiplied by 1000. By this point we had known each other a little over a year, but we were all each other had over there, and spent every day together in such close proximity.

By December time, having spent every day with her for the past 4 months, my hidden feelings for her were suffocating me. It didn’t help matters that we were still apartment hunting, so the two of us would often have to share a bed in a tiny box room in a hostel. I think my feelings for her were starting to become evident, and I felt like I couldn’t keep it in any longer, so one day when we were sunbathing in a park, I told her. It was so hard to verbalise my feelings, but I channelled my inner Santana Lopez and I did it, and I’d never felt so bold. It felt like a weight off, but minutes later all that came crashing down when she rejected me. It wasn’t like it was out of the blue, she was straight after all, but at least when she didn’t know I could naively convince myself that maybe there’d be a tiny chance for us. Now I knew otherwise. I’d never felt rejection like that, especially after laying my feelings out so bare, and it made me think about was the scene where Brittany rejects Santana for Artie. My friend was so awesome though and let me down in the gentlest way. She comforted me and told me it was going to be okay and promised that nothing would have to change between us. She said all the right things, but all I could panic about is the fact I’d been so vulnerable like that, and then gotten rejected. So, I did what I did best and put my defensive shell back up.

“Ha, I was just joking you know!? I don’t really have feelings for you”.

After she had been so kind to me, I’d thrown it all back in her face and made her feel stupid. It was painstakingly obvious I hadn’t been joking, but my reaction upset her, and rightly so. She said she was going to go for a walk and give us both some space, so I watched her go and then headed back to the hostel on my own. I picked up a mammoth cup of Fanta en route, because I felt lightheaded and drained,  and I knew I needed sugar. When I got back, I collapsed on my bunk (thankfully we were in a hostel that had separate beds this time) and just cried. I felt like my heart had been ripped out twice in the space of 15 months. I decided I hated being gay and I hated liking girls, because all it brought to me was pain. I hadn’t got to experience the happy side of it that made it all worth it, so what was the point? Why couldn’t I just be “normal”? I convinced myself I’d never be happy, and that day really felt like rock bottom in terms of my sexuality struggles. 

But of course, from rock bottom, you can only go up. I apologised to my best friend for being so defensive as soon as she got back, and she accepted my apology and stayed by my side and helped me move forward, even though she was a part of the situation. We really didn’t have much choice because at the time, we were all each other had over there, but she stuck to her promise of saying nothing would change between us. Nothing did change, and we’re still best friends to this day. I thought on that day lying on the bunk bed that I’d never get over her, but of course as with all things, I did.

She helped me realise that I really needed to invest in myself and take time away from dating to work on me. I hadn’t even fully processed what had happened with the previous girl, now I had another heartbreak to add to my tally, and everything had just got on top of me. All that hurt did push me back in terms of accepting my sexuality, because I was still associating being gay with pain and heartbreak. Of course, this was completely irrational, because everyone experiences heartbreak, no matter what your sexuality. I think what makes it harder for queer people though, is that being queer can be hard enough as it is, and without the happiness that goes with it, it almost doesn’t seem “worth it”. Obviously, I was missing the number one important message, that you can’t choose your sexuality, but I just wanted to experience the good side of being gay. So far, I felt like I’d only seen the bad. But maybe that’s because at that point, I wasn’t truly being authentic to myself. In the low moments, I would of course turn back to Brittana. My own love story seemed tragic, but their’s wasn’t, and it still gave me hope that one day that could be me and that I’d have my own happy ending. That storyline helped me to see all the good parts that could come from accepting yourself, since I hadn’t got to experience them yet myself. My friend also tried to help me come to terms with who I was, and one day after one of our many deep conversations she said:

“I think you need to accept that you’re gay, and that’s okay, we all still love you the same”.

Naturally my defences went right up and I told her she couldn’t label my sexuality like that, because it wasn’t her place to. That’s still true, but I know now she was just trying to help me, and I commend her for being bold enough to do that, whilst inevitably pre-empting my defensive reaction. Coming out and labelling yourself should always be your own, but sometimes I think you need someone who cares about you to point out the truth so you can see it for yourself. She just wanted me to be happy and accept myself, and it was hurting her to see me hurting myself over it, when I could have just stopped it all by being true to myself. That’s why I resonate so much with the scenes in Glee, where Brittany is trying so hard to get Santana to love and accept herself, by giving her the Lebanese shirt etc. She didn’t want Santana to out herself to the world, she just wanted her to make the first steps in accepting herself, because that’s the most important part of the process. There’s a fine line between pushing someone and helping them, but in my eyes, Brittany just wanted Santana to stop hurting herself by denying who she was and keeping things locked inside. That’s all my friend wanted for me too.

I did learn from that, and I began to deconstruct the belief system that I couldn’t ever date girls again, but I still stayed off dating for over a year so that I could work on me. I learned how to become more self-aware and intuitive with myself. I enjoyed the rest of my time in Australia and when the year was out, I moved back to my home city and got such a zest for life again. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I was just living life without any complications, and my time was spent with friends, going to concerts and generally just being happy. 2019 was a good one.

At the very end of that year, I decided I was ready to dip my toe in the dating pool again, and I signed up to Tinder. I decided I would match with both boys and girls. For whatever reason, I was still clinging on to the fact that I liked men, but at least I was accepting I did like women too. It felt like progress. I spent 2020 dating both genders (as much as you could date in the pandemic, much of it was virtual), and I figured whoever was right for me would be right for me. I wasn’t going to force it with anyone, I’d just let fate play a hand. I went on dates with a couple of girls, and though nothing came of it long term, I enjoyed their company. By contrast, the more I dated guys, the more I became blissfully aware of that emotional disconnect I had always felt with them. At the beginning of July, I got talking to a guy who seemed really sweet. I always set a list of expectations that were impossible to meet when dating guys, so that I could kid myself that if it didn’t work out, it was because he didn’t tick every box. 

“I’m just super fussy!” I’d tell my friends, when yet another guy I was dating fell through.

This new guy I was talking to really did “tick every box” though. He seemed kind, caring, easy on the eye and we both had similar interests. I made a bargain to myself that if this one didn’t work out and I couldn’t grow any feelings for him, I should probably accept that I just don’t like men. It was scary to say that, but the seed was firmly planted. In reality, it was an irrational bargain, he could “tick every box” on paper but maybe when we met we just didn’t have that spark. But I think it was a way of daring myself to cut the crap and own my bullshit, because I knew I didn’t really like men deep down.

We planned a date, and the last chance saloon was penned in for Saturday 11th July. As I did with all the guys I was dating, I told all my friends I was going on a date, and I tried real hard to get excited about him. It’s insane to me to think that this time last year, I was still living a lie, but compulsory heterosexuality is a very real thing. A year on from that point, I’m living authentically for the first time in my life, and I’m THE happiest I’ve ever been. For that, I have to thank one person who has touched my life so deeply and been there throughout this whole process.

Naya.

My date and I had been texting throughout the week in preparation for Saturday, but on the morning of Thursday 9th July I got a call that turned everything upside down. When my friend called me to ask if I had heard about Naya, I thought she was going to say something really trivial since Naya was in the headlines quite a lot. At this point in my life Brittana was something I revisited when I needed comfort, and I kept up with what Heather and Naya were doing on social media and always watched whatever show Naya was in, but they weren’t at the forefront of my life as much as they had been in the Glee years. Back then I had been part of the fandom on Tumblr and talked about them every day, but now they were just nicely in the background. When my friend told me, what had happened with Naya and that she was missing, I think I went into shock. I couldn’t speak or process the news, and when I opened Twitter I saw it was trending everywhere which confirmed it was indeed true. Because of the time difference with the UK and the US, the news had broken in the early hours of the morning, so my friend calling me to wake me up was the first I’d heard of it.

I’m not going to go into too much depth about my feelings during that time, because it’s just too hard. What happened on that tragic day doesn’t define Naya, and I choose instead to speak about everything amazing she achieved and did, and the legacy that she continued to leave to this day. What I will say is that those days before she was found were an absolute blur of emotion, and I found myself reliving everything I had ever learned from her over the past 10 years. I’m not religious, but I prayed for a miracle, and I prayed for her loved ones and her baby boy. True to my usual fashion, I was in denial about everything, and refused to believe she could be gone. Like my sexuality, I ignored what I knew to be true in the darkest pit of my stomach and got defensive when anyone suggested otherwise. My friends knew how much she meant to me, and I think a couple of them tried to prepare me, but I was adamant she’d turn up okay and it was all some big mistake. I was even clinging to stuff from random Instagram psychics because anything seemed better than the alternative. 

While my friends knew what I was going through, my family didn’t know the full extent, because I could never tell them fully about the impact, she had on me because I’d never told them about my sexuality. Even though I could talk to my friends, I knew they didn’t really get it, and I wasn’t in contact with any of my old Tumblr friends anymore. Because of this, I felt like I had to hold a lot of what I was really feeling inside, and as a result I found myself mentioning it like word vomit. Every zoom catch up I had with a different friend, I’d bring it up, just so I could talk about her. I’d hope they’d fill me with positivity, that she could still be found safe. Everyone had the same reaction, that of course it was a really sad situation, but of course no one really knew or understood how much Naya had impacted me in some of the most important years of my life.

The last thing I wanted to do in this time was go on a date, and I tried to cancel, but he made me feel guilty by saying he had paid for everything and put deposits down on several tables. This was all during COVID, and bars had just reopened up for the summer, meaning you had to reserve and pay for tables everywhere, so begrudgingly I went along. Once again, the word vomit came up, and a few glasses of champagne in I started talking about Naya and asking him what he thought had happened and if he thought she’d be okay. It’s almost like I was desperate for reassurance from random people. As I expected, he was a lovely guy, but I knew there and then there could never be anything between us. Naya going missing really made me re-evaluate everything relating to my sexuality. It was almost like an out of body experience, watching a film of my own life, but this time actually being honest about it.

When they found Naya two days later, nothing could prepare me for the intense wave of sadness I felt. I couldn’t, and still can’t believe, that someone as talented, vibrant, and amazing as her was gone. Again, I really can’t go into much detail because I still find it hard to talk about, but I will say that I think about her every day, and I miss her so, so dearly. I never got when people cried over a celebrity death, and how they could be so upset over someone they never knew. Now I fully know; and it hurts. But I think it’s inevitable to feel this way when someone makes such a big change in your life. In 2010, when I was a scared and confused 17-year-old girl, Naya Rivera stamped on my heart by validating me and making me feel it was okay to be me, and she left those footprints forever, and she took a piece of my heart with her on the day she went.

The day after she was found, I was listening to her music, and thinking over everything the way I had in the days she was still missing. The Brittana storyline, her advocacy, the Giffoni interview quote which had brought me so much comfort. Everything I have mentioned in this blog was just playing over and over in my head. Landslide came on and the tears really began to fall, and I just stared out the window and allowed myself to cry and think about how I felt the first time I watched that performance.

I thought to myself:

“Wow. You watched this performance 10 years ago to help you with your sexuality, and yet you are still lying to yourself”.

The lyrics and the message behind it all ran around and around in my head the way they had done 10 years before.

“Time makes you bolder, children get older, and I’m getting older too”.

The lyrics were right, I was getting older, and yet I still wasn’t living life the way I should be, and I was denying myself love and happiness. If anything, the past few days had told me that life really was too short.

It appears that time really does make you bolder, because in that moment, it was as if something just clicked. I decided then and there that I was going to stop lying to myself. I was a lesbian, and that was okay. I didn’t feel the panicked feeling I’d had all the years prior when I said that to myself, just an enormous sense of peace, and just as I said it a white butterfly flew past. Landslide was still blaring out my AirPods, and I felt a wave of emotion, because I almost felt like that was some sort of symbolism from Naya. It might sound ridiculous to most, but I always associated butterflies with her (her butterfly quote always resonated with me, and she always said butterflies were her spirit animal), and that butterfly flying past came at just the right time. I recently got a butterfly tattoo on my ankle to commemorate her, and every time I look at it, I think of her.

That day is just an example of how Naya’s legacy truly does live on. I firmly believe that she and Santana will be helping future generations of queer women come to terms with their identities in years to come. 

From that moment, there was no going back, and I had fully internally accepted my sexuality as a lesbian. I’d tiptoed back and forth with it for years, but I suddenly had a newfound confidence in myself, and a content feeling. I don’t think I realised how exhausting it was to hide like that and put on such a front. Since I had never come out to my family in any stretch, that was a whole other ball game, and something I was terrified to do. I don’t believe in coming out. Straight people don’t have to, so why should queer people have to? For some people they want to come out, and I completely understand that, but I don’t think it should be an expected thing. It’s such a lot of pressure to sit down and talk about your feelings like that, especially when your family aren’t really geared that way to sit down and talk like that. I love my family, but we just don’t really do deep chats like that.

I began re-watching Glee from start to finish to feel closer to Naya. It was something I hadn’t done in ages because I usually stuck to just Brittana scenes, but it gave me comfort and light in a hard time. I once again became enamoured by Santana’s boldness and ability to be herself when she came out. She went from being defensive and in denial, to a proud confident lesbian who absolutely owned her sexuality. I wanted to be like her one day, and to fully be out, I just didn’t know how I was going to get there. 

I recently found a text from last July, where I told a friend I wished I could own my sexuality like Santana did. She told me that I would get there, and little did I know, she was right. The more I revisited Santana’s storyline, the more I became inspired to be like her and be so proudly me. Anyone who didn’t like it, could gtfo out my life.

I ended 2020 by exploring my sexuality authentically for the first time and changing my dating preferences to just girls on any dating app I was on, I became fully hooked on Brittana again and joined Glee Reddit which brought some amazing new friends (Lemo, I love you bb), and I reminisced on beautiful Naya with people who actually got it. 

In 2010, Brittana helped me in my confusion for liking girls.

In 2020, Brittana helped me again, but this time, to fully accept my sexuality and live my truth. 

Not just Brittana, but Naya and Heather too. I think, or at least I hope, that I would have come out and accepted myself eventually. But who knows where I would be right now, if it wasn’t for deciding that day in July last year off the back of revisiting that storyline, to let myself be me? Who knows how lonely my teenage years would have been if hadn’t been for that representation from them? I can say for certain; my process would have been a lot more terrifying without them. I may have taken the long road, but I got there in the end, and now I fully wear my heart on my sleeve with pride, and love who I wanna love fearlessly and shamelessly. Next month I plan on getting a heart tattoo on my wrist in Naya’s handwriting, because she really did teach me to wear my heart on my sleeve.

In January this year, I finally found the courage to come out to my family. At first, my dad was a little shocked by it, but now he’s come around and my mum and sister were fully supportive from the offset. I’m hyper aware of how lucky I am to have had that experience, and I will never not be grateful for that. I also did a re-watch of Glee with my mum and sister, which brought us a lot closer in terms of them understanding me, since I didn’t let them into that side of me growing up.

I think the learn from this is that representation is so, so important. I put so much of who I am today down to Santana Lopez and Brittany S.Pierce. For so long my path seemed uncertain, but now I’m finally being true to myself, I’m confident that I’ll get the fairytale ending that they had. I truly hope that representation in this manner never stops. Even as the world becomes more accepting, I hope they never stop showing the struggle on TV and Film, because somewhere out there is always going to need it. Someone might need their own representation the way I needed Brittana, and when they find it, it might just change their lives.

I can honestly say I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in every aspect of life, and I really wanted to celebrate that with this post, since this is the first pride month, I’m being authentically me and not just “an ally who occasionally hooks up with girls”. 

If there’s a small chance that anyone is out there reading this who’s confused or scared about their sexuality, who thinks they’ll never find their happiness, take it from me that you will! Your process will unfold how it’s meant to, and it will all be okay in the end.

I’ve touched on the importance of Naya, Heather and Brittana in my process, but I also have to mention those closest to me. For my friends, thank you <3 your constant unwavering support through this journey has been amazing to me. For my family, thank you for accepting and loving me.

 And for all my fellow queers out there:

KEEP FUCKING LOVING!

xo melissa

#coming out #pride month #WLW #brittana #brittany and santana #naya rivera #heather morris #representation #wlw representation #glee #happy pride 🌈 #love is love #acceptance #coming out story #full circle #santana lopez #brittany s.pierce #lgbtq #lgbt #queue

[oneweekoneband]

her Nebraska (1982)

In July I flew to Massachusetts with a plague on, and I felt that it was wrong, but my mother had begged and I’d been out of work for months. Mornings there I ran in long, uneven ovals on the same roads I’d memorized in high school. There’s no sidewalks, but the few feet of dirt between the craggy pavement and the open mouths of the fields serve all right for a single body in motion. When a truck comes up close from behind, the ground shakes, and I step away bouncingly from the street toward thigh-high yellow weeds and grass, and keep going. I was slowly picking my way back in that dirt, sweat-slick from only a plodding couple of miles in peak summer heat, and sucking the wet cotton of my mask in between my teeth on every inhale, when Taylor Swift announced she was releasing a surprise album produced by the guy from The National. Not the guy from The National, like, the voice, but the guy from The National whose photo was circulated on Twitter earlier this year as some kind of antifa super soldier, which isn’t the case, but would’ve been rad. First, I stopped dead to send some outraged, misspelled text messages, and then I ran home faster than I’d moved in years.

Tall, blonde, patrician pop star Taylor Swift is to me something like a cross-between a wife and a boogeyman. Bound we’ve been since we were really children. Time and its changes haven’t rid me of her, and what’s worse is I have never quite been able to wish they would, though I claim as much all the time. Countless hours of my one wild and precious life have been spent on endlessly analyzing the minutiae of Taylor Swift’s music, the mind that made it, the real world events which influenced it. And though all the while I have known she is only a person, and that people, while each strange and lovely in their own ways, are, in the end, mostly dull, needful in just the regular manner, the fantasy is better, the sick dream of a megalomaniac songstress, curious, thrilling, probably evil, and I choose that. I don’t know Taylor Alison Swift, born to this world in, I presume, the usual way. But my Taylor Swift? I’m a renowned expert. I’ve always eaten up stories—movies, music, celebrity news, the one my grandfather tells about falling off his bike once in Ireland as a boy and his face “cracking open like an egg”—like a starved dog. I’m obsessive about my interests, but not inclined to intense fandom, and certainly not fandom in the mode of the stan. For one, I’m too self-absorbed. But caring intensely for a famous person is falling in love with a ghost, and that’s all right—I mean, what the hell? We’re here together just dying... Let’s enjoy—but is an affair best undertaken with the knowledge that everyone alive has their own complex interiority, as unruly as your own, and that you, a stranger, are not in any real way connected to the lawless, blurry middle of that celebrity, and will never be. It’s freeing and fun to know this. I mean, these people are basically in your employ. Glamorous dollhouse dwellers. Acknowledging that uncrossable distance allows for a different, healthier closeness of pure imagination. My feelings, then, can comfortably be at once both fiercely intense and entirely silly. I am a foremost scholar in the art of the Taylor Swift who exists in my head. The real person raised in Pennsylvania I don’t know at all. I have some conjectures on the matter, and, as with all my conjectures, every hackneyed theory, each picky little opinion, I’m sure they’re perfect, brilliant, just absolutely right, but that’s still all they are. Taylor Swift, figure of the cultural imagination, is the Jodie Comer to my Sandra Oh in Killing Eve, annoying and pretty in frills, taunting me endlessly and holding us trapped together in a dance of most enchanting death. But the real Taylor Swift has favorite bed sheets and a social security number and a British boyfriend, none of which I have any desire to know about, and if I saw her at a restaurant I’d politely avert my eyes before, yes, dive-bombing the group text. There’s nobody on Earth I’d stand in line to speak to, but then I’ve been speaking to a certain figment of Taylor Swift for nearly half my life.

I went to a Taylor Swift concert the night before I moved into college in 2009. My father’s work friend, firefighter by day, near professional gambler by night, got comped tickets to the Fearless Tour stop taking place at the nearby casino, and he let me have them as a reward, mainly, for happening to be seventeen. Live in-person and performed acoustically, “Fifteen” made me cry. A few years after that, in the thick, sticky part of my first post-college summer, I wrote approximately twenty-three million words about her in these very pages.  (”Pages”) At that point, Taylor’s most recent release was 2012’s Red, and the work I produced that long ago July about Taylor and her career, writing I was fairly pleased with at the time, feels now, besides just being extremely clearly written by a twenty-one year old, strange to me for the way it favors the sweet over the sour almost uniformly. There is a wholesome kind of ardor in that writing which maybe I’ve outgrown the ability to hold. Or maybe Taylor just proceeded to spend the next half a decade plus releasing one bad single after another, and it was taste—and trespasses against taste—and not some shift in my nature which altered the tenor of our bond. I have real love for my particular image, gleaned from public statements and published art, of smart, bizarre famous woman Taylor Swift, and I admire the bulk of her output very much. I’m just no longer so inclined to fawn. This is not to say I am here to offer a Taylor Swift hate screed. I couldn’t swing it, and, anyway, I’m not a pop feminist-for-hire circa 2010. But we’re older now. Things are different. At twenty-eight, twenty-nine this month—Taylor will, also this December, turn thirty-one—I regard Taylor Swift warily, like an ex with whom you have a tentative friendship, perpetually on the brink of falling one way or the other into hatred or delight, only to wobble back the opposite direction again at the slightest provocation, but still, despite best efforts, even, I regard her all the time. 

folklore was released at midnight on July 24th 2020, but I was at a cabin in rural Vermont without Internet or cell service. I drank Bud Light seltzers with my mother while watching the eerie pandemic return of Major League Baseball, and when I got into a strange bed there I stewed, knowing there were people out in the world all over who were hearing Taylor Swift songs I never had, and that this was a fundamental wrong, a disruption in the balance of the universe. I listened to it the next morning in a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot. 

And folklore is great. That’s the terrible thing. Slightly less great, maybe, than some people have insisted, tricked, I think, by just the pronounced shift in sound. But it’s great. A little gift I asked for a thousand times and was still surprised to get, like a wife who didn’t expect her henpecked husband to ever follow through and buy the paraffin wax hand bath as-see-on-TV. For years, I’ve been halfheartedly insisting that Taylor had a great album in her. I’d say it even, perhaps especially, while she stubbornly fed me gruel. Or worse, gruel with the occasional whiff of something better. With a ripe, little raspberry dropped into the slop. The bright, villainous thrill of “Getaway Car” made me believe Taylor, my Taylor, was in there somewhere under the lacquer of sequins and synth, which, while not objectionable by default, seemed a costume, and an ill-fitting one. The lived-in world of “Cornelia Street” made those old scars sting. That gay “Delicate” video. When she did “Call It What You Want” on SNL and played guitar while wearing an ugly sweater. If the abominable “ME!”, lead single off Lover, was the stick, 1989’s “Clean” was the carrot. I was Charlie Brown, and Taylor my Lucy, yanking the football back again and again. Over drinks I still yelled that Taylor Swift’s next album would be, “her Nebraska”, referring to my favorite Bruce Springsteen record, and learned to live with that egg on my face for good. I suppose I even came to like it. There was something inherently funny in taking up, like, “blind faith in the as of yet untapped greater artistic potential of massively wealthy and popular singer Taylor Swift” as my totally inane personal cause du jour, and eventually it was a bit, a gag I performed to be obstinate and didactic, but way down somewhere awful near my kidneys I meant it the whole while. And then she did it. A pandemic befell the world and amid a sea of human suffering Taylor Swift remembered she can write. She wrote, and with a massive, crucial assist from Aaron Dessner, whose music on this record is sometimes so beautiful it actually angers me, as the last thing I needed in already perilous times was to be made to try and marry my uniquely perverse emotional responses to beloved divorced dad band The National and fucking Taylor Swift,  she made an album which, if not her Nebraska, per se (I’ve come to realize that a major part of believing Taylor Swift will one day make an album I find as quietly devastating and gorgeous as Nebraska is knowing that no album will ever actually be Her Nebraska... That each will, rather, to me, be more and more evidence that it’s coming still, more proof that the limit is untouched, on and on ad infinitum, or at least until the seas take us into a place of salty peace.) is a shocking credit to all my hard-fought and deluded confidence. folklore is great. This fact has made me feel almost equally as disoriented from my understanding of the world as the time-melting COVID-19 lockdowns have, and it turned my Spotify year in review annual collective AI humiliation kink thing into a glaring indictment of my mental state, but still, I mean... It’s great.

In talking about folklore a bit this week, there are a number of specific topics I intend to cover—what a thrill it is to hear Taylor say “fuck”; Taylor’s terrifying birth chart; the astoundingly perfect bridge of “the last great american dynasty”; “because my ass is located at the back of my body”; the bit in last year’s “Lover” where deranged WASP Taylor Swift implies that to “leave the Christmas lights up til January” is some signifier of being a love-struck bohemian, when actually everyone who doesn’t employ domestic staff to take their lights down does this; how reputation is the best of the Taylor Swift records released in the latter half of the 2010s, actually, and the people who can’t see that are cowards—but intend mostly to let the muse move me where she will. Against the advice of my better angels, she—that tie-in marketing eldritch terror—always does.

#taylor swift #folklore

[giftofshewbread]

Apostate

: By Candy Austin  

Published on:June 26, 2020

Hebrews 3:12 “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.”

In recent years, several high-profile Christians have chosen to turn their collective backs on God and walk away from the Faith. Famous Christians such as Musicians. Leaders, Authors, and Pastors, some even losing their faith to the point of committing suicide. This is nothing more than an ‘utter tragedy’ to say the least!

From CBN news: ‘Losing My Religion:’ What We Can Learn from Celebrity Christians Who Walk Away from the Faith

20 years ago, Harris’ book on Christians and dating became a best seller, and Harris became an instant Christian celebrity when he was only 21 years old. Harris served as lead pastor at a Maryland megachurch from 2004 to 2015.

He now renounces his earlier teachings on purity, saying they “contributed to a culture of exclusion and bigotry.” Harris has also apologized to the LGBT community for ways his “writing and speaking contributed to a culture of exclusion and bigotry.” He recently took part in a gay pride festival in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Last month Harris revealed in an Instagram post that he has left Christianity altogether. “I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus,” he wrote. “By all measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian.”

Marty Sampson who wrote music for Australia’s Hillsong ministry years ago also recently posted doubts about the Christian faith on issues such as hell and suffering, saying, “I am genuinely losing my faith, and it doesn’t bother me.” – Source

From CBN News: Beloved Pastor, Mental Health Advocate Tragically Takes His Own Life

Jarrid Wilson, author, pastor, and founder of Anthem of Hope, tragically took his life Monday night, on the eve of World Suicide Prevention Day. – Source

From CBN News: Christian Singer Announces, ‘I no longer believe in God’: How You Can Experience Jesus More Personally Than Ever Before

Jon Steingard is a pastor’s son and a musician, singer, and songwriter. He has been the lead singer for the Christian band Hawk Nelson since March 2012.

Now he has made an Instagram announcement that is generating headlines: “After growing up in a Christian home, being a pastor’s kid, playing and singing in a Christian band, and having the word ‘Christian’ in front of most of the things in my life—I am now finding that I no longer believe in God.” –Source

To be honest, I have a hard time understanding how people who once supposedly lived their lives with and for God all of a sudden decide one day that they do not believe in Him anymore. How does one sing songs, preach, or write books for years at a time and supposedly for God’s Glory, all of a sudden do ‘an about face’ on Him?

All the while, some had made a considerable amount of money from their ‘supposed Faith’ which, in the end, when they decided to walk away, makes it seem that the whole time they were just faking it and ‘making merchandise of Him.’

Such is the case with our Prodigal daughters who will be 27 and 22 this year. These are grown women who still post rants for all to see, mind you, on their social media pages. Rants stating their ‘ungrateful dissatisfaction’ on their upbringing. Lamenting their lack in getting to ‘be their true selves’ because of the restrictions of living in a Christian home.

During their time as children, as I have stated in previous articles, we were in no way as strong in the Lord as we are now. Basically, we were like a lot of Secular Christian Families nowadays who still live like the world. Our girls were raised in church but were in no way made to attend every time the church doors were open. We taught them about Jesus, but we probably only read the Bible on occasion, at best.

Anyhow, nothing was ‘force fed’ or anything like they would have their social media friends believe. Once they became teenagers, our family did start to grow more in the Lord. Our girls seemed to enjoy attending Youth Camps and even wanted to do ‘Mission Work’ when the opportunity arose. They each had their own Bible and seemed to have their own genuine relationships with the Lord until they each fell in love with an atheist.

In recent years, though, as it seems by their posts, our raising them to know and love the Lord and to follow His Word apparently became ‘toxic’ to them. How dare we not allow them to be their own person as a child, with no restraints, and to ‘Do as thou wilt’!  How ‘unhealthy’ we were to want them to do things God’s way! By pointing them to God’s Word, that meant that we were somehow silencing their voice?! What kind of lousy parenting is that?!

All of a sudden it was a ‘detriment’ for them to grow up in a God-fearing home! Look at how much they missed out on by not getting to sin like everyone else! Wait… now that they have ‘apostatized’ and are ‘finally free’ from all of our Christianly toxicity, everyone on their social media needs to know that they have ‘triumphantly walked away’ from all godly hinderances!

Now they can ‘pursue their heart’s desire’ to the fullest extent, by having premarital sex every night, march in any number of gay pride and abortion parades, get drunk several times a week, smoke all the hookah pipes and weed as often as they like, indulge in all the secular movies, concerts, and music, and any other ‘ungodly pursuits’ they may have! Yay!

Whoo hoo! Now all of their social media friends can ‘cyber pat them on the back’ for they are ‘Free at Last, Free at Last; now they can Thank their Father the Devil that they are Free at Last! Being a Christian was such a burden! Mom and Dad who are total ‘Southern Baptist Bigots’ and their ‘quack’ Rapture beliefs can stuff it! We are Women now, and we are gonna do as we darn well please!’ (Tongues audaciously sticking out and devil-horn hand signs galore!)

Yawn… ‘pinky clap’ on their newfound independence as they ‘defiantly and proudly’ march down the wide road to destruction. Whoo hoo. Yay. We are so happy for you. Not.

‘Deeply saddened and frustrated’ does not even begin to describe where we are at in seeing all of this play out in our Prodigal adult children. The truth is, in these Last Days, we feel ‘utterly defeated.’ The enemy has robbed us of so much and keeps on doing so, no matter what! We cannot win for losing.

No matter what we do, we are perpetually viewed as the ‘bad guys.’ We could give all our love, approval, support, time, money, help, and gifts to them and still somehow we would be deemed as ‘the toxic Christian parents.’ Ultimately, we are despised and rejected, year after year; and, frankly, there is not much we can do about it… except Pray.

From Got Questions: Will there be a great apostasy during the end times?

The Bible indicates that there will be a great apostasy during the end times. The “great apostasy” is mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 2:3. The KJV calls it the “falling away,” while the NIV and ESV call it “the rebellion.” And that’s what an apostasy is: a rebellion, an abandonment of the truth. The end times will include a wholesale rejection of God’s revelation, a further “falling away” of an already fallen world.

The Greek word translated “rebellion” or “falling away” in verse 3 is apostasia, from which we get the English word apostasy. It refers to a general defection from the true God, the Bible, and the Christian faith. Every age has its defectors, but the falling away at the end times will be complete and worldwide. The whole planet will be in rebellion against God and His Christ. Every coup requires a leader, and into this global apostasy will step the Antichrist. We believe this takes place after the church has been raptured from the earth.

Jesus warned the disciples concerning the final days in Matthew 24:10–12: “At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.” These are the characteristics of the great apostasy of the end times. – Source

Bottom line, Jesus tells us to love our enemies, do good unto them, and pray for those who despitefully use and persecute us. We need to also pray for all the high-profile Christians who have walked away from the Lord in recent years.

Pray that the god of this world would be hindered or stopped from blinding the minds of those who are perishing! That God would grant them and all our Prodigals salvation before it is too late! For Apostates and Prodigal sons and daughters to come to their senses and come back home to God the Father, sooner rather than later!

Time. Is. Ultimately. Running. Out.

Until next time… Maranatha!

(JESUS = THE WAY, THE TRUTH, & THE LIFE)

Candy Austin

*My 2cents worth here, as the Tumblr Author of this page, (giftofshewbread) I just wanted to say, I myself, love the lord, but it’s been a hell of a battle with the flesh & spirit, to become a follower of Christ, it’s the greatest journey you’ll ever endure & it’s truly a battle within, like they say, ‘The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,’ and it certainly is.  God help us all, I myself wrestle a lot in these past few years, it’s not been easy and I’ve called out God and I’ve been furious with Him and not trying to come from a selfish part of me, just one that is very battle weary and people have become so ugly/cruel/wicked and in my situation, it’s been extra hard because of being alone, not much for fellowship, just thru internet and it’s very meager and so, it’s been a very lonely journey, oh I know the Lord is with us, but yet, we are human and so much to learn, it can just sure be a solo feeling and hard time of it.  Well anyways, holding on, but Lord, Maranatha, Amen !

Leho Lechem 

[araniaexumae]

Jily Band + social media AU

Hi! This is a work that takes place in the same universe as Stare but it can be read as a standalone piece. As always, special thanks to Mia @blitheringmcgonagall who is the best jily cheerleader ever <3

also tagging @thebo and @ravenclaw-ft because they liked the snippet (thanks!)

10 Up-and-Coming British Rock Bands

Hogsmeade Magazine

Number 6 : The Marauders

After self-releasing their first EP, Up to no good, in January this year, the Marauders have charmed audiences with their genre-bending sound and boy-band looks. By listening to the first songs, you would classify them as a classic rock band, and a good one at that. But if you pay closer attention, you’ll be able to discern some hip-hop or pop influences depending on the song. They originally made themselves known on the internet through youtube, in a delightful mix of music videos and ridiculous prank vlogs.

Peter Pettigrew @scabbers

@siriuslypretty @prongspotter @notromulus check it out guys we r famous now

hogsmeademag.net

Sirius Black @siriuslypretty

@scabbers @prongspotter @notromulus fucking FINALLY

James F. Potter @prongspotter

@siriuslypretty @scabbers @notromulus um what do they mean by ridiculous prank vlogs?

READ ON AO3

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London’s newest boy band is cuter than 1D

Rita Skeeter for Puddifoot Weekly

Call my title clickbait-y all you want, my readers know I only write the truth. And the truth is that London’s newest rock band the Marauders are sweet on the eyes. You might have heard Stare , which is their most popular number, on the radio. And if you’ve ever seen a picture of lead vocalist James Potter, you will wish he was singing it to you the next time you hear it! The young singer is the son of philanthropists Fleamont and Euphemia Potter and if his music career doesn’t work out, his inheritance already makes him into a very eligible bachelor. My sources tell me he’s still single, so the game is on! May the best lady win.

But no worries, there are enough men to go around! The three other members are just as attractive. You might recognize Sirius Black from his short career in modeling. He posed for several pieces for Walburga Black’s line when he was a child, but we all know about his dramatic falling out with his family since. ( Black heir disowned? ) It’s a shame he won’t model anymore, because I don’t get tired of looking at him. And his mysterious troubled past only adds to the charm!

The other members, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew, while more discreet, are just as handsome. There’s less drama surrounding their names… for now! I’ll be on the lookout!

Sirius Black @siriuslypretty

@prongspotter @notromulus @scabbers lol who would ever think James is attractive?

puddifootweekly.co.uk

Remus Lupin @notromulus

@siriuslypretty @scabbers @prongspotter you’re just jealous cause you weren’t called eligible

Sirius Black @siriuslypretty

@notromulus @prongspotter @scabbers idc I have bad boy charm

Peter Pettigrew @scabbers

@siriuslypretty @notromulus @prongspotter lmao I’m just imagining all the ladies fighting for james

Sirius Black @siriuslypretty

@prongspotter @notromulus @scabbers lol like that would ever happen

James F. Potter @prongspotter

@siriuslypretty @notromulus @scabbers I want a solo career

---

The Potter heir not so eligible anymore?

Rita Skeeter for Puddifoot Weekly

Pictures of James Potter and a mysterious redhead holding hands at a bus stop had all of internet screaming last night. Twitter user @bathildabagsht posted a picture yesterday afternoon and the band’s fanbase went crazy for it. For all the picture’s blurriness, any fan of the Marauders would recognize James Potter’s signature messy black hair. Oh how I wish I could run my hands through these locks! The woman’s identity is still unknown but you know me, keeping a secret is basically asking me to uncover it!

---

Euphemia Potter @euphemiapotter

Immensely proud of our son @siriuslypretty for his speech at the #pottergala last night! We love you!

The Marauders speak up about homophobia

The Quibbler

Last week, the Potter foundation held its annual fundraising gala, and this year’s goal was to support LGBTQ+ shelters. The presence of the Marauders was no surprise for anyone, since James Potter is the band’s lead vocalist and guitar player. The band arrived on the stage unannounced and performed a few songs, to the crowd’s delight. The biggest surprise, however, came after their set. Piano player Sirius Black remained on stage to hold a speech about his own experience with homophobia. Rumours surrounding his sexuality had first surfaced several years ago when his family publicly disowned him, but neither party had commented on it. In a moving speech, Sirius finally put an end to the gossip and came out as gay. He opened up about his difficult childhood and thanked the Potters for taking him in. But rather than detailing everything he said, I would rather you see it for yourself. ( Sirius Black’s speech at the 2019 Potter gala ) His way with words could bring anyone to tears and it’s no wonder that he writes most of the Marauders ’ song lyrics. Congratulations, Sirius!

Severus Snape @halfbloodprince

never been a fan of the potter foundation or the marauders but @siriusly ‘s speech last night was disgusting. no wonder the blacks threw him out

Peter Pettigrew @scabbers

@halfbloodprince U R disgusting

Remus Lupin @notromulus

@halfbloodprince wow thanks for voicing your opinion on the subject, it really matters to us

James Potter @prongspotter

@halfbloodprince his speech was better than your entire existence

Severus Snape @halfbloodprince

@notromulus @prongspotter voicing my opinion is my right

Lily Evans @flowerevans

@halfbloodprince you can use your right to stfu sev

James F. Potter @prongspotter

@flowerevans how are you so perfect?

----

James Potter’s girlfriend no longer a mystery

Rita Skeeter for Puddifoot Weekly

Remember when the internet went crazy for a picture of our beloved James with a mysterious woman on a bus? Well she’s no longer a mystery! IfJames Potter’s recent tweet left you with any doubt about his relationship with Lily Evans aka @flowerevans, yesterday’s pics will clear it up. The two were seen at upcoming photographer Dorcas Meadowes’ gallery opening and looked pretty cosy. The two left the event hand in hand and kissed just outside the venue. What a lucky girl!

But who is this Lily Evans? There’s not much about her on the internet but digging through her twitter will tell you that she’s part Irish and a chemist, so I guess our James has a thing for intellectuals. They’ve been seen on the bus several times after the first pics so they probably took the same route. Wait, what if she took that bus on purpose until she met him? Could she be a stalker? Guess I’ll just have to find out!

James F. Potter @prongspotter

@flowerevans omg quit stalking me

puddifootweekly.co.uk

Lily Evans @flowerevans

@prongspotter you’re an idiot

James F. Potter @prongspotter

@flowerevans maybe but i’m your idiot <3 <3

Peter Pettigrew @scabbers

@prongspotter @flowerevans pls stop

Sirius Black @siriuslypretty

@prongspotter @flowerevans so does that mean I’m now the most eligible potter heir?

Remus Lupin @notromulus

@siriusblack you sure about that?

Sirius Black @siriuslypretty

@notromulus ask me again tonight ;)

#jordansfam #mayashpfam #krysfam #userskyfall #userelena #jily #jily fanfic #my writing #stare

[cadpadawan]

31-Day Music Challenge

The social media is now flooded with all kinds of funny challenges, as people are stuck at home with nothing much to do. I guess online gaming, or getting shitfaced, becomes increasingly boring, when all kinds of tiresome responsibilites, like work, do not present any restrictions and limitations anymore. In a way, Facebook has started to resonate the air of those naive first few years, when your newsfeed was basically just one continuous stream of challenge that and challenge this.

Well, why the hell not?

What else is there to do, in order to pass the time with your mental health intact?

So, here I am...just another bored individual to join this endless crusade to make life worth living again, to make my personal life great again. Thus, I jumped on the wagon, and took on this fancy 31-day music challenge, that has been circulating in Facebook (for years, I think).

Although, I didn't find it challenging enough to just type the daily keyword in the Spotify search box and post the result in my Facebook wall. Because: more is more.

(Go ask Yngwie Malmsteen, if you don't believe me...)

The challenge for day #1 was to pick a song with a colour in the title.

I could immediately come up with a bunch of songs, only to realize that the vast majority of the song titles were themed around two basic colours: black and blue. I guess songwriters are a lazy bunch, when it comes to colours. It's pretty obvious, why lyricist everywhere find these two colours exceptionally appealing and resort to the abundant use of them, neglecting all the wonderful possibilites posed by the other colours of the spectrum. Of course black and blue, in terms of emotion and imagination, are much stronger than, say, yellow and orange. So, instead of just settling with the first few titles that came to mind, I wondered if I could come up with one song for each colour I can think of. I mean: a song that bears some personal meaning to me. In practice, this challenge basically meant that I would have to think hard while rummaging through the main three Spotify playlists that I have compiled with something like +16k or +17k songtitles, with the addition of my personal collection of some +2600 cd's – at least the rarities section for songs that are not available in Spotify.

Let's see if I have the stamina to go through my cd-racks, though. I had the forethought to organize my cd's in alphabetical order, by the name of the artist, years ago. For some weird reason, my beloved spouse has not yet agreed to the idea of re-furnishing our apartment with the central theme being those precious compact discs. That's why the cd-racks are placed in somewhat random and impractical fashion: most of them are located in the living room, with a few sections located in our bedroom. I guess, it's a good thing I had disposed of my vintage Rhodes-electric piano by the time when we started dating 20 years ago. I'm pretty sure she would have opposed strongly to the idea of having the instrument as a kitchen table, with the giant lid down. My Rhodes-piano was the so-called suitcase model, with a keyboard of 73 keys. When I moved out from my parents' house in the mid-90's, I decorated my one-room-apartment in the ethos of Japanese minimalism, due to the fact that I spent most of my income on records and alcohol. That Rhodes-piano served as a kitchen table, when I wasn't actually playing with it. Because: why the hell not?

Ok, then. The first colour...it shall be black.

Oh, boy! What a multitude of choices it presents! Should I pick an iconic 90's grunge anthem, like Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun? After all, I saw the band on stage in Helsinki cirka 1995. (I say ”cirka” because I'm not 100% sure about the year, and I'm too lazy to look it up in Google) The fond memories of those grungey early years in the 90's instantly remind me of a couple of equally important bands: Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains. Although, I've never seen either of them live. Pearl Jam had a song titled Black on their breakthrough debut album Ten. Alice in Chains had a killer track titled Black Gives Way to Blue. That epochal Pearl Jam album played non-stop in my car stereos at the time of its' release. I had it copied on a C-cassette. Remember that vintage format, anyone? (Yes, I'm THAT old...) With this particular AIC song I fell in love much later, as it was the title track on the band's comeback album, released in 2009 with the new singer William DuWall. First, I kinda hesitated to give this new AIC line-up any chances, but it turned out to be pretty damn good. Obviously, nothing can top the impact, that the Laney Staley-fronted AIC made with their Dirt-album in 1992. At the time of its' release, that album was a full-blown mindfuck! In retrospect, the year 1992 seems to have been pretty kick-ass, in terms of album releases:

Alice in Chains: Dirt

Rage Against The Machine: Rage Against The Machine

R.E.M.: Automatic for the People

Pantera: Vulgar Display of Power

Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes

Faith No More: Angel Dust

Dream Theater: Images and Words

Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works 85-92

Prince & The New Power Generation: (Love Symbol Album)

Stereo MC's: Connected

Tom Waits: Bone Machine

Sade: Love Deluxe

The Prodigy: Experience

Megadeth: Countdown to Extinction

Eric B. & Rakim: Don't Sweat the Technique

The Orb: U.F.Orb

k.d.Lang: Ingenue

Suzanne Vega: 99.9 Fº

Stone Temple Pilots: Core

Curve: Doppelganger

Nick Cave: Henry's Dream

Neneh Cherry: Homebrew

Maybe I should choose something less obvious? At least, it would make this challenge less arduous for me, because it's evident that making a choice between two particularly dear songs from the past is nothing short of impossible. When in doubt, go for the dark horse! So, here goes: my choice for the song with the colour black in the title is:

Bonobo: Black Sands

Being something of a jazz aficionado, despite not really possessing any of the musical prowess to actually play jazz myself, it was love at first soundbite, when I chanced to hear the title track from Bonobo's 2010 album Black Sands on Bassoradio's morning special back in the day. Bonobo is the musical alias of British DJ-producer-musician Simon Green. His career spawns from the 90's trip hop aesthetics, with heavy influences of jazz and world music. Spicing up electronic beats with raw jazz samples, or even live musicians, was the thing to do, somewhere along the mid-90's. I guess it all started with a few insightful hip-hop artists layering their ghetto stompers with the occassional hardbop jazz sample back in the late 80's. For a short period, acid jazz was the coolest shit ever in the early 90's. In a somewhat natural chain of events, jazz eventually made its way to the brand new genres that evolved around the middle of the decade, trip hop and jungle, too.

That's how I got sucked into the all-consuming whirlpool of this abominable voodoo music – jazz. It's a wonder no-one has come up with a gateway theory yet, regarding the highly addictive nature of jazz music. It usually starts with small doses: an occassional jazz sample is slipped in the hip-hop track, or the breakdown section of a rock song is ornamented with a brief, improvised saxophone lead. Then you find yourself craving for more, and start delving into the depths of acid jazz, nu jazz, or whatever new genre that has incorporated jazz as an inherent element in its' aesthetic toolkit. After this honeymoon period, that might spawn over years and years, you eventually catch yourself red-handed, holding a genuine jazz album in your hands at the local record store, probably the usual entry-level drug-of-choice jazz classic: Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. It has been awarded the title of the greatest jazz album of all time – and for a reason, too. Multiple times. Then you're hooked. Next thing you know, you'll be blasting John Coltrane at a family reunion, with your beloved relatives giving you the dead-eyed stare, doubting the state of your mental well-being. Long story short: you simply cannot go wrong with a mellow waltz rhythm that's punctuated with the organic groove of a flesh-and-blood jazz drummer, and topped with hauntingly beautiful brass harmony.

Next up: the colour blue...

Again, I could go for something utterly obvious, like the song titled Blue by A Perfect Circle. Those lucky few, who know me in person, should be well aware of the fact, that I'm quite a diehard fanboy of the band. I was lucky enough to see the band's live performance a few years back, when they paid Finland a visit. Nevertheless, I think I can come up with something more unexpected.

Just let me think for a sec...

Remember the band Europe? Of course you do! (Unless you were born yesterday, like some, eww, millennial!) I think it would've required some exceptional measures in the noble art of cutting contact with the external world to not have been exposed to the band's 1986 megahit Final Countdown, during the past 34 years. (Fuck! Do I feel old yet?!?) BUT...before you dismiss the band as yet another hair-metal has-been, check out this song:

Europe: Not Supposed To Sing The Blues

It's pretty damn hard to believe it's a song by the same band that's responsible for that Final Countdown atrocity. To be honest, that particular throwback 80's hard rock ear-worm wouldn't probably get under my skin in such a thoroughly repulsive fashion, had I not performed the song countless times myself. It was quite an essential part of the live repertoire of the party band, that I toured with cirka 2004-2008. The modus operandi of this covers-only band was to play the most annoying 80's megahits, with the lyrics translated in Finnish with a liberal amount of tongue-in-cheek references to gay erotica. (On a side note, the band was actually quite popular in certain small regions, despite this dubious approach and the substantially high level of bad taste incorporated in the lyrics and live performances. We even ended up playing in a genuine gay wedding once. The humour of the band was, after all, benevolent albeit a bit harsh, at least in the context of these politically correct times...)

The song Not Supposed to Sing the Blues was released in 2012. It's pretty evident, that during this 26-year-period, following the release of Final Countdown, Europe managed to grow some serious balls, hidden somewhere below my musical radar. The oriental sounding motif, played with some cool mellotron string patch in the refrain before the chorus, has a nice Led Zeppelin-esque feel to it. You can't really go wrong with a slowed-down hard rock blues that is sugar-coated with a grain of Kashmir-strings, now can you?

Next up: white...

What first comes to mind? Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum, and Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues, obviously. You see, I had both of these tracks in vinyl format, way back in the early 90's, when I was going through my ”moustache prog from the 70's”-phase. (Although, this particular Procol Harum song was actually released in 1968, and the Moody Blues song in 1967 – but, in order to be consistent and thorough, I had to dig deeper, to the roots of the prog...to the very dinosaur fossils)

I could throw in White Room by Cream, too. I used to listen to these particular tracks A LOT! In the age of vinyl, conducting a music marathon themed around, say, 60's and 70's ”moustache music”, was actually quite a laborous ritual. Every 25 minutes, or so, I had to flip the side of the record. Shuffling songs totally at random was simply a no-go-zone. Nowadays, it's so easy to compile a lengthy set of personal favorites in Spotify, WinAmp, iTunes, or whatever the fuck application you'd prefer, and just hit the randomize-button...fucking millennials, they have it SO easy. They have no idea of the struggle.

That's why we had those vintage C-cassettes: to copy that very special selection of songs, compiled with tender love and care, onto a format, that didn't require you to be on a constant lookout for when the album side was closing to an end. Besides, before the onslaught of cd-players, those vintage C-cassettes were the only way to impress people with either your refined taste in music, or with the lack of it, while you were occupied with the gentle art of pussy racing, driving around downtown in your awkwardly tuned-up mirthmobile, every goddamn Friday night.

I could pick White Wedding by Billy Idol, too...

It was one of those 80's hits that I used to play with the ”covers only”-party band.

Nah...

I think I will have to choose between Aisles of White by the Aussie soft-prog band the Butterfly Effect, and The Heart of a Cold White Land by the Finnish doomsters Swallow the Sun.

My beloved wife introduced me to Aussie prog, some 10 years ago. The gateway drug, I think, was Karnivool with their music video for All I Know. One day, when I was coming home from work, I caught my wife watching this particular video in YouTube. A little bit later, she unearthed a shitload of Aussie bands in Spotify. I guess she must've been hitting that ”similar artists”-link quite relentlessly. The Butterfly Effect was one of those magnificent bands she discovered. I remember hearing the song In A Memory for the first time. It struck a chord with me, in such a profound way, that I felt compelled to order the album Imago ASAP from some Australian music webstore. At the time, the back catalogue of the Butterfly Effect wasn't available in Finland. I don't know, if it's available even now, because the band is no longer active, I think. Aisles of White is the track #2 on that album, released in 2006. The band released one more kick-ass album in 2008, titled Final Conversation of Kings, and then I don't know what the hell happened.

Swallow the Sun is a bit doomish Finnish metal band, and I'm not really sure, when I actually found the band's music. I think I had their debut album The Morning Never Came (2003) in my cd-rack for years, but it wasn't until 2012, with the release of the magnificent Emerald Forest and the Blackbird album, that I truly fell in love with the band. It took me some five years to actually haul my ass to their gig for the first time. Every single time, when I found out that they were touring nearby, I was too busy with some utterly meaningless work-related bullshit to make it. Finally, in 2017 it happened. I had managed to get rid of my soul-sucking job, although due to a pretty hardcore reason (a brain tumour), so when I found out that Swallow the Sun was performing in Helsinki, in the legendary rock venue Tavastia, I definitely made sure that I was there – and fuck me sideways! It was indeed one of the best live performances that I have ever experienced, hands down!

In 2015, Swallow the Sun released a monolithic triple album Songs From the North, and this particular track, The Heart of a Cold White Land, is on the disc II, that is focused on the beauty side of the band's doom palette.

Swallow the Sun: The Heart of a Cold White Land

Next up: Red

Sielun Veljet was one of the most iconic Finnish rock bands in the 80's. The band released only a couple of albums with lyrics in English, of which the 1989 release Softwood Music Under Slow Pillars was the only one with the songs originally written in English. There was some other attempts to gain international fame and fortune, but in those cases, the songs were merely English translations of their most beloved hit songs, initially written in Finnish. This particular album was planned for international release – but the label executives were pretty disappointed, to say the least, when the band came up with an album full of acoustic psychedelia. It was released only in Finland and Sweden. The artwork on the album cover is actually a painting by a Peruvian artist Pablo Amaringo, depicting the shamanic ayahuasca ritual. Listening through this album in one go is somewhat similar experience, I would guess: a rewarding journey into the depths of the human psyche, albeit potentially exhausting, especially if you're not exactly in the proper mindset to begin with.

Well, ever since I got exposed to the oriental psychedelia of, say, Jimi Hendrix, Kingston Wall, and the like, I seem to have acquired a taste for this kind of weird and druggy, over-the-top freeform musical expression.

Sielun Veljet: Hey-Ho, Red Banana

Ok, then...What next?

What other colours are there, anyway? The three primary colours are: red, yellow and blue. All the other colours can be derived from these three fuckers. To be precise, I think black does not actually qualify as a colour... So, I've got most of these covered already. Of course, in order to pick some hairs, printers actually use magenta, yellow and cyan as their primary colours – and black, obviously. I can't recall a single song with ”magenta” or ”cyan” in the title, though. I could come up with a band or two, with these colours in the band name, such as Magenta Skycode, or Cyan Velvet Project, but song titles?

Nada.

Maybe, if I combed through my post-rock and soundtrack archives, I could come up with some epic 15-minute instrumental with either cyan or magenta mentioned in the lengthy piece of contemporary literature, that is supposed to be the title of the song...but I guess those tracks would not exactly mean worlds to me, as I clearly cannot remember them now. If something comes to mind, while I'm writing down this epistle, I'll address that particular colour and song, accordingly. Now, I shall get on with this challenge journal, onto the next ”normal”, everyday colour...

Which is?

The colour green.

Having played keyboards in a dubious number of proggy bands, with the tonal preferences leaning heavily toward everything vintage, I might as well pick a mellow Hammond-organ classic, such as Green Onions by Booker T. & the MG's, or a vintage synth classic from THE motion picture soundtrack album of all time: Memories of Green by Vangelis, from the timeless Blade Runner soundtrack.

But I won't...

It wasn't actually easy to come up with that many titles with the colour green mentioned. Excluding these two aforementioned classics, I could barely come up with four! As much as I like the desert rock stonerism of Kuyss, the song Green Machine is not my personal favourite in their back catalogue. So that narrows my options to three. The problem is that two of these songs seem to defy the laws of quantum physics: they both take a firm stranglehold on my soul, and throw it casually down the dark and dangerous alleys of nostalgia.

In the midst of 90's acid jazz boom, I had a peculiar habit of buying compilation cd's at random, if the heading on the cover somehow suggested that the contents of the cd had anything to do with this particular genre of music. By impulse-buying music I discovered a lot of gems, like the song Apple Green by Mother Earth. The band was an English acid jazz outfit, virtually unheard of in Finland, despite the tidal wave of acid jazz washing over also these rural perimeters. If Jamiroquai, the Brand New Heavies et al. rub you the right way, you definitely need to check this band out. I can still remember clearly, as if it happened yesterday, how I picked this acid jazz compilation from the vaults of the local record store that no longer exists.

Mr. Big was a band everybody just loved to hate at the turn of the decace, when the gigantic hair-do's of the 80's started to flatten out, and flannel shirts were showing faint signs of becoming the next level shit in the never-ending quest for cool. At the time, I was an under-aged college drop-out, devoting my attention to the finer things of guitar playing techniques, instead of studying for a decent profession. I had received my first electric guitar from my parents in 1988, and for the following 5-6 years, I spent most of my time and energy in an attempt to unravel the secrets of how to play guitar like Jimi Hendrix. I listened to quite a lot of speed and thrash metal on the side, too. Y'know, bands such as Anthrax, Metallica, Slayer and Stone, which was quite a legendary Finnish speed metal band in the late 80's. My budding personal artistic expression was anyhow more influenced by legendary old timers, like Hendrix. I simply loathed all sorts of pyrotechnical wankery (with the exception of certain tracks by Steve Vai and Joe Satriani). Mr. Big's lead guitarist Paul Gilbert was famous for that very special blend of technical stuff, that I wasn't interested in, not in the slightest. So, I never really gave the band a chance. I think my misconception of the band's music as some kind of a shit-show of technical masturbation was due to some instructional videos hosted by Gilbert. After all, his fame as a highly skilled guitarist must have derived from his contributions to several guitar magazines and instructional videos, instead of his career in Mr. Big. So, everytime I heard the intro of, say, To Be With You, on my car radio, I simply had to change the channel. In order to do so, I had to manually rotate the tuning knob. Yes, my first car stereos were THAT vintage! What a time it was to be alive! Years later, with the maturity of age like with a fine wine, I finally listened to the worn-out hits of this horrid band only to find out that – bummer! - in terms of songwriting, those goddamn Mr.Big hits were actually not that bad at all. The song Green-Tinted Sixties Mind was released on the album Lean Into It in 1991. Now, everytime I am exposed to this particular song, I am instantly reminded of what a stuck-up elitistic music snob I used to be during those emotionally tumultuous times.

So, I could resort to the luck of the draw, but luckily I've got one more candidate to go.

Lonely the Brave is one of my most recent findings. It's an English alt.rock band from Cambridge, formed in 2008. I really don't know much about the band, just this one song titled The Blue, The Green. I was exposed to it while playing the music trivia game Songpop 2 with my mobile phone during the past two years, I think. The game is about guessing songs within the timeframe of a 15 second clip. Pretty addictive at first, actually. This 15-second-soundbite was enough to gain my full attention, so I had to check out the song in full, instantly. I cannot pinpoint what exactly it is, but this particular song has that vague feeling of ”something”, that draws me to listen to it, time and time again.

Lonely The Brave: The Blue, The Green

Next up: yellow.

I was first introduced to Frank Zappa's unique music in the late 80's, by my classmate Jussi, who kindly exposed me to the timeless classic Bobby Brown Goes Down. At the delicate age of 15, it was a pretty anticipated reaction that the explicit song lyrics would strike a chord. A few years later, as I was browsing through the vinyl section at the local second hand record store, I came across a pure treasure: the gatefold vinyl edition of Roxy & Elsewhere by Frank Zappa & The Mothers. In mint condition, too! Dropping the needle on the first groove on the black vinyl back home was like taking the first hit of some mind-altering illegal substance. My perception of reality changed in an instant – and there was no going back. Such an exciting mixture of fusion jazz, rock and harsh satire was sure to make me an addict. So, in no time at all I built up enough tolerance and moved onto semi-lethal dosages, and purchased the albums Hot Rats, Grand Wazoo and Apostophe('). The last one was released in the year, when I was born (1974), and it included the hilarious 4-part rock suite about the unfortunate adventures of an eskimo named Nanook. One part of the suite is titled: Don't Eat the Yellow Snow. Sound advice at the time of a global pandemic, that originated from some peculiar pathogen spillover event in China, don't cha think?

Frank Zappa: Don't Eat The Yellow Snow

Not many colours left, I think...

Next up: purple.

I was exposed to the music of Jimi Hendrix via a documentary on TV, when I was a rosy-cheeked 7th grader in junior high. It happened around the same time, when I got my first electic guitar. So, I guess it must have been written in the stars, or something. The universe simply wanted me to focus on the noble art of guitarism, instead of getting a college degree on psychopathological marketing or accounting (fuck no!). My first guitar was a cheap stratocaster-copy with a Williams-logo on it. In a way, it resembled the vintage Mellotron keyboard: it simply would refuse to keep in tune. One of the first songs that I learned, despite the frustrating limitations imposed by the crap tuners on the guitar, was Purple Haze by Hendrix. I had to learn it by ear. You see, back in the gloomy days of the late 80's, there just wasn't that many guitar tabs around. Not in Finland, anyway. Later I did find an instructional guitar playing manual at the local library, with a few pages dedicated to the art of Jimi Hendrix. Mainly, the only viable option to learn any contemporary rock song, or even any classic from the days long gone, was either to learn it by ear, or to resort to the occassional tabs provided by the international guitar magazines – if you were fortunate enough to spot these much-sought publications at your local bookstore. (These fuckin' millennials have it SO easy!) On the other hand, learning to play primarily by ear must have developed my improvisational skills a great deal, as an added bonus. Improvisation is not so much about throwing up some pre-programmed fancy gimmicks at any given chance, but actually LISTENING to what your fellow musicians are playing and responding accordingly.

Next up: grey.

I think it was my dear wife, once again, who first introduced me to the band Thrice, by playing the song Digital Sea from the band's double album Alchemy Index, a long, long time ago. The band's vocalist/guitarist Dustin Kensrue is one of those few singers, who are blessed with a distinctive voice that speaks, or to be more precise, sings volumes. He might not have the same gravitas like Mark Lanegan or Tom Waits, but nevertheless, he has the voice of a protagonist who's been to hell and back. Mark Lanegan sounds like he's got a season ticket, and Tom Waits sounds like he's the devil running the show – or, to put it in Waits' own words:

”Don't you know, there ain't no devil,

that's just God when he's drunk...”

 Tom Waits: Heartattack and Vine

Anyways, the lyrics in a Thrice song could be compiled of a list of phone numbers, or the decimals of Pi (like Kate Bush actually did), and it would still sound like a profound wisdom concerning the transformative journey of being fully human.

Thrice: The Grey

Last but not least, the colour: turquoise.

For years, I actually thought that Boards of Canada was indeed a Canadian outfit. Y'know, indie bands in particular come up with these band names that have some funny and ironic twist. Somewhere along the way, it finally dawned on me that this magnificent electronic duo is actually from Scotland. Well, of course it is! If my memory isn't playing any tricks on me now, I'm pretty sure that Soulsavers and Hidden Orchestra are Scottish, too. And they all have something in common. Each of these electronic outfits has an extraordinary and unique, boss-level prominance in the way they manage to capture emotion in their instrumentals.

Boards of Canada released a 5-minute electronic epic titled Turquoise Hexagon Sun on the album Music Has the Right to Children in 1998. The name of the song is actually a reference to the duo's recording studio Hexagon Sun. It makes it even more marvellous, that an instrumental track with a title deriving from something so mundane can touch your heartstrings so deeply. It's not that often, when an electronic instrumental with a hip-hop beat, glassy vintage synth motifs and deliberately lo-fi production paired with grainy samples, manage to do that. These Scottish bastards must've been onto something...

Well, that's pretty much all there was to the first day in this music challenge! I was supposed to pick one song, and I ended up writing a fucking novel about it...Tomorrow the plot shall thicken even more, when I introduce you to the theme of the day #2.

In the meanwhile, you can do yourself a favour and listen to:

Boards of Canada: Turquoise Hexagon Sun

Stay tuned! Cheers!

[hrrytomlinson]

Unique AUs I’ve Read

I have a list of fics on my phone that are so unique, so different, so specific to a certain theme/genre, that you could literally find nothing else like it on ao3 (in my opinion). When authors deep dive into a universe, the reader falls in love with the characters and plot. These plots are some of the most unique ones I’ve ever come across. Enjoy.

No Matter Where You Are (No Matter How Far) by @ceaseand-exist​, 35k

An Everest AU where Louis sets out to climb the tallest mountain on the world and meets a curly-haired guy named Harry who worms his way into Louis's life. It's not long before reaching the summit becomes the least of Louis's worries.

Behavioural Ecology by @turtlekz​, 81k

Louis Tomlinson is a primatologist working with the Jane Goodall Institute for primate conservation; and Harry Styles is the photojournalist sent from National Geographic to write a piece promoting awareness about the endangered species. They meet, and love is never, ever simple, as we know.

Featuring Eli the chimpanzee, bickering humans, storytelling, and five men who come to gain an understanding of what it means to be human; all stationed in the Republic of the Congo.

Coax the Cold by @mediawhorefics​, 86k

England, 1897.  

English Professor Louis Tomlinson’s passion for the occult has been a source of mockery and derision for most of his life. When he hears whispers of a travelling freak show newly established in London claiming the existence of a monstrous sea hybrid, half-man, half-fish, Louis sees it as his ticket to credibility amongst his peers. The summer he spends undercover working on the show, however, gives him much more than that.

Run Away Home by @hattalove​, 106k

Louis stands, in the middle of a clearing with his hands in his pockets, and stares. This boy—God, this gorgeous, gorgeous boy. He seems so clumsy, confused at the best of times, but there’s a wisdom about him as he speaks, a maturity that belies his age.

Louis is hopelessly, wildly attracted to him.

Or, Louis is a successful jockey down on his luck, struggling to get his life back on track after an injury. Harry has a horse, a house fit for a prince, and a broken heart.

It takes them a while to figure out that they need each other.

Above Your Head by @heypopstar​, 57k

What happens when an unstoppable object meets an immovable force?

Space AU. Louis is an astronaut. Harry works for Mission Control. They don't get along.

Paint The Sky With Stars by @icanhazzalou​, 62k

On 10 April 1912, Harry Styles boards the finest ship the world has ever seen. Still grieving the death of their mother, he and his sister are being sent to America to live with a callous uncle who cares more about his business connections than family. Harry prepares himself for a long, disappointing voyage alone in his stateroom.

Louis Tomlinson has borrowed and saved, and finally has enough to purchase a Third Class ticket to America. With all of his belongings in a single ruck sack, he boards the Titanic filled with hope for a brighter future. Never one to sit still, he can’t resist exploring the massive ship, and soon goes sneaking into First Class in a stolen steward’s uniform.

By a twist of fate, Louis finds himself in Harry’s stateroom, entranced by the most attractive man he’s ever laid eyes on. He keeps returning day after day, even if he doesn’t understand what it is about Harry that continues pulling him in. That’s all right; Louis has a week to figure it out, and Harry is plenty willing to help.

Except they don’t have a week. They have four days. Because on 15 April, their entire world will be turned upside down.

Or, the historically accurate Titanic AU with a happy ending.

Outwit, Outplay, Outlast by @lookatyourchoices​ & @winingandcrying​, 60k

“Tommo and Harry are gonna do it. I don’t know when, but they’re gonna do it. They’ve got the mattress, the pillows, everything’s in place, and they’re gonna do it. I really wish those two the best of luck.” – Taylor Swift, "Chapera"

Or a Survivor All-Stars AU in which Harry and Louis are just in this game to win the million dollars, but they end up with something better.

Featuring Harry's yellow swim shorts, Louis in snapbacks, and OT5 shenanigans.

Love Is A Rebellious Bird by @100percentsassy​ & @gloriaandrews​, 134k

AU in which the boys still make music. Louis is the concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra, Harry is the New! and Exciting! interim conductor/ex-cello prodigy who "has made Mozart cool again" according to Esquire Magazine (Louis hates him immediately, which is definitely why he internet stalked him in his dark bedroom late at night that one time), and Niall is the best. Zayn and Liam are around too.

Don't hum Bolero.

7 Up by @cherrystreet​, 51k

Very loosely based on the British TV show "The Up Series" and somewhat inspired by the song “Something I Need” by Onerepublic, we follow the lives of Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson in an interview setting every seven years. They fall apart and come together, their lives and emotions recorded. Harry calls it a time capsule. Louis calls it a pain in the are.

Take My Breath Away by @realitybetterthanfiction​, 153k

There is a prestigious school in the British Royal Navy classified as Premier Delta - or as it is known by its flyers, 1D. These select pilots are an elite set of Naval lieutenants who are trained in the skill of aggressive aerial combat. They are instruments of war, trained in times of peace. They are dogfighters, relentless and fearless in their mission to protect their beloved country. From their lofty vantage, they are always watching, waiting, and ready to lay it all on the line.

Lt. Harry Styles, call sign Sparrow, is a prodigy when it comes to flying. The owner of an unrivaled Naval pedigree, being a pilot was always written in the stars for Harry. With his trusty RIO, Lt. Niall Horan, Harry has made an unprecedented ascension in the ranks of the Naval aerial combat elite, and has been recruited to the esteemed Premier Delta flight school, carrying on his family’s legacy. What he finds there are unexpected friendships, perilous challenges, and something beyond what he ever thought possible. Because as his father had always told him, before the great Captain Styles went tragically missing in combat, you don’t fall in love with the sky, you fall in love with what keeps you on the ground.

Be With Me So Happily by @briannamarguerite​, 42k

Harry Styles may have had his doubts at first, but by the time the gates to the elephant sanctuary came into view he was one hundred percent positive. Louis Tomlinson hated his guts. Like hated, hated. Like loathed-him-on-sight hated.

From what Harry could tell, he hadn’t even done anything close to insulting enough to warrant the disdain that was Louis Tomlinson’s default expression whenever he looked at Harry. It really wasn’t fair. Especially since he’d been lusting after the man from the second he’d laid eyes on that pretty, pretty face with those pretty, pretty eyes.

Or ... the one where Harry Styles has a bad reputation and a heart of gold, and Louis Tomlinson wishes he wasn't so enchanted by boys who looked like Disney characters and wore shirts with bumble bees on them.

Aka Louis is the director of the Styles Elephant Sanctuary and really doesn't want to babysit his funder's spoiled lay-about son for two months.

All I Wish Not to Remember by @avocadolouie​, 71k

What happens when all you had, all you loved, all you held dear is viciously ripped away from you? When your inner core, once filled with love and hope and light, blackens to raw, dark hatred?

What happens when your soul is hopelessly consumed and no matter how hard you try, no matter how hard you attempt to shake yourself out, to rid your tormented mind of the opaque feelings that plague you, all you can see, all you can feel, all you can want is...

Revenge.

A modern adaption of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. A tragic tale of timeless undying love, merciless revenge, and selfless sacrifice.

Love Endless (The Road to Recollection) by @wubwubnparmaham​, 171k

The year is groovy 1973, and eighteen-year-old Louis Tomlinson is perhaps the gayest teen to ever grace the gloomy, hateful town of Fortwright. Would be fine if he wasn't so viciously bullied at both home and school for such a "harmful" sexual preference.

Yeah, yeah, we've all heard this story, haven't we? Believe him, Louis didn't think he was anything special either.

Until he found the mansion. The notoriously haunted mansion hidden deep within the forests of his tiny blip of a town in Bumfuck Nowhere, Idaho. No one with a brain ever goes near it, but Louis could use a little excitement in his life...and possibly a Band-Aid or two.

After discovering the mansion was less abandoned than he'd thought, he's now left with the most riveting mystery of a lifetime; every new finding leaving him with more questions. Who is this elusive owner, and why won't they show themselves? Why is there a set of journals in the same handwriting that span over centuries? Why in the world is there a padlock on the refrigerator...and who the hell is Alexander?

When We Were Younger by @waytoomanypeopleintheaddisonlee​, 76k

About a week after Harry started visiting this particular chat room, he was watching some kid argue with the whole room about football, personally disinterested as he tipped a bag of crisps into his mouth. He happily chomped on the crumbs, taking a swig from a glass of Ribena to wash them down, glancing at the screen and very nearly spat the squash back out again. His heart was pounding wildly. The display icon of the argumentative newcomer had caught his eye, and not in a good way. He gulped as he clicked the picture, and when it popped up in full resolution, his heart nearly fell right out of his arse. Sixteen year old Harry Styles’ world turns upside down when he logs on to gay teen chat to discover somebody has stolen his photos and used them as their own.

These Bountiful Silences by tommoandbambi, 123k

They live in a world where they can only say four words per day. Harry meets some people that don't want to live that way.

Once Upon A Dream by @louehvolution​, 33k

Louis is psychic and gets caught in the middle of a murder investigation led by FBI Special Agent Harry Styles.

Aka, the Medium/Criminal Minds-inspired AU no one ever asked for.

In the Clear by @thedarkestlarrie​, 80k

After Princess Gemma and her fiance Niall are captured by the witch from across the land, Harry and Louis are forced on a journey together to save them.

Featuring Lumberjack Liam, Magical Zayn, unsolicited tattoos, and untangling the past.

Also known as The Larrietale.

Down the Backs of Table Tops (and Ticket Stubs in the Attic) by @londonfoginacup, 7k

There's only two of them stuck to the house now, two souls tied to the walls and floor and pipes and appliances. Two souls stuck in a world that's moved on without them. Well, two souls and a cat.

He holds up the red fabric for Harry to get a good look at."We're going to decorate!"

Harry thinks this might be an odd shut-ins version of retail therapy, and he looks to Grimmy for guidance on how to explain to Louis that this will not at all help his cause.

The World Turned Upside Down by @dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram, 71k

In September 1984, Harry Styles starts at Manchester Polytechnic with two goals: to take pictures and to join the Lesbian and Gay Society. He’s never paid much attention to the news, but everyone he meets in Manchester supports the miners. He realises how right they are when he meets Louis Tomlinson, a striking miner who flirts with him. A month later they are both at the founding meeting of Manchester Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, trying to bring down the government. Through letters and visits they build a relationship, in a world very much not of their own choosing.

Manchester and Doncaster in the 1980s are grim, hopeful and alive. Niall is president of the Young Labour club, Nick Grimshaw is in love with the singer of an up and coming band, Fizzy wants to know more about the women of Greenham Common and Harry and Louis are brave.

A Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners/Pride AU.

Through Eerie Chaos by @mediawhorefics, 102k

For as long as anyone can remember, Old Hillsbridge Manor has always been believed to be haunted. Everyone in the village agrees and keeps a respectful, fearful, distance. New in town after a bad breakup and an internship that led to disappointment rather than a permanent job, Harry Styles figures taking pictures of the decrepit building could be a great new creative project. Or at least a much-needed distraction while he searches for a job and crashes at his parents’ new house. No one warned him about the apparitions though; about the music, the laughter, the people who flicker and vanish when you call after them, the echoes of a past that should be long gone… Harry has never believed in spirits but even he can admit that there’s something weird going on. What starts as mere curiosity evolves into a full-blown investigation and soon enough, Harry finds himself making friends with an aristocrat from the 1920s and struggling with finding the best way to tell him that he’s dead.

The Ghost Hunter AU where Niall lives to prove ghosts are real, Zayn is a skeptical librarian and Harry gets caught up in a century-old mystery and catches feeling in the process.

find more fic recs here

#this was the hardest edit to make because i was like... what kind of pictures do i fucking use????? #anyway i tried. and it literally took forever to make this post holy shit #i found everyone's tumblr except one person!! yay and I'm sorry for the notifications these authors will get LOL #unique aus #fic rec #mine #larry fic rec #larry stylinson fic rec #I'm probably missing a bunch but these have been stored on a note in my phone for like... FOREVER #harry styles #louis tomlinson #liam payne #zayn malik #niall horan #larry stylinson #ziall #ziam #alternate universe #aus #UMM I HOPE PEOPLE SEE THIS AND ENJOY IT!!! :D :D :D #coax the cold #no matter where you are no matter how far #behavioural ecology #run away home #above your head #paint the sky with stars #outwit outplay outlast #liarb #7 up #take my breath away

[janyolski]

Fic: The One With The Dog Mom And Hot Vet

Chapter 6: The One With The Birthday Party

Link to the whole story on FFN | AO3 | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Summary: AU. Cosima is a crazy loving dog mom and Delphine is a crazy hot veterinarian. Cosima is also super gay. Mrs. S, Sarah, Felix, and Kira make their appearances!

"Wait, you mean the vet Kira keeps talking about?"

Sarah Manning's voice comes through the phone Cosima has tucked between her ear and shoulder as she pours dog food into Pancho's dog bowl.

The older sister (only by eleven months) speaks with an Irish/British accent from growing up and being raised by Mrs. S. in London. Sarah was definitely the rebel, wearing her hair in a permanent bedhead which she claims is sexy, and her fair share of stories of wild nights and trouble-making for her foster mother. Sarah grew up with a natural disdain for school and learning institutions, with a knack for pissing off and butting heads with authority figures, her foster mother included. Mrs. S. labeled her as the Trouble Monkey while Felix, her other foster child, was the Fabulous Art Monkey, as a joke. Of course, this was no less accurate.

Cosima, on the other hand grew up in San Francisco Bay Area, on a boat to parents who were professors at Berkeley. She lived, breathed knowledge and learning. She transferred to Canada for a PhD scholarship grant and to be with her sister. Mrs. S. labeled her the geek monkey.

The two sisters grew up in two different continents and their differences were innumerable. But, while each having a personality that's worlds apart from the other, their resemblance and connection was absolutely undeniable the moment they met. Side by side, they looked like identical twins.

"Yes. That's her. Have you met her?"

Cosima places the food bowl in the puppy's pen. Pancho is already up on his hind legs, leaning against the plastic fence of his playpen, tail wagging like mad in excitement for his food. He starts digging in before the bowl even touches the ground.

"No, haven't met her yet. S and Kira are always the ones who take the dog to the vet."

Cosima mumbles an 'mhmm'. Sarah would never be bothered to do something like that.

"Dude… The first time I saw her, I puked rainbows."

Her older sister's laughter rings through her ears.

"That hot, eh?"

Cosima moves to her cupboard, grabs the box of Frosties and sets it on the table. She then grabs a bowl, a spoon, turns to the fridge and grabs the milk.

"I mean… Just… Phew."

She pours cereal into her bowl, then pours milk.

"Mmhm. Yeah. So, do you want me to wing you on my kid's birthday party?"

Cosima almost drops the carton of milk as she pours some over the cereal. She thinks she would have thrown it at her sister if Sarah were across her.

"No! Absolutely not. Sarah, it's your kid's birthday party… my niece! And I love you, but you're the shittiest wing-woman ever."

Sarah laughs again.

"You telling me about this woman and her being invited to the party means you want me to help you. You know can't do this without me."

Cosima digs into her cereal. Sarah could hear the crunching and munching over the line. The older sister speaks before Cosima could respond to her challenge.

"Cos, are you eating shite food again?"

Cosima swallows.

"Dude, if I wanted to be winged, Felix would do a better job than you. And I'm not eating shite food. I'm having cereal."

The pet owner laughs at her own imitation of Sarah cursing. Sarah doesn't even comment on her sister mocking her.

"For dinner? Jesus fuck. You have to eat better food Cosima. And I know you secretly enjoy it when I wing you."

Cosima scoffs.

"Sarah, you are worse than a group of middle schoolers teasing me about a crush. I do not want to be humiliated in front of this one, please."

Sarah laughs at her again.

"Cos, you know you love it because you get to bond with your favorite sister."

"Dude, Felix is my favorite sister. Not you."

Cosima laughs this time. It was true. Not the Felix is her favorite sister part, because she loves them both equally, but the part about her enjoying Sarah playing wing-woman. It was for the simple fact that she gets to share a bonding moment with her long-lost sister. If Sarah's attempts were not successful, it at least made for funny stories to tell Mrs. S. However, they usually do this in bars where Cosima knows no one and her good name wasn't really at stake.

"Oi, Cos, I have to put Kira to bed. Talk to you later, yeah?"

"Okay. Tell monkey that I love her. And good night to you both."

"Yeah, okay. Good night, Cos. Bye."

"Bye."

Sarah hangs up. Cosima puts her phone down and continues eating her cereal. She thinks about the French doctor and hopes that Sarah doesn't have too much fun trying to be her wing-woman.

"Auntie Cosima!"

The birthday girl immediately comes running to her the moment she stepped foot inside Mrs. S' house. Cosima bends down to catch her in a hug.

"Hey, monkey- oof!"

Kira throws her arms around her aunt's neck and the child almost tackles the woman to the ground. Cosima chuckles at her niece's excitement to see her. Pancho, who she brought along, of course, was walking at her side. The puppy was definitely infected by Kira's excitement and is wagging his tail and barking for Kira's attention.

"Happy birthday!"

Cosima leans back from the hug to give Kira a big kiss on the cheek to match her greeting. The child giggles.

"Thank you."

The birthday girl then notices Pancho. She rubs the puppy's torso as she hugs him. Pancho just tries to lick her face.

"Oh, he's gotten bigger!"

Cosima smiles at what is probably the purest thing in the world - the scene of her beloved niece playing and cuddling her beloved pup. A warmth spreads in her chest.

"Yes, he has gotten bigger. And so did you."

Cosima only noticed that Mrs. S. and Felix, who was in an apron, are both standing, leaning against each side of the door frame that leads to the kitchen, watching the scene. She gives her niece a pat on the head and gets up to give them both a hug, turning to the matriarch first.

"Hello, chicken. Thanks for coming in early to help."

"No, problem at all, Mrs. S."

Felix smirks and greets her with a one-armed hug, his other hand carrying an apron which Cosima suspected to be meant for her.

"Well, I finally get to see my favorite lesbian. Here's an apron. Make yourself useful."

And the pet owner suspected right. Cosima laughs and takes the apron.

"I missed you, too, Felix."

Just then, Sarah comes bounding down the stairs beside the door frame.

"Ah, the geek monkey is here."

Kira giggles at her mother calling Cosima a monkey. The little girl was carrying a surprisingly calm Pancho in her arms.

"You just missed me."

Cosima shoots back at her sister. Sarah, who's wearing her signature sleeveless band shirt and messy hair, raises an eyebrow at Cosima as she comes to stand beside her younger sister.

"Miss you? I talk to you almost every day. If anything, I'm sick of you."

Cosima rolls her eyes and puts an arm around Sarah's shoulders, giving her a side hug.

"Ha-ha, Sarah. Pretending to not have feelings to keep up your cool, badass image is so last season."

Mrs. S. chuckles.

"Aye. She got you there, love."

Sarah rolls her eyes but fails to hide her smile.

"Whatever."

The four adults proceed into the kitchen to start the preparations for Kira's backyard party. It was still early in the morning and the guests won't be arriving until lunch time.

Cosima ties her apron snugly around her waist. She is on cake baking duty today. Felix is starting the fire for the grill. Sarah and Mrs. S are setting up the balloons and other decorations up. Kira takes Pancho to the backyard where she introduces him to Babu and the two pups run around together after the initial wariness.

"Delphine, welcome! So glad you could come."

Cosima almost drops the cake she was pulling out of the fridge after she hears Mrs. S. greet the French doctor who just arrived. Kira and her friends were already laughing and enjoying burgers and drinks outside while the clown Mrs. S. hired gave a magic show.

"Hello, Siobhan. I'm not too late, am I?"

The French doctor smiles. Mrs. S shakes her head. The matriarch takes Delphine's coat and the two women walk further into the house, passing the living room and going into the dining area and kitchen.

"Oh, no, not at all. In fact, you're just in time for the cake."

The Irish woman gestures to the cake on the counter top, purple and pink frosting decorated with flowers made of icing. Delphine's eyes land on the woman behind it, holding nine birthday candles in blues, yellows, and pinks.

"Oh, hello, Cosima."

Delphine smiles at her and Cosima feels a fluttering in her stomach. A smile tugs at the corners of her lips.

"Hi, Delphine."

Cosima unties her apron and takes it off. She moves around the counter and takes the cake and candles with her.

"Kira would be so glad to see you-"

"I hear Kira's not the only one happy to see you, doc."

Sarah cuts in and surprises the three women. She had walked through the door from the backyard without any one of them noticing.

The alarms in Cosima's head go off, her eyes go wide as she processes her sister's sudden presence and her statement. A look crosses Cosima's features, one that Sarah recognizes.

Cosima thinks, oh no.

Sarah smirks.

Oh, yes.

#cophine #cophine fic #cophine fanfiction #cophine fanfic #orphan black fic #orphan black fanfiction #orphan black fanfic #ob #delphine #cosima #orphan black au #cophine au #delphine cormier #cosima niehaus #cosima x delphine #delphine x cosima #the one with the dog mom and hot vet #the one with the birthday party #sarah manning #felix dawkins #siobhan sadler #mrs. s #kira manning #mine

[bloggerblagger]

89) You’re in a focus  group:  If Brexit were A or B or C, below, what would it be?

A)  A Car

Back in my day - when they were just realising that if you tied the pointy flinty bit to the stick you had an axe - one of the most favoured questions by so-called market researchers was, ‘if such and such were a car,  what would it be?’ 

Or sometimes it would be an animal. Or a sport. Or whatever. You get the idea - these were not very subtle attempts to crystalise  the respondents’ otherwise hard to articulate feelings about the ‘such and such’ in question.

I was put in mind of this pre-Cambridge Analytica, pre-algorhthym, and doubtless, by today’s standards, prehistoric,  research method when walking through leafy Twickenham the other day. There I came up this fabulous Rover 100. A gorgeous beast. All wood and leather, about to 18 to the gallon - no  bally litres then -  when a gallon was about 6s8d. If you need a translation you’re really too young to understand, but to help you that’s 33p in new money. And at 0.22 litres to the gallon that is as near as dammit to 7.25p to the litre. Those were the days eh.

Yep, what a beauty. Weighed a ton, road holding just about okay providing you were  going  dead straight, 50 years old and closer to a horse and cart than a 2019 car. Almost a museum piece, and completely removed from the modern world. If I could get by without satnav and a reversing camera and if I didn’t demand music playing like I was in the Albert Hall  and if I didn’t care that I was taking my nearest and dearest  out in a deathtrap, I’d love one of these.

It would bowl along gaily pumping lead fumes into the air (when gaily meant what gaily was meant to mean and hadn’t been hi jacked by the Tom Robinson* brigade)  and blithely poisoning schoolchildren. 

No crush proof zones on this old girl, no collapsible steering wheel, no air bags, not even a bloody safety belt. You could go out and drink yourself silly and then go out and kill yourself and your passengers and anyone who happened to get in the way without anyone or anything to stop you.

Yet, as out of date as it is,  it quickens my pulse when I see it like no brand new Beemer or Lexus can. Nothing conjures up my childhood and youth like the sight of a motor  car of the period. (‘Motor car’ - what a lovely, quaint old fashioned term that is.)  I would love to sit in it, to feel the leather seats under me, to smell the Connolly hide as all cars like this were advertised as having. And mixed in with that, doubtless, the lingering pong of ashtrays stuffed full of stubbed out Rothmans and Dunhills. Cigar lighters and  ashtrays - you didn’t get much in the way of extras then but every Rover had those.

It’s a magnet for my nostalgia. If I had a choice between this Rover !00 and a straight of the box Tesla…..

If Brexit were a car, this would be it.

* Tom Robinson from ‘The Tom Robinson Band’, of ‘Glad to Be Gay’ fame, as opposed to Tommy Robinson  of nothing-to-boast-of-at-all infamy.  Only just spotted the extraordinary similarity. Could the choice of that name have been conscious irony on Yaxley-Lennon’s part? I think not. In which case, it is fucking hilarious.

B) A type of entertainment or cultural event

A few days after my astonishingly brilliant Rover insight, I found myself glued to the Last NIght of the Proms. Yes, I know, I really should get out more but, corny as it is, I was completely swept along.

Rule Britannia, Jerusalem, Land of Hope And Glory - irrestible to a septuagenarian who once sat in history lessons in chalky classrooms  being shown maps of the world a quarter of which were proudly picked out in pink. (By the way, does anyone* know why pink was the colour designated to mark the countries of the British Empire? Seems a strange choice in retrospect.)

And this wasn’t ancient history either. When I started my whatever-the-opposite-of-illustrious-is career at Brighton Grammar School in 1959 - no false modesty I assure you -  the wind of change had yet to blow through Africa. Canada and Australia and New Zealand and the sub-continent had gone, dammit, but we - WE - as in US - as in other people and I - were, we were told, still a world power. 11 years old and a world power. Not bad!

In those days, there was no suggestion - at least not one that had seeped into the salty ether of  Brighton Grammar - that empire was anything else but something to be jolly proud of. 

And so it was that, for the second time in a few days, a dazzling lightbulb pinged  above my head: the Last Night of the Proms was the precise cultural manifestation of what the Leavers had been voting for. 

This was what they ached for: A world where the certainties of the fities  were never to be questioned.  When this was a Christian country and its people were white. (Take a close look at any picture of the Proms and try to sport the black faces. It’s like Where’s Wally but without Wally.)  A world where no ungrateful Frog - have they forgotten that we saved them from the Hun! - would dare to tell us to straighten our cucumbers. Where Jews were kept out of our golf clubs and Muslims were called Mosselmen and were only seen in the Arabian Nights. 

A world in which men were men and if they liked other men they went to prison and if they killed other men they were killed too and if they beat other men’s children with sticks that was perfectly okay. (Okay, a little exaggeration to claim that this is what Leavers were voting for, but its just to make a point. And anyway, it’s not that much of a stretch. Try reading the ‘Comments’ section after any article in the Daily Telegrafarage.)

And here’s the awful thing: I kind of got it. Because, as I said, here was I, carried gleefully along by The Last Night of the Proms too. And wallowing in the nostagia.

But then I spotted the fly in the ointment. Or the N word in the woodpile as they used to say before the PC  crowd ruined Leaver lives. I could suddenly hear the cab driver’s voice in my head: ‘You’re not going bleedin’ Adam and Eve it - them fuckin’ traitor Remainers   have only gorn and fucking ruined The Last Night of the Proms too! Did you see all them EU flags?!!! At the bleedin’ Proms!’

And then, whilst researching this piece, I saw this Tweet. Nice.

And then I thought about the People’s Vote demo  that I had been to  on Spetember 7th in Parliament Square -  it’s the kind of thing we Traitor Remainer types do of a Saturday - and saw the for the first time that terribly English, awfully traditional social group, the Football Lads Alliance, who just happened to have turned up at the same time. (Whether impicitly or explicitly encouraged so to do by the D.Cummings tendancy  I know not, but nothing would surprise me.) 

it was from here that the Press Associatation reported that 'former Conservative and Brexit opposition MP Anna Soubry cancelled her speech to Parliament Square for fear of violence. "I am a member of Parliament and I have the right to express myself and I should not be scared, but it is very, very, very disturbing and, in fact, I am really scared," she said.’ 

Her and me both.

And all this was before the great debate - as if there needs to be one because it it is so fucking obvious - about whether Johnson and Cummings were making it deliberate Tory policy to use the language of war to inflame Leaver passions so they can win an election.

I don’t mean to be alarmist. No, actually I do.  You’d think it was a long, long way from  the Albert Hall to  Charlottesville  but it seems to me be perilously close.

*Two possible answers to the ‘Why is the British Empire coloured pink?’ question found on Google:

 i)  Pink was a printer's compromise for letters overprinted to be clearly read, as the colour that was traditionally associated with the British Empire is red. 

ii) Pink is supposed to be the colour of the Tudor rose of the English monarchy. Goes back to the War of the Roses, Henry Tudor reunited the houses of York, symbolized by the white rose, and Lancaster, symbolized by the red rose. The new House of Tudor was symbolized by the combination of the two, a pink rose. 

C) A fruit or vegetable

I really have to take it easy.  First the Rover, then the Proms, and then, taking an autumnal stroll in Queens Park, I suddenly felt my heart heart quickening yet again. There at my feet lay another shiny vehicle guaranteed to instantly  transport me back to my  days in the Outlaws*. (See foot notes if under 60.) 

Yes, the mighty conker. You may not think of it as a fruit, but technically (I think) it qualifies. And if a conker  isn’t Brexit on a string, well I don’t know what is. Instantly evocative of grazed knees, and corned beef and the Billy Cotton Band Show and  Ted Dexter and  dwindling white dots in the middle of televisions and a world  which was blessedly free of the dreaded health and safety and all the other absurd modern contrivances that get in the way of living of proper British lives. All of which, as the Sun, Mail and Telegraph have been relentlessly telling us for the past forty years are, unquestionably, the evil doings of BRUSSELS!!! 

But. 

No sooner had I  settled on the conker as my super stonking answer to  question C, than I caught a bit of a radio show in which they were interviewing a bloke from the British Sandwich Association or some such. He  was reassuring us that, in the event of a no-deal Brexit causing a  shortage of rocket  -  the salad not the Scud type - which, apparently, is produced in Italy and might get stuck on the M2 in a tailback to Taormina, they will reformulate their recipes and subsitute good old British lettuce. 

(For a moment I thought he was going to get into the Leaver’s beloved wartime spirit and suggest we grow our own watercress and try that instead. I am sure that will be official government policy soon so  here  is how  to do it:   https://www.wikihow.com/Grow-Watercress ) 

I really can’t see why I should have to live without rocket just to please Fathead Francois but, to be honest, I can, so the letttuce substitution thing didn’t bother me unduly. But then the British Sandwich chap said something which made me gasp. There might be a shortage of some other foreign foods too such as - wait for it - avocado pears. 

“AVOCADO FUCKING PEARS !!!” I screamed at the radio.  ‘Foreign? What? No avocados? Are you fucking kidding?”

Avocados are a staple to me and the rest of the oatmilk crowd. Indeed, even the people who are still on semi-skimmed would get their danders up if they couldn’t get an avocado. Avocados might actually be grown in some corner of a foreign field but as far as we Waitrosers are concerned they are as British as curvy bananas. 

But the thing is, and call me a metropolitan elitist if you like - in fact please do, because I find it really flattering - I have a sneaking suspicion that, in Macclesfield and Middlesbrough, avocados don’t get dropped into shoppers’trolleys quite  as often as they do in Guildford and Wandsworth.  

Okay, I could be being a patrnising Southern twat - yup, guilty as charged - and guacamole could  be  as popular as pigeon fancying oop North, but somehow I doubt it. 

And then came a deep and meaningful insight so deep and so meaningful that it made my Rover and Last Night of the Proms insights look as shallow and as obvious as they clearly are, and made my conker theory shatter into a dozen pieces just as surely as if I had whacked it with a nicely baked sixer**. (If under 60 see footnotes again.)

Whereas all of those are  the basic representations of the  Brexit  the Leavers  voted for,  the avocado is the fruitandvegification of Brexit in a much subtler way. 

It’s the culture war made made  yellowy green flesh. To us Remainers  the avocado is an essential. We have adopted it as our own and have completely forgotten there was any other way and just can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t love avocados and would ever want to be without them. To the hardened Leavers, it’s still a foreign object. Continental and unneccessary.  Southern and poncey. What’s the avocado ever done for us? 

In Afrikaans there are two words, ‘Verligte’ and ‘Verkrampte’. As I understand it, the former means ‘Open minded’ and the latter ‘Closed minded’. That, as a Remainer, is how the Brexit divide seems to me.

Can we ‘Verligte’ Remainers and those ‘Verkrampte’ Leavers ever be reconciled?

Can we all  learn to love the avocado?

Or must I give the avocado up so that I can keep the Football Lads Alliance from smashing my face in.

*The Outlaws were William, Douglas, Henry and Ginger, a group of small boys in the ‘Just William’ novels by Richmal Crompton.

** A sixer. If a given conker was succesful in a number of battles it was referred to by the number of wins it had had. A sixer would have had six wins, a niner , nine etc. The ‘baked’ part refers to the practise of baking conkers in the oven for extra toughness and competitive advantage.

[framing-the-picture]

Recommendations for Queer Music

Hey folks. It’s currently 4:57 am as I write this. I tried to sleep much earlier, but ended up having some awful vivid dreams related to recent news about a band I once considered myself a fan of and my own personal experiences. So now I’m awake and seeing that a lot of queer people are looking to find queer musicians they can listen to instead of this band. So because I’m restless and feel especially compulsive right now, here’s a bunch of my favorite musicians who are queer, make music about being queer, or both. (This is kinda in order of most overt to least overt, but all these artists are worth supporting.)

Owen Pallett (orchestral/baroque pop): the queer/genderqueer violinist for Arcade Fire’s solo work gets increasingly overt and varied about its queerness as his discography progresses and he’s been a real important part of my own coming to terms with queerness and self-acceptance (trigger warning: the song “This Lamb Buys Condos” has an f-slur in it due to quoting homophobia Owen had overheard)

G.L.O.S.S. (hardcore punk): they only put out 15 minutes worth of music before disbanding, but it’s hard to name a trans punk band that’s as vital or incendiary in their social commentary as this one

Against Me! (punk rock): lots of trans queerness across their discography and it’s only gotten more overt with Laura Jane Grace’s coming out and their last two albums... you really can’t go wrong with Transgender Dysphoria Blues (trigger warning: the song “Drinking With The Jocks” has an f-slur in it based on an experience from Laura’s past where she’s in denial about being trans and trying to blend in with cis guys)

Car Seat Headrest (lo-fi/garage rock): mostly a lot of his early stuff, especially Twin Fantasy, which is pretty much entirely about Will Toledo coming to terms with his sexuality and being attracted to another man... check out “Beach Life-in-Death” (trigger warning: has a reclaimed f-slur in it) if you want a 12-minute-taste of just how queer his lyrics can get

Frank Ocean (R&B): this was an obvious choice, but seriously, Blonde is an incredibly important album reflecting on the nature of black queerness and self-love... if you haven’t listened to it (and the rest of Frank’s discography), it’s definitely worth checking out

Broken Social Scene (indie rock): at least one member of this massive Canadian collective is queer and a few of their songs reflect that overtly (trigger warning: some reclaimed f-slurs and descriptions of abuse across their discography, mostly in “I’m Still Your F*g” and “It’s All Gonna Break”)

Kevin Abstract (pop/rap): this queer musician just put out an entire concept album last year called American Boyfriend, where the central character struggles with his first relationship with another man and being a closeted queer black man... highly recommended if you’re into Frank Ocean or indie-pop-crossed-with-rap

Ness Io Kain (glitchpop): this nonbinary transfemme is another underrated fave of mine and I can’t recommend her album Soft Blue Halo from last year enough... it’s a poignant album with some really striking reflections of queerness and gender identity across quite a few songs

Bloc Party/Kele Okereke (indie rock/post-punk): British band with an out frontman who has detailed his past experiences being queer in songs like “I Still Remember”

Franz Ferdinand (indie rock): their song “Michael” is the most explicitly queer thing across their albums, but there’s some homoeroticism on tracks like “Do You Want To” too

Sufjan Stevens (folk/baroque pop): Sufjan’s notoriously private with a lot of his personal life, but it’s hard to deny just how queer a lot of his lyrics are... for the most obviously queer stuff, I definitely recommend “The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us” and “John My Beloved,” but there’s a lot of subtle queerness across all his albums (trigger warning: “Drawn to the Blood” is about an abusive queer relationship... when asked if this experience was autobiographical during an interview, Sufjan only answered with “yes”)

St. Vincent (indie rock/art pop): Annie Clark has said that she believes in gender fluidity and sexual fluidity, and said she “[doesn’t] identify with anything,” which comes through in the lyrics to songs like “Prince Johnny” and “Chloe in the Afternoon”

Vampire Weekend/Rostam Batmanglij (indie rock/chamber pop): the former pianist/guitarist/songwriter for this band is openly gay and wrote some of his own experiences into the song “Diplomat’s Son”

Grooms (dream pop/noise rock): this group’s an underrated favorite of mine and I’ve noticed that a decent number of their songs deal with queerness in sometimes overt ways (the line “I’m not straight or tough” on “Ghost Cat”) and sometimes a bit more obliquely (both “Later A Dream” and “Expression Of” seem to be about queer attraction)... I made a Spotify playlist collecting some of their songs about queerness for people unfamiliar with the band (trigger warning: one of their song titles has a reclaimed f-slur in it)

Eliot Sumner (indie rock): this moody indie musician (previously going under the name I Blame Coco) has stated that she doesn’t identify with any particular gender, which comes through in her song “Species” and its portrayal of invasive cis people speculating on one’s gender

Courtney Barnett (folk/indie rock/spoken word): to my knowledge, I don’t believe any of her songs have explicit queerness in their lyrics, but she’s an out lesbian whose music is exceedingly clever and definitely worth checking out

#queer #lgbt #lgbtq #queer music #lgbt music #music