#like the song Dance and Cry but mildly less upbeat | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

moonandsunwoo · 3 years

Text

permission to dance. e.s

# — pairing: eric sohn x reader

# — genre: fluff, IdolAU, established relationship

# — warnings: none, just clingy bf!eric

# — listen to: permission to dance by BTS

♡ requested by the sweet @mingiandbaconjam ! Thank you so much for you lovely lovely ask, I hope you like this! Have a nice day! ♡

🪴

When you entered the practice room, you felt like a wall hit you. A very comfy wall, dressed in baggy clothes and a quite nice smelling wall but a wall none the less.

“I missed you so much.” Eric, formerly known as that very wall, mumbled against the crock of you neck, giving you approximately two and a half seconds to catch your breath before pulling you even tighter.

“Hello to you to babe.” Your voice was swallowed up by his oversized shirt but Eric didn’t seem to mind. He just relaxed in your arms for a moment, dramatically sighing when you moved back a bit.

“Damn you act like we didn’t see each other for months.” You laughed, letting your hands drop from hugging his chest into his hands. Eric just shrugged, a tiny smirk tugging on his lips.

“I mean, that’s how it does feel sometimes. Most times, especially when I’m conscious.” He shot you a cheeky wink before you swatted his arm lightly, pulling him down momentarily to press your lips to his.

“Cheesy.”

Eric helped you put away your bag and dimmed the lighting a bit, nodding towards the lose AUX chord.

“Any specifics you wanna practice today?” he asked, pushing an abandoned water bottle to the side before grabbing two fresh ones from the minifridge. You shrugged, connecting your phone to the speakers.

“Nothing specific really…we don’t have a stage coming up or anything. And even if we had,” you gave him a small grin, “I wouldn’t be the one to spoil it.” Eric gripped his chest in mock pain, throwing you a pained glance.

“Not even to your boyfriend? The one providing you with free hugs and food?” you shook your head.

“Nope. And your heart is on the other side, you idiot.” he just waved it off, walking up on you before dramatically pulling you into his chest.

“My heart is right where you are.” Not even Eric himself could hold back his laughter when your eyes met through one of the large mirrors on the wall.

“Can you just not.” Was all you huffed trying to suppress your laughter, leaning back into his touch nonetheless.

“My heart is crying.” Eric countered theatrically, arms tightening around your waist, face once again resting against your neck.

“Better make it stop. Someone could slip on your tears and then what. Are you even insured?” he just giggled before spinning you around so you’d face him.

“Feisty.” You decided to retort with kiss, an answer Eric accepted without hesitating.

Warming up with Eric was as messy as expected and you weren’t sure if you were actually out of breath because of the muscle exercise or because of your laughter since Eric never failed to make an absolute fool out of himself. Besides not being able to keep his hands to himself for longer than five minutes and pecking your cheek about one million times in between.

The moment you probably absolutely lost it, was when Eric tried to show off the splits (and failed miserably) and when you teased him for it, decided to play “Penalty”, screaming along to the chorus. It resulted in you crawling into his lap, covering his face with small kisses to make the yelling stop. He accepted them with a small pout that disappeared fairly quick and let you take your phone out of his hands to find a next song to actually dance to.

He just wrapped his arms around your body and scooted back until his back hit the mirrors, fingers toying with the hem of your shirt.

“What you wanna have next?” you mumbled absentmindedly, scrolling through one of your shared playlists with him. There was a suspicious high amount of slower tunes and you knew for sure that Eric was responsible for all of them.

“You don’t really add upbeat songs, just spicy stuff.” You turned to him, eyebrows risen. “Alina Baraz, Show Me?” his grin turned almost unbearably smug. “Any ulterior motives, Sir?”

“Never baby. Why, you like the song? I should add more The Weeknd, you remind me.” you just hummed, scrolling past it quickly.

You probably spent the next ten minutes like that, you cuddled up in his arms, going back and forth between various songs and genres, when someone knocked at the door.

Eric immediately tensed up at the disturbance, still not used to the fact that the company had in fact approved of your relationship by now (if kept low-key. Which was probably why Eric kept making the biggest fuss over reunions even if you were apart for just a few hours.)

“Yeah?” You called out, drawing soothing circles over the back of his hand.

“It’s just me, Kev! Forgot my water bottle and I wanted to do a live before going to the dorms.” Kevin’s bright beanie came into frame first, before a mildly tired face followed.

“Sure, it’s over there. We’re just practicing some more.” Eric relaxed again, pressing a quick kiss against you neck.

“Yeah I see, you two are super busy practicing.” Kevin huffed, stalking towards the fitted kitchen in the corner of the practice room.

“We were just trying to find a good song to dance to.” Eric whined at the accusing tone of his older brother, pulling you closer against his chest.

“Sure.” Kevin grinned, grabbing the lonely bottle of water before making a bee line for the door.

“Don’t let me bother you two. Just don’t be nasty.” Eric let out an embarrassed yell before aiming with his shoe at the now laughing Kevin. The shoe hit the quickly closing door with a muffled thud, the sound of it falling to the ground drowned out by your laughter.

“So annoying…” Eric just mumbled, burying his face in your shoulder again.

You just grinned, scrolling aimlessly through your playlists.

“Let’s see…oh what do you think about that one…?” Eric lifted his face from his nuzzled position to peek over your shoulder.

“Permission to dance?” you nodded, finger hovering over the bright orange cover.

“Alright let’s go!” he exclaimed, slipping away and scrambling to get up to get his shoe.

A few ungraceful hops on one leg into your direction and some fumbling with his shoe he came to a halt right when the first chorus of the song sounded through the speakers.

“Permission to dance?” Eric asked with a small bow, a grin on his lips. You took his offered hand and let him pull you up on you feet.

“You don’t need permission to dance Eric. Especially not with me.”

also dedicated to all deobi who recognize the spicy songs Eric always plays during his lives, whilst acting like he's totally not doing it on purpose

⌕ m.list

#multifandomnet #tbznetwork #tbz eric x reader #eric sohn fluff #requested! [♥︎]#words of my own [writing]#the boyz eric #eric sohn x reader #eric x y/n #eric x reader #eric x you #eric sohn x you #tbz x y/n #tbz x you #tbz scenarios #tbz drabbles

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pinetreeoverme · 7 years

Text

Raise Hell

First off; Salaam Alaakum, United States! Been a hot minute.

Now that I’m back and got the obligatory ‘get fucking shitfaced’ portion of my return to the west done with, I think it’s about time to start posting fics again. Iraq was a hoot, had some good times, some bad times, and made a lot of friends amongst the local population.

Without further ado, Raise Hell. (It’s a song, Brandi Carlile. I’d suggest looking it up.)

The woman takes the stage, guitar held limply in one hand. The suit she wears is rumpled, and her tie is undone. In her other hand, she holds a freshly opened fifth of whiskey- when she sits on the stool in front of the microphone, she downs the bottle in a single long pull, not even wincing, to the cheers and jeers of the less cultured patrons. In this bar, there’s not many cultured ones.

Or innocent ones, for that matter.

Despite the surroundings, and her disheveled state, the woman’s brown eyes roam alertly over the crowd, and a slight smile plays over her lips. She begins to strum a twangy, upbeat tune on her guitar, humming in beat to the music.

When she starts singing, it’s a clear and cold clarion call, eyes focused somewhere in the distance.

“I been down with a broken heart since the day I learned to speak,” she sings, eyes narrowing. “The devil gave me a crooked storm when he gave me crooked feet, but Gabriel done came to me and kissed me in my sleep… And I’ll be sinning like an angel until the day I’m six feet deep.”

Wendy Corduroy grips the wheel of her beat-up sedan with one hand, her free fingers tapping a nervous beat on her thigh. The lights of the gas station are welcoming, if only for the promise of energy drinks or coffee- dark bags hang under the young woman’s eyes, and this is the first gas station she's seen in miles, but she’s resolved to press on gamely.

She’s got places to go, people to see, and things to do. A lot of that last one, actually.

The coffee and gas don’t cost much, and she steps outside, letting the winter chill bite into her skin. There’s a blonde man under the awning, staring out into the night with an expression that accurately sums up exactly how done with life Wendy feels at the moment.

How done with life, that is, when she’s not furiously, terrifyingly angry.

Or scared. She’s used to nerves, she’s hid them all her life, but this is something new.

The blonde man glances at her. “Hell of a night, huh?” he asks, eyebrow raised, voice made deeper and dryer by exhaustion.

“You’re telling me,” Wendy snorts, taking a sip of her coffee. She shivers a bit, but lets the chill sink into her bones, knowing it will help her stay awake. The scalding heat of the coffee helps counteract it, anyways. “Where you headed?”

“East,” the man grunts. “You?”

“South,” Wendy replies. There’s something comforting in such a banal conversation with a stranger.

The blonde man grunts. “Why south? Trying to get warmer?”

She shakes her head, and practices her lie. “Family kicked me out,” she says, wincing at how hollow it sounds, how the twins would never buy it. And how badly she needed them to buy it. It had been years, but… they had, in the words of someone somewhere at some time, seen some shit, and seen it together. That counted for a lot. “Well, I gotta keep moving. Drive safe, dude.”

The man nods, and replies the same. When Wendy’s tail lights recede in the distance, he pulls a phone from his pocket and makes a call.

“I found myself an omen and tattooed on a sign, I set my mind to wandering and walked a broken line. You have a mind to keep me quiet and although you can try, better men have hit their knees and bigger men have died.”

The crowd shifts, undercurrents of worry flowing through them, as the woman continues to sing. In the lighting, her eyes seem almost like liquid silver. “I’m gonna raise, raise hell,” she sings, voice rising loud enough to hurt.

A wistful smile comes over her face. “Go on and ring that bell.”

Jim Alvarez puts the phone away, glancing around Lazy Susan’s diner. “Girl’s on the move,” he says to Hammer, who’s occupying the seat next to him on the booth. The booth across the table from them remains empty, despite the fact that Hammer takes up ninety percent of a single booth. “Headed south.”

Hammer sighs, turning the page on his newspaper. “You were right,” he says, baritone voice rumbling. “That’s trouble.”

Jim snorts. “What isn’t, these days?” he asks.

“What’s your plan to counter it?” Hammer asks, almost mildly. Almost. There’s an undercurrent of tension in his voice.

Jim smiles without humor. “She decided to hit below the belt,” he says, gently taking the newspaper from the much larger man, closing it to the cover, and tapping on the cover photo. “Two can play at that game.”

Hammer raises his eyebrow. “What’re you going to tell them?”

Jim shrugs. “The truth.”

“Is that wise?”

He doesn’t answer. It’s not.

But they’re running out of cards to play.

“Showtime,” Hammer mutters, and both men rise to their feet as a woman comes through the door.

Hammer manages a cultured little bow Jim would never be able to manage in a million years, and gets one returned to him. Jim just meets the cool eyes staring back at him, and sticks out his hands to shake. “Miss Northwest,” he says, meeting her not-smile with his own. “Why don't you sit down? We have a lot to talk about.”

The first patron tries the door and finds it sealed shut, immovable, even under his brawny fists. The woman, eyes completely silver now, suit rippling in ways that shouldn’t be possible, smiles like a shark even as she sings.

“I came across a lightning strike and eyes of bright clear blue,” she wails, still grinning. “I took that tie from around my neck and gave my heart to you.”

“I sent my love across the sea and though I didn’t cry…”

“That voice will haunt my every dream until the day I die.”

Mabel snuggles a bit further into Dipper’s arms, mind still whirling.

Wendy. Coming down here, to find work. The girl hadn’t mentioned what was wrong the first time she called, or the second, just a few days later, but even though years had passed without contact, she still knew the older girl well enough to tell when the stress was leaking through.

The newfound contact was a bit of a sticking point with the ‘rents, though, and for once, Dipper had borne the brunt of it.

“Fuck Doc Caulk,” he had snarled, putting one hand down on the dining room table, eyes cool and hard, weathering the objections and disgusted sighs thrown his way. “I don't care what that crackpot of a therapist said.”

What the therapist had said, without using so many words, was that the twins needed to sever their connections not with Gravity Falls, but the friends they had made there. There was a reason the twins had lapsed into stubborn silence not too many sessions after that had been raised.

Despite the stubborn silence, though, they had allowed almost all contact to be severed, and that shame hung covered them both like a shroud during that argument.

Still, they had won, almost by default. Wendy was renting a short-term apartment in town, and the ‘rents really had no recourse short of confining the twins to the house.

Whatever’s bothering you, Wendy, Mabel vows, staring sightlessly at the flickering TV screen, pulling strength from her brother’s arm over her shoulder and his side against hers, we’ll fix it.

They would. They had to. That’s what the Mystery Twins did.

The bottle flies through the air, the aim straight and true. Beer slips from the top, pine wheeling in foaming arcs after it, and it crashes into the silver-eyed woman’s forehead in an explosion of shattering glass that could have downed a troll. She takes no notice.

“I dug a hole inside my heart to put you in your grave,” she calls, slowly standing from the stool. “At this point it was you or me, and mamma didn't raise no slave.”

The rancher is a big man, and his close-cropped hair reflects the moonlight like steel as he inspects his delivery.

His feet are braced, his eyes narrowed, jaw slowly clenching and unclenching in thought. He reeks of confidence, of easy strength, of a man who knew his way around the world and could take anything life dished his way with a smile.

In truth, he’s little more than a rat desperate to flee a sinking ship.

He opens the first massive box, and looks down at the massive man in plaid slumbering restlessly inside. A ghost of a whisper tumbles from slumbering lips, wreathed by a crimson beard showing the first signs of errant grey, and the rancher sighs.

“Take them downstairs,” he says quietly, grimacing. “Make them comfortable. They’ll be here a while.”

He blows out a long sigh, and closes his eyes. “If they’re lucky, they’ll stay asleep the whole time.”

The chirruping crickets in the grass seem to mock him and his men as they move the lumberjack and his family, and the moon stares down like an accusatory silver eye.

Fear builds in the crowd, and they rush her. She drops the guitar to meet them.

The song doesn’t stop.

“You took my face in both your hands and looked me in the eye… And I went down with such a force that in your grave I’ll lie.”

The screams of anger and pain rise, but never threaten to overwhelm the song. Not by half.

“You're sure?” Pacifica Northwest asks, eyes spearing into Jim.

“I am,” he replies easily.

Pacifica stares out at the night that had rapidly swallowed Gravity Falls. “If you’re telling the truth, and not mistaken- both big ifs, I should say- I don't see an easy way out of this trap.”

Jim shrugs uncomfortably. “I’m not sure I do, either.”

Pacifica drains her coffee and moves to stand. “I'll do my best to verify everything you’ve had to say. Until then…” She sighs, and some of the cultured accent slips from her voice. “I know her. She’ll figure out a way to fuck those assholes over. Trust Wendy, and trust the Pines.”

A weak smile dances around her lips. “After all, you said you made a deal not to talk to the twins. You never said anything about not talking to Wendy.”

She walks out without another word, and Jim blinks, mouth open. “Fucking rich people,” he says, eyes wide. “Hammer, we’ve been totally blind.”

“Raise hell,” Anubis mutters, stepping over bodies. The bar is empty, but for her.

No one had been able to leave.

Dipper centers himself, staring at the tree he’s chose as a target.

Ever since the fight with the ghoul, at Sam’s house, he had been building his skill with more… forceful… spells than simple witchfire.

Now he had to see if the practice worked or not. He extends one hand, slowly, the way the books had showed him, and he focuses on the tree, visualizing the impact.

“Left hook,” he whispers, and lets the power fly.

The outer bark of the tree shatters, sending splinters flying, and he allows himself a small, satisfied smile.

“Raise hell,” Anubis whispers again, striding through the unlocked door of the bar, feeling the flames start to rise behind her.

Wendy takes the steps to the front porch in one long stride, squinting in the early morning light, and knocks once.

She hasn't even put her arm down yet when the Pines Twins yank the door open, and they both spend a long moment cataloging the differences, big and small, between this moment and the moment they had left each other at the bus stop so long ago.

And then she’s been pulled into a firm embrace by both, and as her arms wrap around them, she-incredibly- feels a smile start to form on her own face.

Maybe things weren't so hopeless after all.

“Come on,” Anubis says, a humorless smile tweaking around her lips, the roaring fire from behind her casting shifting patterns over the Arizona desert. “Come on, and ring that bell.”

She laughs, as she begins to walk. First Jim. Then the twins, and the girl. Then, they could wipe this tiny little slate clean, and move to the next spinning clod of dirt.

And later, when they had accrued enough power? The Outsider itself would fall, would pay for the treachery it necessitated, the lives it had taken. It knows, in its own, unfeeling way, what she has planned, and it doesn't disapprove. Many had tried.

It was still there. Not much could threaten the storm.

“Now,” she whispers, “the game really begins.”

#OUTSIDER AU #And now the games really begin

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nighttimelights-prompted · 7 years

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Here's another prompt: fell sans react to meeting his hot next door neighbor on the surface?

(oh boi howdy do i have a weak spot for Red and him getting the hots for his potential/future s/o. bless you, sweet anon, for giving me the chance to indulge a little further in that ;)

Red decidedly did not have a death wish.

Even with Edge out for the day - no doubt chasing Undyne down or accidentally terrorizing parents when he walked up wordlessly with a lost child he found wandering in the park as he trained - Edge’s sense of smell was uncanny for a being without a nose, and would happily shout Red’s skull into the next century if he caught a whiff of smoke clinging to anything inside.

So without bothering to properly walk out of his room, Red tucked his box of cigarettes and his lighter in his shorts and teleported to the balcony.

Their apartment was a pretty nice one, all things considered - decent area too, now that monsters could legally integrate with society. He and Edge had been in agreement on holding onto an apartment for at least a little bit before deciding to set up permanently anywhere - the world was big up here, absurdly so, and even if they’d both feel more comfortable closer to the mountain, there were a lot of areas around the city to choose from. So here he was, leaning against the railing of their top-floor corner apartment balcony, with a view of the balconies in the building adjacent to them accompanying the view of the enormous wooded park they lived next to. It was a view that made him feel a little more at ease when his anxiety was acting up - he could grab a smoke, stare up at the sky, or do a little people watching alongside the next apartment building or in the shade of the park.

As he slipped his cigarette between his teeth and lit it , enjoying the late afternoon sun on his bones and the decent breeze picking up, he noticed that his foot started instinctively tapping - huh, he could hear a song now actually, coming from the next apartment building over, pretty loudly…

“All that I wantIs to wake up fineTell me that I’m alright -That I ain’t gonna die.”

The cigarette almost dropped out of Red’s mouth.

“All that I wantIs a hole in the ground.You can tell me when it’s alrightFor me to come out.”

You were on the balcony closest to him in the next building over - top floor, corner apartment, probably a mere 50 feet away. You had a series of small clotheslines strung out towards one side of your balcony and had clipped up several shirts and what seemed to be a set of sheets for a bed. Next to you buzzed a small speaker, surprisingly loud for it’s clearly travel-intended size, and it played the song on as you shifted and swayed, tapping out the energetic beat of the song while you sang along and clipped up a pair of jeans and took down a few dry pieces of clothing to make further room.

“Hard timesGonna make you wonder why you even tryHard timesGonna take you down and laugh when you cryThese lives-”

Your back was mostly towards Red, and stars was he grateful. He felt a bead of magic forming on his skull, and knew a bit of a flush had picked up on his face- because by Asgore’s shitty beard, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the figure you cut as you finished hanging up your laundry and spun around, your hips hitting side to side in perfect time, a mischievous grin on your face as your eyes closed and you sang along to the deceptively upbeat song.

“And I still don’t know how I even surviveHard times,Hard times -And I gotta get to rock bottom-!”

Your foot stamped against the balcony floor, your arms thrown wide as you crowed the line to the sky.

Red’s soul jumped in his chest at the sight -

You were attractive as hell.

And then you made eye contact.

(continued below the cut… mobile link)

You nearly jumped as you startled so hard - Red stayed stock still even as his soul tightened for a moment, not moving an inch as he took a slow drag of his cigarette, the genuine grin that had come over his expression turning just a hint wicked at the blush that flared over your features. Your hand went to your chest as you recovered - pretty quickly, he admitted to himself, considering you probably weren’t used to sentient skeletons eyeing you while you hung your laundry up to dry. In really short pajama shorts, no less.

… He should really focus higher up. Your eyes were still wide on him, but you had tilted your head in curiousity now, a rueful grin on your face as you then gave him an unsure, sheepish wave.

Red’s grin grew. He winked at you, pulling his cigarette from between his teeth lazily to give you a single wave of his two extended fingers. He caught a brief shake of your shoulders and your grin growing in mild disbelief. The next moment you perked up as the song you had been dancing to picked up into it’s second verse, and despite your awareness of your unexpected audience your head bobbed once more and you rolled your hips again. Then you seemed to remember yourself as your eyes flew to his again - funny how he could read you so well, so quickly - but instead of giving up on your solo dance time, your grin grew and you shut your eyes and started to sing along with the song once again.

“Walking aroundWith my little rain cloudHanging over my headAnd it ain’t coming down~”

Your hips swayed again and you bounced from foot to foot with a spin. Red’s eyesockets opened wider, his grin growing once again in delight at your apparent lack of care at his watching. Then you opened your eyes as you pressed a hand to your lower torso and rolled your hips, shooting him a goddamn cheeky wink.

“Where do I go?Gimme some sort of sign -You hit me with lightning!Maybe I’ll come alive-?”

You laughed then as you twisted around, your head following after your movements, your hair flaring at the motion and some unbidden thrill breathing energy into every inch of your body.

Red couldn’t look away.

The music played on, the drum beat marking every pulse of your torso, your feet slipping and stepping with the words of the song, your expression matching the driving cry of the song. Something to the way you sang and danced, too - stars, he could tell that every inch of you was fully aware of the lyrics you sang, and that your very soul connected with those words. He felt connected to you more and more as the song played on, his foot still tapping as he moved to the corner of his balcony closest to you, catching your eye as you twisted your way through the second chorus. That blush had risen on your face again, seemingly all too aware of the pair of eyelights unwaveringly on you, but some confidence pulled from deep down must have told you to not care, to dance anyways, and as you rolled your hips with a wicked twitch to your grin, Red knew you were hoping to tease, too.

And hell, he didn’t even know your name.

… Well damn, he had to remedy that.

“Makes you wonder why you even try,Makes you wonder why you even try.Still don’t know how I even survive…”

Red closed his eyes for a brief moment as another wind picked up, pulling the smoke away from his face as he lowered his cigarette again and willed his mind to come up with a minimally-creepy way to get a chance to actually… talk to you. Showing up at your door after this would be so, so wrong, wouldn’t it? Yeah, definitely a creep move. And you’d clearly already done your laundry, it’s not like he’d get the chance to catch you down at the laundry center…

A bundle of cloth hit his face.

He dropped his cigarette as a curse was half shaken out of him - he grabbed at the material and pulled it away.

It was a thin hoodie, a cute red thing that smelled of fresh air and sunlight and some kind of oddly pleasant detergent. Red’s eyesockets widened as his gaze quickly went from the hoodie in his hands to you.

“Woops, looks like the wind grabbed that one-!” You called out to him, your hands on your hips and that same grin on your face. Your blush had intensified a bit, though, and he could tell there was a hint of nervous embarrassment and disbelief in yourself behind the mildly casual confidence with which you spoke.

“… must’ve been one hell of a breeze,” Red replied, raising his voice just enough to carry to you. His brow quirked upwards as his grin tilted towards a smirk. His soul thrilled in his chest at the sound of your normal voice, at you actually taking the chance to talk to him.

“Yeah, somethin’ like that,” you replied with an innocent shrug. Your hand went to your neck then as you glanced briefly away before leaning against your railing. “Hey, I was thinking about treating myself to a cup of coffee - don’t suppose you’re free to meet me with my hoodie at that coffeeshop down a block? Maybe uh - I mean, hey, I’ll even buy you a cup for your trouble, if you’re up to it?”

… Stars, he thought you were cute enough when you were dancing, but with that nervous, hopeful anticipation on your face?

“i’d have to be a total bonehead to not take you up on that,” Red replied easily, winking at you once again.

A single moment passed before you slapped a hand to your forehead and laughed, loud and so, so sweet.

“Oh man - you gotta be- a pun? Oh hell, this is gonna be good,” you said. You shook your head, a bright and eager warmth to your smile as you met his gaze again. “Alright then, boneboy, I’ll meet you downstairs in front of the mailboxes in ten minutes. Don’t be late!”

With that you scooped up your speaker and darted inside, presumably to change. Your door slid shut with a snap - but Red still caught as you stood for a moment with your back to the glass door, then tossed your speaker to the side out of view and slapped your hands to your face and - he guessed - bent over and let out a slow, excited, disbelieving scream. You messed up your hair rapidly as the energy ran through you, then stood stock straight and glanced to either side of your room before disappearing off further in your apartment.

Red’s cheekbones were almost aching with how wide his grin was. He looked at the hoodie in his hand, then back up to your balcony.

“… ‘boneboy’. I’ve got a hot coffee date with the hotter neighbor that just called me ‘boneboy’,” he muttered, his grin still laced with disbelief. “…. this is gonna be good.”

He glanced back down at himself - might as well toss on a new shirt, right? Bit late for the first impressions chance, but… huh. He definitely had a few jokes up his sleeve about the kinda material his clothes were made of…

He vanished from his balcony, ignoring the red magic still dusting his grinning face and the stray thought that the red hoodie in his hand would look particularly good on you.

#undertale prompts #undertale imagines #underfell #uf sans #sans x reader #red meets his hot neighbor #i've got such a thing for these kinda meetings i have no shame #also reader here is definitely completely baffled at that burst of cheeky self confidence #(because screw it - he already saw anyways right? might as well)#also 'strong breeze' is the best name for a throwing arm i'm certain #/heh./#hope you enjoyed it! <3 #mild cursing cw #just in case bc woops #ah well #red's got a sailor's mouth we all know it #Anonymous

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nofomoartworld · 7 years

Text

Hyperallergic: Twelve Reasons Why the Chainsmokers Are Failing at Love

As the most infamous and possibly the most successful new group in America, the Chainsmokers offer a clear lesson in how white men can remain relevant in an increasingly diversified pop landscape: through self-erasure. The EDM duo’s chart hits throughout 2016, leading up to “Closer,” the monster earworm that spent most of last fall atop the Billboard Hot 100, epitomized a widespread practice in which often male DJs hire often female singers to lend their tracks content and charisma. Tracks such as “Rozes,” “Don’t Let Me Down,” and “All We Know” inhabit an established corporate style sufficiently, slickly, and anonymously. The electronic surface is so smooth that the perky plaints of singers like Daya and Phoebe Ryan disappear right into it. Adherence to the broadest of EDM pop conventions functions less as selling point than admittance badge; pretty polish, aching melodies, drops that sway rather than crunch — voila, songs perfect for filling dead space on the radio, even if they suggest only a generalized style without approaching a particular one. Such is the appeal of the blank slate. As for “Closer” itself, its chart success appears to have convinced the Chainsmokers, at heart studious entrepreneurs on the lookout for statistical affirmation, that they’d found the paradigm for their subsequent career. Their full-length debut, Memories… Do Not Open, out since April, lives in the shadow of their greatest hit.

As public figures, the Chainsmokers fascinate in their odd disparity between art and persona. Andrew Taggart (the cute one) and Alex Pall (the smart one) give interviews to Billboard and Rolling Stone where they strike various absurd poses for the camera, including one marvelous shot in Billboard in which they stand waist-deep in a pool in their t-shirts and jeans, holding glasses of beer while spouting quasi-parodic approximations of so-called locker room talk that I won’t quote here, so as not to upset delicate sensibilities. They present themselves as pop radio’s very own “tech bros,” as Billboard’s Chris Martins puts it, covertly sincere young men who party hard and spend too much money on luxury goods while working obsessively to refine their business model.

But their hits, unobtrusive as dance songs and nebulous as love songs, could have been generated by any artist, or algorithm, with any persona, in any state of mind; what they lack, at the very least, is a spirit of enjoyment that one expects from nominal party animals. Sleek nullities like “Rozes” and “Don’t Let Me Down” exist in a referent-free vacuum: bland genericism can’t be reliably traced back to the lab that engineered it. Perhaps one might look for fingerprints in the reflection of the synthesizer polish, but these songs are purposefully anonymous — the sung chorus’s subservience to the instrumental drop decentralizes the singer, while midtempo caution and mildly glowing synth textures decentralize the drop. As for the elusive, centered subject — the Chainsmokers themselves — they’re gone, their presence hardly evident in the songs at hand. Even when Taggart takes the mic, he’s such a nothing singer that he fails to evince even the slightest hint of personality. They’ve established a brand through public relations; their music needn’t follow suit.

Their breakthrough hit, which is also their only fabulous song, 2014’s “#Selfie,” stands as an anomaly in their catalog for its energetically abrasive beat and spoken vocals. Over spritzy, crunchy, percussive synthesizer bounce, a delightfully narcissistic young woman played by Alexis Killacam recites a monologue consisting of exaggerated stereotypes meant to indicate the shallowness of clubgoers, California girls, or both: “After we go to the bathroom, can we go smoke a cigarette? I really need one. But first, let me take a selfie.” Whatever their intentions (who cares?), and however immature and/or sexist the song may be, it reads as a love letter — adolescent boys mocking adolescent girls to mask jealousy and admiration. Behold Frank Zappa’s clumsily cruel “Valley Girl” done with love. However tiresome her bubbly cadence, the details of her life do sound like fun: dancing in the club, drinking with friends, and eventually going home with her crush. The song projects not scorn but rather an amusing defense of clubgoers, dance music, and a species of shallowness that may also be a species of fun. At the time, the song was misread as merely contemptuous of its subject and dismissed as a novelty single by critics who didn’t understand that such a categorization needn’t amount to dismissal. Then the Chainsmokers stuck around, longer than most artists behind so-called novelty singles. Their subsequent series of increasingly dull hits, exercises in crafted electronica whose glistening keyboard whooshes and muted hooks ostensibly stand in for eroticism (in “Rozes” especially), functioned as a solemn corrective to the frivolity of “#Selfie.” Then came “Closer”, Andrew Taggart’s first time as a singer in a duet alongside guest star Halsey, and their career trajectory, along with modern romance itself, was forever changed.

The dirty little secret behind “Closer” is that the insufferable ex Taggart can’t help repeatedly crawling back to symbolizes hookup culture itself. Don’t believe the literal reading that the song concerns two people. Taggart, whose mild croak renders him an everyman figure, and Halsey, whose fuller, more enthusiastic cry tastes like liquid sugar by comparison, meet in a hotel bar and rekindle the flame of days past, while a feelgood keyboard hook occupying the drop position sets a defiantly celebratory tone. The repeated proclamation “We ain’t ever getting older” might have been a slogan of fist-pumping triumph, but there’s a melancholy to it, for to never get older means to never mature, which means to never find your one true love and settle down. A whole generation of young people’s anxieties about intimacy, casual sex, and commitment informs “Closer,” to the extent that it fails to parse if Taggart and Halsey are viewed as individuals: the song’s hysteria exists on a scale too grand for one couple. Rather, “Closer” concerns an endless hookup cycle that doesn’t satisfy but keeps beckoning because breaking the cycle is hard and the alternative, prolonged intimacy, is scary. The pretty hook offers nominal catharsis, but it’s bittersweet; to pump one’s fist during the drop in “Closer” is to acknowledge one’s erotic life as frustrating, impersonal, scripted, and insufficient. If the platitude about millennials participating in casual sex while secretly hating it holds any truth, then Taggart and Halsey are its avatars, standing in for whole generational attitudes; as singers they scream past each other and fail to connect, doomed to fuck a repetitively steady stream of anonymous ciphers for the rest of eternity.

Likewise, Memories… Do Not Open articulates the romantic anxieties that supposedly plague affluent, heterosexual millennials, and perhaps fratboys most of all. “Break Up Every Night,” in which Taggart “don’t wanna wait until she finally decides to feel it” so he “build[s] the bridges up again,” sums up an album whose midtempo electroballads affirm every idiotic cliché about young people, technology, social media, narcissism, casual substance use, casual sex, and the collapse of traditional dating — it’s as if Andrew Taggart and Alex Pall have read every incoherent thinkpiece on the internet about their own generation and internalized said thinkpieces in a weird ritual of guilt and self-hate. Imagine one of those plaintive and/or smug Odyssey listicles explaining Twelve Reasons Why Millennials are Failing at Love, translated into its album equivalent. Look, I’ll write that listicle now:

1. We’re scared to settle down (“The One”).

2. We’re individualistic and goal-driven, at the expense of our partners’ needs (“Break Up Every Night”).

3. We party too much and do too many drugs (“Bloodstream”).

4. Wealth and access to technology makes many of us egocentric, and that means we’re insensitive toward our partners and their needs (“Don’t Say”).

5. We hold out for too long, because we grew up watching Disney and superhero movies and have unrealistic expectations (“Something Just Like This”).

6. We’re scared to define our relationships past the casual stage (“My Type”).

7. Sex with strangers becomes routinized (“It Won’t Kill Ya”).

8. We care about our image on social media more than we care about real relationships (“Paris”).

9. We can’t commit to one person (“Honest”).

10. We’re materialistic and brand-conscious (“Wake Up Alone”).

11. We make excuses to avoid dealing with our feelings (“Young”).

12. We have a horrible weakness for triumphalist sentimentality and EDM power ballads that diagnose our perceived generational maladies (“Last Day Alive,” also the whole record).

Whether or not these spurious criticisms apply — to individuals? to a whole generation? meaning whom? maybe just the Chainsmokers? or their fans? — they make for a tedious, self-defeating album, dotted with songs that keep fussing over their own failure to have a good time. “Break Up Every Night” spirals around glowing, percussive synth stabs with winning energy, while “It Won’t Kill Ya” sways alluringly over cautious piano chords during the verses and woozy airhorn during the drop, but mostly even the upbeat songs go through the motions on autopilot. Perhaps juicier beats would do the trick, but the Chainsmokers’ brand of EDM softcore, lightweight keyboard yearning in processed pastel shades, produces drab ear candy with sickly clumps of sugar inappropriately concentrated in single spots. Strummed guitars and plucked pianos are integrated smoothly and hardly make a difference. Nor, paradoxically, does the thematic focus relieve their anonymity. Working squarely within the guidelines of current radio convention and consequently confining themselves within a tighter box than is actually necessary to achieve airplay, these are punishingly generic songs, perhaps because speaking for a whole generation involves the widening and hence blurring of one’s scope. Taggart’s eagerly clumsy drawl and Emily Warren’s smoky croon suggest roles too composite to reveal any character of their own; Coldplay’s Chris Martin on “Something Just Like This,” while intolerably sincere in much the same way, at least sounds like himself. To further dilute the record, they don’t even include “Closer,” leaving the hookless “Paris” and the honorably, expediently soaring “Something Just Like This” to remind listeners that yes, indeed, they are a frequent radio presence.

Memories… Do Not Open would be an object lesson in the perils of universality and the blank slate, if it hadn’t topped the Billboard 200. Positive market feedback ensures the production of more music like this in the future. Taggart and Pall hold up a distorted mirror to their audience, showing fans the ugliest versions of themselves. I wish American consumers didn’t identify, as they say.

Memories…Do Not Open (2017) and Closer (2016) are available from Amazon and other online retailers.

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