#i realised there was another computer in the room with internet

[raineandsky]

#86

Being a hero is stressful. That much is common knowledge. How a hero goes about unwinding from said stress is a mystery no one has yet figured out.

The hero settles in one of the little chairs in the circle. The man next to her gives her a light nudge. “Let’s see what you made this week, then.”

The hero reaches into her bag to show off her latest stress relief—a giant blanket, knitted in the downtime between jobs, sporting a rainbow of colours in bright streaks across its face. Everyone oohs and ahhs appropriately before the rest of the circle gets to showing off their own creations.

It’s been nice to have a place that isn’t entirely consumed by work, the hero thinks as she nods approvingly at someone’s mug cosy. No worrying about tomorrow, no wondering where the villains might be.

Her gaze flits to the next person in line to show something off, and her heart momentarily stops as she meets her eye. At least she doesn’t have to worry about the latter of her thoughts right now.

What the hell is the villain doing at the hero’s weekly knitting club?

“Go on,” the woman next to the villain prompts. The villain huffs and makes a show of it, but she pulls out a cardigan with a ghost of a pleased smirk.

The hero only realised why she’s so self-satisfied when she catches herself gaping in awe. The villain’s little cardigan is elaborate in pattern, swooping waves lining its shoulders. The yarns meld together in a perfect cacophony of colour. It’s amazing, more amazing than anything the hero could do.

The villain soaks in the praise with a humble nod before setting her gaze on the hero. It probably looks hopeful to anyone else, but the hero can see the glitter of arrogance in her eye. Go on, the villain’s practically saying, tell me how great I am.

“It’s nice,” the hero says through gritted teeth, and the villain’s smile turns humoured.

The hero can’t leave fast enough. Everyone else is packing their projects away. The hero’s blanket gets folded thankfully easily and she’s out the door before anyone can stop her.

Fine. A new project. Something to advance her skills and show the villain that she’s not the hot shit she thinks she is.

It takes all week. The hero holds her jumper up to show the group. The villain raises her eyebrows from across the circle.

“Inspired by another knitter here,” the hero says with what could almost be sarcasm, and the villain snorts a poorly contained laugh.

The villain shows off her creation. A pair of mittens, the patterns lacy and the colours bright. The hero scowls. Pissed doesn’t describe the feeling.

Next week. A layered scarf from the hero. The villain wins everyone’s affections with a tiny knitted elephant. “For my niece’s birthday,” the villain says innocently. “She loves them.”

Leaving is becoming more of a race with each passing week. “Keep trying,” the villain comments brightly before the hero can escape. “You’ve plenty of room to improve.”

The hero considers strangling the villain with her scarf.

The hero settles at her computer that evening with a scowl and a cup of hot chocolate, mentally prepared to prowl the internet for several hours for ideas on how to one-up the villain. It’s madness. She’s meant to be out there kicking the villain’s ass, and here she is trying to out-knit her.

It’s been three weeks, and she’s only just realising that her stress-relieving hobby is suddenly a lot more stress-inducing.

“Fuck,” she hisses outloud, and she momentarily considers the idea of knitting the word into a coaster for the villain too.

#creative writing #writblr #writers on tumblr #writing #writing community #heroes and villains #hero x villain #i cant lie broskis!!! work is tiring!!! #ive been working basically fukn above my job title (yes i will be making a big point of this to my boss) and every day im KNACKERED #weve been filmin some stuff for promotional stuff and tho my boss is like 'yea ill sort stuff :)' ive done ALL the planning #its been fun but itll be nice for this week to be over (affectionate) #and i know i say this a lot and it never happens but the queue is genuinely short rn and i am mostly coming home and staring at walls #so if it runs out and things end up a lil late sorry! im just tryna remember how to be human

[luvmattmurdock]

perfect sense part 5; pietro maximoff

pietro maximoff x stark!reader

“Keep reminding me that it ain’t a race, when my invisible streak turns onto the final straight”

word count; 1.3k

warnings; none :)

A/N: guys i’m very sorry i haven’t written anything, i was at the beach but now i'm back 🆙🆙🆙

main masterlist. series masterlist. taglist.

"Isn't this exactly what got us into this problem initially?" you heard Cap shout. You got out of bed confused and alarmed, putting on the first slippers you could find, which you later realised were not actually yours, and left the room to go downstairs.

"This is different," your father said as you wondered what he had done now. “And I think that this time it did turn out the way it should have. It's different," he repeated, almost as if he was trying to convince himself as much as the rest.

You looked around the laboratory, everyone was there, except for Thor and Nat.

The twins were a little behind the rest, with faces of equal confusion. You approached them and, swallowing your pride, spoke to them.

"What the hell is going on here?" you asked in a whisper. They turned to look at you, partly surprised because you spoke to them. Pietro answered.

“It seems that your father just did Ultron 2.0. He gave life to the body that Ultron was planning to live in.”

You stared at him in disbelief. Was your father evil or just stupid?

“No!” Cap said, visibly angry. “I'm not going to allow you to create another enemy, we're already fine as it is! Don’t you understand?”

“It's different, damn it!” Your father answered. “I have transferred the memory of J.A.R.V.I.S to the body. J.A.R.V.I.S never died, he took refuge in the internet when he saw Ultron's intentions. He has stopped Ultron from winning for now.”

A small fight started between Steve and Tony, Cap was trying to unplug the computer box and your father wouldn't let him.

They were both more than ready to fight when a sudden lightning interrupted everything. Due to the strength and proximity, the twins and you flew towards the window that overlooked the living room. You broke it and landed on the cold living room floor. You grunted in pain as you saw that small shards of glass had buried themselves in your arms and hands. 

You shake off as much glass as you can and run to see what was happening.

Thor, with his hammer, throws lightning at the box and it explodes, sending him flying. From there, a figure emerges.

He is a red robotic man, he was wearing some weird superhero-like clothes including a cloak quite similar to Thor’s. 

"I'm so sorry," he said, as he looked at the damaged tower, his voice soft and calm. "Thank you," he said to Thor.

"You helped him create it!" Cap exclaimed. This robot thing was quite strange.

“Yes, for the first time, Stark is right. He is different," Thor said convincingly.

Thor supporting your dad? This was even stranger.

“I know you think I'm bad. It is normal to think this way about the unknown. But I'm not on Ultron's side," the robot said.

"So you're on our side?" Clint asked.

“I am on the side of life, Ultron is not, he wants to extinguish it. I am not the same as you, and I am not what you want, so you may not trust me but we have to go. You see, I have no desire to annihilate Ultron, he is unique. And he is suffering, but he will cover the Earth with that pain so he must be destroyed in every way he has built, every trace of his presence in the network; we have to act now. And none of us can make it without each other.”

Everyone looked at eachother with confusion, you managed to catch a glance from Pietro, locking eyes for a second before he broke eye contact, returning his eyes to the robotic man. “You think I'm a son of Ultron. I'm not Ultron, nor J.A.R.V.I.S, I'm just... I'm me.” said the man thoughtfully “I am Vision.”

"Crazy, right?" said Pietro. You nodded. Tony and Cap were talking with Vision as you returned upstairs, Pietro following.

"It's crazy," you agreed. "But I don’t think he’s bad. I mean, he was able to lift Thor’s hammer.”

“Is it some type of magical item or something?That hammer.” 

“My father and I like to think that whoever has Thor's fingerprints lifts the hammer. But the theory according to him is that he who is worthy is able to lift it up.” You said mockingly. “And it looks like our new friend is.”

"Interesting," he said thoughtfully. "It's stupid, of course, but interesting."

You laughed. There was a silence which, although not uncomfortable, you could not help yourself from wanting to fill it up.

"Is your sister with the rest of the team?" You asked. He denied.

“She is in her room. She wanted to come with us but she's a little shy. Especially because she thinks you hate her.”

"I don't hate her," you said. "But I don't really know her so I don't exactly like her." Truth is, you were really slightly afraid of her. Whatever thing she had done with your mind back then kept you nervous.

"You’re scared of her, aren’t you?" he asked, chuckling. 

“Wasn’t it your sister who could read minds?” you laughed.

"I mean it’s normal," he said and you turned to look at him, his blue eyes looking at yours. "I do understand she seems kinda freaky, but I swear she’s nice. Besides, you and I are kinda friends now right?” You nodded. “She’s my twin so she can’t be THAT different to me.” 

“It’s different, though.” 

“Is it? Our only difference is my captivating charisma.”

“So humble.” You rolled your eyes and he smirked, another silence filled the room but now you didn’t want to talk. His eyes scanned your face and your eyes scanned his.  

“Y/N could I be honest with you?” You nodded. “I feel that, in the short time we’ve been together, I know a big part of you. And I know that you love your father and that my sister kinda hates him, and, well… the truth is I kinda hate him too. I know that it wasn’t his fault but I just can’t help it. However, I also know I kinda care about you?” You were staring at him, his eyes travelled across the room, avoiding your face. “And I know it would really hurt for you to lose him. And I promise that neither my sister nor me will ever do anything to harm him" he said very closely, now looking at your eyes. 

You broke eye contact and looked towards your feet. 

He knew a bunch of shit but you now knew 2 things: 

He cares about you. 

He loves to give pretty long speeches. 

You looked at him again and smiled a little.

"So you think you know me, huh?" You said, changing the subject. It was getting a bit too deep for your liking. He nodded convinced.

“I know that when you're angry you can't stop sighing. But they are those audible sighs so that everyone knows that you are angry.” You chuckled. “I also know that you hate extremely sweet things. I know this because yesterday Clint offered us some candy and you wrinkled your face and only took one.” You were now audibly laughing. “I also know, first hand, that you don't tolerate someone going against what you think is wrong, you’re pretty outspoken.” 

"Incredible," you said. "You're a stalker."

He smiled. His smile was very pretty, and you found it especially pretty when he wasn't making fun of you.

“I'm not a stalker” he denied, “I just like to observe.”

“Ok Joe Goldberg” He laughed. “You do understand that’s psychopath level behaviour right? You’re basically crazy, Maximoff.”

“Maybe a little, maybe for you.” He said looking straight at your eyes. Did this boy have no shame? 

#pietro maximoff x reader #pietro maximoff fanfiction #pietro maximoff fluff #pietro maximoff series #pietro maximoff ff #pietro maximoff smut #pietro maximoff angst #pietro maximoff x you #pietro maximoff fanfic #avengers x reader #the avengers #marvel cinematic universe #avengers fanfic #marvel fanfiction #avengers fanfiction #marvel x reader #pietro maximoff imagine #mcu x reader

[insertyourselfhere]

Anomaly Part 5

A/N: I cannot thank you guys enough, you have been blowing up my notifications with all your support on this series and its motivating me to keep going! Thank you everyone so much!

HUGE SPOILERS FOR ATSV

Pairing: Gwen Stacy x Reader

Characters: Reader, George Stacy and some slight Hobie and Gwen.

Description: Wow…All the stuff went down with Miles, the entire spider-verse chased after him. Miguel went bat shit crazy like you wouldn’t believe. Hobie quit the team, Miles sent himself home. Both you and Gwen were thrown back into your own dimensions without a watch to get you back. You broke a little fearing the fact that you will never see your friends again, fearing for Miles and absolutely devastated at the thought of Gwen now being alone in her dimension. As you laid in your lounge filling your aunt in with all those details a portal opens up, but not one you’ve ever seen before it looked like….

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hobie!” You said running towards the portal, Hobie came out with a smile on his face and a watch on his wrist.

“Big steppa! How you been” he said fake punching you. He took the watch off his wrist and threw it towards you with a salute.

“You gotta help save our Gwendy yah?” He said shoving his hands back into his jean jacket pockets. You nodded putting the watch on and clicking over to earth 65. Another portal opened up and you went to walk in it, Hobie however did not follow you and laid down on your couch in your living room.

“You’re not coming?” You asked turning back towards him with a curious look in your eye.

“Nah, I think my drummer needs some time to process what’s happening hey. And I think you’re the one to do it, so off with ya. I just wanna hang out with ya aunt anyway” Before you could protest about leaving Hobie alone with your aunt he pushed you through the portal with a forceful web, the last thing you saw was his playful smirk as he kicked his feet up on the coffee table and lounged back.

You travelled through the multi-verse like you had millions of times before, it opened up and you were in Gwen’s Dimension for the first time since you had gotten to know her. It was beautiful, the world had such an eerie but amazing look to it, you had never seen something like this before. The one thing you did notice though was even though the sun was out, there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, the colours of the world were emanating a dark blue look. You could feel the sadness in the air lingering around you like a dark aura. Without a second thought you went to thwip away only to realise.

“I don’t know where she lives” Letting out the biggest sigh you fell down into a crouch, your arms resting on your knees as you thought of a plan.

You did the only thing you could think of and that was head to an internet café and look up sightings and theories about the ‘Ghost Spider’. As you entered the building still in your Spidey get up you got weird looks from different people.

“What are you meant to be?” One of them asked confused at the different costume you sported as opposed to their usual Ghost Spider costume they were used to seeing.

“Oh uh, this is my cosplay! Yeah! I decided to do my own Spider Costume as like a representation to our Ghost Spider” They all looked at you weird and you didn’t blame them. Your outfit was nearly the polar opposite to their masked hero. With a quiet groan you went to your compute and started doing some digging.

“Are you looking for her?” They asked looking over your shoulder, you were hoping that it didn’t come off as weird but then again you just looked like a crazed fan, wearing the wrong Spidey suit in an internet café full of other nerds who were probably into the same thing.

You nodded looking back at the person hoping they had something for you. “I heard that she frequently comes out of this apartment block. I’m not too sure if that’s whee she lives or if that’s her hangout but it’s what I heard” They entered an address into your computer and you couldn’t help but feel over joyed that you hug the stranger and left.

As you exited the building you yelled a quick thank you as you Thwipped out of there. “Was that another Spider?” They asked their surroundings, the person you hugged just fainted from the interaction and then everyone else began writing rumours of a new Spidey in the area.

You got closer to the building, and stuck against the wall. You didn’t know how you were going to try and find Gwen in amongst all these apartments, you slightly regretted it but you had to look. What was a clear indication though was a cop car parked outside the apartment and it meant that her dad was home too.

You went over the apartment checking (respectfully) any windows you could hoping to catch that familiar blonde hair. As you peeked into this one window though a gentleman was sitting on the toilet playing crossy road. He let out a high pitch squeal and you awkwardly thwapped way. “I’M SO SORRY IM JUST TRYING TO FIND MY FRIEND” You yelled.

Finally after hours of searching you found an open window, inside you saw those famous ballet shoes that Gwen loved and adored so much before she stole your chucks, opening the window slightly you crawled in and saw the photo of Gwen and Miles left on the desk. You smiled knowing that you had finally found the correct room.

The TV was on playing some sort of infomercials in the lounge and the sound was filtering through, you looked around the room and saw that it was untouched, somehow Gwen hadn’t made it to her room yet. Before you could do anymore digging the door opened slightly and you turned around slowly but carefully. There standing in the door was George Stacy he had a bat in his hand ready to attack you at any second. When you full turned around he noticed the Spider across your chest.

You held your arms up defensively and took your mask off just to know you weren’t trying to hide anything, however in doing so you completely forgot about what happened to you in this world.

“Y/N” George said moving slightly closer to you, bat down. You internally chastised yourself for being so reckless and revealing who you were in such a haste that you forgot about the you in this universe.

“Captain Stacy I am so….” Before you could finish George interrupted you “It’s just George now, no Captain Stacy” You went back to what Miguel had said about Captain’s and how it was their ‘Canon Event’ to die, so hearing about him no longer being captain you released a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

“Sir, I am Y/N but not from this dimension” He chuckled and left the door open gesturing for you to follow. “Yeah I can tell, you’re a bit taller, and a bit more um stockier too” he walked over to the fridge and grabbed a photo that had a photo of who looked like you and Gwen both with their arms around each other smiling big broad smiles. There was something in that photo you hadn’t seen in yourself or Gwen either. It was pure innocence.

“I see what you mean” George went and sat down back on the couch flipping through channels. “His face solemn like he didn’t want to know why you were here. You put the photo back on the fridge and turned to face him.

“Captain St…George…sir um look I am here to find Gwen, we both got tossed back into our own dimensions so I thought she would be here already but it seems like she’s not” George had a look of relief pass his eyes but only briefly. He turned to face you his eyes still harbouring a lot of sadness.

“She hasn’t come home just yet, I don’t know if she ever will” He said looking back at his tv. You got up and walked over to him. “Why did you do it?” You asked sharply, hands balled in a fist as you went into a quiet rage, now that the shock of seeing him was over you had to get your opinion out there.

“You were the only person she had left in her life, to lean on, to talk to, to look forward too and you squashed that” George looked furious standing up in his own apartment remote thrown into the couch. He looked at your face still shocked by the memory that it was you but then quickly he turned around suddenly filled with anger again.

“What do you want me to do!? My daughter LIED to me for months, years even, I don’t even know how long shes been this Spider-Woman but I know she has been lying about it to my face. She’s been the one I’ve been hunting and who’s been going around doing my job because she felt some sort of obligation to help”

“You and I both know why she lied, why she was terrified of telling you the truth behind what has been happening and you proved her point right, you tried to ARREST her, your own daughter, yeah she may of lied but you confirmed her fears the second you called her in” George took a slight step back, his form wavering in hearing those harsh words, that his own daughter couldn’t trust him and he proved her right.

“She could of told me, things would have been…” Before he could finish you cut him off “Different?” You asked venom laced in the words you repeated back to him.

“Let me tell you a story here Mr. Stacy. My Aunt knows, I told her the second I felt comfortable too because I knew it was going to be a lot on her to tell her, I knew when my truth came out that she would either cry and scream at me to stop or she would hate me for the rest of her life. My Aunt proved me wrong on so many levels that night, instead she made me a cup of Chai T….cup of Chai and she sat me down and opened up to me. She told me all about my family, my parents, my uncle. She told me about our selfless need to want to help other people and we’re willing to put ourselves on the line to do so. I understand that your situation wasn’t that great and I understand your frustration, your confusion on what she was doing and how she was putting her life on the line. However they say the apple never falls too far from the tree.”

George wasn’t mad anymore, George didn’t know what he was, he just stood there taking it all in. Taking in everything you had said to him and he knew what the right course of action was. You could see his brain internally fighting you could feel it in this world of Gwen’s the amount of sadness and hurt.

You walked up to him tentatively and placed your arms around his waist giving him a big hug. It was unusual for you because you met this guy only hours ago, however for him it’s like he had known you his life time.

“Thanks Y/N” Before you could finish your conversation you heard a portal open up in Gwen’s room and you knew what that meant, before he could protest you had slipped your mask back on and slipped out the window giving them privacy. You sat on the far opposite building to them, watching the events unfold. Your mind going crazy at wanting to see Gwen, wanting to be there, to hold her and tell her it will all be okay. Slowly though you realised that isn’t what she needed. She just needed a friend, someone to count on that she won’t end up losing again like the rest.

You stood up on the apartment building and stretched pulling yourself back to her window. George and Gwen had made their way into the living room so you took this time to go through her room a little bit more. You found old photo albums of you and your aunt all hanging out with the Stacy family. You also saw pictures of you with Parker too who seemed to be apart of this crazy group you had.

As you were perusing her room you heard pure silence coming from the lounge room, followed by a soft sob. Your heart broke at hearing that noise come out of Gwen, but you knew that her and George would be alright. As you were leaning closer to the door to get a good listen you tripped on one of Gwen’s Ballet shoes and fell through the door. You coughed a little and got up quickly dusting yourself off and standing there awkwardly while both Stacy’s looked at you funny.

“Um that wasn’t supposed to happen, there was a fly in my mask and I was trying to get it out but I ah tripped and fell…” Before you could finish your ramble Gwen had rushed her way over to you and leaped into your arms. You hugger her back with all the love you could muster showing her that you were here for good.

“Y/N” She said, a small tear in her eye, you wiped it away before setting her down again. “It’s only been like what 5 minutes for you since I last saw you, why are you upset?” You asked she was still wrapped around your arms and then nuzzled herself under your chin. “I thought I’d lost you again” She said quietly “Pfft as if Vampire, ninja super buff big guy Miguel was going to keep me away from you” She let go of you and walked back towards her father who had the biggest grin on his face. His whole face was filled with love and you could feel it in the air. The landscape around you began to change, no longer did it have that blue filter (Twilight) on but now it was radiating much brighter colours, it felt warm and breathable.

“How did you get here?” She asked walking towards you and grabbing your hand, you sighed and intertwined your hands together.

“It’s a long story but we need to get going like asap, I’ll explain on the way but here’s a gift from Hobie” You took the watch off your wrist and gave it to Gwen, her eyes widened at the make shift watch you had for her. She had a determined look in her eye and pulled down her mask, you doing the same thing (After getting that fly out of course). “We just need to stop off in my dimension and pick up Hobie, I’m terrified to know that he’s been with my aunt alone this whole time” She laughed and set the destination to your dimension. You jumped in straight away knowing she would follow suit, the last thing you saw before you could no longer see them is Gwen hugging her father again before following suit.

“So explain things to me now”

“Okay so Hobie was being destructive or so I thought…”

#gwen stacy x reader #across the spiderverse #reader insert #spider gwen x reader #gwen stacy imagine #gwen stacy #spider woman #spiderman: across the spiderverse #spiderman into the verse #into the spider verse #spiderverse #spider gwen #spider woman x reader #ghost spider #ghost spider x reader #spider man: across the spider verse #gwendolyn stacy #miles morales #peter parker #spiderman across the spiderverse

[tomkaulitzssgirl]

fucking the attitude away | Tom Kaulitz

it was one of those days, your period had to come and you were feeling moody. usually you were always sweet and calm but when it was that time of the month, for two-three days you were always pouting, complaining or just being mean with your answers. it was out of your control and you felt bad right after and that lead to crying.

today, you were sitting on your bed just searching through the internet and trying to make a good research for your university but you didn’t know where to start and it was frustrating you.

it didn’t help that your boyfriend Tom kept nagging you. “what you doing?” he sang out again, throwing a sock right at you. you huffed and glared at him meanwhile you picked up the sock and threw it towards him. “i told you already, stop it.”

he mimicked your voice, “what’s more important than me?” he said with a sly smirk.

“my homework. now leave me alone.” you sternly said, your eyes never leaving your computer.

tom furrowed his eyebrows together, suddenly becoming serious, “what’s with the attitude?”

“well you keep being an asshole.” you rolled your eyes and only after that you realised what you had said. oh oh.

tom got up from his seat infront of the desk and quickly walked towards the bed, picking up your computer and throwing it across the room.

you gasped widening your eyes at him, “my computer! tom what the fuck?!”

you actually didn’t care about it. you knew tom would’ve bought you another one if it was broken. but now you were horny and your plan was about to begin.

“watch your mouth.” he demanded as he grabbed you by your legs and dragged you to the edge of the bed where he was standing, “also, roll your eyes at me again and see what happens.”

you liked where this was going so why not play with him?

“oh really? what will happen? you’ll punish me?” you asked ironically even though you knew what was about to go down.

tom scoffed and smirked at you before placing himself on top of you, his knees on both of your sides as his left hand pinned your arms above your head. with just his right hand he began to take off his belt before using it to tie your arms together.

you faked trying to get away but it couldn’t happen, he was stronger and bigger than you were.

“let’s see if you keep acting like a little bitch after i’m done fucking you hard.” he raised your skirt so that he could see your black laced panties, the ones he liked. his eyes glittered at the sight.

“you’re all talk.” you kept pushing his buttons knowing it would work. you could see it in his face. the need to put you in your place and show you who’s in charge.

tom let out a small sarcastic laugh while shaking his head, “you have no idea what i’m going to do to you. i’ll make you cry. you won’t be able to walk.” as soon as he finished his sentence he moved your panties a bit out of the way, and just when you thought he was about to finger you, he put his length all in you without a warning.

you threw your head back, screaming his name while he pounded in you like an animal. he wasn’t stopping, he just kept pushing in you harder and harder, faster and faster, as he sucked on your neck leaving red spots all over it.

“not talking now huh?” you could feel his hot breath on your neck as he spoke, sending you shivers across your spine.

he played with your clit for awhile making you moan even louder, his name a mantra that you kept reciting.

“you’re such a slut for me, aren’t you? you needed my cock so you could shut up, fucking whore.” he kept degrading you, wrapping his hand around your neck.

“say it. say you’re my slut.” he demanded looking into your eyes as he kept pushing, but once you were not answering he stopped for a moment.

“say it or i won’t go on.”

you collected the strength left in you and tried to speak, “i-i am your slut, daddy. i-i only need you.”

those words made him groan and he started his pace again, even faster this time. his hand was still around your neck as he watched himself slide in and out of you, the sight made his stomach twirl and he felt himself getting closer. “you’re taking it so well for me.”

you rolled your eyes at the back of your head, feeling close to your high as well as tom kept going in and out of you. you felt him so deep in you.

“this is the only way you can roll your eyes at me.” he commented before biting his lower lip.

“i-i’m close!” you moaned out arching your back, tears streaming down your cheeks because of the pleasure.

he nodded frantically, “shit. me too baby.” he let go of your neck and placed his hands at the sides of your head.

he stared deeply in your eyes and at that point both of you were a moaning mess, he kept groaning and cussing while you kept whimpering and crying out.

“be a good girl and come with daddy. okay? let’s come together.” you nodded at his words as you felt like you were about to pass out from the intensity of the moment. he crushed your lips on yours, kissing you sloppily and before you knew, you both let go and came together. you moaned into the kiss before he bit your lower lip.

breathing heavily, he fell on top of you closing his eyes. you wrapped your arms around his back, your hand playing with his hair.

“next time you need to fuck just say it, don’t make me mad.” he mumbled making you laugh.

“i did it on purpose, you’re hot when you get mad.” you said making him raise his head and look at you with tired but lustful eyes.

“make me mad some more then?”

hope you guys liked it!

#tom kaulitz #tokiohotel #tokio hotel #fanfiction #kaulitz twins #fandom #writing

[justforbooks]

One day in 1979, while logged in to San Diego State University’s principal computer from his home, Vernor Vinge found himself chatting to another user via the TALK program, both using implausible names and trying to figure out each other’s true name. “Afterwards, I realised that I had just lived a science-fiction story – at least by the standards of my childhood,” recalled Vinge, a mathematics and computer science teacher at the university, who has died from Parkinson’s disease aged 79.

The encounter was the starting point for his novella True Names (1981), one of the first sci-fi stories to predict an internet that is remarkably familiar to us 40 years later, with its fully immersive multiplayer role-playing games, dark web, hackers and trolls. Its descriptions of a virtual reality battle between Mr Slippery and the Mailman predated William Gibson’s Neuromancer by three years and, while it was Gibson who named “cyberspace”, Vinge was the godparent of its iconography.

At a meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in 1982, Vinge coined the term “the Singularity” to describe the increasingly rapid acceleration of AI; he expanded on the concept in an editorial in the science and sci-fi magazine Omni, in which he said: “We will soon create intelligences greater than our own. When this happens … the world will pass beyond our understanding.”

A decade later, in The Coming Technological Singularity (1993), Vinge predicted that within 30 years “we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.”

In his novel Marooned in Realtime (1986), a singularity event in the 23rd century known as “the Extinction” has repercussions 50 million years in the future, when only a handful of humans have been able to survive in “bobbles”, impenetrable force fields in which time slows to zero. One of the scientists trying to reconnect humanity is murdered – perhaps uniquely for a locked-room murder mystery, she is locked outside. This was a sequel to The Peace War (1984), in which the new stasis technology is shown to be misused by the ruling Peace Authority.

Vinge’s A Fire Upon the Deep (1992) and its prequel A Deepness in the Sky (1999) both won Hugo awards. A fine example of how Vinge could be rigorously true to his scientific beliefs without it limiting his ability to write galaxy-spanning space opera, A Fire Upon the Deep sidestepped the inevitability of all civilisations destroying themselves by dividing the Milky Way into “zones of thought”: the galaxy centre being the Unthinking Depths, surrounded by the Slow Zone and, a little further out, the Beyond, leading into Transcend. In this way he could write a far future-set adventure, where discoveries among the relics of a long-dead civilisation lead to the emergence of a malevolent AI called the Blight.

A Deepness in the Sky is set 30,000 years earlier, the characters unaware of the zones of thought, which makes it almost a standalone epic about an emerging spider civilisation unaware that it is being battled over by space-faring races.

Vinge won more Hugos, for the novellas Fast Times at Fairmont High (2001) and The Cookie Monster (2003) and the novel Rainbow’s End (2006), set in a near future dominated by augmented reality.

Born in Waukesha, Wisconsin, the son of Clarence Vinge, a teacher at the state college, and his wife, Ada (nee Rolands), Vernor earned a mathematics degree from Michigan State University in 1966, and a master’s (1968) and PhD (1971) from the University of California, San Diego. He began working as an assistant professor at San Diego State University in 1972, rising to associate professor of mathematics in 1978, and retiring in 2000.

Vinge described his youthful self as an imaginative child who “wanted interstellar empires (interplanetary ones at the least). I wanted supercomputers and artificial intelligence and effective immortality. All seemed possible.” Science fiction was his window into this world. He began writing as a teenager, selling one story, Apartness, to Michael Moorcock’s New Worlds magazine in 1965 and Bookworm, Run, a story involving an escaped chimp with enhanced intelligence, to John W Campbell’s Analog in 1966.

Damon Knight published Grimm’s Story in his 1968 anthology Orbit, and asked if Vinge could expand it into a novel. He could, as Grimm’s World (1969, later revised and expanded as Tatja Grimm’s World, 1987), with Tatja Grimm the ruler of a primitive planet who reaches out to greater civilisations, only to be beset by slavers. The Witling (1976) featured a world in which everyone has the power to teleport, and a shipwrecked anthropological team from Earth who are considered low-status “witlings” (half-wits), fit only for slavery.

Vinge’s last published novel, The Children of the Sky (2011) was a sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep. While he then retired from writing (only two vignettes were published later), his body of work continued to be recognised with various honours, including the Robert A Heinlein award in 2020, rewarding “an author whose body of work inspires the human exploration of space”.

Vinge married Joan Dennison in 1972; she wrote under the name of Joan D Vinge, and they divorced in 1979. He is survived by his sister, Patricia.

🔔 Vernor Steffen Vinge, mathematician, computer scientist and writer, born 2 October 1944; died 20 March 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#just for books #vernor vinge #in memoriam

[xiaojunsmintchoco]

nct oneshot #2 (xiaojun)

pairing: reader x xiaojun

word count: about 1k?

genre: fluff

TW: eating dis0rd3r, please don’t read if this will trigger you!

synopsis: you find it hard to eat, but you make it through with xiaojun by your side to support you.

a/n: I wrote this based on what happened today with my own boyfriend, so please don’t come at me! Once again, if this topic will be a major trigger for you please please please don’t read this! (also I must say, I’m so grateful for my boyfriend and the support he gives 💗)

You’re not sure when and how it happened, but at some point your relationship with food and body image hurtled downhill, which resulted in you coping using unhealthy behaviours and habits that eventually manifested into a full-blown eating disorder. When you finally realised and decided to get better, you found the uphill struggle against your own thoughts challenging, every battle against the demons in your head draining you of all energy. Thankfully, you were blessed with a boyfriend who not only was aware of your struggle, he was also understanding of it and was always there to encourage you through all of your hard moments, which made your recovery journey much more bearable.

“Y/n!” Xiaojun exclaims, opening the door to let you in. “So glad you could make it,” he adds, giving you a peck on the cheek. 

“I’m glad we could make it too,” you remark, pulling him in for a brief hug. “So, what are we gonna do today?”

“Hmm, today’s gonna be a pretty chill date. Maybe we can sing karaoke in my room for a while? Then we can grab a snack and then see what else we want to do,” Xiaojun suggests. 

“Sure,” you agree, and both of you make your way to his room to set up his smart television and connect it to his computer.

The next couple of hours is a blast, with both of you browsing the internet for karaoke videos and jamming to different hits by various artists, from Queen’s “We Are The Champions” to Wonder Girls’ “Nobody”. Of course, both of you also take plenty of videos and pictures of each other as a keepsake of this date, which would be one of many precious ones to come.

“Would you like a snack?” Xiaojun asks, standing up as you switch the TV off. “I got you something, actually”.

A feeling of apprehension arises in your heart, already having the notion that your snack time would probably be another one of those tough battles. Still, you agree and patiently wait for Xiaojun to bring your snacks in. In a few minutes, he brings in two egg tarts on a plate, and your heart skips a beat as you see them. You used to love egg tarts and often liked to have one as an after school snack — but that was before they became a fear food. Now, you can’t even remember the last time you let yourself have one. 

Mixed feelings swirl inside of you, creating a confusing storm of conflicting emotions. On one hand, you so badly longed to eat the egg tart, the mere sight of it bringing up fond memories of the warm, crumbly pastry and sweet, delicious egg custard which you used to enjoy so much. On the other, your inner thoughts were yelling at you not to take the egg tart. Scream. Cry. Yell at him. Whatever you do, do NOT eat it. You’re gonna regret it so much if you do. 

“Y/n? You alright?” Xiaojun’s concerned voice cuts through your thoughts, and he’s waving his hand in front of you. 

“My ED…it’s making so much noise again,” you admit, voice mousy-quiet.

Xiaojun immediately understands and pulls you into a hug. “I’m so sorry. That must be so hard,” he muses, pursing his lips as he tries to find the right words to say. “I know it’s not easy, so I’m not gonna force anything on you. Just do your best, and I’ll eat together with you, okay? Take your time”.

Nodding, you accept the egg tart that Xiaojun hands you and mentally prepare yourself for the first bite. “Let’s take a bite together,” he whispers, encouraging you to mirror his actions as he takes a small bite out of his own egg tart. “Well done. Savour it, enjoy its taste. Ready for the second one?”

Every bite proves to be a challenge, the demons in your head not backing down and seeming to yell louder and louder, painfully taunting you and stirring up unwarranted guilty feelings. Still, Xiaojun patiently sits with you in his arms, gently encouraging you through it all. “You’re doing so well, y/n. Do you think you can take another bite with me?”

Little by little, bit by bit, you finish the egg tart, powering through the guilt and tears with the support and love Xiaojun provided the entire time. “Last bite. C’mon, y/n, you’ve got this,” he encourages, taking the last bite at the same time you pop the last of your own tart into your mouth. 

As soon as you finish, the floodgates burst and tears spill out of your eyes endlessly, the guilt too much to bear. “Great job, y/n. I know how hard that was, and I really think you did well. Let it all out now, I’m here for you,” Xiaojun reassures, and you find yourself back in the warmth of his embrace. On instinct, you return his hug and throw your arms around him as well, leaning into his chest and letting the tears flow. “I’m so proud of you. Really”.

Your storm of tears subsides after some time. “Would you like to do something to distract yourself?” Xiaojun suggests, knowing that that would help with the food guilt that so painfully raged in your heart. “We can watch Netflix, you can pick what to watch,” he suggests, and you nod. “Alright then. I’ll set up my account”.

Before you know it, you’re laughing over Jake Peralta’s antics in yet another episode of Brooklyn-99, still wrapped in your boyfriend’s arms as you soak up warmth and comfort, the guilt having been soothed.

It’s in moments like these, you’re so grateful for Xiaojun’s presence, and the safe place he provides in all of your tough moments. 

#nct #nct fluff #nct angst #nct au #nct imagines #nct fic #nct x reader #nct x y/n #xiaojun #xiaojun fluff #xiaojun angst #xiaojun au #xiaojun imagines #xiaojun fic #xiaojun x reader #xiaojun x y/n

[dullahandyke]

post got long whoops. tldr autism plus unmedicated adhd equals media hellscape

have recently come to the realisation that ive had a complex about art consumption for a long long time, stemming from when i was a tween watching playthroughs and reviews and never playing or watching the stuff the reviews were based on. and some of that was because i was young and didnt have a computer to play danganronpa on, but i've been pirating shows as long as i've been on the internet, yet i never watched any of the anime all the youtubers talked about because it was safer and easier to listen to them talk about it and the culture than it was to ever have to seek out something i liked, to have to have my own thoughts about it. and that's followed me for at least 7 years at this point, and like, fuck, man, i wanna get out of that, but like, it's just so easy to sink into fanon. i don't watch youtube reviews anymore, but i've gotten into more than one fandom almost solely by reading a shitton of fanfiction about it. and i (former owner of yourfavehasfewerficsthanthislamp [eimear lore, veterans discount, etc]) am well aware that fanon near-universally flattens and disregards its characters and stories, saying 'fuck canon' and often for valid reason but rarely making anything better than it, but hell, it's just something to shove down my gob. it feels like easy reading, like i don't have to have my own big thoughts about symbolism and characterisation because someone else has done it for me, and it's shitty to treat fanfiction as inherantly less meaningful, but i do it anyway because it feels like the reading equivalent of having momma bird chew my food for me, and it makes me feel guilty but it keeps me fed! and i've found that a solution for this is to get into something that i've never seen anyone talk about, that nobody knows the Right Opinions for, and blade of the immortal has been wonderful for that! it's a good manga that's so long that it deters anyone from following me down the rabbit hole on a whim, and i like having my own little pit! but then i read another manga and i post about it and someone replies with an observation on the manga, and i think to myself, 'oh god', i think, 'now the neighbours are coming over and i have to clean the living room, i have to make sure my opinions are fully-formed and my appreciation is proper and there's not any mess', and even then there's a shitty bit that feels indignant because i liked to feel special, unique, like i was the only person that knew that manga and someone else has shattered that illusion, and i know i should be happy to share it but i never quite grew out of wanting to feel cool and obscure and like things were MINE. and the thing is that the more i read only fanfiction, the more i can literally feel my braincells dwindling, and i WANT to read something more substantial, because i know that if i pick up a novel or a manga or even the base material for the fic im reading, then i'll have fun and feel intelligent, but it feels like building myself up to opening that book is a chore that opening ao3 simply isnt. i've wanted to finished batman year one, i've wanted to read the hunchback of notre dame, but what i end up reading is a 33k batfam fic that i barely even read, that i only ever skim because slowing down and appreciating things and sitting with them, even just slowing down to actually read them, feels less like the direct hit of stimulus that skimming is. and so i've decided that the logical conclusion is to 1) get into media that i have never in my life seen on tumblr, that none of you fuckers could ask me about if you tried and 2) never ever post about it or search for community around it. to allow myself to read things wrong and to not have the pressure of feeling like there's someone over my back in all this, like i'm not in fandom or criticising fandom but just existing on my lonesome. potentially even to the point of going on break from tumblr for a bit, because i love you fuckers and this is a neutral statement but fandom is unavoidable on here. and i would for sure come back to tumblr and i would maybe come back to less obscure shit once i

hold on tumblr has a text block character limit. anyway once i built up more confidence in myself and didnt feel any pressure to have the right opinions about shit, even if i never engaged in fandom again but instead just kept up with some popular stuff, like an office worker who casually watches breaking bad or whatever. and this is really what i should be doing, and maybe not now because the leaving is in *checks watch* literally a month and a half oh fuck. and i need to focus my brainpower on that (lol as if thats gonna happen) but i cant make a concerted effort towards the leaving if im working on reforming my media habits. but even in the summer i could do it and i should do it, and cut back a little now to make it easier than going cold turkey.

which is why now was THE WORST POSSIBLE TIME to get into batman via take-a-fucking-guess ding-ding-ding fanfiction osmosis, something which is both 1) undeniably mainstream enough that the odds of me meeting people in real fucking life to ask me about my Correct Opinions are higher than i would like them to be and 2) a labyrinth thats been built over the course of like 80 years, out of comics and movies and shows and games and the comics alone are a mess of timelines and reboots and crossovers and whoops-this-character-is-in-this-comic-now-better-fuck-off-over-there-if-you-want-to-find-them that wreaks absolute HELL upon my 'i wanna be sooo well informed and read all the stuff and take no shortcuts' approach that kicks in whenever i DO start actually engaging in shit instead of just the fandom.

like sigh ill muddle through it because i picture dick grayson in motivational posters nowadays to help me do shit like get out of bed and climb stairs and take out my books, and i wanna return the favour, and like im getting closer 2 figuring out how to approach it (turns out the answer is 'one step at a time'. fucking shocker) but also fucking christ. idk idk idk ill go finish batman year one and then at some point ill watch the 2022 batman movie and then ill figure out where to go from there

#yes i AM autistic why do you ask?

[mostlygibberish]

"Just talk, Mr. Rat. That's a good boy."

I liked the part with the pigeons.

Not a single thing about the science, engineering, or basic logic of this movie made any sense at all, and it was great. It never took itself too seriously, and even as it followed a highly formulaic plot, it played around with so many fun, insane ideas that you couldn't possibly be bored.

The disaster movie stuff on the surface was complete nonsense, but seeing Rome and San Francisco be wiped out by lightning storms and solar radiation lasers that melt steel was hilarious. So much lightning hit the stones of the colosseum that it became charged with energy, emanating mystical blue light from within its columns before it exploded.

I loved that their ludicrously expensive planet-core ship had doors controlled by spaghetti-wired breadboards. It also had a room accessible from within the ship that got twice as hot as their suits could withstand, but also contained exactly one very important switch that had to be manually flipped. The whole ship was a series of detachable chambers solely to allow exactly one crew member at a time to dramatically sacrifice themselves for plot advancement.

Everyone's acting was decent enough. Nothing too remarkable, except when Aaron Eckhart temporarily lost his damn mind at the door closing on that one guy. It took me like an hour to realise that he wasn't Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and another thirty minutes to realise Hilary Swank wasn't Jolene Blalock. DJ Qualls was pretty much perfectly cast as the weird 2000's hacker guy.

Computers as a concept were so nebulous to the writers of this movie that the government hired one guy to censor the entire internet. That's probably a one-man job, right? How big could this internet thing be? Later on he hacked into the entire US power grid and sent the electricity to Coney Island. All of it. All of the electricity.

The music was bizarre in a way only the early 2000's could have pulled off. During the scene with the space shuttle, it just had an inexplicable warbling sound effect mixed into it for some reason. Every title card that came up was gloriously dated, and there were CGI sequences that looked like cutscenes from C&C '95.

As long as you take absolutely none of it seriously, The Core is a very fun time.

#the core #the core 2003 #movie review

[anewinternational]

A Traveller’s Guide to Lost and Later Songs

For those who may appreciate some background detail, I offer below my workings.

All audio references refer to recordings from the secret playlist, “Lost and Later, Early Days”- here 

#1 - Loverboy (19/01/13) 

On the cusp of lost and later, this song is something of both.  Written in the months before the revolution (earliest demo in the files is dated 19th January 2013), I was imagining something like Gene Pitney sings Misirlou, produced by Joe Meek.  I remember Loverboy getting its debut at a Hogmanay show in Glasgow’s Old Hairdressers.  Halfway through the song, a jolly fellow in high spirits took to the dancefloor and did “the dance of the two ales” (a self-explanatory dance which requires no partner).  I took that as a positive sign: the booze equivalent of two thumbs good. Loverboy retained its place in our live set until the Fabulon pre-production rehearsals.  Then, at a summit in the Laurieston bar with producer-in-chief Colin Elliot, the Politburo decided that Loverboy’s face didn’t quite fit the new regime (see also “Ghost Light”).  The song committed the youthful folly of trying to say everything and be everything to all people, rather than seeing a world in Blake’s grain of sand.  Its sprawling structure didn’t quite hang together and forgot the golden rule of pop music: get to the chorus, get to it already and get there by yesterday (people are busy you know and we don’t have time for your three-minute instrumental breakdown).  Compared to “Valentino”, its more popular elder sibling, Loverboy looked like the scruffier black sheep of the family who, perhaps if freed from the burden of fitting in with its peers and trying to impress, may yet come good.  It needed time; time that we didn’t have back then.   These days, well, it often feels like there’s nothing but time, even as it ebbs away until, all at once, the day has gone, a little like that line in Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises”– “How did you go bankrupt?" Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” Anyway, whether we realise it or not, time is, and always will be, pressing.  So, Loverboy come in, come in from the cold and tell all the others too, for now is the hour of the outcast. Pariahs of the world unite. Tonight, we run with the underdogs.  I still remember where all the bodies were buried and there is going to be a reckoning

#2 Ghost Light (14/04/10)  

A synth-pop devotional in praise of the light, 14th April 2010 at 9.50am is the earliest noted record in the archives for this one.  It sounds uncharacteristically early in the morning for me but, as the politicians like to tell you, statistics don’t lie. The night before, I had been out drinking with my friend Paul Tasker of the Doghouse Roses.  We decided to round off a very enjoyable evening with whisky and tunes back at Paul’s flat during which I remember Paul modelling a beautifully made Swedish Army greatcoat which he’d picked up somewhere or another on the internet.  He cut quite a dash as he marched smartly up and down his living room, swaying his whisky to and fro with a martial air.  Among various other pressing issues up for discussion that evening, Paul mentioned that he had an old synthesiser he was looking to get rid of and did I want it?  That sounds like a laugh, I thought, and we settled on the princely sum of £20. The next morning, I woke to find I was now the proud owner of a Yamaha SK10 Symphonic Ensemble.  There it was, propped against the wall of my bedroom.  Oh well, I thought, I had certainly woken up to worse.   I plugged it in, switched it on and quickly realised that I had got lucky here. What a lovely noise.  I thought of arcades and 1980s computer games, John Hughes movies, pastel-coloured leg warmers....  There was a string setting that sounded just like Phil Oakey and Giorgio Moroder’s “Together in Electric Dreams”.  I was instantly transported to a childhood kitchen scene - my sister and I doing the Sunday dinner dishes whilst we listened to the Top 40 on a state-of-the-art Sanyo transistor radio and singing along to “Electric Dreams”.  Then, light speed forward 20 years and dancing to the very same song with my friend Dan Mutch in an empty and just about closing Edinburgh bar after stopping in for one last drink, two children trying to stay up past their bedtime.  Like happy news, unexpected and unlooked for, the song soared euphorically out of the bar’s massive speakers as Dan and I pushed our drinks aside in shared joy to find that the dancefloor was there all along, like the yellow brick road, right underneath our feet and we didn’t even notice it. Music is time travel. I’ve often thought that the synth pop wizards were really piano balladeers, heirs to a grand tradition but operating under different conditions, in different times.  Pop by other means.  Pop, of course, must always be by any means necessary, or at least by any means available, but I wonder what Vince Clarke would have created if he found himself behind a baby grand in 1920s Broadway, or if Cole Porter was given a Moog to fool around with. A lovely sound can in itself be an inspiration.  The SK10’s string setting made me feel like it was hard to go wrong.  A riff seemed to present itself immediately to me; then it was just a question of which chords sounded good beneath that riff.  Being something of a musical illiterate, I often play wrong chords.  But sometimes the wrong notes sound better than the right ones.  It can, at times, be hard to keep up with my mistakes. I tend to be a music first writer.  I travel lightly and assume the lyrics will meet up with me later on, somewhere further down the road.  In the meantime, my notes-to-self include: - make a joyful noise along to the music   - which words does this noise sound like?   - what does the music make me think of and/or feel?   This one made me think about disco lights.  Yes, that’s what I’d do.  I’d write a song about disco lights.  And so, the song began travelling under the name “Gold Silver”. “Gold Silver” made it as far as the “Come to the Fabulon” studio demos, recorded in Red Eye Studios, Clydebank in 2012-13.  Although there was a variety of styles among these demos there is, you might say, a fine line between variety and anomaly.  In this context “Gold Silver” sounded like a completely different band and, much as that in itself appealed to me, the song was, by majority decision, disappeared around the time of the Fabulon album rehearsals of 2013.  During a band meeting in the Laurieston Bar with producer-in-chief Colin Elliot (see also “Loverboy”), I distinctly remember “Gold Silver” being given its marching orders, packed off to the Siberia of Song.  I believe the term “Eurovision reject” was used.   But remember: we throw nothing away.  And another thing, while we’re here; I really like Eurovision.   I remember Drew Barrymore’s lines in “Donnie Darko”, about how the words “cellar door” were considered by many to be the most beautiful in the English language.  A matter of taste, of course.  For me, as a Eurovision fan, the most beautiful words I ever heard were “Come in Helsinki”. So, “Gold Silver”, a song out of time and place, found itself banished to the margins, perhaps until some future time, maybe our Eurovision entry.  Or our lockdown album.   Come the lockdown, the band’s campaign shifted to the home front.  With the mobilisation of all able-bodied songs – past, present and future - I found myself dusting off “Gold Silver” only to notice I hadn’t quite gotten around to finishing the lyrics (so much of life is about managing disrepair).  This was around the time of the closing of the theatres when the image of the ghost light, a tradition I’d never heard of until then, began to do the rounds.  The image and idea of the ghost light made me think that the lights in the song needn’t only be on the dancefloor; a thought which gave the song its final title and helped me to finally finish that thing I started on a bargain £20 synthesiser one hungover morning, 10 years previously.   I think the ghost light is a noble tradition, an arresting image and an eerie reminder that there will be times when there is no light other than that which we create for ourselves: in the empty theatres, clubs and bars; in song, in dance and in every whistle that tries to charm the darkness.

#3 Drunk is a holiday  (1996-2021) 

“Ought we to be drunk every night?" Sebastian asked one morning.   "Yes, I think so."   "I think so too.”   ― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited   The chorus melody for “Drunk is a Holiday” came to me, perhaps fittingly enough, in the middle of a hangover. I would date that hangover at around 1996, back when I was living in a bedsit in the Southside of Glasgow. The TV series of “Brideshead Revisited” was being repeated on Saturday evenings around then and I remember staying in to watch it over the course of several weeks. It helped to keep me off the booze. My favourite scene was the one with Sebastian and Charles, lounging by a fountain and sipping champagne in a decidedly louche manner. After their minimal, yet solemn exchange, as quoted above, which felt like a pact or vow, Sebastian falls into the fountain with his bottle of champagne. I remember applauding the telly at that bit. I, too, wanted to fall into fountains with bottles of champagne. Unfortunately, I was unemployed at the time and my limited means meant opportunities for such indulgence were few and far between.   But picking up the guitar, the songs and all that - that was free.   I often have musical ideas far beyond my capabilities of actually realising them. Sometimes it takes me years to catch up. Although the chorus melody came easily enough, I had no idea what to do with it. I tried marrying it off to all manner of unlikely suitors but nothing lasted. Then, other, easier songs came along and the melody was set aside until some later time, to be confirmed.   The next recorded sighting was 2006 on a home demo. By this time, my circumstances had improved so that I had managed to upgrade my humble abode to a hovel in Partick. I was, more or less, gainfully employed to the point where I could even, should I choose, buy my own bottle of champagne, if not quite my own fountain. One evening, whilst buttering a slice of toast in the kitchen, a stray verse suggested itself to me which carried echoes of that chorus from what you might ironically call my Brideshead Days. I dusted down the old chorus, tentatively placing it next to this new verse and felt a little shiver as they clicked snugly together like missing jigsaw pieces, lost to one another all these years. It was good news from a former life, music as time travel. A more advanced demo in 2008- including bass, drums, guitars and early lyrics- shows that we had begun working on the song as a band and it was by then travelling under the name “Drunk is a Holiday”, perhaps in reference to its origins. But after this, the trail goes cold once more. I presume the song must have been deemed too cheerful for the last Starlets album in 2009. Soon afterwards came ANI’s Year Zero and in the post-revolutionary era which followed, songs about champagne and fountains would have been dimly viewed as irredeemably bourgeois. And so, the song was lost again.   Or not lost, perhaps never really lost at all, rather searching. Or waiting. Waiting for its time to come, for the world to change once more and a reappraisal of all that was previously taken for granted; when we, not spoiled for resources, would once again find a virtue and a new aesthetic in making the best out of what we have. Mend and make new.   Nowadays, I navigate my way through our strange new world by bicycle. I finally finished writing “Drunk is a Holiday” when the last of the lyrics came to me in the Summer of 2020 whilst cycling through the Dovecote country, somewhere between Yoker and Whiteinch and approximately 24 years after watching Brideshead Revisited.   “The calm, beguiling   Until you’re smiling   Our little slice of forever* to be whiling”   All of the above is not necessarily to say that the song itself is worth the wait. That is not, of course, for me to say. 24 years in the making is, after all, a fair bit to live up to and perhaps its origins will prove more interesting than its arrival. But it was worth my wait and I’ll go as far as to say that, yes, I am fond of it. If forced to describe the song for publicity purposes, I’d maybe offer something along the lines of “Music Hall as Synth Pop”. Whatever “Drunk is a Holiday” may or may not be, lyrically it is very much in the tradition of “write about what you know”, so if it all sounds a little woozy here and there, well, I’m afraid that’s because so do I.   As a final point, if there are any time-travellers reading this, may I ask a small favour? Should you happen to be passing through 1996 any time soon, could you please pass on a message to my former self, if he’ll listen? Please tell him that future Biff asks that he be of good cheer. Tell him he finally finishes that song that he started. Tell him that he hasn’t given up, that he’s still trying to keep his promise.   *This line is a nod and tip of the hat to Jenny Lindsay’s spoken word show “This Script” from which the line is “borrowed”.  Other significant nods, tips and borrowings (although I prefer the term “references”) include to and from Warren Zevon’s “Carmelita”, a favourite at family sing-songs when I was growing up. Originally posted in December 2020

#4 Yesterday’s Already Light Years Away  (No demo exists.  Approximately 1997)

One from the analogue years, there was no demo recorded of this song at the time, or after.   From around 1996 until 1999, the band rented a rehearsal room in the Maryhill Burgh Halls.  From the studio next door, we inherited an unwieldy electric piano (affectionately christened “The Coffin” by Craig) and on which I stumbled across the song’s tinkly melody.  My bus home from rehearsals crossed Jamaica Bridge, over the Clyde and out to the occasionally sunlit uplands of Glasgow’s Southside.  Gazing out of the top deck window, I used to see blankets tidied away neatly underneath one of the bridge arches and wonder who slept there.  The lyrics began with that thought.   I remember clunkily playing through the song a couple of times in band rehearsals.  When I looked around the room afterwards, all band members’ faces seemed to communicate the same reaction, namely, “Whit are we meant to dae wi that?”.  A fair question.  Some songs are not suited to the rough and tumble of the rehearsal room.  Too much bang and crash.  In this case, a slide rule and calculator may have been more useful.     There’s a bit of an unusual structure to this one and I can hear echoes of my obsession (still current and ongoing) with Prefab Sprout’s “Steve McQueen” album.  As stated above, there was no demo recorded at the time, but the song hung around awkwardly for a while, like a wallflower at a dance, before quietly slipping away into the shadows, lost down the lesser travelled corridors of my mind.  Once in a while I would catch a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye but when I turned around it was gone again. After 25 years of rattling around in my head and without even a demo to its name, “Yesterday” can stake a fair claim as the unlikeliest character on this unlikeliest of records. A shy one, strange and a little awkward, this song may well be no one’s idea of the belle of the ball and, I would say, it is all the better for that.  It is one of my favourites on the record.  Some songs, and people, are not easy to know but, given the chance, will dance a dance all of their own.

#5 Ride the White Horses  (29/03/10)  

First demoed as an instrumental in a live home recording by Mark and I, dated 29/03/10 (see secret playlist)  In the spirit of Martin Mull’s “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture”, here’s a song about painting, partly inspired by James Guthrie’s “Hard At It” which can be found in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery.  I like to find inspiration in different artforms. One is less likely to be sued for plagiarism.     At the time of writing, this song has been played live once only, at a solo show in Arnhem on 22/10/2010, when it was still shiny new and I must have been keen to try it out.  After the last note, not one person applauded.  Not one.  Not even polite or pitying applause.  Nada.  Nil point.   Ha ha ha. Cue tumbleweed.  Character building.   I daresay I could have taken the hint there and then but I’ve always been a bit stubborn that way.  I am right and the world is wrong. Sooner or later the world will realise the error of its ways. Until then, if an idea is worth believing in, it is worth a world of indifference, worth all of the lean years for all of the meantime (even if it all turns out to be meantime).  So, here’s to another time and place yet to come; to some other night in some other room where some one person hearing the song may feel just glad enough to clap hands.  Then, at long last, from lost into later, the song will have found a home. NB. For further reference material (and dancing about architecture), please see Eduardo Chillada’s “The Comb of the Wind”

#6 What You Came For  (11/08/2018) 

The first of the Later songs.  The initial melody came to me whilst on a jolly through to Edinburgh for the festival, somewhere in between Kilderkin and the Waverley Bar.  As I recall, I was temporarily between drinks and loitering outside a newsagent whilst a friend bought tobacco. Ideas tend to come to me when my guard is down, maybe when drifting in or out of sleep, or sometimes, as in this case, when in a dreamlike state.    A cool summer breeze eased down the Royal Mile, calming my fevered brow.  I must have started singing to myself. Tum-te-tum.  Tourists milling by occasionally glanced at me, the singing jakey; perhaps thinking I was one of the local characters, a little bit random but harmless enough.  “Hey”, I wanted to say, “I’m a tourist here myself”.  There must have been some presence of mind still functioning as I recorded the tune on my phone with the title “Yeahyeahyeahs” (it reminded me a little, at the time, of their song “Turn Into”- I always liked that one).  The tune must have been rattling around in my head for a while after that as further developments of the song can be heard on subsequent phone recordings made, by the sounds of it, on trains, waiting on buses and first thing in the morning after dreaming about an idea for the middle eight- https://on.soundcloud.com/SAaj7 The last recorded sighting was 24/09/18; a live take of a rehearsal by the band but by then the Dark Carnival was rolling into town and everything went supernatural for a while.

#7 Something of the Night   (18/12/18) 

Our Hallowe’en number and another of the Later songs, the only previous recording of this was a live rehearsal dated 18/12/2018 - https://on.soundcloud.com/VNeEW   Clearly influenced by our imminent descent into the underworld, this one could well have ended up on the Dark Carnival album had it been a little less late.  Inspired by B-movies, Bela Lugosi, Vampira, Ed Wood, Nosferatu, “Monster Mash”, “Foul Owl on the Prowl” from “In the Heat of the Night” and, yes folks, the theme tune from “The Professionals”.   I wouldn’t imagine the lyrics require any elaboration, with one possible exception: for anyone unfamiliar with the Scots vernacular of “looking for a lumber”, this phrase is used to describe someone “out on the pull”.  Of course, the versatility/ambivalence of the word may well become all too apparent the morning after the night before, should last night’s “lumber” turn into this morning’s “lumbered with”.  It can be a confusing language, particularly nowadays when nuance has become so terribly unfashionable.  I looked up “lumber” in both Oxford and Cambridge English dictionaries but its use as a singular noun (e.g. “Did ye get a lumber last night?”) receives no mention.  That, of course, may well be a whole other story. This song is, I am proud to say, a thoroughly reprehensible character (although clearly somewhat ridiculous).   Like its fellow travellers, it was, at the time and for one reason or another, considered inappropriate.  Maybe so. Or maybe it is, to paraphrase Lloyd Cole, inappropriate but much more fun.   This will be the one they remember us for. Featuring bonus wolf howl.  

#8 Swirly  (04/03/2009) 

It’s swirly, man.

The first demo is dated 04/03/09 at 1653h, just in time for tea.  Around this time, I was beginning to collaborate with my friend Ally Kerr on his songs, working towards his album “Viva Melodia”. I’d say it was a productive time for both Ally and myself and I was enthused by his maverick, can-do attitude. I remember sauntering home from Ally’s one night after an evening of beer and songs and suddenly a melody began rattling around in my head.  In the spirit of creating a language out of whatever is inspiring us at the time, I began singing, as placeholder lyrics for the melody - “Ally’s good, Ally’s fine, Ally’s hot to let you know”.   As a placeholder title to match the lyrics, I thought “Swirly” suited its woozy, spiralling mood.  Last time I looked, the title was still there. The song felt promising up until the moment of truth in the rehearsal room, when it became sadly apparent that we, the band, couldn’t really play it very well. We tried a few times but it didn’t half plod where it should have swirled. It quickly became another of our songs to be shelved and filed under “Far too much like hard work”.   Some songs are contrary: you have to record them before you learn how to play them, odd as that may sound. At the time of recording, we had never played “Swirly” live. Instead, it was stitched together according to a vague but ambitious wish list sent to long-suffering producer Colin Elliot who was tasked with performing pop alchemy on our humble, home-made fare. Swirly was the first of the lockdown songs to make it out into the world, the first single and original Lost and Later Song #1.   After the initial morale boost, then came the challenge: if this is possible, then what else is?  The sensible thing would have been to say no.  Nice idea but walk away.  To say no is easier, quicker.  To say yes is harder to live up to, will take far longer.  Maybe even a lifetime.

#9 Everything’s Alright Fine    (31/12/2020)  

Second latest of the Later songs, born in a hangover and hummed into my phone, just in time for Hogmanay.  I was stumbling through the no man’s land between last night and the night to come, fighting a rear-guard action against a horde of demons calling me bad names.  Some hangovers can look so big they can pass themselves off as all sky, all horizon and all hereafter.  There is nothing but and nothing beyond this.  Abandon hope all ye who enter here.  It is important then to remember that this is only a temporary psychosis caused by lack of fluids.  Drink water, have some soup, take a nice, hot bath; back to basics, be humble, hit reset, switch off and on again, add in some calculated distractions.  All well and good in theory.  However.   Once upon a hangover, one penitent Sunday and a personal low point to date, I was unable to keep my fluids in place, so to speak.  Another test of character.  When even a humble glass of water is beyond us, we must accept this additional level of abasement and find our new level.  There is, of course, a fine line between humbling and humiliating but never mind.  One hasty rummage in a cupboard later and I emerged triumphant with a bathroom sponge.  Eureka.  I wet the sponge - not soaked, dampened only - and repaired to the sofa.  I began with wetting my lips only - so far, so good. I then built up to occasional discrete, tactical sucks on the sponge, hoping to take on fluids by stealth, under the radar.  I had in place a cunning strategy.  All I needed now was some covering fire, a decoy, a distraction.  I switched the TV on, hoping for a gentle Sunday matinee from a bygone age to gaze at longingly whilst sucking on my sponge.  The screen crackled into life with a brassy fanfare straight out of Hollywood’s golden era.  In a marvel of fortuitous timing, I was just in time to catch the opening credits to the Sunday matineé.  Perhaps my chances were, at last, beginning to take an upward turn.  Then, as I lay on the sofa, sucking cautiously on my sponge and still lamenting my terrible thirst, the screen announced the afternoon feature as- “Humphrey Bogart stars in…. “SAHARA!” You’ve got to laugh.  Humour is our short circuit, cutting off the path to insanity.  Or maybe, in the language of the movies, it heads us off at the pass. That hangover was from another time, a lion of its kind, whereas the hangover of 31/12/20 was a pussycat in comparison.  Damage was sustainable; fluids acceptable; soup, a dawning possibility.  A few minor demons were off on a toot but the mopping up operation was well underway. I would gather them all up like naughty numbskulls and put them back in the jar, until the next time the lid pops off. So, taking deep breaths, I repeated like a mantra – “Everything’s alright, everything’s alright..”.   Tell it ‘til it’s true.   “Everything’s alright”.   “Everything’s alright what?”, came the answer, one of the more stubborn demons.   “Everything’s alright fine”.   “Why two words when one would do?” said the demon. “You protest too much”.   The above processing of information and damage management often takes a musical form.  It is good to take notes throughout.  You never know what you might miss.  Humphrey Bogart won’t always be there to help you through your hangovers and some courses you’ll have to plot alone, making your own entertainment along the way.  Meantime, and remember, this may well all turn out to be meantime, everything’s alright fine.

#10 Intermission –   (Voice recording of initial idea recorded on 10/11/20) 

Transmissions from Planet Zoom- a melancholy android plays remembered sounds from Planet Earth; an ice cream van, a seaside organ, elevator muzak. Refreshments are available in the foyer.  

Welcome back folks.

#11 A Chemical Dream  (20/01/04 - 01/09/08) 

 Another of the lost souls, “A Chemical Dream” dates from around mid-late noughties and, woozy and anaesthetised as it may be, I imagine it must still have been deemed far too jolly for the last Starlets album.  Then, come the revolution and post Year-Zero, songs about chemicals would, of course, have been cancelled due to high levels of bourgeois decadence.   I picture “A Chemical Dream” as the sound of Sunday morning coming down; dawn is breaking and night’s spell of enchantment is slowly lifting, but maybe the imminent crash will be sustainable, a new beginning.   Song as dream sequence, through the highs and lows of hedonism, thematically we are, of course, in familiar territory here.  Never mind.  We must work with what we have.  Even when it feels like nothing.

#12 What Boys Do  (10/7/16) “And you know all our boys Are really girls at heart” -The Imposter, Elvis Costello

“What Boys Do” started life in 2016 with the working title of “The Replacements” (see link), as the initial idea reminded me a little of the brilliant band of that name (as an irrelevant aside here, I would like to boast that one of the treasures in my collection is a cigarette packet signed by Paul Westerberg).  I don’t remember too much about writing this but there are many things in my life that I don’t remember too much about and perhaps this is for the best.  If called upon to explain myself as regards the title, I would draw attention to the lyric - “All the big talk and then we’re through But that’s just what boys do” As a boy of a certain vintage, I grew up in an era when society’s expectation for its menfolk was to be strong, capable, uncomplaining, tough, undemonstrative, to never show weakness.  That’s a fair bit to live up to.  Hence the big talk.  And all that goes with it. The song itself sounded, once again, so unlike anything else we were doing at the time that I didn’t know where to put it (we are an anomaly even to ourselves) and so off it slipped, into obscurity, last seen in 2016.  A six-year sentence to the Lost and Later files is, of course, relatively lenient when compared with some of the other songs (see “Drunk is a Holiday”).  Then came the days of the new pestilence and lockdown during which, with nothing better to do, and having exhausted all other far more pleasant possibilities, I thought, oh dear, I might as well work.   In the early demos there were concerns that the heavy guitars could sound a bit ploddy and pub rock so we decided a healthy dollop of glam was required and during the recording of the song, I often asked myself -   “What would the New York Dolls do?” *. So, I added some “oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ohs" and bought myself a feather boa.  I wore the feather boa whilst recording the vocal and that helped to get me in the mood.  Still, I had my doubts and, come the mixing, I expressed concern over my vocal performance in an email to our producer Colin Elliot, signing off with -   “My only worry is that it may not be camp enough”.   Colin was happy to reassure me on that point and replied-   “Don’t worry, it’s always camp enough” * “What would the New York Dolls do?”   I would strongly recommend we ask ourselves this question whenever facing difficult circumstances, in whatever walk of life and certainly never less than once a day... although probably not whilst driving or operating heavy machinery.

#13 Starlight International    16/10/18   @ 7.39 am 

This song arrived, more or less fully formed, in a dream.  On waking, rather than rolling over, perchance to dream once more, I had the wherewithal to grab my guitar and record it into my phone. There’s something about the state between sleep and waking that makes for fertile ground for the imagination. The mind is no longer on its best behaviour. Notions such as sensible, adult behaviour become a laughing stock.  Ha ha ha ha.  Fuck that.  Chaos creeps in, many-fingered and dancing to the beat of a different drum. We were in the middle of our Dark Carnival incarnation at the time and I found myself singing “Baby you’re a supernatural” at the chorus so this became the initial working title.  Later on, I thought the word “international” scanned a bit better and could also make for our signature tune.  Then “Starlight International” suggested itself.  It all sounded rather glam and, inspired by Bowie’s starman/spaceboy fantasies, I thought “Of course! A space ballad”. The band as cosmonauts, into the Great Unknown, to infirmity and beyond.  If I wasn’t afraid of heights, I wouldn’t mind signing up for the space game.  As long as I didn’t have to wake up too early and as long as I was home in time for tea or at least, last orders.

#14 Boom Boom Cannonball  (27/9/17) 

The riff idea came to me at a Slim Cessna’s Auto Club gig.  In days gone by I would have forgotten it with the next passing fancy but thankfully nowadays there are voice recorders on phones to help people like me along.  In the “boom idea” recording you can hear me singing the riff over the noisy chaos of the live gig in the background (foreground as background, sadly, is often the way at live gigs).  As noted previously, every recipe needs a healthy dash of chaos, this time provided by the noise and heat and sweat of a small club gig.  The band are bangin and I’m several beers in. Charge on.

It was never going to be pretty.  It demanded much huffing and puffing and a-panting and a-grunting, like Leonard Cohen sings the Army of Lovers or a surprise Eurovision entry by The Hormone Monster.  Cheesy, sleazy eurotrash with a honking, stonking dose of the horn.  Yes, yes, yes...it may all be considered thoroughly inappropriate, but I have no concerns.  In order to be cancelled, one has to be scheduled in the first place.

#15 The Strangest Thing   (1/3/21)

Latest of the later songs and yet another to come in a dream.  I seem to spend half my life in a dream, the other half in denial.  In this dream I found myself running through the dimly lit labyrinth of a post-apocalyptic Venice whilst battling some strangely attractive zombies.  I didn’t know whether I wanted to fight the Zombies or....well, you get the idea.  It was all a bit Lara Croft meets Sigmund Freud.  The end of the dream felt like completing a level. I outran the zombies only to find myself running down a dark alleyway into a dead end, at the end of which was a drinking fountain.  As I approached the fountain, I saw there was a secret button in the middle of the fountainhead. Ooh.  I pressed a secret button and the fountain began to sink into the ground whilst playing the doorbell melody you hear at the beginning of the song.  That was the dream.  Pure spooky man.  My dreams are rarely light-hearted.  Never mind.  I try to see them as free entertainment, the brain’s bonus section.     Lockdown recording felt like a clean slate, like we could sound like anything we wanted.  It liberated us from the bang and crash of the rehearsal room (fond as I am of that).  I suspect “The Strangest Thing” would never have blossomed in that environment.  I should be grateful it wasn’t written 25 years ago. If you are in a hurry, I would say this is not the song for you.  If you are not in a hurry....may I suggest you make yourself comfortable, maybe with a glass of something lovely.  Let us take time out from the world.  The chaos will still be there tomorrow.  Just not the way we left it.

#16 There’s Barely Enough Time to Breathe  (no demo exists)

Another one from the analogue years, approximately 1997-8, around the same time as “Yesterday’s Already Light Years Away” and similarly born out of my obsession (current and ongoing) with Prefab Sprout’s “Steve McQueen” album.  This was another one which didn’t suit the rough and tumble of the rehearsal room.  Quite simply, we didn’t have a clue what to do with the song and so we stood around looking at it for a while, somewhat vacantly, like dogs watching a card trick.  So, no demo for this one.  You can’t record what you can’t play, or so we thought until making this album.  Never let a lack of technical ability get in the way of a musical idea.  Music is too important to be left to musicians.  That’s what I always say. Lyrically, this one was in part inspired by the line “Another lifetime is the least you’ll need” from Jonathan Coe’s “The House of Sleep”.  I loved the book and the character Sarah, a narcoleptic who can’t tell the difference between her dreams and her waking state and so talks to people about her dreams as though they were widely known world events.  How marvellous. I used to think I might be narcoleptic until it dawned on me that I just find much of life terribly dull.  As a younger man, I was sacked from jobs for falling asleep.  Fortunately, I wasn’t a bus driver.  Or anything important, really. I managed to blag a place at university purely as a way of avoiding work, only to then regularly fall asleep during lectures.  I remember falling asleep during a History lecture (the last words I remember hearing were something about “demography in the 18th century”) only to wake up some time later, startled to find I was surrounded by an entirely new group of students, all eagerly taking notes on a talk about tectonic plates and volcanic rock formations.  I was too embarrassed to get up and leave so I sat as inconspicuously as a recently snoring man in a room full of bright-eyed young Geology students could until I gradually found myself being drawn in by the subject, fascinated.  Wow.  What tumult and drama we walk above.  It’s amazing we can make it to the shops in one piece.  I failed History that year but I could probably tell you a thing or two about Mount Vesuvius.   So, anyway, getting back to the song, lyrically, I can hear the struggle to reconcile my world view with what then seemed to me the outrage upon my personal liberty that was working for a living.  Work, the foulest of all four-letter words and the enemy of sleep.  I have never been a morning person and wake up begrudgingly.  I then believe in due process as observed in the form of at least one hour of coffee and denial.  After an hour, I may then deign to talk to you, but it will probably be about the dream I just had.  I carried this song around in my head for 25 years.  I am beyond happy to see it finally set it free.  Thank you, dear band, thank you Colin Elliot. The more dreams I can make come true, the less there are to haunt me.

#17 Freediving   (1/3/12)

Another late developer, more lost than later, “Freediving” took 10 years to record.   Mark and I occasionally get together to work on the guitar arrangements, an activity which has come to be known as “The Biscuit Sessions” (these would be mid-week affairs, involving nothing stronger than ginger snaps and PG Tips).  The earliest documented recording of this was 1/3/12 at 1906h, a rough idea we must have bashed out in between biscuits.  A further demo from 22/12/12 (0020h) shows a more realised structure although it was still instrumental at the time (I didn’t yet know what I was writing about). The song felt subtle and elusive, never quite settling and I think back then, we made the mistake of trying to rush it, control it, rather than allow it to breathe and gradually reveal itself.  If you love something, set it free.  If it’s meant to be, it will come back to you.  And it did, around nine years later in the long, echoing days of lockdown when time all of a sudden felt like a surplus (a mirage, I know) and little pockets of hitherto unimaginable breathing space emerged, a coming up for air in the midst of all the horror.   The music itself made me think of water.  It felt fluid, tidal.  I thought of the intimacy of underwater where the above world becomes muffled and hushed and how, perhaps in that escape lay the appeal of freediving, not an activity I had given much thought to until watching the film “The Big Blue”. I remembered the scene from the film when the two central characters, friends and rivals for the crown of World Freediving Champion, become bored at a glitzy party and, aching to escape the inane cocktail chatter, decide to jump in their host’s swimming pool and hang out down at the bottom of the deep end.  I also thought of Kino the pearl diver from Steinbeck’s “The Pearl”, Kino bursting triumphantly from the depths as cupped and glistening in his hands was the oyster in which lay the pearl of the world.  Finally, I thought that whatever is or isn’t down there, pearls, tranquility or nothing at all, in the dive alone may be found a freedom which, if we never get our feet wet, we will only ever guess at.

#18 Those First Impressions (approximately 2007)

For Billy Mackenzie

#19 The Night Will Take You  (original demo dated 9/11/10) 

It’s the last song of the night folks.  If you don’t ask that beautiful stranger to dance now, the moment will be gone forever. We impersonate that which we admire, try it on for size in the hope that someday the outfit may suit us.  Back in Starlets days, we used to cover “Science Fiction/Double Feature” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  I still think it’s the most romantic song I’ve ever heard and one of the few songs that, whatever I’m doing, should I hear it playing, I have to stop and listen to it (I am not a man to be left in charge of a group of toddlers, or a combine harvester).   Travelling for many years under the nom de guerre “Glitterball”, in another world, or perhaps in yet another dream I once had, "The Night Will Take You" would soundtrack the closing credits of a John Hughes movie.  Preferably one with Molly Ringwald. Good triumphs over evil, love over death, and all those eternal human legends which settle our score with reality.   Some nights, when the lights are low and the music's right, I start believing all over again. So, if you’re dancing, I’m asking.  Always will be.

#20 Lost and Later Theme   (5/3/19) 

A street musician duets with a synthesiser.  Written on accordion, this early recording is more bum notes than melody but you can hear the tune gradually emerging - https://on.soundcloud.com/BrFXc It was partly influenced by a barrel organ street musician I once heard - (see “Rue Daguerre, Montparnasse” on the secret playlist).  I loved the song but never found out its name. It sounds like some old, jolly, French drinking song.  If anyone recognises it, please do let me know, thank you. Anyway, welcome to the end of the pier. Don’t jump off just yet.  You might miss something.  The view is lovely and on a clear day you can see, if not quite forever, at least as far as next Tuesday. To quote many a firm but fair barkeep at closing time, you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.  Actually, no, that’s not true. You can stay here.  You can live here.  I do.

[creepylittlelady]

Visuals of a Distant Memory

Sometimes, I wonder what other people's lives must be like. What runs in their head every second of every day, what visuals they wake up to. What hues of green, black, pink, purple, reds and oranges they must see with their irises every time they wake up.

What were other peoples memories like? What do they remember, what did they feel, touch, smell and hear? Did they hear the yelling decibels of the people who created them? Do they feel the rocks of their bed as they slept in the wind and rain, the tugging of their hair? Do they remember the ache of loneliness in their hearts as they scroll around the internet, rummaging like a desperate hoarder for a place to call home?

What do they feel now, looking back on it? Probably melancholic. That's what everyone must feel, right? They remember. Everyone does. The sadness, the tragedy, the terror of life as it moves on from a place of comfort to a bath of cold ice-water.

I can remember too.

Maybe it was only 3 years ago, maybe it was up to 7. It's foggy, like the image of a relative you only see once every few years, unable to make out anything but the length of their hair and the perfume they always wore.

It was cold, and it was dark. Have you ever felt that? It was most likely December. I had school that day, Primary School. It was early in the morning, sometimes that happens. You wake up, dreading the school day and realise you're not supposed to wake up for another 4 hours. Its dark outside, and you begin to wonder who else is awake at this time. Serial killers, murderers? The author of your favourite FNAF Comic Dub? An online figure that you happened to admire?

Like a good little girl that I was, I still changed into my uniform. It felt baggy and uncomfortable and not at all who I was, but there was no other choice. I stubbled over into the kitchen, rubbing my tired eyes. Those few nights, I couldn't sleep. I'd spend hours and hours looking into the dark and dreary night, wondering about things I shouldn't be as a young child. But also regular kid things too.

Nobody was in the small living room. Not even my older sister, whose faint cries of stress I can always somewhat recall. I turned on the light. The central heating was on, but there was still a faint chill of cold from the outside world.

I stood and kicked around, thinking. I had watched a creepydrawsta the night before, and I was trying to memorise all that had happened in it, the strokes the artist made while painting the story they were reading with their gentle, enigmatic voice. Maisie Went Missing Last Year, I think it was called. I tried to remember the names of all of my favourite Creepypasta characters, but there was always one whose name and backstory I seemed to slightly misremember.

I logged onto the family computer, an old dingy thing that took 2 and a half minutes to fully turn on. Although my parents were entering their late 40s, the computer still seemed eons more senile and ancient.

I opened it, the yell it eminated when it turned on frightened me a little, but I maintained a straight face. I always did anyways, facial expressions never did come easy to me.

I typed in 'YOUTUBE' in all caps, as for some reason I had forgotten to turn it off. I was the only one in my family that actually used Youtube, so all of the recommended videos were tailored to me.

I was a vocaloid fan as well. Something caught my eye. A song, 'Psychotic Love Song'. The thumbnail was of a girl with long flowing silver hair with red eyes and little bits of blood covering her. Typical Yandere, she looked like an Utauloid as well.

The song was an Utauloid cover of a song I had vaguely heard once before, in a top 10 Yandere songs or something like that.

I enjoyed it, and found the robotic feminine voice singing it to be pleasing.

I checked the comments.

'I'm cosplaying as Hatsune Miku for nightmare night. Hope I don't find any Tei cosplayers around O.o'. I didn't understand the context, nor who 'Tei' was and why they would want to harm Miku cosplayers.

I checked the day it was sent. 8 years ago. The person had a Twilight Sparkle Profile Picture, a staple of early 2010s internet. Halloween of maybe 2011, maybe 2010. Maybe even 2009. This person, whoever they were, sent this comment not knowing that a lonely child would be seeing it a little over 8 years later. That person must have grown up, gotten a job, graduated school. Yet their plans from Halloween from when they must have been a teenager are still here, on an old utauloid cover nobody had commented on in 5 years.

It was still dark and chilly, but I didn't really care. I was enthralled at how that night may have gone for them. Did they have fun? Was it the worst night of their life? Was it just another Halloween? I wanted to know. I wanted to know what it was like, being them. They could be filthy rich, in jail, homeless, or just living an ordinary life by the time I read that comment.

I wanted to reply, asking how Halloween of 2009-2010-2011 went for them. Who they were, how old they were, what their name was, where they lived, what they were doing now, how they were coping with things. They may have even been long dead, but I wouldn't have any way of knowing. That's what intrigued me.

How one tiny footnote of a person's life can make you so curious, make you want to dive down their personal rabbit hole.

I watched another Youtube video once the song was over, a FNAF Comic dub. Then another, an edgy tribute Creepypasta to Jeff the Killer. Another, an old japanese meme from Nico Nico Douga, more vocaloid songs, cringe mmd dramas, anime clips, a few animation memes. Nobody was awake. I didn't care where I was, or that I still was a lonely child with no friends at all, who lived in a dysfunctional house.

Those 3 or 4 hours, I believe I was at peace for the first time in a very long while.

Of course, I still had to go to school, which always sucked, but what could I have done? I remembered what I had seen that day, what I had watched, and for a few seconds, I was at peace.

Life was worth a small something, a secret a little girl would keep in a cheap jewellery box.

Distant.

Cold.

Yet comforting.

Do you remember?

#writing #rant post #nostalgia #weirdcore #liminalcore #liminal space #old fandom #childhood #mental illness #suicide #short story #concept #concept writing #truestory #reminiscing #tags #i hate tags #sukone tei #utauloid #vocaloid #littlelady #2010s nostalgia #memories #personal rant #rant

[talenlee]

Game Pile: Starcraft, the Original

Game Pile: Starcraft, the Original

No, no, not the remaster.

Starcraft was a real time strategy game that launched in 1998, and which I primarily knew for quite some time after that as ‘the thing my cousin had, that we played at his place.’ It was the way I engaged with most of the really good real-time strategy games, really; he was very good at the genre —

A detail I cannot corroborate at all, and which serves no purpose at all for me to express, but it pads out the story and only briefly strays back into the realisation that I have no idea why I think he was good at them beyond that he kept getting them and he could beat me at them, and I was a pretty stupid kid who didn’t understand much of the combat elements of real time strategy games, meaning that I just kept wanting to make bases and economies and watch enemies die as they approached my walls, even if I just got overly focused on one thing and really, it doesn’t matter but the point isn’t relevant to the story beyond the further consideration of how this is a game with a deliberate vision of good and bad play and I never, ever played it well no matter what it imagined I should be doing —

and that meant we got to play a lot of them, in the period where there were a lot of them going. I got to play the different Command & Conquers, Warcraft 1 and 2, and in 1998, when we all had computers that could run Windows 95 (or heaven forfend, windows 98), an appropriate set of pirated discs later meant that I got to take Starcraft home and play it on my home computer, in the corner of my room the furthest from the door, with the screen facing the wall, behind a closet, so I could, for a while, imagine myself off on my own, in my own little world.

I cheated a lot.

The cheat codes, you know, just used them all the way to try and play the game. I played on easy, I’m sure, but I have strong memories of building in skirmish mode a lot to make every unit, and see what an army composed entirely of say, hydralisks or zerglings looked like, or behaved like. Like a toybox, I played this game with a plot and a challenge curve and a multiplayer experience as if it was there to give me a set of tools for seeing how they interacted with one another, bouncing one to another.

What’s really interesting to think about is how, in a timeline, this… is older than I thought I’d be at this point. I was at least fifteen when this game came out, and I had memories at this time of playing competitive games on the internet — Quake and Team Fortress mostly — and yet I can very clearly tell that I never played Starcraft that way.

Maybe I didn’t have a head for it, maybe it was like all the other real-time strategy games I played, where I liked the building stage of things but actually making good strategic choices was beyond me. Or rather, it wasn’t like it was beyond me, it was orthogonal to my entire experience. I wanted to know how the units interacted, I wanted to know how you got to build them (so I could build all of them) and I wanted to make, which meant the strategy element of everything wasn’t meaningfully interesting to me at all.

I had no idea how to play Starcraft. Kinda still don’t. When Starcraft 2 came out, a friend bought it for me and we played it a bit, including cooperating against the hardest AI options we could handle, which I remembered really enjoying (if feeling very stressed doing). Starcraft 2 was a really good game for feeling the way I (at the time) remembered Starcraft feeling, but the thing is… the overwhelming time I spent in Starcraft wasn’t in a gameplay view that looked like a general’s.

(And I should write about Starcraft 2 at some point, I am very fond of that game.)

Starcraft had a scenario editor.

The scenario editor let you build levels, and then link those levels to one another. It let you set up briefings, which had scrolling text in them, which could be used to show characters talking to one another. In fact, if you wanted, you could even have text timers contradict one another, which means you’d have scrolling text from one character as they animated talking, then another character would start talking and it would cut off the other text and animation, like they were interjecting!

And this…

This is where I spent most of my time in Starcraft.

I think part of what got me making things were goal numbers. A campaign was this many missions long, so if I wanted to make a campaign, I had to make that many missions. The missions at the end of a campaign were different, they had a big battle at the end, and it was usually about fighting multiple factions. But I needed to build up to that, I needed to make sure there was some kind of an onramp.

If you’re familiar at all, you’ll know the tools for Starcraft were quite flexible and strong. People were making alternate game modes using the way Starcraft tracked information, and I never got into that place. Instead, I, as an industrious little kid, made a whole campaign set in the Starcraft universe, using existing characters and inventing new ones using portraits the games didn’t use and then giving them reasons to care about each other and fight each other and…

at some point, I stopped.

And put it away.

And something else got my attention.

I guess what I’m saying is that I completely understand the kind of kids who were playing with dolls and I just happened to need a very expensive interpreter device to play with my dolls. I needed the concept of a conflict that – by the way, I was absolutely not setting up good AI with good strategies – would justify what I was doing, but through it all, in all my time with Starcraft —

Time which absolutely gave me opinions on units and their relationships and which ones I like and which strategies I think should work!

— I was just playing barbie dolls with bullets. I didn’t even make the campaign to share. It was the making, the playing, the experience of it that interested me.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#GamePile #Games

[beachbjerrum12]

glary utilities xp 32

Well, I still want to do what I found myself doing just before the problem at a time program came up, therefore, I open the same program again and go to do a few things i was doing before. Wouldn't you realise it! Within a few minutes, shed weight stops working again freezes up the computer. I have to repeat the procedure above to shut the program, but this time, I close all of the programs that running soon after click on Start - Turn There are various Computer - Restart to reboot the computer. After several more minutes, the computer is rebooted and ready for purposes. Usually, it will now work for the rest of the day without freezing up again, but that isn't always the case. You can watch the services installed and alter their startup setting by looking at the Control Panel, then Administrative Tools and selecting Services. A summary of services installed displays with columns to show whether program is started or stopped and what there startup settings are typically. The startup settings are Automatic, Manual and Disabled. System imaging utilities typically compress info on cash drives to build a small action. Various solutions use different compression types, however, you may have an interest to comprehend that Windows 7 uses VHD format that Microsoft also uses in the Windows Virtual PC software and its server-based Hyper-V virtualization help. I wonder what I can do to fix the PC and take care of these problems, so I go to the internet and opt for PC speed ups. Locate that I will use several of the System Tools utilities pertaining to example Disk Defragmenter and Disk Cleanup to fix some on the problems with my hard disk, that will speed up my computer and possibly fix most of the computer freezing up woes. I use these utilities (Note! Usually when you use Disk Defragmenter, set upward late and let it run instantly! It is very time feeding.), and it does seem to aid to. The computer is still slower than (I remember) it was when guidelines and meal plans new, although i have not experienced any programs freezing up for a holiday. Oops, I shouldn't have said it! Here we go again! Another program freezes up, and Respect a company take the time to close it and reboot. Nothing chokes a computer's speed faster than Or spyware. But, how do you sort the good from the negative? Is that toolbar you installed a low program? How about that game you enjoy playing online? Could that "coupon finding" toolbar that glary utilities you simply installed deemed virus in disguise? Next, run your systems defragment power company. glary utilities License Key will help to organize almost all of the files on your computer so the player not only take up less room, but all within the files for every particular program will all be together inside same spot. It is unfair. Why my computer runs slower than other products? The original system setting has many bugs. It is critical to optimize the setting and make your computer super fast. Fox example, you can disable dispensable services to shorten startup time. You'll find free system optimize tools can improve your system abilities. You don't need much computer savvy and can fix the slow computer yourself. Thinking it is unbelievable? You ought to have a chance!

#GLARY UTILITIES

[peacockkusk]

Computer Laptop Rental Reviews

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OSlum it, then go all obtainable. My wife and cycled across Ireland acquiring to break the bank, and yet we stayed in quality bed and breakfasts (including an old Irish castle). How did we do it? https://chothuelaptop.info/cho-thue-laptop-ha-noi/ Simple: respectable one night in an awesome location, we camped two nights. Like we arrived at our room for the night, we cleaned up and had been good hours. The next morning we showered and hit the lane. Following this approach you only miss a baby shower for 1 day at an occasion. Finding an individual can rent laptops very simple. Contact any local computer or electronic store and find out if they provide rentals. There exists often an inventory for computer rentals within your phone novel., and you can a search under equipment rentals or computer hiring. There are a substantial variety of computers to rent online as well, simply do a google search for main words with a list should come in. I have and developed only after asking myself in a daze for your millionth time that I took a review at my desktop and realised the big problem. I was trying to do everything at whenever need to rent a laptop . A lot of it wasn't even necessary! Trading Software: This potential your charting software gives you a mixture of different of sources of displaying graphs, quotes and data in real-time. Easy to access . few to list are. Omega Trade Station, Meta-Stock, E-Signal or Omni-Trader. These programs are not cheap, however you for you to make the time living from this, then they'll be pivotal. You can have a in his call history component of his cellular phone, and plus his computer. You will be able to ascertain his emails and text messaging to figure out if he's communicating with alternative women you are unsure of. If he calls you fewer or forget to contact you back, this individual be calling another person.

#thuê laptop hà nội chất lượng tốt

[loiswolf]

Day 24 June 11 Pitlochry-Linlithgow 50kms

Day 24 June 11 Pitlochry - Linlithgow 50kms

In case I haven’t told you I have to be in Southhampton by the 24th. I am booked to sail on the Queen Mary 2 to Halifax. Because I’ve been delayed by illness, wind and cycling the islands ( totally worth it ) I’m going to need to do a couple of train hops to get there in time. Now Peter ( who I met on the ferry to Ullapool, offered me accommodation at his place in Linlithgow. So today I decided to cycle to Perth then get the train the rest of the way. Good plan? Maybe.

Shirley was left out in the rain overnight so on my way to breakfast I snuck out with a towel and tried to dry her off. It was a bit of a waste of time because it rained again before I left. At least she had company.

So this morning I headed straight for the cycleway route 7…..or 77 as it was mostly today. It was very pretty with cute bridges

and nice foresty tracks

but it also went right up the mountain for no apparent reason.

Eventually it joined the A9 for a short while before turning off to Birnam. I stopped for a quick coffee and was able to use their internet to receive confirmation for tonight from Peter, and then book my train ticket from Perth. How organised!

Now I had to be in Perth by a deadline but as usual, I had allowed myself plenty of time.

The cycleway crossed the main road not far from Birnam then started wandering off up into a mountain again. Hmmm, not going to do that again so I turned back towards the motorway then used a road/ path running parallel.

Occasionally I was exposed to some violent gusts of wind which helped me justify my decision to get help from the trains today.

My sense of direction let me down again when I was spat out somewhere and realised I wanted to go the opposite way I was supposed to. Oh well, I just crossed the motorway and followed the main road into Perth sticking to the footpaths whenever I could.

There was plenty of time to spare so I stopped at Tim Hortons when I saw one. They don’t actually serve you there, you have to use the computer thingy, so I just took the donut I happened to have in my food bag and had it with some water. I also finally worked out how to get the wifi to connect in a public place. It has been working some places but not of the ferries and trains. Mr Google was quite helpful sorting this out.

Only about 1km from there to the train station. What I saw of Perth wasn’t very exciting but I could have been looking at the wrong part.

So the train trip should have been simple right? Only one change at Stirling, no problem. There was a problem. The first train was delayed so they came along and told me there would be no room for me when the train did come because it had reduced carriages. Great! I had to tear up the ramp, across and down to another platform and jump ( no easy feat with Shirley) onto the train going to Edinburgh. Yep, did that but no idea where to get out and which train to get from there. It was quite a long trip then a lovely girl told me I had to get out at the next stop and run to platform 4 for my next train,

I wasn’t the only one who missed it! There was a a 30 minute wait for the next train. Linlithgow was the first stop so it wasn’t long before I was finally at my destination.

Peter and Mary’s house has this lovely garden

And looks over onto this palace ( not a castle) where Queen Mary of Scots was born.

We took a quick walk up to the corner to see the ‘Black Bitch’ pub. Apparently anyone born in Linlithgow is a Black Bitch and it’s quite a privilege!?!

[dyingstarsinyoursky]

things that happened today:

I got stuck on a bus all by myself, no driver, doors closed

Stayed at uni till 10.20pm, and low key panicked when i realised i forgot my usb stick and the pc i was working on had no internet connection, and i absolutely did not want to have to come back to uni another day to get the files i was working on

#the bus issue was easily fixed #cause when i realised i was alone on the bus with no driver (i was upstairs) #and the door was closed #i went 'wtf??' #but the driver was outside so i only had to knock on the door for him to open #i stayed so late cause i wanted to finish what i was doing #cause i was working software i don't have access to at home #exactly because i didn't want to have to come back to uni another day #and nearly ruined that plan by forgetting my usb stick #after panicking for a while #i realised there was another computer in the room with internet #and used the ethernet connection of that computer to connect to the computer i was working on #and dont worry i was at uni #but i was isolated #as i was in the motion capture room #which only one other person uses #and i'm pretty sure the last time she used it was last week in a session with me #so yeah pretty isolated #i left and only some corridors were illuminated #no soul in sight #hella creepy like a horror movie lmao #Ramblings of mine #and btw the bus had broken down apparently and the bus driver must have told the rest of the people #but did not see me upstairs

[daydreamingatnight209]

Requests will be written and out in the upcoming weeks!

Feedback is always welcome: HATE IS NOT ✨💕

“She’s My Girl”

Mason Mount x Reader

Warning - None? Fluff 💞

—————————————————————————

I remember Mason saying something about an online interview with Declan today, but I would be lying if I said I remembered what time it was at. So, you can imagine my surprise and embarrassment when I walked into my boyfriends game room to find him doing an interview with his best friend and Rio Ferdinand!

I do my best to leave the room quietly, but subtlety wasn’t exactly a skill I owned. Mase turns his head and smiles at me.

“Babe? Are you okay?”

I do my best to stay out of view of the camera and I mumble out an answer.

“I forgot you had your press junket, I just wanted to know if you wanted something to eat.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I could hear Declan’s voice coming from the computer.

“Hey yo! Is that the Misses Mase?! Y/N!”

I walk over to the desk and give Dec a small wave trying to suppress nervous laughter as both him and Ferdinand peer at me. Mason senses my nerves and pulls me sideways into his lap. I curl into him and wrap myself into his hoodie as if to protect myself from this unfamiliar situation.

“it’s a good job I put pants on isn’t it” I whisper up to Mase as he chuckles at me.

The interview continues and overtime I start to feel more and more comfortable. I watch as they talk all these football and as Dec beats Mason on yet another FIFA game. Every now and then I get a question directed at me which I do my best to answer.

“So, Y/N what is it like living with Mase during Lockdown?”

I hear Mase laugh from behind me, his little giggle catching the back of my neck, tickling me slightly.

“Well, I have finally taught him how to do his own washing, so he doesn’t need to constantly ask for help and it gives his poor Mum a break”

Declan immediately bursts out laughing again as heat rushes to Mason’s cheeks. Feeling bad for exposing him to the internet I lean up to give a peck on his cheek.

I go on to talk about what we are doing to fill up the spare time we now have, and Mason mentioned the training schedules he gets from Chelsea while hoping to be back out on the pitch soon.

“Mason works so hard, and I don’t think that many people realise that and see how much he sacrifices so while we can I like to make sure that he has a couple of days off. Sometimes is movie nights and sometimes he is just enjoys gaming with he lads”

Mason gives me a quick squeeze of appreciation as Declan’s voice appears again, piggy backing on top of my answer with a story that makes everyone laugh.

“What is isn’t telling you is that when he is gaming, she uses it to get her cuddles in!” Mason jumps in to give Rio more context who looks confused at the quick switch up of conversation.

“Yeah, it will be 2am and she will come find me still half asleep because I’m not in bed yet. She simply walks up to me, sits in my lap, curls herself around me and falls back asleep, so whenever one of the boys screams down the mic I have to be like “bro shhh” and everyone just knows that Y/N is there”

I groan into my hands as Rio laughs along with the others. I suppose this is my payback for exposing Mason before…

“You’re so whipped bro!” Dec smiles, ignoring the fact that he is the exact same when he is with his lover.

Mason just looks down at me, his face glowing with happiness.

“She’s my girl, what can I say”

#writing #fluff #fanfic #Mason Mount #Mason Mount x Reader #Mason Mount imagines #Mason Mount fluff #declan rice #chelsea fc #west ham united #football rpf #football one shot #england football #football stories #football fanfiction #football #premier league fanfics #writing prompt #declan rice imagine #england euro 2021 squad list #england euro 2020 #Mason Mount fanfic #Mason Mount Chelsea