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#( A SPARROW SINGS ) * my posts!

aiscapades · 2 months

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obviously this smell is ais ("cloaked in the scent of smoke and blood") which many people have already noticed

but do you guys think. ais was there when mc was there. do you think ais already saw mc's hands. that's why he didn't actually care to see them later at the seaspring but brought them up anyway as a means to intimidate mc?? because he already knows??

#i've seen ppl suggest ais was there BEFORE mc since he does help out at the clinic #but i dont think i've seen anyone say he could've helped with mc #his scent must be very strong and linger for a while if he was there BEFORE #which is why i wonder if he was there with mc. so his scent is still fresh #also--kuras says he found mc.#but what is kuras doing out there in the wastes?? kuras runs a very busy clinic #ais is out there in those wastes. ais could've found mc.#touchstarved game #hcs #( A SPARROW SINGS ) * my posts!

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turnstileskyline · 4 months

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The Oral History of Take This To Your Grave – transcription under the cut

The pages that are just photographs, I haven't included. This post is already long enough.

Things that happened in 2003: Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of California. Teen Vogue published its first issue. The world lost Johnny Cash. Johnny Depp appeared as Captain Jack Sparrow for the first time. A third Lord of the Rings movie arrived. Patrick Stump, Pete Wentz, Joe Trohman, and Andy Hurley released Take This To Your Grave.

"About 21 years ago or so, as I was applying to colleges I would ultimately never go to, Fall Out Boy began as a little pop-punk side project of what we assumed was Pete's more serious band, Arma Angelus," Patrick wrote in a May 2023 social media post.

"We were sloppy and couldn't solidify a lineup, but the three of us (Pete, Joe, and I) were having way too much fun to give up on it."

"We were really rough around the edges. As an example of how rough, one of my favorite teachers pulled me aside after hearing the recording that would eventually become Evening Out With Your Girlfriend and tactfully said, 'What do you think your best instrument is, Patrick? Drums. It's drums. Probably not singing, Patrick.'"

"We went into Smart Studios with the Sean O'Keefe... So, there we were, 3/5 of a band with a singer who'd only been singing a year, no drummer, and one out of two guitarists. But we had the opportunity to record with Sean at Butch Vig's legendary studio.

"Eight or so months later, Fueled by Ramen would give us a contract to record the remaining songs. We'd sleep on floors, eat nothing but peanut butter and jelly, live in a van for the next three years, and somehow despite that, eventually play with Elton John and Taylor Swift and Jay-Z and for President Obama and the NFC championship, and all these other wildly unpredictable things. But none of that would ever come close to happening if Andy hadn't made it to the session and Joe hadn't dragged us kicking and screaming into being a band."

Two decades after its release, Take This To Your Grave sits comfortable in the Top 10 of Rolling Stone's 50 Greatest Pop-Punk Albums, edging out landmark records from Buzzcocks, Generation X, Green Day, The Offspring, Blink-182, and The Ramones.

It even ranked higher than Through Being Cool by Saves The Day and Jersey's Best Dancers from Lifetime, two records the guys in Fall Out Boy particularly revere.

Fall Out Boy's proper full-length debut on Fueled by Ramen is a deceptively smart, sugar-sweet, raw, energetic masterpiece owing as much to the bass player's pop culture passions, the singers deep love of R&B and soul, and their shared history in the hardcore scene as any pioneering punk band. Fall Out Boy's creative and commercial heights were still ahead, but Take This To Your Grave kicked it off, a harbinger for the enduring songwriting partnership between Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz, the eclectic contributions from Joe Trohman, and the propulsive powerhouse that is Andy Hurley.

The recordings document a special moment when Fall Out Boy was big in "the scene" but a "secret" from the mainstream. The band (and some of their friends) first sat down for an Oral History (which doubled as an Oral History of their origin story) with their old friend Ryan J. Downey, then Senior Editor for Alternative Press, upon the occasion of the album's 10th anniversary. What follows is an updated, sharper, and expanded version of that story, newly re-edited in 2023. As Patrick eloquently said: "Happy 20th birthday, Take This To Your Grave, you weird brilliant lightning strike accident of a record."

– Ryan J. Downey.

A Weird, Brilliant Lightning Strike Of A Record. The Oral History Of Fall Out Boy's Take This To Your Grave.

As told by:

Patrick Stump

Pete Wentz

Joe Trohman

Andy Hurley

Bob McLynn - Crush Music

Sean O'Keefe - Producer/Mixer

John Janick - Fueled By Ramen

Tim McIlrath - Rise Against

Mani Mostofi - Racetraitor

Chris Gutierrez - Arma Angelus

Mark Rose - Spitalfield

Sean Muttaqi - Uprising Records

Rory Felton - The Militia Group

Richard Reines - Drive-Thru Records

"To Feel No More Bitterness Forever" - From Hardcore to Softcore, 1998-2000

PETE WENTZ: When I got into hardcore, it was about discovering the world beyond yourself. There was a culture of trying to be a better person. That was part of what was so alluring about hardcore and punk for me. But for whatever reason, it shifted. Maybe this was just in Chicago, but it became less about the thought process behind it and more about moshing and breakdowns. There was a close-mindedness that felt very reactive.

TIM MCILRITH: I saw First Born many years ago, which was the first time I saw Pete and met him around then. This was '90s hardcore - p.c., vegan, activist kind of hardcore music. Pete was in many of those bands doing that kind of thing, and I was at many of those shows. The hardcore scene in Chicago was pretty small, so everyone kind of knew each other. I knew Andy Hurley as the drummer in Racetraitor. I was in a band called Baxter, so Pete always called me 'Baxter.' I was just 'Baxter' to a lot of those guys.

JOE TROHMAN: I was a young hardcore kid coming to the shows. The same way we all started doing bands. You're a shitty kid who goes to punk and hardcore shows, and you see the other bands playing, and you want to make friends with those guys because you want to play in bands too. Pete and I had a bit of a connection because we're from the same area. I was the youngest dude at most shows. I would see Extinction, Racetraitor, Burn It Down, and all the bands of that era.

WENTZ: My driver's license was suspended then, so Joe drove me everywhere. We listened to either Metalcore like Shai Hulud or pop-punk stuff like Screeching Weasel.

MCILRITH: I was in a band with Pete called Arma Angelus. I was like their fifth or sixth bass player. I wasn't doing anything musically when they hit me up to play bass, so I said, 'Of course.' I liked everyone in the band. We were rehearsing, playing a few shows here and there, with an ever-revolving cast of characters. We recorded a record together at the time. I even sing on that record, believe it or not, they gave me a vocal part. Around that same time, I began meeting with [bassist] Joe [Principe] about starting what would become Rise Against.

CHRIS GUTIERREZ: Wentz played me the Arma Angelus demo in the car. He said he wanted it to be a mix of Despair, Buried Alive, and Damnation A.D. He told me Tim was leaving to start another band - which ended up being Rise Against - and asked if I wanted to play bass.

TROHMAN: Pete asked me to fill in for a tour when I was 15. Pete had to call my dad to convince him to let me go. He did it, too. It was my first tour, in a shitty cargo van, with those dudes. They hazed the shit out of me. It was the best and worst experience. Best overall, worst at the time.

GUTIERREZ: Enthusiasm was starting to wane in Arma Angelus. Our drummer was really into cock-rock. It wasn't an ironic thing. He loved L.A. Guns, Whitesnake, and Hanoi Rocks. It drove Pete nuts because the scene was about Bleeding Through and Throwdown, not cock rock. He was frustrated that things weren't panning out for the band, and of course, there's a ceiling for how big a metalcore band can get, anyway.

MANI MOSTOFI: Pete had honed this tough guy persona, which I think was a defense mechanism. He had some volatile moments in his childhood. Underneath, he was a pretty sensitive and vulnerable person. After playing in every mosh-metal band in the Midwest and listening exclusively to Earth Crisis, Damnation A.D., Chokehold, and stuff like that for a long time, I think Pete wanted to do something fresh. He had gotten into Lifetime, Saves The Day, The Get Up Kids, and bands like that. Pete was at that moment where the softer side of him needed an outlet, and didn't want to hide behind mosh-machismo. I remember him telling me he wanted to start a band that more girls could listen to.

MCILRATH: Pete was talking about starting a pop-punk band. Bands like New Found Glory and Saves The Day were successful then. The whole pop-punk sound was accessible. Pete was just one of those guys destined for bigger things than screaming for mediocre hardcore bands in Chicago. He's a smart guy, a brilliant guy. All the endeavors he had taken on, even in the microcosm of the 1990s Chicago hardcore world, he put a lot of though into it. You could tell that if he were given a bigger receptacle to put that thought into, it could become something huge. He was always talented: lyrics, imagery, that whole thing. He was ahead of the curve. We were in this hardcore band from Chicago together, but we were both talking about endeavors beyond it.

TROHMAN: The drummer for Arma Angelus was moving. Pete and I talked about doing something different. It was just Pete and me at first. There was this thuggishness happening in the Chicago hardcore scene at that time that wasn't part of our vibe. It was cool, but it wasn't our thing.

MCILRITH: One day at Arma Angelus practice, Pete asked me, 'Are you going to do that thing with Joe?' I was like, 'Yeah, I think so.' He was like, 'You should do that, dude. Don't let this band hold you back. I'll be doing something else, too. We should be doing other things.' He was really ambitious. It was so amazing to me, too, because Pete was a guy who, at the time, was kind of learning how to play the bass. A guy who didn't really play an instrument will do down in history as one of the more brilliant musicians in Chicago. He had everything else in his corner. He knew how to do everything else. He needed to get some guys behind him because he had the rest covered. He had topics, themes, lyrics, artwork, this whole image he wanted to do, and he was uncompromising. He also tapped into something the rest of us were just waking up to: the advent of the internet. I mean, the internet wasn't new, but higher-speed internet was.

MOSTOFI: Joe was excited to be invited by Pete to do a band. Joe was the youngest in our crew by far, and Pete was the 'coolest' in a Fonzie sort of way. Joe deferred to Pete's judgement for years. But eventually, his whole life centered around bossy big-brother Pete. I think doing The Damned Things was for Joe what Fall Out Boy was for Pete, in a way. It was a way to find his own space within the group of friends. Unsurprisingly, Joe now plays a much more significant role in Fall Out Boy's music.

WENTZ: I wanted to do something easy and escapist. When Joe and I started the band, it was the worst band of all time. I feel like people said, 'Oh, yeah, you started Fall Out Boy to get big.' Dude, there was way more of a chance of every other band getting big in my head than Fall Out Boy. It was a side thing that was fun to do. Racetraitor and Extinction were big bands to me. We wanted to do pop-punk because it would be fun and hilarious. It was definitely on a lark. We weren't good. If it was an attempt at selling out, it was a very poor attempt.

MCILRITH: It was such a thing for people to move from hardcore bands to bands called 'emo' or pop-punk, as those bands were starting to get some radio play and signed to major labels. Everyone thought it was easy, but it's not as easy as that. Most guys we knew who tried it never did anything more successful than their hardcore bands. But Pete did it! And if anyone was going to, it was going to be him. He never did anything half-assed. He ended up playing bass in so many bands in Chicago, even though he could barely play the bass then, because simply putting him in your band meant you'd have a better show. He was just more into it. He knew more about dynamics, about getting a crowd to react to what you're doing than most people. Putting Pete in your band put you up a few notches.

"I'm Writing You A Chorus And Here Is Your Verse" - When Pete met Patrick, early 2001.

MARK ROSE: Patrick Stump played drums in this grindcore band called Grinding Process. They had put out a live split cassette tape.

PATRICK STUMP: My ambition always outweighed my ability or actual place in the world. I was a drummer and played in many bands and tried to finagle my way into better ones but never really managed. I was usually outgunned by the same two guys: this guy Rocky Senesce; I'm not sure if he's playing anymore, but he was amazing. And this other guy, De'Mar Hamilton, who is now in Plain White T's. We'd always go out for the same bands. I felt like I was pretty good, but then those guys just mopped the floor with me. I hadn't been playing music for a few months. I think my girlfriend dumped me. I was feeling down. I wasn't really into pop-punk or emo. I think at the time I was into Rhino Records box sets.

TROHMAN: I was at the Borders in Eden's Plaza in Wilmette, Illinois. My friend Arthur was asking me about Neurosis. Patrick just walked up and started talking to me.

STUMP: I was a bit arrogant and cocky, like a lot of young musicians. Joe was talking kind of loudly and I overheard him say something about Neurosis, and I think I came in kind of snotty, kind of correcting whatever they had said.

TROHMAN: We just started talking about music, and my buddy Arthur got shoved out of the conversation. I told him about the band we were starting. Pete was this local hardcore celebrity, which intrigued Patrick.

STUMP: I had similar conversations with any number of kids my age. This conversation didn't feel crazy special. That's one of the things that's real about [Joe and I meeting], and that's honest about it, that's it's not some 'love at first sight' thing where we started talking about music and 'Holy smokes, we're going to have the best band ever!' I had been in a lot of bands up until then. Hardcore was a couple of years away from me at that point. I was over it, but Pete was in real bands; that was interesting. Now I'm curious and I want to do this thing, or at least see what happens. Joe said they needed a drummer, guitar player, or singer, and I kind of bluffed and said I could do any one of those things for a pop-punk band. I'd had a lot of conversations about starting bands where I meet up with somebody and maybe try to figure out some songs and then we'd never see each other again. There were a lot of false starts and I assumed this would be just another one of those, but it would be fun for this one to be with the guy from Racetraitor and Extinction.

TROHMAN: He gave me the link to his MP3.com page. There were a few songs of him just playing acoustic and singing. He was awesome.

WENTZ: Joe told me we were going to this kid's house who would probably be our drummer but could also sing. He sent me a link to Patrick singing some acoustic thing, but the quality was so horrible it was hard to tell what it was. Patrick answered the door in some wild outfit. He looked like an emo kid but from the Endpoint era - dorky and cool. We went into the basement, and he was like, trying to set up his drums.

TROHMAN: Patrick has said many times that he intended to try out on drums. I was pushing for him to sing after hearing his demos. 'Hey! Sing for us!' I asked him to take out his acoustic guitar. He played songs from Saves The Day's Through Being Cool. I think he sang most of the record to us. We were thrilled. We had never been around someone who could sing like that.

WENTZ: I don't think Patrick thought we were cool at all. We were hanging out, and he started playing acoustic guitar. He started singing, and I realized he could sing any Saves The Day song. I was like, 'Wow, that's the way those bands sound! We should just have you sing.' It had to be serendipity because Patrick drumming and Joe singing is not the same band. I never thought about singing. It wasn't the type of thing I could sing. I knew I'd be playing bass. I didn't think it'd even go beyond a few practices. It didn't seem like the thing I was setting myself up to do for the next several years of my life in any way. I was going to college. It was just a fun getaway from the rest of life kind of thing to do.

STUMP: Andy was the first person we asked to play drums. Joe even brought him up in the Borders conversation. But Andy was too busy. He wasn't really interested, either, because we kind of sucked.

WENTZ: I wanted Hurley in the band, I was closest to him at the time, I had known him for a long time. I identified with him in the way that we were the younger dudes in our larger group. I tried to get him, but he was doing another band at the time, or multiple bands. He was Mani's go-to guy to play drums, always. I had asked him a few times. That should clue people into the fact that we weren't that good.

ANDY HURLEY: I knew Joe as 'Number One Fan.' We called him that because he was a huge fan of a band I was in, Kill The Slavemaster. When Fall Out Boy started, I was going to college full-time. I was in the band Project Rocket and I think The Kill Pill then, too.

MOSTOFI: After they got together the first or second time, Pete played me a recording and said, 'This is going to be big.' They had no songs, no name, no drummer. They could barely play their instruments. But Pete knew, and we believed him because we could see his drive and Patrick's potential. Patrick was prodigy. I imagine the first moment Pete heard him sing was probably like when I heard 15-year-old Andy Hurley play drums.

GUTIERREZ: One day at practice, Pete told me he had met some dudes with whom he was starting a pop-punk band. He said it would sound like a cross between New Found Glory and Lifetime. Then the more Fall Out Boy started to practice, the less active Arma Angelus became.

TROHMAN: We got hooked up with a friend named Ben Rose, who became our original drummer. We would practice in his parents' basement. We eventually wrote some pretty bad songs. I don't even have the demo. I have copies of Arma's demo, but I don't have that one.

MOSTOFI: We all knew that hardcore kids write better pop-punk songs than actual pop-punk kids. It had been proven. An experienced hardcore musician could bring a sense of aggression and urgency to the pop hooks in a way that a band like Yellowcard could never achieve. Pete and I had many conversations about this. He jokingly called it 'Softcore,' but that's precisely what it was. It's what he was going for. Take This To Your Grave sounds like Hot Topic, but it feels like CBGBs.

MCILRITH: Many hardcore guys who transitioned into pop-punk bands dumbed it down musically and lyrically. Fall Out Boy found a way to do it that wasn't dumbed down. They wrote music and lyrics that, if you listened closely, you could tell came from people who grew up into hardcore. Pete seemed to approach the song titles and lyrics the same way he attacked hardcore songs. You could see his signature on all of that.

STUMP: We all had very different ideas of what it should sound like. I signed up for Kid Dynamite, Strike Anywhere, or Dillinger Four. Pete was very into Lifetime and Saves The Day. I think both he and Joe were into New Found Glory and Blink-182. I still hadn't heard a lot of stuff. I was arrogant; I was a rock snob. I was over most pop-punk. But then I had this renaissance week where I was like, 'Man, you know what? I really do like The Descendents.' Like, the specific week I met Joe, it just happened to be that I was listening to a lot of Descendents. So, there was a part of me that was tickled by that idea. 'You know what? I'll try a pop-punk band. Why not?'

MOSTOFI: To be clear, they were trying to become a big band. But they did it by elevating radio-friendly pop punk, not debasing themselves for popularity. They were closely studying Drive-Thru Records bands like The Starting Line, who I couldn't stand. But they knew what they were doing. They extracted a few good elements from those bands and combined them with their other influences. Patrick never needed to be auto-tuned. He can sing. Pete never had to contrive this emotional depth. He always had it.

STUMP: The ideas for band names were obnoxious. At some point, Pete and I were arguing over it, and I think our first drummer, Ben Rose, who was in the hardcore band Strength In Numbers, suggested Fall Out Boy. Pete and I were like, 'Well, we don't hate that one. We'll keep it on the list.' But we never voted on a name.

"Fake It Like You Matter" - The Early Shows, 2001

The name Fall Out Boy made their shortlist, but their friends ultimately chose it for them. The line-up at the band's first show was Patrick Stump (sans guitar), Pete Wentz, Joe Trohman, drummer Ben Rose, and guitarist John Flamandan in his only FOB appearance.

STUMP: We didn't have a name at our two or three shows. We were basically booked as 'Pete's new band' as he was the most known of any of us. Pete and I were the artsy two.

TROHMAN: The rest of us had no idea what we were doing onstage.

STUMP: We took ourselves very seriously and completely different ideas on what was 'cool.' Pete at the time was somewhere between maybe Chuck Palahniuk and Charles Bukowski, and kind of New Romantic and Manchester stuff, so he had that in mind. The band names he suggested were long and verbose, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I was pretty much only into Tom Waits, so I wanted everything to be a reference to Tom Waits. The first show was at DePaul [University] in some cafeteria. The room looked a lot nicer than punk rock shows are supposed to look, like a room where you couldn't jump off the walls. We played with a band called Stillwell. I want to say one of the other bands played Black Sabbath's Black Sabbath in its entirety. We were out of place. We were tossing a few different names around. The singer for Stillwell was in earshot of the conversation so I was like 'Hey, settle this for us,' and told him whatever name it was, which I can't remember. 'What do you think of this name?' He goes, 'It sucks.' And the way he said it, there was this element to it, like, 'You guys probably suck, too, so whatever.' That was our first show. We played first and only had three songs. That was John's only show with us, and I never saw him again. I was just singing without a guitar, and I had never just sung before; that was horrifying. We blazed through those songs.

ROSE: Patrick had this shoulder-length hair. Watching these guys who were known for heavier stuff play pop-punk was strange. Pete was hopping around with the X's on his hands. Spitalfield was similar; we were kids playing another style of music who heard Texas Is The Reason and Get Up Kids and said, 'We have to start a band like this.'

MOSTOFI: The first show was a lot of fun. The musical side wasn't there, but Pete and Patrick's humor and charisma were front and center.

TROHMAN: I remember having a conversation with Mani about stage presence. He was telling me how important it was. Coalesce and The Dillinger Escape Plan would throw mic stands and cabinets. We loved that visual excitement and appeal. Years later, Patrick sang a Fall Out Boy song with Taylor Swift at Giants Stadium. It was such a great show to watch that I was reminded of how wise Mani was to give me that advice back then. Mani was like a mentor for me, honestly. He would always guide me through stuff.

MOSTOFI: Those guys grew up in Chicago, either playing in or seeing Extinction, Racetraitor, Los Crudos, and other bands that liked to talk and talk between songs. Fall Out Boy did that, and it was amazing. Patrick was awkward in a knowing and hilarious way. He'd say something odd, and then Pete would zing him. Or Pete would try to say something too cool, and Patrick would remind him they were nerds. These are very personal memories for me. Millions of people have seen the well-oiled machine, but so few of us saw those guys when they were so carefree.

TROHMAN: We had this goofy, bad first show, but all I can tell you was that I was determined to make this band work, no matter what.

STUMP: I kind of assumed that was the end of that. 'Whatever, on with our lives.' But Joe was very determined. He was going to pick us up for practice and we were going to keep playing shows. He was going to make the band happen whether the rest of us wanted to or not. That's how we got past show number one. John left the band because we only had three songs and he wasn't very interested. In the interim, I filled in on guitar. I didn't consider myself a guitar player. Our second show was a college show in Southern Illinois or something.

MCILRITH: That show was with my other band, The Killing Tree.

STUMP: We showed up late and played before The Killing Tree. There was no one there besides the bands and our friends. I think we had voted on some names. Pete said 'Hey, we're whatever!'; probably something very long. And someone yells out, 'Fuck that, no, you're Fall Out Boy!' Then when The Killing Tree was playing, Tim said, 'I want to thank Fall Out Boy.' Everyone looked up to Tim, so when he forced the name on us, it was fine. I was a diehard Simpsons fan, without question. I go pretty deep on The Simpsons. Joe and I would just rattle off Simpsons quotes. I used to do a lot of Simpsons impressions. Ben was very into Simpsons; he had a whole closet full of Simpsons action figures.

"If Only You Knew I Was Terrified" - The Early Recordings, 2002-2003

Wentz's relationships in the hardcore scene led to Fall Out Boy's first official releases. A convoluted and rarely properly explained chain of events resulted in the Fall Out Boy/Project Rocket split EP and Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girlfriend. Both were issued by California's Uprising Records, whose discography included Racetraitor's first album and the debut EP by Burn It Down. The band traveled to Wisconsin to record their first proper demo with engineer Jared Logan, drummer for Uprising's 7 Angels 7 Plagues.

TROHMAN: This isn't to be confused with the demo we did in Ben's basement, which was like a tape demo. This was our first real demo.

STUMP: Between booking the demo and recording it, we lost Ben Rose. He was the greatest guy, but it wasn't working out musically. Pete and Joe decided I should play drums on the demo. But Jared is a sick drummer, so he just did it.

TROHMAN: We had gotten this great singer but went through a series of drummers that didn't work out. I had to be the one who kicked Ben out. Not long after, our friend Brett Bunting played with us. I don't think he really wanted to do it, which was a bummer.

STUMP: I showed up to record that demo, feeling pulled into it. I liked hanging out with the guys, but I was a rock snob who didn't really want to be making that type of music. The first few songs were really rough. We were sloppy. We barely practiced. Pete was in Arma Angelus. Joe was the guy determined to make it happen. We couldn't keep a drummer or guitar player, and I could barely play guitar. I didn't really want to be in Fall Out Boy. We had these crappy songs that kind of happened; it didn't feel like anything. Joe did the guitars. I go in to do the vocals, I put on the headphones, and it starts playing and was kind of not bad! It was pretty good, actually. I was shocked. That was the first time I was like, 'Maybe I am supposed to be in this band.' I enjoyed hearing it back.

SEAN MUTTAQI: Wentz and I were pretty tight. He sent me some demos, and while I didn't know it would get as big as it did, I knew it was special. Wentz had a clear vision. Of all the guys from that scene, he was the most singularly focused on taking things to the next level. He was ahead of the game with promotion and the early days of social media.

STUMP: Arma Angelus had been on Eulogy. We talked to them a bit and spoke to Uprising because they had put out Racetraitor. At some point, the demo got to Sean, and he decided to make it half of a split with Andy's band, Project Rocket. We were pretty happy with that.

HURLEY: It was kind of competitive for me at the time. Project Rocket and Fall Out Boy were both doing pop-punk/pop-rock, I met Patrick through the band. I didn't really know him before Fall Out Boy.

TROHMAN: We got this drummer, Mike Pareskuwicz, who had been in a hardcore band from Central Illinois called Subsist.

STUMP: Uprising wanted us to make an album. We thought that was cool, but we only had those three songs that were on the split. We were still figuring ourselves out. One of the times we were recording with Jared in the studio, for the split or the album, this guy T.J. Kunasch was there. He was like, 'Hey, do you guys need a guitarist?' And he joined.

MUTTAQI: I borrowed some money to get them back in the studio. The songwriting was cool on that record, but it was all rushed. The urgency to get something out led to the recording being subpar. Their new drummer looked the part but couldn't really play. They had already tracked the drums before they realized it didn't sound so hot.

STUMP: The recording experience was not fun. We had two days to do an entire album. Mike was an awesome dude, but he lived crazy far away, in Kanakee, Illinois, so the drive to Milwaukee wasn't easy for him. He had to work or something the next day. So, he did everything in one take and left. He played alone, without a click, so it was a ness to figure out. We had to guess where the guitar was supposed to go. None of us liked the songs because we had slapped them together. We thought it all sucked. But I thought, 'Well, at least it'll be cool to have something out.' Then a lot of time went by. Smaller labels were at the mercy of money, and it was crazy expensive to put out a record back then.

MUTTAQI: Our record was being rushed out to help generate some interest, but that interest was building before we could even get the record out. We were beholden to finances while changing distribution partners and dealing with other delays. The buck stops with me, yes, but I didn't have that much control over the scheduling.

WENTZ: It's not what I would consider the first Fall Out Boy record. Hurley isn't on it and he's an integral part of the Fall Out Boy sound. But it is part of the history, the legacy. NASA didn't go right to the moon. They did test flights in the desert. Those are our test flights in the desert. It's not something I'm ashamed of or have weird feelings about.

STUMP: It's kind of embarrassing to me. Evening Out... isn't representative of the band we became. I liked Sean a lot, so it's nothing against him. If anybody wants to check out the band in that era, I think the split EP is a lot cooler. Plus, Andy is on that one.

TROHMAN: T.J. was the guy who showed up to the show without a guitar. He was the guy that could never get it right, but he was in the band for a while because we wanted a second guitar player. He's a nice dude but wasn't great to be in a band with back then. One day he drove unprompted from Racine to Chicago to pick up some gear. I don't know how he got into my parents' house, but the next thing I knew, he was in my bedroom. I didn't like being woken up and kicked him out of the band from bed.

STUMP: Our friend Brian Bennance asked us to do a split 7" with 504 Plan, which was a big band to us. Brian offered to pay for us to record with Sean O'Keefe, which was also a big deal. Mike couldn't get the time off work to record with us. We asked Andy to play on the songs. He agreed to do it, but only if he could make it in time after recording an entire EP with his band, The Kill Pill, in Chicago, on the same day.

MOSTOFI: Andy and I started The Kill Pill shortly after Racetraitor split up, not long after Fall Out Boy had formed. We played a bunch of local shows together. The minute Andy finished tracking drums for our EP in Chicago, he raced to the other studio in Madison.

STUMP: I'm getting ready to record the drums myself, getting levels and checking the drums, pretty much ready to go. And then in walks Andy Hurley. I was a little bummed because I really wanted to play drums that day. But then Andy goes through it all in like two takes and fucking nailed the entire thing. He just knocked it out of the park. All of us were like, 'That's crazy!'

WENTZ: When Andy came in, It just felt different. It was one of those 'a-ha' moments.

STUMP: Sean leaned over to us and said, 'You need to get this guy in the band.'

SEAN O'KEEFE: We had a blast. We pumped It out. We did it fast and to analog tape. People believe it was very Pro Tools oriented, but it really was done to 24-track tape. Patrick sang his ass off.

STUMP: The songs we had were 'Dead On Arrival,' 'Saturday,' and 'Homesick at Space Camp. There are quite a few songs that ended up on Take This To You Grave where I wrote most of the lyrics but Pete titled them.

WENTZ: 'Space Camp' was a reference to the 1986 movie, SpaceCamp, and the idea of space camp. Space camp wasn't something anyone in my area went to. Maybe they did, but it was never an option for me. It seems like the little kid version of meeting Jay-Z. The idea was also: what if you, like Joaquin Phoenix in the movie, took off to outer space and wanted to get home? 'I made it to space and now I'm just homesick and want to hang out with my friends.' In the greater sense, it's about having it all, but it's still not enough. There's a pop culture reference in 'Saturday' that a lot of people miss. 'Pete and I attack the lost Astoria' was a reference to The Goonies, which was filmed in Astoria, Oregon.

HURLEY: I remember hearing those recordings, especially 'Dead on Arrival,' and Patrick's voice and how well written those songs were, especially relative to anything else I had done - I had a feeling that this could do something.

WENTZ: It seemed like it would stall out if we didn't get a solid drummer in the band soon. That was the link that we couldn't nail down. Patrick was always a big musical presence. He thinks and writes rhythmi-cally, and we couldn't get a drummer to do what he wanted or speak his language. Hurley was the first one that could. It's like hearing two drummers talk together when they really get it. It sounds like a foreign language because it's not something I'm keyed into. Patrick needed someone on a similar musical plane. I wasn't there. Joe was younger and was probably headed there.

HURLEY: When Patrick was doing harmonies, it was like Queen. He's such a brilliant dude. I was always in bands that did a record and then broke up. I felt like this was a band that could tour a lot like the hardcore bands we loved, even if we had to have day jobs, too.

"(Four) Tired Boys And A Broken Down Van" - The Early Tours, 2002-2003

STUMP: We booked a tour with Spitalfield, another Chicago band, who had records out, so they were a big deal to us. We replaced T.J. with a guy named Brandon Hamm. He was never officially in the band. He quit when we were practicing 'Saturday.' He goes, 'I don't like that. I don't want to do this anymore.' Pete talked with guitarist Chris Envy from Showoff, who had just broken up. Chris said, 'Yeah, I'll play in your band.' He came to two practices, then quit like two days before the tour. It was only a two-week tour, but Mike couldn't get the time off work from Best Buy, or maybe it was Blockbuster. We had to lose Mike, which was the hardest member change for me. It was unpleasant.

TROHMAN: We had been trying to get Andy to join the band for a while. Even back at that first Borders conversation, we talked about him, but he was too busy at the time.

STUMP: I borrowed one of Joe's guitars and jumped in the fire. We were in this legendarily shitty used van Pete had gotten. It belonged to some flower shop, so it had this ominously worn-out flower decal outside and no windows [except in the front]. Crappy brakes, no A/C, missing the rearview mirror, no seats in the back, only the driver's seat. About 10 minutes into the tour, we hit something. A tire exploded and slingshot into the passenger side mirror, sending glass flying into the van. We pulled over into some weird animal petting zoo. I remember thinking, 'This is a bad omen for this tour.' Spitalfield was awesome, and we became tight with them. Drew Brown, who was later in Weekend Nachos, was out with them, too. But most of the shows were canceled.

WENTZ: We'd end up in a town, and our show was canceled, or we'd have three days off. 'Let's just get on whatever show we can. Whatever, you can pay us in pizza.'

STUMP: We played in a pizza place. We basically blocked the line of people trying to order pizza, maybe a foot away from the shitty tables. Nobody is trying to watch a band. They're just there to eat pizza. And that was perhaps the biggest show we played on that tour. One of the best moments on the Spitalfied tour was in Lincoln, Nebraska. The local opener wasn't even there - they were at the bar across the street and showed up later with two people. Fall Out Boy played for Spitalfield, and Spitalfield played for Fall Out Boy. Even the sound guy had left. It was basically an empty room. It was miserable.

HURLEY: Even though we played a ton of shows in front of just the other bands, it was awesome. I've known Pete forever and always loved being in bands with him. After that tour, it was pretty much agreed that I would be in the band. I wanted to be in the band.

WENTZ: We would play literally any show in those days for free. We played Chain Reaction in Orange County with a bunch of metalcore bands. I want to say Underoath was one of them. I remember a lot of black shirts and crossed arms at those kinds of shows. STUMP: One thing that gets lost in the annals of history is Fall Out Boy, the discarded hardcore band. We played so many hardcore shows! The audiences were cool, but they were just like, 'This is OK, but we'd really rather be moshing right now.' Which was better than many of the receptions we got from pop-punk kids.

MOSTOFI: Pete made sure there was little division between the band and the audience. In hardcore, kids are encouraged to grab the mic. Pete was very conscious about making the crowd feel like friends. I saw them in Austin, Texas, in front of maybe ten kids. But it was very clear all ten of those kids felt like Pete's best friends. And they were, in a way.

MCILRITH: People started to get into social networking. That kind of thing was all new to us, and they were way ahead. They networked with their fans before any of us.

MOSTOFI: Pete shared a lot about his life online and was intimate as hell. It was a new type of scene. Pete extended the band's community as far as fiber optics let him.

ROSE: Pete was extremely driven. Looking back, I wish I had that killer instinct. During that tour; we played a show in Colorado. On the day of the show, we went to Kinko's to make flyers to hand out to college kids. Pete put ‘members of Saves The Day and Screeching Weasel’ on the flyer. He was just like, 'This will get people in.'

WENTZ: We booked a lot of our early shows through hardcore connections, and to some extent, that carries through to what Fall Out Boy shows are like today. If you come to see us play live, we're basically Slayer compared to everyone else when we play these pop radio shows. Some of that carries back to what you must do to avoid being heckled at hardcore shows. You may not like our music, but you will leave here respecting us. Not everyone is going to love you. Not everyone is going to give a shit. But you need to earn a crowd's respect. That was an important way for us to learn that.

MOSTOFI: All those dudes, except Andy, lived in this great apartment with our friend Brett Bunting, who was almost their drummer at one point. The proximity helped them gel.

STUMP: There were a lot of renegade last-minute shows where we'd just call and get added. We somehow ended up on a show with Head Automatica that way.

MCILRITH: At some point early on, they opened for Rise Against in a church basement in Downers Grove. We were doing well then; headlining that place was a big deal. Then Pete's band was coming up right behind us, and you could tell there was a lot of chatter about Fall Out Boy. I remember getting to the show, and there were many people there, many of whom I had never seen in the scene before. A lot of unfamiliar faces. A lot of people that wouldn't have normally found their way to the seedy Fireside Bowl in Chicago. These were young kids, and I was 21 then, so when I say young, I mean really young. Clearly, Fall Out Boy had tapped into something the rest of us had not. People were super excited to see them play and freaked out; there was a lot of enthusiasm at that show. After they finished, their fans bailed. They were dedicated. They wanted to see Fall Out Boy. They didn't necessarily want to see Rise Against play. That was my first clue that, 'Whoa, what Pete told me that day at Arma Angelus rehearsal is coming true. He was right.' Whatever he was doing was working.

"My Insides Are Copper, And I'd Like To Make Them Gold" - The Record Labels Come Calling, 2002

STUMP: The split EP was going to be a three-way split with 504 Plan, August Premier, and us at one point. But then the record just never happened. Brian backed out of putting it out. We asked him if we could do something else with the three songs and he didn't really seem to care. So, we started shopping the three songs as a demo. Pete ended up framing the rejection letters we got from a lot of pop-punk labels. But some were interested.

HURLEY: We wanted to be on Drive-Thru Records so bad. That was the label.

RICHARD REINES: After we started talking to them, I found the demo they had sent us in the office. I played it for my sister. We decided everything together. She liked them but wasn't as crazy about them as I was. We arranged with Pete to see them practice. We had started a new label called Rushmore. Fall Out Boy wasn't the best live band. We weren't thrilled [by the showcase]. But the songs were great. We both had to love a band to sign them, so my sister said, 'If you love them so much, let's sign them to Rushmore, not Drive Thru.'

HURLEY: We did a showcase for Richard and Stephanie Reines. They were just kind of like, 'Yeah, we have this side label thing. We'd be interested in having you on that.' I remember them saying they passed on Saves The Day and wished they would have put out Through Being Cool. But then they [basically] passed on us by offering to put us on Rushmore. We realized we could settle for that, but we knew it wasn't the right thing.

RORY FELTON: Kevin Knight had a website, TheScout, which always featured great new bands. I believe he shared the demo with us. I flew out to Chicago. Joe and Patrick picked me up at the airport. I saw them play at a VFW hall, Patrick drank an entire bottle of hot sauce on a dare at dinner, and then we all went to see the movie The Ring. I slept on the couch in their apartment, the one featured on the cover of Take This To Your Grave. Chad [Pearson], my partner, also flew out to meet with the band.

STUMP: It was a weird time to be a band because it was feast or famine. At first, no one wanted us. Then as soon as one label said, 'Maybe we'll give 'em a shot,' suddenly there's a frenzy of phone calls from record labels. We were getting our shirts printed by Victory Records. One day, we went to pick up shirts, and someone came downstairs and said, 'Um, guys? [Owner] Tony [Brummel] wants to see you.' We were like, 'Did we forget to pay an invoice?' He made us an offer on the spot. We said, 'That's awesome, but we need to think about it.' It was one of those 'now or never' kinds of things. I think we had even left the van running. It was that kind of sudden; we were overwhelmed by it.

HURLEY: They told me Tony said something like, 'You can be with the Nike of the record industry or the Keds of the record industry.'

STUMP: We'd get random calls at the apartment. 'Hey, I'm a manager with so-and-so.' I talked to some boy band manager who said, 'We think you'll be a good fit.'

TROHMAN: The idea of a manager was a ‘big-time' thing. I answered a call one day, and this guy is like, 'I'm the manager for the Butthole Surfers, and I'd really like to work with you guys.' I just said, Yeah, I really like the Butthole Surfers, but I'll have to call you back.' And I do love that band. But I just knew that wasn't the right thing.

STUMP: Not all the archetypes you always read about are true. The label guys aren't all out to get you. Some are total douchebags. But then there are a lot who are sweet and genuine. It's the same thing with managers. I really liked the Militia Group. They told us it was poor form to talk to us without a manager. They recommended Bob McLynn.

FELTON: We knew the guys at Crush from working with Acceptance and The Beautiful Mistake. We thought they'd be great for Fall Out Boy, so we sent the music to their team.

STUMP: They said Crush was their favorite management company and gave us their number. Crush's biggest band at the time was American Hi-Fi. Jonathan Daniels, the guy who started the company, sent a manager to see us. The guy was like, "This band sucks!' But Jonathan liked us and thought someone should do something with us. Bob was his youngest rookie manager. He had never managed anyone, and we had never been managed.

BOB MCLYNN: Someone else from my office who isn't with us anymore had seen them, but I hadn't seen them yet. At the time, we'd tried to manage Brand New; they went elsewhere, and I was bummed. Then we got the Fall Out Boy demo, and I was like, Wow. This sounds even better. This guy can really sing, and these songs are great.' I remember going at it hard after that whole thing. Fall Out Boy was my consolation prize. I don't know if they were talking to other managers or not, but Pete and I clicked.

TROHMAN: In addition to being really creative, Pete is really business savvy. We all have a bullshit detector these days, but Pete already had one back then. We met Bob, and we felt like this dude wouldn't fuck us over.

STUMP: We were the misfit toy that nobody else wanted. Bob really believed in us when nobody else did and when nobody believed in him. What's funny is that all the other managers at Crush were gone within a year. It was just Bob and Jonathan, and now they're partners. Bob was the weird New York Hardcore guy who scared me at the time.

TROHMAN: We felt safe with him. He's a big, hulking dude.

MCLYNN: We tried to make a deal with The Militia Group, but they wouldn't back off on a few things in the agreement. I told them those were deal breakers, opening the door to everyone else. I knew this band needed a shot to do bigger and better things.

TROHMAN: He told us not to sign with the label that recommended him to us. We thought there was something very honest about that.

MCLYNN: They paid all their dues. Those guys worked harder than any band I'd ever seen, and I was all about it. I had been in bands before and had just gotten out. I was getting out of the van just as these guys got into one. They busted their asses.

STUMP: A few labels basically said the same thing: they wanted to hear more. They weren't convinced we could write another song as good as 'Dead On Arrival.' I took that as a challenge. We returned to Sean a few months after those initial three songs, this time at Gravity Studios in Chicago. We recorded ‘Grenade Jumper' and 'Grand Theft Autumn/Where is Your Boy' in a night or two. 'Where is Your Boy' was my, 'Fine, you don't think I can write a fucking song? Here's your hit song, jerks!' But I must have pushed Pete pretty hard [arguing about the songs]. One night, as he and I drove with Joe, Pete said, 'Guys, I don't think I want to do this band anymore.' We talked about it for the rest of the ride home. I didn't want to be in the band in the first place! I was like, 'No! That's not fair! Don't leave me with this band! Don't make me kind of like this band, and then leave it! That's bullshit!' Pete didn't stay at the apartment that night. I called him at his parent's house. I told him I wasn't going to do the band without him. He was like, 'Don't break up your band over it.' I said, 'It's not my band. It's a band that you, Joe, and I started.' He was like, 'OK, I'll stick around.' And he came back with a vengeance.

WENTZ: It was maybe the first time we realized we could do these songs titles that didn't have much do with the song from the outside. Grand Theft Auto was such a big pop culture franchise. If you said the phrase back then, everyone recognized it. The play on words was about someone stealing your time in the fall. It was the earliest experimentation with that so it was a little simplistic compared to the stuff we did later. At the time, we'd tell someone the song title, and they'd say, 'You mean "Auto"'?

JOHN JANICK: I saw their name on fliers and thought it was strange. But I remembered it. Then I saw them on a flyer with one of our bands from Chicago, August Premier. I called them and asked about this band whose name I had seen on a few flyers now. They told me they were good and I should check it out. I heard an early version of a song online and instantly fell in love with it. Drive-Thru, The Militia Group, and a few majors tried to sign them. I was the odd man out. But I knew I wanted them right away.

HURLEY: Fueled By Ramen was co-owned by Vinnie [Fiorello] from Less Than Jake. It wasn't necessarily a band I grew up loving, but I had so much respect for them and what they had done and were doing.

JANICK: I randomly cold-called them at the apartment and spoke to Patrick. He told me I had to talk to Pete. I spoke to Pete later that day. We ended up talking on the phone for an hour. It was crazy. I never flew out there. I just got to know them over the phone.

MCLYNN: There were majors [interested], but I didn't want the band on a major right away. I knew they wouldn't understand the band. Rob Stevenson from Island Records knew all the indie labels were trying to sign Fall Out Boy. We did this first-ever incubator sort of deal. I also didn't want to stay on an indie forever; I felt we needed to develop and have a chance to do bigger and better things, but these indies didn't necessarily have radio staff. It was sort of the perfect scenario. Island gave us money to go on Fueled By Ramen, with whom we did a one-off. No one else would offer a one-off on an indie.

STUMP: They were the smallest of the labels involved, with the least 'gloss.' I said, 'I don't know about this, Pete.' Pete was the one who thought it was the smartest move. He pointed out that we could be a big fish in a small pond. So, we rolled the dice.

HURLEY: It was a one-record deal with Fueled By Ramen. We didn't necessarily get signed to Island, but they had the 'right of first refusal' [for the album following Take This To Your Grave]. It was an awesome deal. It was kind of unheard of, maybe, but there was a bunch of money coming from Island that we didn't have to recoup for promo type of things.

JANICK: The company was so focused on making sure we broke Fall Out Boy; any other label probably wouldn't have had that dedication. Pete and I talked for at least an hour every day. Pete and I became so close, so much so that we started Decaydance. It was his thing, but we ended up signing Panic! At The Disco, Gym Class Heroes, Cobra Starship.

GUTIERREZ: Who could predict Pete would A&R all those bands? There's no Panic! At The Disco or Gym Class Heroes without Wentz. He made them into celebrities.

"Turn This Up And I'll Tune You Out" - The Making of Take This To You Grave, 2003

The versions of "Dead on Arrival," "Saturday," and "Homesick at Space Camp" from the first sessions with Andy on drums are what appear on the album. "Grand Theft Autumn/Where is Your Boy" and "Grenade Jumper" are the demo versions recorded later in Chicago. O'Keefe recorded the music for the rest of the songs at Smart Studios once again. They knocked out the remaining songs in just nine days. Sean and Patrick snuck into Gravity Studios in the middle of the night to track vocals in the dead of winter. Patrick sang those seven songs from two to five in the morning in those sessions.

STUMP: John Janick basically said, ‘I'll buy those five songs and we'll make them part of the album, and here's some money to go record seven more.'

MCLYNN: It was a true indie deal with Fueled by Ramen. I think we got between $15,000 and $18,000 all-in to make the album. The band slept on the studio floor some nights.

STUMP: From a recording standpoint, it was amazing. It was very pro, we had Sean, all this gear, the fun studio accoutrements were there. It was competitive with anything we did afterward. But meanwhile, we're still four broke idiots.

WENTZ: We fibbed to our parents about what we were doing. I was supposed to be in school. I didn't have access to money or a credit card. I don't think any of us did.

STUMP: I don't think we slept anywhere we could shower, which was horrifying. There was a girl that Andy's girlfriend at the time went to school with who let us sleep on her floor, but we'd be there for maybe four hours at a time. It was crazy.

HURLEY: Once, Patrick thought it would be a good idea to spray this citrus bathroom spray under his arms like deodorant. It just destroyed him because it's not made for that. But it was all an awesome adventure.

WENTZ: We were so green we didn't really know how studios worked. Every day there was soda for the band. We asked, 'Could you take that soda money and buy us peanut butter, jelly, and bread?' which they did. I hear that stuff in some ways when I listen to that album.

HURLEY: Sean pushed us. He was such a perfectionist, which was awesome. I felt like, ‘This is what a real professional band does.' It was our first real studio experience.

WENTZ: Seeing the Nirvana Nevermind plaque on the wall was mind-blowing. They showed us the mic that had been used on that album.

HURLEY: The mic that Kurt Cobain used, that was pretty awesome, crazy, legendary, and cool. But we didn't get to use it.

WENTZ: They said only Shirley Manson] from Garbage could use it.

O'KEEFE: Those dudes were all straight edge at the time. It came up in conversation that I had smoked weed once a few months before. That started this joke that I was this huge stoner, which obviously I wasn't. They'd call me 'Scoobie Snacks O'Keefe' and all these things. When they turned in the art for the record, they thanked me with like ten different stoner nicknames - 'Dimebag O'Keefe' and stuff like that. The record company made Pete take like seven of them out because they said it was excessively ridiculous.

WENTZ: Sean was very helpful. He worked within the budget and took us more seriously than anyone else other than Patrick. There were no cameras around. There was no documentation. There was nothing to indicate this would be some ‘legendary' session. There are 12 songs on the album because those were all the songs we had. There was no pomp or circumstance or anything to suggest it would be an 'important’ record.

STUMP: Pete and I were starting to carve out our niches. When Pete [re-committed himself to the band], it felt like he had a list of things in his head he wanted to do right. Lyrics were on that list. He wasn't playing around anymore. I wrote the majority of the lyrics up to that point - ‘Saturday,' 'Dead on Arrival,' ‘Where's Your Boy?,’ ‘Grenade Jumper,' and ‘Homesick at Space Camp.' I was an artsy-fartsy dude who didn't want to be in a pop-punk band, so I was going really easy on the lyrics. I wasn't taking them seriously. When I look back on it, I did write some alright stuff. But I wasn't trying. Pete doesn't fuck around like that, and he does not take that kindly. When we returned to the studio, he started picking apart every word, every syllable. He started giving me [notes]. I got so exasperated at one point I was like, ‘You just write the fucking lyrics, dude. Just give me your lyrics, and I'll write around them.' Kind of angrily. So, he did. We hadn't quite figured out how to do it, though. I would write a song, scrap my lyrics, and try to fit his into where mine had been. It was exhausting. It was a rough process. It made both of us unhappy.

MCLYNN: I came from the post-hardcore scene in New York and wasn't a big fan of the pop-punk stuff happening. What struck me with these guys was the phenomenal lyrics and Patrick's insane voice. Many guys in these kinds of bands can sing alright, but Patrick was like a real singer. This guy had soul. He'd take these great lyrics Pete wrote and combine it with that soul, and that's what made their unique sound. They both put their hearts on their sleeves when they wrote together.

STUMP: We had a massive fight over 'Chicago is So Two Years Ago.' I didn't even want to record that song. I was being precious with things that were mine. Part of me thought the band wouldn't work out, and I'd go to college and do some music alone. I had a skeletal version of 'Chicago...'. I was playing it to myself in the lobby of the studio. I didn't know anyone was listening. Sean was walking by and wanted to [introduce it to the others]. I kind of lost my song. I was very precious about it. Pete didn't like some of the lyrics, so we fought. We argued over each word, one at a time. 'Tell That Mick...' was also a pretty big fight. Pete ended up throwing out all my words on that one. That was the first song where he wrote the entire set of lyrics. My only change was light that smoke' instead of ‘cigarette' because I didn't have enough syllables to say 'cigarette.' Everything else was verbatim what he handed to me. I realized I must really want to be in this band at this point if I'm willing to put up with this much fuss. The sound was always more important to me - the rhythm of the words, alliteration, syncopation - was all very exciting. Pete didn't care about any of that. He was all meaning. He didn't care how good the words sounded if they weren't amazing when you read them. Man, did we fight about that. We fought for nine days straight while not sleeping and smelling like shit. It was one long argument, but I think some of the best moments resulted from that.

WENTZ: In 'Calm Before the Storm,' Patrick wrote the line, 'There's a song on the radio that says, 'Let's Get This Party Started' which is a direct reference to Pink's 2001 song 'Get the Party Started.' 'Tell That Mick He Just Made My List of Things to Do Today' is a line from the movie Rushmore. I thought we'd catch a little more flack for that, but even when we played it in Ireland, there was none of that. It's embraced, more like a shoutout.

STUMP: Pete and I met up on a lot of the same pop culture. He was more into '80s stuff than I was. One of the first things we talked about were Wes Anderson movies.

WENTZ: Another thing driving that song title was the knowledge that our fanbase wouldn't necessarily be familiar with Wes Anderson. It could be something that not only inspired us but something fans could also go check out. People don't ask us about that song so much now, but in that era, we'd answer and tell them to go watch Rushmore. You gotta see this movie. This line is a hilarious part of it.' Hopefully some people did. I encountered Jason Schwartzman at a party once. We didn't get to talk about the movie, but he was the sweetest human, and I was just geeking out. He told me he was writing a film with Wes Anderson about a train trip in India. I wanted to know about the writing process. He was like, 'Well, he's in New York City, I'm in LA. It's crazy because I'm on the phone all the time and my ear gets really hot.' That's the anecdote I got, and I loved it.

O'KEEFE: They're totally different people who approach making music from entirely different angles. It's cool to see them work. Pete would want a certain lyric. Patrick was focused on the phrasing. Pete would say the words were stupid and hand Patrick a revision, and Patrick would say I can't sing those the way I need to sing this. They would go through ten revisions for one song. I thought I would lose my mind with both of them, but then they would find it, and it would be fantastic. When they work together, it lights up. It takes on a life of its own. It's not always happy. There's a lot of push and pull, and each is trying to get their thing. With Take This To Your Grave, we never let anything go until all three of us were happy. Those guys were made to do this together.

WENTZ: A lot of the little things weren't a big deal, but those were things that [felt like] major decisions. I didn't want 'Where Is Your Boy' on Take This To Your Grave.

JANICK: I freaked out. I called Bob and said, 'We must put this song on the album! It's one of the biggest songs.' He agreed. We called Pete and talked about it; he was cool about it and heard us out.

WENTZ: I thought many things were humongous, and they just weren't. They didn't matter one way or another.

"Our Lawyer Made Us Change The (Album Cover)" - That Photo On Take This To Your Grave, 2003

STUMP: The band was rooted in nostalgia from early on. The '80s references were very much Pete's aesthetic. He had an idea for the cover. It ended up being his girlfriend at the time, face down on the bed, exhausted, in his bedroom. That was his bedroom in our apartment. His room was full of toys, '80s cereals. If we ended up with the Abbey Road cover of pop-punk, that original one was Sgt. Pepper's. But we couldn't legally clear any of the stuff in the photo. Darth Vader, Count Chocula…

WENTZ: There's a bunch of junk in there: a Morrissey poster, I think a Cher poster, Edward Scissorhands. We submitted it to Fueled by Ramen, and they were like, 'We can't clear any of this stuff.’ The original album cover did eventually come out on the vinyl version.

STUMP: The photo that ended up being the cover was simply a promo photo for that album cycle. We had to scramble. I was pushing the Blue Note jazz records feel. That's why the CD looks a bit like vinyl and why our names are listed on the front. I wanted a live photo on the cover. Pete liked the Blue Note idea but didn't like the live photo idea. I also made the fateful decision to have my name listed as 'Stump' rather than Stumph.

WENTZ: What we used was initially supposed to be the back cover. I remember someone in the band being pissed about it forever. Not everyone was into having our names on the cover. It was a strange thing to do at the time. But had the original cover been used, it wouldn't have been as iconic as what we ended up with. It wouldn't have been a conversation piece. That stupid futon in our house was busted in the middle. We're sitting close to each other because the futon was broken. The exposed brick wall was because it was the worst apartment ever. It makes me wonder: How many of these are accidental moments? At the time, there was nothing iconic about it. If we had a bigger budget, we probably would have ended up with a goofier cover that no one would have cared about.

STUMP: One of the things I liked about the cover was that it went along with something Pete had always said. I'm sure people will find this ironic, but Pete had always wanted to create a culture with the band where it was about all four guys and not just one guy. He had the foresight to even think about things like that. I didn't think anyone would give a fuck about our band! At the time, it was The Pete Wentz Band to most people. With that album cover, he was trying to reject that and [demonstrate] that all four of us mattered. A lot of people still don't get that, but whatever. I liked that element of the cover. It felt like a team. It felt like Voltron. It wasn't what I like to call 'the flying V photo' where the singer is squarely in the center, the most important, and everyone else is nearest the camera in order of 'importance.' The drummer would be in the very back. Maybe the DJ guy who scratches records was behind the drummer.

"You Need Him. I Could Be Him. Where Is Your Boy Tonight?" - The Dynamics of Punk Pop's Fab 4, 2003

Patrick seemed like something of the anti-frontman, never hogging the spotlight and often shrinking underneath his baseball hat. Wentz was more talkative, more out front on stage and in interviews, in a way that felt unprecedented for a bass player who wasn't also singing. In some ways, Fall Out Boy operated as a two-headed dictatorship. Wentz and Stump are in the car's front seat while Joe and Andy ride in the back.

STUMP: There is a lot of truth to that. Somebody must be in the front seat, no question. But the analogy doesn't really work for us; were more like a Swiss Army knife. You've got all these different attachments, but they are all part of the same thing. When you need one specific tool, the rest go back into the handle. That was how the band functioned and still does in many ways. Pete didn't want anyone to get screwed. Some things we've done might not have been the best business decision but were the right human decision. That was very much Pete's thing. I was 19 and very reactionary. If someone pissed me off, I'd be like, 'Screw them forever!' But Pete was very tactful. He was the business guy. Joe was active on the internet. He wouldn't stop believing in this band. He was the promotions guy. Andy was an honest instrumentalist: ‘I'm a drummer, and I'm going to be the best fucking drummer I can be.' He is very disciplined. None of us were that way aside from him. I was the dictator in the studio. I didn't know what producing was at the time or how it worked, but in retrospect, I've produced a lot of records because I'm an asshole in the studio. I'm a nice guy, but I'm not the nicest guy in the studio. It's a lot easier to know what you don't want. We carved out those roles early. We were very dependent on each other.

MCLYNN: I remember sitting in Japan with those guys. None of them were drinking then, but I was drinking plenty. It was happening there, their first time over, and all the shows were sold out. I remember looking at Pete and Patrick and telling Pete, ‘You're the luckiest guy in the world because you found this guy.' Patrick laughed. Then I turned to Patrick and said the same thing to him. Because really, they're yin and yang. They fit together so perfectly. The fact that Patrick found this guy with this vision, Pete had everything for the band laid out in his mind. Patrick, how he can sing, and what he did with Pete's lyrics - no one else could have done that. We tried it, even with the Black Cards project in 2010. We'd find these vocalists. Pete would write lyrics, and they'd try to form them into songs, but they just couldn't do it the way Patrick could. Pete has notebooks full of stuff that Patrick turns into songs. Not only can he sing like that, but how he turns those into songs is an art unto itself. It's really the combination of those two guys that make Fall Out Boy what it is. They're fortunate they found each other.

"I Could Walk This Fine Line Between Elation And Success. We All Know Which Way I'm Going To Strike The Stake Between My Chest" - Fall Out Boy Hits the Mainstream, 2003

Released on May 6, 2003, Take This To Your Grave massively connected with fans. (Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girlfriend arrived in stores less than two months earlier.) While Take This To Your Grave didn't crack the Billboard 200 upon its release, it eventually spent 30 weeks on the charts. From Under the Cork Tree debuted in the Top 10 just two years later, largely on Grave's momentum. 2007's Infinity on High bowed at #1.

WENTZ: I remember noticing it was getting insane when we would do in-stores. We'd still play anywhere. That was our deal. We liked being able to sell our stuff in the stores, too. It would turn into a riot. We played a Hollister at the mall in Schaumburg, Illinois. A lot of these stores were pretty corporate with a lot of rules, but Hollister would let us rip. Our merch guy was wearing board shorts, took this surfboard off the wall, and started crowd-surfing with it during the last song. I remember thinking things had gotten insane right at that moment.

HURLEY: When we toured with Less Than Jake, there were these samplers with two of their songs and two of ours. Giving those out was a surreal moment. To have real promotion for a record... It wasn't just an ad in a 'zine or something. It was awesome.

MCLYNN: They toured with The Reunion Show, Knockout, and Punch-line. One of their first big tours as an opening act was with MEST. There would be sold-out shows with 1,000 kids, and they would be singing along to Fall Out Boy much louder than to MEST. It was like, 'What's going on here?' It was the same deal with Less Than Jake. It really started catching fire months into the album being out. You just knew something was happening. As a headliner, they went from 500-capacity clubs to 1500 - 2000 capacity venues.

WENTZ: We always wanted to play The Metro in Chicago. It got awkward when they started asking us to play after this band or that band. There were bands we grew up with that were now smaller than us. Headlining The Metro was just wild. My parents came.

MCLYNN: There was a week on Warped Tour, and there was some beel because these guys were up-and-comers, and some of the bands that were a little more established weren't too happy. They were getting a little shit on Warped Tour that week, sort of their initiation. They were on this little, shitty stage. So many kids showed up to watch them in Detroit, and the kids rushed the stage, and it collapsed. The PA failed after like three songs. They finished with an acapella, 'Where is Your Boy,’ and the whole crowd sang along.

WENTZ: That's when every show started ending in a riot because it couldn't be contained. We ended up getting banned from a lot of venues because the entire crowd would end up onstage. It was pure energy. We'd be billed on tour as the opening band, and the promoter would tell us we had to close the show or else everyone would leave after we played. We were a good band to have that happen to because there wasn't any ego. We were just like, "Oh, that's weird.' It was just bizarre. When my parents saw it was this wid thing, they said, 'OK, yeah, maybe take a year off from college.' That year is still going on.

MCLYNN: That Warped Tour was when the band's first big magazine cover, by far, hit the stands. I give a lot of credit to Norman Wonderly and Mike Shea at Alternative Press. They saw what was happening with Fall Out Boy and were like, 'We know it's early with you guys, but we want to give you a cover.' It was the biggest thing to happen to any of us. It really helped kick it to another level. It helped stoke the fires that were burning. This is back when bands like Green Day, Blink-182, and No Doubt still sold millions of records left and right. It was a leap of faith for AP to step out on Fall Out Boy the way they did.

STUMP: That was our first big cover. It was crazy. My parents flipped out. That wasn't a small zine. It was a magazine my mom could find in a bookstore and tell her friends. It was a shocking time. It's still like that. Once the surrealism starts, it never ends. I was onstage with Taylor Swift ten years later. That statement just sounds insane. It's fucking crazy. But when I was onstage, I just fell into it. I wasn't thinking about how crazy it was until afterward. It was the same thing with the AP cover. We were so busy that it was just another one of those things we were doing that day. When we left, I was like, 'Holy fuck! We're on the cover of a magazine! One that I read! I have a subscription to that!'

HURLEY: Getting an 'In The Studio' blurb was a big deal. I remember seeing bands 'in the studio' and thinking, Man, I would love to be in that and have people care that we're in the studio.' There were more minor things, but that was our first big cover.

STUMP: One thing I remember about the photo shoot is I was asked to take off my hat. I was forced to take it off and had been wearing that hat for a while. I never wanted to be the lead singer. I always hoped to be a second guitarist with a backup singer role. I lobbied to find someone else to be the proper singer. But here I was, being the lead singer, and I fucking hated it. When I was a drummer, I was always behind something. Somehow the hat thing started. Pete gave me a hat instead of throwing it away - I think it's the one I'm wearing on the cover of Take This To Your Grave. It became like my Linus blanket. I had my hat, and I could permanently hide. You couldn't see my eyes or much of me, and I was very comfortable that way. The AP cover shoot was the first time someone asked me to remove it. My mom has a poster of that cover in her house, and every time I see it, I see the fear on my face - just trying to maintain composure while filled with terror and insecurity. ‘Why is there a camera on me?'

JANICK: We pounded the pavement every week for two years. We believed early on that something great was going to happen. As we moved to 100,000 and 200,000 albums, there were points where everything was tipping. When they were on the cover of Alternative Press. When they did Warped for five days, and the stage collapsed. We went into Christmas with the band selling 2000 to 3000 a week and in the listening stations at Hot Topic. Fueled By Ramen had never had anything like that before.

MOSTOFI: Pete and I used to joke that if he weren't straight edge, he would have likely been sent to prison or worse at some point before Fall Out Boy. Pete has a predisposition to addictive behavior and chemical dependency. This is something we talked about a lot back in the day. Straight Edge helped him avoid some of the traps of adolescence.

WENTZ: I was straight edge at the time. I don't think our band would have been so successful without that. The bands we were touring with were partying like crazy. Straight Edge helped solidify the relationship between the four of us. We were playing for the love of music, not for partying or girls or stuff like that. We liked being little maniacs running around. Hurley and I were kind of the younger brothers of the hardcore kids we were in bands with. This was an attempt to get out of that shadow a little bit. Nobody is going to compare this band to Racetraitor. You know when you don't want to do exactly what your dad or older brother does? There was a little bit of that.

"Take This To Your Grave, And I'll Take It To Mine" - The Legacy of Take This To Your Grave, 2003-2023

Take This To Your Grave represents a time before the paparazzi followed Wentz to Starbucks, before marriages and children, Disney soundtracks, and all the highs and lows of an illustrious career. The album altered the course for everyone involved with its creation. Crush Music added Miley Cyrus, Green Day, and Weezer to their roster. Fueled By Ramen signed Twenty One Pilots, Paramore, A Day To Remember, and All Time Low.

STUMP: I'm so proud of Take This To Your Grave. I had no idea how much people were going to react to it. I didn't know Fall Out Boy was that good of a band. We were this shitty post-hardcore band that decided to do a bunch of pop-punk before I went to college, and Pete went back to opening for Hatebreed. That was the plan. Somehow this record happened. To explain to people now how beautiful and accidental that record was is difficult. It seems like it had to have been planned, but no, we were that shitty band that opened for 25 Ta Life.

HURLEY: We wanted to make a record as perfect as Saves The Day's Through Being Cool. A front-to-back perfect collection of songs. That was our obsession with Take This To Your Grave. We were just trying to make a record that could be compared in any way to that record. There's just something special about when the four of us came together.

WENTZ: It blows my mind when I hear people talking about Take This To Your Grave or see people including it on lists because it was just this tiny personal thing. It was very barebones. That was all we had, and we gave everything we had to it. Maybe that's how these big iconic bands feel about those records, too. Perhaps that's how James Hetfield feels when we talk about Kill 'Em All. That album was probably the last moment many people had of having us as their band that their little brother didn't know about. I have those feelings about certain bands, too. 'This band was mine. That was the last time I could talk about them at school without anyone knowing who the fuck I was talking about.' That was the case with Take This To Your Grave.

TROHMAN: Before Save Rock N' Roll, there was a rumor that we would come back with one new song and then do a Take This To Your Grave tenth-anniversary tour. But we weren't going to do what people thought we would do. We weren't going to [wear out] our old material by just returning from the hiatus with a Take This To Your Grave tour.

WENTZ: We've been asked why we haven't done a Take This To Your Grave tour. In some ways, it's more respectful not to do that. It would feel like we were taking advantage of where that record sits, what it means to people and us.

HURLEY: When Metallica released Death Magnetic, I loved the record, but I feel like Load and Reload were better in a way, because you knew that's what they wanted to do.

TROHMAN: Some people want us to make Grave again, but I'm not 17. It would be hard to do something like that without it being contrived. Were proud of those songs. We know that’s where we came from. We know the album is an important part of our history.

STUMP: There's always going to be a Take This To Your Grave purist fan who wants that forever: But no matter what we do, we cannot give you 2003. It'll never happen again. I know the feeling, because I've lived it with my favorite bands, too. But there's a whole other chunk of our fans who have grown with us and followed this journey we're on. We were this happy accident that somehow came together. It’s tempting to plagarize yourself. But it’s way more satisfying and exciting to surprise yourself.

MCILRITH: Fall Out Boy is an important band for so many reasons. I know people don't expect the singer of Rise Against to say that, but they really are. If nothing else, they created so much dialog and conversation within not just a scene but an international scene. They were smart. They got accused of being this kiddie pop punk band, but they did smart things with their success. I say that, especially as a guy who grew up playing in the same Chicago hardcore bands that would go on and confront be-ing a part of mainstream music. Mainstream music and the mainstream world are machines that can chew your band up if you don't have your head on straight when you get into it. It's a fast-moving river, and you need to know what direction you're going in before you get into it. If you don't and you hesitate, it'll take you for a ride. Knowing those guys, they went into it with a really good idea. That's something that the hardcore instilled in all of us. Knowing where you stand on those things, we cut our teeth on the hardcore scene, and it made us ready for anything that the world could throw at us, including the giant music industry.

#long post #lke. VERY long post #fall out boy #fob #take this to your grave #tttyg #patrick stump #pete wentz #joe trohman #andy hurley #if theres any typos lmk and i'll fix em this. hust took fucking forever to transcribe.

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whenmemorydies · 4 days

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Violence and Love in Monkey Man

Dev Patel's Monkey Man has played at my mind for two weeks now. This is for reasons that I'm able to articulate and for many that I probably have not yet been able to find the words for. This post is, in part, my attempt at sorting through some of my thoughts. My tumblr is all spoilers all the time. If you don’t want that, then please don’t read on.

Violence

Like most places in the world, systemic violence is a scourge in India. Monkey Man does not shy away from this reality and depicts Hindu nationalist state violence and violence against women and gendered minorities in the country to chilling effect.

We come to see this in the brutal rape and murder of Kid's activist mother at the hands of the police, while she tries to shield her child and her land from police and state terror. We see it in the treatment of (largely femme-presenting) sex workers in the two brothels featured in the film, including one frequented by the police and political elite. We see it in the violence and ostracisation meted out against the hijra, or third gender community by individual actors and the state more broadly. We see it in the state-orchestrated razing of an entire community after the land on which it sits is declared a "holy site". We see it in the movement of people from the regions to the city after their land has been stolen and the grinding poverty they face as a result.

Unlike so many action films, none of the violence in Monkey Man occurs in a vacuum. Even Kid's original means of making money in an underground fighting ring is done against the backdrop of his forced displacement from regional India to the city - a migration pathway that many in the country have been forced to take and which is a direct result of land theft and resource extraction in the regions by local and multinational corporations as well as federal and state governments.

The truth is that so much in relation to state and societal control is enacted in painful and violent ways on the bodies of the marginalised and oppressed. And I often think about how the horror and action genres are some of the best suited to speak about systemic injustice because of their capacity to make that violence uncompromisingly visible (one recent example is Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass which depicted the bloody fallout of the Christian missionary/colonial project in vivid crimson, splashed all over a non-descript maritime town in present-day America). The violence in Monkey Man is no different.

While Kid's realisation of the interconnectedness and heavy hand of the state not just in the violence experienced by his mother, but also by the hijra, and by sex workers like Sita comes later in the movie, we as the audience are given this insight earlier. Recall Kid pointing out to Sita that her tattoo is of a koel, not a sparrow as originally misidentified by the Australian client sexually assaulting her minutes earlier in the film.

Kid goes on to say that he grew up in the forest and woke up to koels singing everyday. Its the longest conversation that the two have but in those brief words, we understand that Sita too has likely been displaced to the city from the regions, probably under very similar circumstances to Kid. The way this displacement maps itself onto her body is distinctive to how it does so for Kid, with gender playing a large role in this.

Other factors like caste, class and religion also impact on how the characters in this film experience or perpetrate violence. I would write more on these intersections but then this post is going to get more unwieldy than it already is.

I will say though, that in India, where fascist Hindu nationalism is being used by government to harm minority communities, steal land and secure populist votes, Patel makes a distinction between revelatory and weaponised faith. Kid is raised in peace by his mother with the former, but as an adult he lives in a world where the latter has taken hold and is being used by those in power to shore up more of that power for themselves.

For me - as the descendant of parents, grandparents and great grandparents who lived through anti-Tamil pogroms led by Sinhalese chauvinists weaponising Buddhism as part of their fascism in Sri Lanka, who like the rest of us, is living in an election year for Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India, and who is also frustratingly, helplessly bearing witness as the state of Israel and it’s allies conflate Zionism with Judaism in defence of the genocide being waged against Palestinians - watching this action film make the distinction between revelatory and weaponised faith was profound.

Love

Patel makes it a point in this film to show how Kid's most nourishing relationships, the ones that sustain him - indeed the ones that literally save his life - are those that he has with women and with people who don’t conform to the gender binary. In doing this, we see what Kid is fighting tooth (quite literally) and nail for throughout the film. We see what is at stake - what we stand to lose - if perpetrators get to rule without accountability.

Its also no mistake that these relationships are all tied visually to the natural world in the film: Kid's mother's deep ties to the earth, rivers, trees and roots that she leads him through as a child. Alpha and the hijra's sanctuary, the Ardhanareeshvara temple with its most sacred space being the roots of a holy tree. Sita and her koel tattoo: the memory of the forest carried on her skin while she traverses the brutal reality of the city. Patel is making a point here too. About nourishment of another kind, through our connection with the earth instead of extraction from it. The visuals in the film drive this point home, particularly when contrasted with the industrialisation and poverty of the city.

Two particular loving relationships that stood out for me were the love shared between Kid and the hijra community as well as between him and his mother.

Alpha, hijra Elder and the hijra community

Keeper of the Ardhanareeshvara Temple and hijra Elder, Alpha becomes a mother-figure to Kid after he is rescued with near-fatal injuries. It is Alpha who keeps watch over him as he recovers, helps Kid to confront the totality of his past memories which his trauma has kept fragmented, and who ultimately leads a veritable hijra army to join forces with him to assassinate some fascists.

Alpha's gentleness with Kid was so moving to see, in particular during the conversation they have about his attempt as a child to save his mother from the fire set by her rapist and murderer. That exchange moved me to tears.

Kid: I failed her.

Alpha: No. You tried to save her. You see scars. I see the courage of a child fighting to save his mother.

The wider hijra community at the temple also take Kid in and care for him during his recovery. Truly, the scenes at the temple were some of my favourite in Monkey Man. Outside of his memories of his mother, they are the only scenes where we see love, peace and joy on the faces of any of the characters in this film.

Also witness this moment of delight below as the hijra at the temple appreciate a fine ass man channelling his righteous anger and fucking up a punching bag full of rice. I note that the music during this training montage is simply stunning. Ustad Zakir Hussain's rapid fire tablas punctuated by each of Patel's landed punches and kicks and then followed by Jed Kurzel's achingly soaring instrumentals (listen to "The Kid" from the movie's score) were just *chef’s kiss*.

Another favourite moment for me was when Kid decides to go back to the underground fight ring one last time and not throw his matches (as he had been doing prior). He bets on himself and when he inevitably wins his fights, he takes the money and gives it to the hijra, ensuring that they can continue to live at the temple without fear of being evicted. We love to see a man who literally pays his rent.

Neela, his mother

Kid’s first teacher and the center of his life as a child. In almost every memory we are shown of her, Kid remembers his mother walking through a forest, sharing her ecological and religious knowledge with him and in doing so, positioning him within the wider world.

GIF by dailyflicks

We watch as he takes this understanding with him forward through the remainder of the film. His conversation as an adult with Alphonso as they drive through the city in the latter's tuk tuk is emblematic of this. "They don't even see us", Kid says of the elite who frequent the club where he has just gained employment, "they're all up there living and we are stuck in this."

His mother showed him what it was to live: to be still and in concert with the world and the Divine around you, to be loved fiercely, and to thrive as a result. This is in stark contrast to what Kid has had to learn to do in the city: to survive, to merely exist. He is never depicted resting or at home as an adult. He's always working, hustling and planning for the next thing, his next step. When he loses his village, his land and his mother as a child, Kid also inevitably loses his sense of home. It’s no coincidence that the tracks “Home” and “Mother” on the movie’s score sound almost identical.

Later at the end of the film, we see Kid close his eyes, having done what he set out to do. The last thing he sees is his mother, smiling at him in the forest. Her face is the face of God he gazes at before he succumbs to his injuries. This devotion to his mother is not just that of a child to a parent. Its also deeply tied to his Hindu faith which calls on its followers to honour the Divine Mother, the supreme feminine energy, Aathi Parashakthi, in all her manifestations including in those who mother us.

The movie ends with Kid’s deep, revelatory faith - instilled in him by his mother - and with the death of the man who weaponised that faith for power and wealth. It left all of us in the cinema seated in stunned silence even as the credits began to roll.

To describe Monkey Man as simply a revenge film does it an absolute disservice. This is not revenge. It is defence borne out of deep love for community and righteous opposition to injustice. Seeing hijra warriors dressed as Kali, the goddess of destruction, dealing death blows against fascists while spinning in the most beautiful lenghas was exhilarating (I literally screamed “YESSSSSSS!” at the screen when they arrived). Seeing Sita take out pimp and sex trafficker Queenie got me cackling and yelling “whoooop!”. Seeing Kid, a masculine character act to defend women and people outside of the gender binary, from further systemic harm without any ulterior motive was absolutely unreal to witness on the big screen. Seeing a person of faith act in deep connection to that faith without judgment against anyone but those who perpetrate harm made me feel hopeful in a way that took me by surprise. Kid acted out of love and respect. I would argue that Sita, the hijra and Kid all acted out of recognition of a shared humanity.

And at a time when folks from marginalised communities are being subjected to horrendous violence worldwide, both interpersonal and systemic, watching the oppressed take their perpetrators out…and I mean out (see: a rapist and murderer getting bludgeoned to death with a glittery high heel and a fascist, self-proclaimed “holy man” being stabbed in his third eye by the blade he hid in his own “sacred” pathankal/paduka), well, it was cathartic to see.

Am I saying violence is the answer to systemic violence? I think the answer to that question is context-specific. Non-violent resistance has a place, but it’s by necessity a performance and requires an audience. What do you do when no one’s watching? What do you do when the people who are watching are doing nothing to stop your suffering? What then? These questions are what many liberals refuse to grapple with because the answers are too uncomfortable for their polite sensibilities. But if you keep your foot on someone's neck long enough, you should expect them to fight back, by any means necessary. In Monkey Man, we have an action film where we get to witness that resistance in all its visceral glory.

#monkey man #dev patel #jordan peele #vipin sharma #adithi kalkunte #sobhita dhulipala #reva marchellin #dayangku zyana #this post is so fucking long but this movie has been sitting on my heart and my chest for days

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tearskillstardust · 2 months

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❝MY LETTER TO YOU, MY DARLING❞

021. 𝐗𝐈𝐀𝐎—lonesome transcendence does not make up for love.

📬 there's a letter for you in your mailbox!

Y/n,

You would know for certain that I am not familiar with such means of communication. I have assumed for quite a while that both of us wielding an Anemo vision would have meant that you could hear it when I spoke to the wind of you. Now that Moon Carver has clarified my doubt, I am willing to speak to you via this.

I'd still rather that you could speak to the wind.

Regardless, may it be that Inazuma is treating you well. Business of import and exports is always a busy one, and you've never been the kind to slack. The best thing about you as a person, perhaps. But I've heard from many that Inazuma is currently facing political turbulence and there may be problems in the sea route. I can't say much with certainty, but use your discernment. Bear in mind that you can only serve others so long as you yourself are doing well.

Rex La Zhongli believes that I've returned to my old, reclusive ways in the time you've been away. He didn't say it to me, he said it to Barba Venti, that bard from Mondstadt, when they were sharing wine in a room alone. I managed to hear it somehow, and still ponder it when I'm alone.

Old ways, huh.

I won't deny that you do make everything look easier. It's easier to speak to others when you're around. It's almost like I'm as normal as the next person, but alas, such mindset is hazardous for someone such as I.

But you turned it upside-down—every belief I had of me.

It was both refreshing and scary. I felt like listening closer to the sparrow, or keenly watch the water as it falls. I see pearls in them nowadays, and the flowers seem to sing. The wind reminds me of you—and I'm not so repulsed when I catch a glimpse of myself in the water. 'Like the moon', you said when I asked what I meant to you.

But I knew even then of your curious intimacy with the moon, dancing in its rays as though reborn of its plenilune gaze. How can I thank you, I really wonder sometimes. This perplexation is why, perhaps, I choose rather to express nothing of my feelings at all, and instead bestow upon you tokens of my infinite love.

You may be wondering where this is coming from.

Cloud Retainer said that Lantern Rite was almost a festival of love, though absent-mindedly. Moon Carver said everyone will listen if you know when to appeal to them. Traveller said expressing yourself to others brings them closer.

The bard said you would always love me.

Born of it was this letter, and flowers of Qingxin which are your favourite. I assume your tea packets must have nearly exhausted by now, so I'm sending some more. They're in another packet, do utilise them. If you ever need anything more, simply let me know, I'll be there for you.

Since you must be curious, everyone here is fine and enjoying themselves. They miss you, I overheard. I didn't approach anyone, in case you'd like to know, too. The usual.

Regardless, enjoy yourself in Inazuma. It is not so different from Liyue I've heard, though quieter. That would make sense. Don't be a dummy, and don't take any risks.

Keep safe.

Xiao.

p.s. I received your parcels, and since I'm no personal fan of sweets, I gave half of them to Qiqi, I hope you don't mind. The books are safe in your study and, yes, I really liked the rice wine, thank you.

taglist→ @navxry @reixtsu

please comment on the master post to be added to the taglist, thank you !

#💌my letter to you my darling #genshin #genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin imagines #genshin headcanons #xiao genshin impact #xiao x reader

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cryptidclaw · 1 year

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Cryptidclaw's WC Prefixes List!

Yall said you were interested in seeing it so here it is!

This is a collection of mostly Flora, Fauna, Rocks, and other such things that can be found in Britain since that’s where the books take place!

I also have other Prefixes that have to do with pelt colors and patterns as well!

Here’s a link to the doc if you dont want to expand a 650 word list on your Tumblr feed lol! the doc is also in my drive linked in my pined post!

below is the actual list! If there are any names you think I should add plz tell me!

EDIT: I will update the doc with new names as I come up with them or have them suggested to me, but I wont update the list on this post! Plz visit my doc for a more updated version!

Animals

Mammal

Badger

Bat

Bear

Beaver

Bison

Boar

Buck

Calf

Cow

Deer

Elk

Fawn

Ferret

Fox

Goat

Hare

Horse

Lamb

Lynx

Marten

Mole

Mouse

Otter

Rabbit

Rat

Seal

Sheep

Shrew

Squirrel

Stoat

Vole

Weasel

Wolf

Wolverine

Amphibians

Frog

Newt

Toad

Reptiles

Scale

Adder

Lizard

Snake

Turtle

Shell

Birds

Bird

Down

Feather

Albatross

Bittern

Buzzard

Chaffinch

Chick

Chicken

Coot

Cormorant

Corvid

Crane

Crow

Curlew

Dove

Duck

Dunlin

Eagle

Egret

Falcon

Finch

Gannet

Goose

Grouse

Gull

Hawk

Hen

Heron

Ibis

Jackdaw

Jay

Kestrel

Kite

Lark

Magpie

Mallard

Merlin

Mockingbird

Murrelet

Nightingale

Osprey

Owl

Partridge

Pelican

Peregrine

Petrel

Pheasant

Pigeon

Plover

Puffin

Quail

Raven

Robin

Rook

Rooster

Ruff

Shrike

Snipe

Sparrow

Starling

Stork

Swallow

Swan

Swift

Tern

Thrasher

Thrush

Vulture

Warbler

Whimbrel

Wren

Freshwater Fish

Fish

Bass

Bream

Carp

Dace

Eel

Lamprey

Loach

Minnow

Perch

Pike

Rudd

Salmon

Sterlet

Tench

Trout

Roach

Saltwater fish and other Sea creatures (would cats be able to find some of these? Probably not, I don't care tho)

Alge

Barnacle

Bass (Saltwater version)

Bream (Saltwater version)

Brill

Clam

Cod

Crab

Dolphin

Eel (Saltwater version)

Flounder

Garfish

Halibut

Kelp

Lobster

Mackerel

Mollusk

Orca

Prawn

Ray

Seal

Shark

Shrimp

Starfish

Sting

Urchin

Whale

Insects and Arachnids

Honey

Insect

Web

Ant

Bee

Beetle

Bug

Butterfly

Caterpillar

Cricket

Damselfly

Dragonfly

Fly

Grasshopper

Grub

Hornet

Maggot

Moth

Spider

Wasp

Worm

Trees

Acorn

Bark

Branch

Forest

Hollow

Log

Root

Stump

Timber

Tree

Twig

Wood

Alder

Apple

Ash

Aspen

Beech

Birch

Cedar

Cherry

Chestnut

Cypress

Elm

Fir

Hawthorn

Hazel

Hemlock

Linden

Maple

Oak

Pear

Poplar

Rowan

Redwood

Spruce

Willow

Yew

Flowers, Shrubs and Other plants

Berry

Blossom

Briar

Field

Flower

Leaf

Meadow

Needle

Petal

Shrub

Stem

Thicket

Thorn

Vine

Anemone

Apricot

Barley

Bellflower

Bluebell

Borage

Bracken

Bramble

Briar

Burnet

Buttercup

Campion

Chamomile

Chanterelle

Chicory

Clover

Cornflower

Daffodil

Daisy

Dandelion

Dogwood

Fallow

Fennel

Fern

Flax

Foxglove

Furze

Garlic

Ginger

Gorse

Grass

Hay

Heather

Holly

Honeysuckle

Hop

Hyacinth

Iris

Ivy

Juniper

Lavender

Lichen

Lilac

Lilly

Mallow

Marigold

Mint

Mistletoe

Moss

Mushroom

Nettle

Nightshade

Oat

Olive

Orchid

Parsley

Periwinkle

Pine

Poppy

Primrose

Privet

Raspberry

Reed

Reedmace

Rose

Rush

Rye

Saffron

Sage

Sedge

Seed

Snowdrop

Spindle

Strawberry

Tangerine

Tansy

Teasel

Thistle

Thrift

Thyme

Violet

Weed

Wheat

Woodruff

Yarrow

Rocks and earth

Agate

Amber

Amethyst

Arch

Basalt

Bounder

Cave

Chalk

Coal

Copper

Dirt

Dust

Flint

Garnet

Gold

Granite

Hill

Iron

Jagged

Jet

Mountain

Mud

Peak

Pebble

Pinnacle

Pit

Quartz

Ridge

Rock

Rubble

Ruby

Rust(y)

Sand

Sapphire

Sediment

Silt

Silver

Slate

Soil

Spire

Stone

Trench

Zircon

Water Formations

Bay

Cove

Creek

Delta

Lake

Marsh

Ocean

Pool

Puddle

River

Sea

Water

Weather and such

Autumn

Avalanche

Balmy

Blaze

Blizzard

Breeze

Burnt

Chill

Cinder

Cloud

Cold

Dew

Drift

Drizzle

Drought

Dry

Ember

Fall

Fire

Flame

Flood

Fog

Freeze

Frost

Frozen

Gale

Gust

Hail

Ice

Icicle

Lightening

Mist

Muggy

Rain

Scorch

Singe

Sky

Sleet

Sloe

Smoke

Snow

Snowflake

Soot

Sorrel

Spark

Spring

Steam

Storm

Summer

Sun

Thunder

Water

Wave

Wet

Wind

Winter

Celestial??

Comet

Dawn

Dusk

Evening

Midnight

Moon

Morning

Night

Noon

Twilight

Cat Features, Traits, and Misc.

Azure

Beige

Big

Black

Blonde

Blotch(ed)

Blue

Bounce

Bright

Brindle

Broken

Bronze

Brown

Bumble

Burgundy

Call

Carmine

Claw

Cobalt

Cream

Crimson

Cry

Curl(y)

Dapple

Dark

Dot(ted)

Dusky

Ebony

Echo

Fallen

Fleck(ed)

Fluffy

Freckle

Ginger

Golden

Gray

Green

Heavy

Kink

Knot(ted)

Light

Little

Lost

Loud

Marbled

Mew

Milk

Mottle

Mumble

Ochre

Odd

One

Orange

Pale

Patch(ed)

Pounce

Prickle

Ragged

Red

Ripple

Rough

Rugged

Russet

Scarlet

Shade

Shaggy

Sharp

Shimmer

Shining

Small

Smudge

Soft

Song

Speckle

Spike

Splash

Spot(ted)

Streak

Stripe(d)

Strong

Stump(y)

Sweet

Tall

Talon

Tangle

Tatter(ed)

Tawny

Tiny

Tough

Tumble

Twist

Violet

Whisker

Whisper

White

Wild

Wooly

Yellow

#cryptidclaw's warriors au #?#Im tempted to use these in the au #some characters deserve some more fun names hehe #rise of change #warrior cats #warrior cats design #warriors #warriors names #warriors naming #warriors prefixes

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1dmonthlyficroundup · 5 months

Text

— 1D Monthly Fic Roundup —

Hi, and welcome to the 1D Monthly Fic Roundup for November 2023! Below you’ll find 1D fics that were all published this month in the order they were submitted to the blog. We hope you’ll check out these new fics! If you would like to submit your own fic, please check this post on how to submit or visit our blog @1dmonthlyficroundup. You can find all our other posts here.

Happy reading!

＊ Ghosted by @haztobegood [NR, 666 words, Louis/Harry]

Harry had dragged his feet when his mate Liam invited him for drinks at Horan’s Pub. He’d wanted to spend his Friday night under fuzzy blankets with a good book and hot cocoa. Besides, he’d protested, they already planned to go out the following week for Halloween. While initially reluctant, Harry’s glad he came. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have met Louis.

＊ Crush by @allwaswell16 [T, 1k, Louis/Niall]

When Niall stops smiling around the office, his co-worker Louis sets out to lift his mood with the help of their office mates.

＊ if i'm being honest by @disgruntledkittenface [E, 22k, Niall/Harry]

Niall is perfectly happy in her dating life, always finding a reason to break things off before her relationships get serious. When she finally gets a chance with Harry, her dream girl, their friend Louis makes her promise to give her a real chance. The only problem is that Harry has a cat… and Niall is not a cat person. Instead of running like she usually does, Niall has to figure out how to live with an adorable menace. And when it starts to feel like love, Niall has to decide: Is she ready for the real thing?

Inspired by Must Be Love.

＊ Milk my mind and make me cream by LovelikeLou / @purrrhazza [NR, 6k, Harry/Louis]

Brooklyn Baby AU: Louis and Harry are both early 70s bohemians who live in Brooklyn, New York. Louis is a sweet and gentle beatnik who wears flamboyant clothes and reads his poetry at underground speakeasies. Harry sings and plays in a punk rock Sex Pistols-esque band, wears leather and hates authority figures. The two are hopelessly in love with each other.

＊ Tuca Tuca (ILikeYouILikeYouILikeYou) by @persephoneflouwers [E, 4k, Louis/Harry]

The San Francisco getaway AU, where Harry is needy and Louis has a flight to LA in a few hours.

＊ Words Weren't Enough by red_panda28 / @red-pandaaa [T, 2k, Harry/Louis]

Louis wandered into the living room, just watching Harry play for a bit.

It made Louis’ heart crack a little, seeing him like that; hunched over the keys, the muscles on his back tense. But it was a quiet sniffle that Louis finally jerked into action, carefully approaching the slumped figure on the piano bench.

“Hey, darling.”

OR Louis finds Harry practicing the piano piece for his last show late at night, and there are some tears, memories and playing the piano together involved

＊ Because Sparrows Mate For Life by magpielivingforglitter / @builtyouahousefromabrokenhome [E, 24k, Louis/Harry]

During his brief awkward small talk phase, the previous tattoo artist had asked about why Harry was getting “a bird tattoo”, too, though without specifying the species. And Harry had started to explain it, but then he’d felt like his reasons were too private and intimate to share with that guy, and most of it didn’t apply anymore, anyway, since the birds were going to be swallows now. So he’d just stammered something incoherent, and then tried to save it by adding that basically he thought they looked cool.

Now, Harry felt like Louis was genuinely interested, and wanted to know so that he’d be able to make the tattoo the way Harry liked it. And beyond that, Harry had a feeling that he could tell Louis anything, and Louis would take him seriously.

So he told Louis all about his reasons. Louis listened intently, and chuckled at the Dark Half references.

Harry even told him about the ‘mating for life’ part.

Louis smiled softly. “I respect that”, he said. “I’m a bit of a romantic, myself.”

For some reason, that made Harry blush.

(Harry’s tattoo gets done all wrong, and he needs someone to fix it.)

＊ must be love by @nouies [NR, 6k, Louis/Andrew Garfield]

AU where Louis doesn’t know how to approach his neighbour, and Andrew keeps receiving homegrown vegetables at his door.

＊ Feeling Feline by LadyAJ_13 / @ladyaj-13 [T, 4k, Niall/Louis]

“I’m telling you,” drifts through the cracked door, and Louis’ ears prick, twitching with interest. “There’s something wrong with that cat.”

“Have you talked to Liam?” asks another voice, worried. Louis thinks it’s the tall one with curly hair. Taller one. They’re all tall when you’re ten inches high.

“Not medically wrong,” the blond one says. “But I swear, and I know this sounds nuts, but I don’t think he’s a cat?”

＊ Fine Line by LadyAJ_13 / @ladyaj-13 [G, 1k, Louis/Nick Grimshaw]

Telling his family was always going to be a big deal, but doing it alone was a sacrifice he could make.

He never thought they’d fall about laughing.

＊ In The Dark by LadyAJ_13 / @ladyaj-13 [T, 666 words, no pairing]

It’s the dreams.

He’d be fine without the dreams… suggesting things. If he could face all this - whatever this is - with a clear, rested mind.

＊ lonely in [paris] by f_ckromeoandjuliet / @louiesonlyangel [T, 5k, Awsten Knight]

Summer flings are complicated and healing comes from the strangest places. // Alternate version of Louis's tour where he's in a secret relationship with Awsten Knight from Waterparks. Based on Awsten tweeting at Louis.

＊ Got My Chaos Automatic by LetTheMusicMoveYou / @letthemusicmoveyou28 [E, 3k, Zayn/Louis/Liam]

Louis shrugs his shoulders as nonchalantly as he can manage in his aroused state. “Let you stay in my house didn’t I?” He narrows his eyes at the spliff still between Liam’s fingers. “Let you smoke my weed. Seems like a fair trade to me.”

Liam raises a brow challengingly. His expression is mostly unimpressed, but even from the other side of the room, Louis can still see the glint in Liam’s eyes.

He likes it when Louis makes him work for it too.

Zayn chuckles darkly. “Looks like someone came home with an attitude. What’s wrong Lou? No one on the road with you that could put you in your place hmm?”

(Or the one where Louis comes home from tour feeling exhausted, yet antsy. Luckily, Liam and Zayn are there to put him back together).

＊ part time soulmates (full time problem) by localopa / @voulezloux [M, 12k, Louis/Harry]

sworn enemies harry and louis are soulmates. everything is going smoothly until the pain hits.

＊ it's the summer of our love by localopa / @voulezloux [G, 3k, Louis/Ryan Ross]

ryan is in love with his best friend and gym bro, louis. the problem? ryan is straight.

＊ if it feels like love (then it must be love) by localopa / @voulezloux [G, 2k, Niall/Shawn Mendes]

niall and shawn are in love. if they could both realize this, that would be lovely.

＊ I See You by @neondiamond [NR, 666 words, Harry/Louis]

An unfamiliar voice disturbs Harry during his bath.

＊ Lucky (In Love) by @neondiamond [G, 3k, Louis/Harry]

When Louis first volunteered to drop off his nephew Lucky at nursery to help out his nervous sister, he was not expecting the owner to be the most gorgeous man in all of London. He makes sure he’ll get to see him again.

＊ softer than satin by cinnamons / @sunbellylou [E, 4k, Louis/Joel (The Last of Us)]

“Wanna go back to bed,” Louis whispered languidly, voice partly muffled by his boyfriend’s lips on his. “Mm, but we just got up, baby,” Joel murmured. Lips touching softly with each syllable. Hands groping the soft flesh around Louis’ hips, kneading at the skin there and feeling his curves.

＊ in the hope of open hands (series) by @justanothershadeofblue [T, 21k, OT5]

Five times the pack is protective of omega Harry, and one time Harry protects them. Featuring Louis and Liam as alphas, Zayn and Niall as betas, and Harry’s as the band's lone omega. A year and some change in which they’re all falling for each other and not quite getting their shit together (until they do, of course).

＊ Simmer Down and Pucker Up by @silverstuff50 [E, 9k, Louis/Harry]

When Louis' sister invites his ex to her wedding Louis is not a happy bunny. But his friends are wankers and their meddling causes the sort of drama that Louis would usually beat the crap out of them for.

Usually...

＊ Just Hold On by @silverstuff50 [M, 3k, Harry/Louis]

“Harry, I’m fine.” Louis says soothingly. “I know I’m safe because you and Joni are there. As long as I can feel you holding me I know I’ll be ok.”

Harry flushes again and can’t stop himself thinking about his hands on Louis' warm skin. He shakes his head stubbornly, half to protest and half to clear his head of the thought.

“It’s just not safe. You’re surrounded by people grabbing and pulling at you.” He looks Louis up and down appraisingly. “And you’re so-“ he stops himself when Joni shoots him a warning look.

“If the next word you say is “small” I will fire you.” Louis says with narrowed eyes. Harry's shoulders slump.

“I wasn’t going to say small.” He was going to say small. “I was going to say, um, reckless.”

＊ she bit someone by larry_hiatus / @larry-hiatus [M, 666 words, Louis/Harry]

Having a little vampire for a daughter is hard enough, but on that one night a year where the air feels darker and human children are trying to ring the bell for candy, it becomes even more difficult.

＊ Hit me baby one more time by @louisthiccsexyglitteryass [E, 12k, Harry/Louis]

Louis is a boxer, and hates one of the members of his club, Harry Styles. Life has a funny way of showing Louis that maybe he doesn't hate Harry as much as he thought, or that Louis maybe finds Harry hot.

#28th appreciation #trackinghappily #trackinghome #ficsfor4am #tracksintheam #1dsource #hltracks #hljournal #hlcreators

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the-phoenix-heart · 3 months

Text

Sorting Hat Chats - A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Heeeey I'm back again. Hunger Games is one of my recent hyperfixations, so I'm doing a sorting of the latest book/film. I'll only be sorting Coriolanus Snow and Lucy-Gray Baird in this post. And Dr. Gaul oops.

An explanation of the system I am using can be found here. (Credit: @wisteria-lodge )

SPOILERS FOR A BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES BOOK AND FILM

LUCY-GRAY BAIRD is a thriving, healthy Snake secondary through and through. She loves performing, she loves playing coy, and she clearly relishes in getting one up on her enemies. This is a woman who turn her death sentence into a concert. Her plan to defeat Reaper, someone larger and deadlier than her, is to piss him off and give him the run around until he dies of exhaustion (or drinks from a poisoned puddle). To get one up on Mayfair when her name is called Lucy-Gray puts a snake in her dress to freak her out and subsequently humiliate her on live TV. No punches held back.

She's described by her actress as "a performer in a hunt," and she is. She always gives off the impression that she is always acting and always authentic in every moment. Snow certainly can never tell if she's lying or not and for all his faults he is smart.

CORIOLANUS SNOW meanwhile is a Bird secondary (I know, oh the irony) and the two secondaries slot in well together. In ABOSAS we see how he is always calculating in every interaction how he can leverage this for the most gain. He wears a carefully manufactured mask playing up whatever trait he has to to get what he wants from the person he is talking to. That's the Actor Bird in him, he can't just become someone like Lucy-Gray can. Which is why Snow works so well as a mentor for her. He can make all the plans he wants and give her every advantage to win, and she can immediately go along with it without skipping a beat.

We also see his Bird secondary on full display when he starts to come into power. He immediately starts making plans for the 11th Hunger Games when he comes back to the Capitol. His signature method for killing people is poison, and in sixty years that never changes. It's a risky plan that always works so why would he change it? And of course we know after he becomes president just how much effort he puts into controlling Katniss with more and more plans.

As for their primaries, well, that's why they constantly misunderstand each other. Coriolanus and Lucy-Gray look at each other and they both see a Snake primary, but those aren't their true sortings. Lucy-Gray is wearing a Snake primary model, and Coriolanus is wearing a Snake primary performance, not even a model.

Lucy-Gray loves the Covey, but at the end of the day when Mayor Lipp wants her dead Lucy-Gray doesn't need to think twice about running away. She knows they can take care of themselves, and she values her own freedom above anything else. It's apparent also in how she treats Billy-Taupe. She loved him once, but the moment he cheated on her she immediately cut him out of her life and doesn't seem to regret that decision. "Without trust you might as well be dead to me."

Lucy-Gray is a Lion primary, and like her secondary it's healthy. Her mantra is "Nothing you can take from me was ever worth keeping." She's another example of the Jack Sparrow style of Lion primary, the Fae lion. Freedom is good and control is bad. It's also why when she leaves Snow she makes it a whole production where she sings him "The Hanging Tree" and runs around him as a way to fuck with him. She knows that Corio isn't the man she thought he was and she wants to show him she knows.

Lucy-Gray is the Yin to Katniss's Yang. Katniss is a famous Snake Lion, and Lucy-Gray is the inverse of that, a Lion Snake. That quote about Lucy-Gray being a performer in a hunt is followed by Katniss being "a hunter in a performance." The revolution in a small way begins with Lucy-Gray and is ended by Katniss. Lucy-Gray loves freedom before all else, and that means she is never going to fight the Capitol like Katniss would, "it's too early for [K]atniss," she says. But Katniss is that Snake primary who loves so deeply and devastatingly that of COURSE she would end up fighting the Capitol.

But I think Lucy-Gray likes Snake primaries. I think she likes how much the value freedom, but also the way they value their people. That's what she sees when she sees Snow, a man who will do anything to protect the people he loves over himself. But that's just a performance Snow puts on, because he knows that looks much more nobler than what he actually is.

Snow actually primary matches Lucy-Gray. When we see him he's a young lion. The impression I get from Snow is entitlement. He thinks because of the way he was born that he just inherently deserves to have what is owed to him. But after it's found out that he cheated to help Lucy-Gray win, he is stripped of what little he had and sent to be a peacekeeper. He doesn't know what he wants anymore, because he can't have what he truly wants, so he convinces himself what he wants is Lucy-Gray. Except, the moment he realizes he can absolutely still get that power he turns on her immediately.

His goals never change, in the end Snow does indeed land on top, as he achieves those goals. He becomes president, and then it becomes all about maintaining power and control. And that's the real crux of his Lion primary. Like Lucy-Gray he is a Fae Lion, but on the opposite end of the spectrum. Power and control are good, and he should have that over everyone else in the world. I also see his primary in his method of choice for killing people. He willingly poisons himself so no one catches on, that is some lion devotion to his cause of control.

But, despite him trying to appear completely composed at all times, you can see that very emotional Lion primary underneath it all. I mean, he's clearly obsessed with screwing over Katniss's life in particular because he sees both Lucy-Gray and Sejanus in her. Meanwhile everything he does that fucks with Peeta is to fuck with her, despite the fact that he was also part of that suicide threat. He doesn't like that emotional Lion I think. What he wants is to maintain control over everything, and the appear as though he has this carefully constructed worldview/ideology. He has these intelligent/convincing arguments on the power of hope and the purpose of the games. It can look very Bird to people, and I think it is. DR. GAUL is absolutely a Double Bird Mad Scientist, and I think Snow adopted a Bird primary model based off of hers.

So...

Lucy-Gray Baird - Lion primary, Snake model/Snake secondary

Coriolanus Snow - Lion primary, Bird model and Snake performance/Bird secondary

Dr. Gaul - Bird primary/Bird secondary

#lucy-gray and snow to me are so effective as a couple because they are doomed #they thought they loved each other because they saw themselves in the other #but at the end of the day corio only values control and lucy-gray values freedom above all else #sortinghatchats #sorting hat chats #lucy gray baird #coriolanus snow #lion snake #lion bird #the hunger games #a ballad of songbirds and snakes #abosas #thg

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sygni · 3 months

Note

Dear user sygni,

I've been looking and coming back to your art occasionally. One of your Grian drawings is saved in favorites of my gallery.

Your artstyle feels like lightness of a feather and your essence feels like a flight of the sparrow. Yet there's Hawk's wings within your soul. Seeing your creations feels wild and wonderful in same way a songbird sings in the morning.

The Grian drawing I have saved has different images, texturing the piece's colors. They all feel unified and continuous, but free and natural at the same time. Such is meant to be, the World.

I come here to ask for something. Something that you are not proud of, perhaps an abandoned drawing or doodles of scrapped ideas. I'll treasure them well.

That is all.

Sincerely,

Marcus blood-smith

aw! thanks for such nice words, i really appreciate it <3 it's always a pleasure to know that ppl love my art so much to the point of feeling something from it.

i am mostly not saving scrapped stuff, but i have something i never posted on tumblr!

this grian gif \/

some scarian \/

stuff with my selfsona (and friens)

the last one is also my pfp (wow)

#sima talks

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seenoversundown · 4 months

Text

Sparrow Of the Dawn : Chapter 2

Warnings: Drinking, Self deprecating humor, otherwise fluff - unfortunately comedic themes.

Word Count: 3.7k

Summary : Sam unfortunately finds himself in not so meet cute with Willa. Hopeful that he doesn't cross her path again; the world works in mysterious ways and not always in your favor.

Author's Note: I was too excited for you to meet Willa officially, and want you to love her as much as I do! The official posting schedule for Sparrow of The Dawn will be on Sundays. Things are only beginning for these two and boy does it get GOOOD. 💜

You’re So Vain - Carly Simon “You’re so vain You probably think this song is about you”

Honestly speaking, I don’t even know why I’m here. Dating is not something that is hugely important to me. I like my independence too much and really there is nothing a man can do for me that I can’t already do for myself. I said what I said. But Katie swore up and down that this guy, Jeff, was a good guy, and I needed to get out of the house. Or, at least, I thought I wanted to get out of the house until this morning.

My roommate Quinn has been going through a terrible, messy breakup with a complete ASS of a man. It’s their first break-up I’m going through with them; even though we met in college a few years ago, they’ve never really dated much. In my attempt to cheer them up, though they don’t seem like they really need it, I went to the farmers market to grab them some flowers and ran into another complete ASS of a man. It has left me feeling a bit hopeless regarding the male species.

So anyway, here I am.. At a bar.. On a first date. He clearly put a lot of effort into this. He didn’t bother to get out of the car when he came to pick me up, didn’t open the front door when we got here, and he’s wearing a Celtics jersey over a white t-shirt and Timberlands. Not exactly my type, but I'm trying hard not to let my shitty day sour my mood and attempt to give him the benefit of the doubt. I, however, wore a short black sleeveless dress with a high neck, a black leather blazer jacket, tights, and ankle boots because I was trying to impress him. Like I said, the difference in effort is astounding.

After getting our IDs checked by the tall, curly-headed bouncer, we settle into a booth toward the back, looking over the paper menu at the drink specials. I’m surprised there isn’t a QR code menu here. I heard the owner of this place was fairly young, and most places nowadays use QR codes over regular menus.

“What are you going to get?” I ask Jeff, trying to make conversation. He’s busy looking at his phone instead.

“Huh?” not even bothering to look up at me, “Oh, uhm, I’ll probably just get a bud light or something.”

Riiiiight, okay. I really should have stayed home. I let out a huff of air, resting my chin against my hand. Bored with lack of conversation and an underwhelming date, I take to people-watching. There’s so much life in this bar tonight, such a stark contrast to the man sitting across from me. People in their costumes, brightly colored wigs, all adorning smiles and laughing loudly. The red hue from the neon lights and colorful display of the jukebox only added to the atmosphere. Carly Simon sings to me through the speakers. I close my eyes, listening to her words, I always loved this song. I wonder if he’d even notice if I left and weaseled my way into one of these stranger’s tables instead. No, probably not.

“So, do you want a beer or something?” Jeff asks plainly.

“Yeah, I’ll just have one of whatever you’re having.” I don’t even like beer that much. I’m more of a rum kind of gal. Something tells me he wants to be here as much as I do and doesn’t actually care what I’d like to drink.

“Okay, I’ll be right back.” I give him a small smile as he gets up and heads toward the bar to place our order. At least he’s starting a tab for us; I can count that as a win.

My eyes scan the bar once more, searching for a form of entertainment, when I spot him behind the bar, standing next to a shorter man with a mustache who looks eerily similar to him. The guy from the flower truck. They’re both staring at me, but only one of them has the decency to look away when I make eye contact, and it's not the flower guy. What the ever-loving fuck is he doing here? Does he work here? There’s no way he’s the owner. No way. Right? I avert my gaze as Jeff returns with two bottles of Bud Light, sliding me one across the table. I internally sigh, knowing this date is going to drag.

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Maybe if I squint, my ears will start to focus and listen to what Jeff is actually saying. I have no idea what he’s been going on about, but I swear it’s been half an hour, and I’ve retained nothing. Is he talking about sports? His job? A hobby?

“I think they’ll probably end up making a trade,” he says, his phone still in his hand.

Literally no fucking idea. It's not like he’s taken any interest in me or made any attempt to make this conversation anything other than one-sided. I opt to search for him again, curiosity taking its hold on my eyes.

“You guys all set?” Flower truck guy says, right behind me. It startles me so bad I jump a little, causing me to knock over my half-drunk beer.

“Shit,” I say, standing up and trying to find some napkins, “I’m so sorry.” God, can this night get any worse?

“Oh fucks sake,” Jeff says just as it spills onto his lap. “Are you kidding me?” All he does is glare at me with his hands up, helpless. Yes. Yes, it can get worse, apparently.

Flower truck guy sets down the towel previously stored in his back pocket and starts to wipe up my mess. Great, I’ve spilled my drink on my date, and as boring as he is, I still wanted to make a good impression, and the guy who took all the irises I wanted to get for Quinn is now cleaning up my mess. I can’t believe how much of a disaster this is right now.

“Katie didn’t say you were so fucking clumsy,” his annoyed tone is like knives against my brain.

“It was an accident, Jeff,” I say, throwing him back some attitude.

He takes the towel right from Flower Boy's hand and starts to try to clean himself up. In realizing it's a bit too wet from mopping up the table he tosses it back to him.

“God, girls,” he rolls his eyes and elbows Flower Boy, “amiright?”

“Yeahhh, don’t bring me into that commentary, champ.” Flower boy raises his eyebrows. Jeff scoffs at him and turns, heading toward, what I can assume is the bathroom.

I sit back down in my chair and rest my head in my hands. “Good god,” I say aloud, mostly to myself. I can count on two hands how many times I’ve thought about the fact that I should have stayed home. Next time, I’ll trust my gut. It’s damn near never led me astray.

“What a winner you got there, dagger fingers.”

I lift my head then and glare at him for the second time that day. Dagger fingers? I don’t care how unsuccessful my date is going or how much of a douchebag he just was. I will not let this man get the better of me again. I take a deep breath in through my nose, trying to calm down.

“Would you be happy if you just got a drink spilled on you? No, I don’t suppose you would be.” I try to lay the snark on thick.

He looks around confused, “Last time I checked..Yeah,” he shakes his head up and down aggressively, “Yeah, I do work in a bar. Do you have any idea how often that occurs?” It's my turn to scoff. “You really shouldn’t defend that guy. He’s a dick. He brings all his dates here. He was literally here two days ago with a different girl. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.” He reaches for the discarded towel and walks off.

Oh, this guy. The fucking audacity of this guy. Who the hell does he think he is? I immediately grab my pocketbook and jacket and stalk after him, following his footsteps all the way to the counter where he’s handing the shorter guy from earlier the tray and towel he had been holding.

“Do you know what your fucking problem is?” I huff out, jabbing him in the chest with my finger. You call my fingers daggers, and I’ll use them as such. I set my purse on the counter to my right and slip on my jacket.

Mustache man lets out a loud laugh, “Oh sweetheart, you don’t even know the half of it.”

“Uhm.. Ow?” he says, rubbing at his shoulder. “And you, shut up. I wanna know exactly what my problem is. This should be good.” He crosses his arms against his chest. Waiting. In my flurry of anger, I hadn’t exactly worked out what his problem actually is. Just that he seems fucking arrogant and has been a thorn in my side one too many times today. “She doesn’t even know me. She’s just accosted me, twice in one day, in fact, and is now making assumptions based on nothing. Thanks for that, by the way, I don’t know how I got to be so lucky.” he finishes.

I can see the surprised look on Jake’s face in my periphery. “Aww,” I place my hand on my chest, “cute of you to talk about me already. I’ll tell you, I am a bit surprised, though, considering you think you’re the only person to walk the planet. It’s like the whole world revolves around you. Flower Boy’s world, and we're all just livin’ in it." I emphasize my sentiment with a dramatic roll of my eyes.

Another howl of laughter escapes the peanut gallery to my right. Flower Boy rubs his fingers across his chin, eyes narrowing on me. “Yeah, I’m clearly the problem here. But it’s not my date that’s sneaking out the front door and leaving me with the bill, now is it, Babydoll ?” He raises his eyebrows toward the entrance. As I follow his line of sight toward the door, I just make out the back of Jeff’s head as it closes behind him. Wonderful. I turn back around, and my eyes land on the smirk resting on his lips. If he wasn’t so cocky in this moment, I might appreciate that smirk. The thought alone only serves to fuel my anger.

“Hey,” Jake says, tapping the bar rapidly to get our attention, effectively drawing my gaze away from his lips, “Listen, I would love to listen to you humble Sammy boy here. But you’re slowly entertaining the entire bar. Either talk it out quietly or go get some fresh air… Please.”

I pause to glance around at the eyes trained on us. A wave of embarrassment washes over me. Taking that opportunity to dig through my bag, I pull out a twenty-dollar bill and slam it onto the counter, looking Sammy Boy directly in the eyes. “Thanks for the amazing hospitality, Jake. I’ll make sure to give you a 5-star review. You deserve it, dealing with this schmuck.”

As I exit, I pull out my phone and step to the side, trying to order myself an Uber now that I’ve been abandoned. I swear to god, Katie is never going to hear the end of this when I see her next. I tap through the app and hit another extraordinary stroke of luck today. There are no drivers available. The heavy creek of the front door opens, and Flower Noy.. Sammy pops his head out. There is nowhere for me to hide, fuck.

As he approaches me, he has his hands up in mock surrender. “Look, why don’t you just have a seat at the bar? We’ll get a replacement drink.. On the house, you can just hang out for a bit.” He then reaches into his back pocket and pulls out my twenty from earlier and hands it to me. I snatch it from him with a bit more force than I intend. Why is he being nice to me now? And why is it so irritating?

My phone vibrates in my hand, and I swipe the notification. A driver has picked up my ride, oh thank god.

“I’d rather rot in hell, actually.” I regret the words as soon as they're out of my mouth. I regret them even more when I dare to look him in the face. I may not like him, but it's not his fault my date was an asshole. He’s just the unfortunate person to continually be on the receiving end of.. Well me. I can feel the will to stay angry start to dissipate as the guilt takes over; I’m more tired and ready for this day to be over than anything right now.

Sammy just sighs loudly, mumbling under his breath, “Not sure why I even bother,” before disappearing back inside. Ugh.

When the Uber arrives, I slide my phone back into my purse and hop into the back seat. Thankfully, my driver is a man of few words, in lieu of conversation, I instead let the words of ‘Crimson and Clover’ dance around my ears.

“When she comes walking over

Now I've been waitin' to show her

Crimson and clover”

I lean my head back against the headrest, my emotions hitting a breaking point. I really can’t remember the last time I suffered such a series of unfortunate events. Finally boiling over, a single tear spills from my eye. Wiping it away quickly, I shake my head. You do not cry. I tell myself. You do not cry.

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I shut the front door to my apartment and lean against it. The highest, feral scream escapes my mouth, and I slink down, sitting on my heels. I hear Quinn’s footsteps and a quick shut of their bedroom door before I see them round the corner. The heavy thuds running to my aid.

“Jesus fucking Christ, are you okay?” They say exasperatedly, hanging on to their bedroom doorway. “You’d have thought you were being murdered with a scream like that.”

“If I lay down on the floor, can you just drop something heavy on my skull and put me out of my misery?” I look over to them, displeasure written all over my face. They make their way into the living room sitting on the couch and propping their feet up on the coffee table.

“I take it the date didn’t go well?” My only response is a glare. “Do we need a therapy session then?”

“How much time do you have?” I frown.

They take their phone out of their back pocket, tapping a few times. “Yeah, my schedule is clear tonight.” Sending me a small smile.

“I just.. Urrrrrgh,” I stand in a huff, shrugging off my jacket and discarding it next to my purse on the floor. “I definitely should have never left the house today. Period. At all. For anything.” I whine. Taking a moment to unzip my boots and kick them off, adding to my pile, and finally sliding my feet into my comfy slippers.

“Firstly, there was that whole guy and the flowers I told you about this morning, right?” The sounds of my slippers scuff against the hardwood floor as I pace back and forth. “Then that date Katie set me up on, Jeff? Boring as hell. I mean, he immediately gave me ehh vibes when he couldn’t be bothered to come meet me at the door, but.. Whatever. I gave him the benefit of the doubt.” I dramatically wave my arms around. “Because I’m trying to be nice and not close myself off. We get to the bar, he can’t be bothered to look up from his fucking phone at all. Then, guess who I see there? AT the bar?”

“.. who?” Quinn inquires

“The fricken GUY from the flower truck! The world is too small, I swear to GOD. ANYWAY.” I run my hands down my face. “So Jeff finally decides he wants to speak actual words to me. Does he ask me any questions about myself? NO, he just rants about I dont know, only god knows what because I couldn’t fucking tell you. Flower guy sneaks up behind me to check on our table because I guess he works there or something, and he scares the SHIT out of me, and I spill my drink.. Where? ALL over Jeff's lap. It was sooooo cute.” I drop my arms to my sides, and my hands smack against my thighs. The sound reverberates through the open room. When I look back at Quinn, they’re staring at their bedroom door. Weird but okay.

“I’ve pretty much prayed to the cosmic universe to swallow me up at this point in the evening but then what happens? Arrogant Flower Boy decides to sass me about my date, so I yelled at him. His brother behind the bar was cackling, listening to the whole thing, and then he basically kicked me out. Well.. he told us to shut up or fight outside essentially. And then flower boy.. I don’t know, tried to make amends or something and offered me a drink on the house, and I kinda told him to eat shit...” I push my lips out and give Quinn an innocent side eye, ready for them to read me for filth. “.. and poked him.. Again.” I add, finally. One could say I didn’t handle the course of events correctly today. One could even say that I was a tad bit more rude than necessary. One could say that, not me but… ya know, one could.

“So,” They pause, “how cute is Flower Boy?”

“I mean, he’s got a really great smile. Even if he only uses his mouth to talk shit – Hey. Wait.” I hold up my pointer finger. “Out of everything I've said to you, that's where you ended up?”

“I mean, I’m not going to say you spent more time talking about him than your date.. But you spent more time talking about him than your date, Wills.” they glance down at their phone.

I cannot help but defend myself. “That’s because he is single handedly the most annoying person I have come across in the last like.. Month.”

A ding comes from their bedroom, and I look towards their door with my eyebrows raised. If their phone is in their hand..

They clear their throat, “Sure, so did you want solutions, or did you need to yell?” They rush out, “Because if it’s solutions, we have a bat in the closet, and I have some knitting needles in my room. Bricks out front by the porch, whatever you need.” They let out a chuckle.

Putting a finger to my chin, feigning deep thought, I reply, “That’s not a half-bad idea, Quinny, you may need to put that on the back burner. I do feel a bit better now that I’ve word-vomited some of that out. Thank God I never have to see him again, though.”

“Happy to be obliged, madam. You know I'm always here for whatever you need. Venting or violence, I’ll be there,” They stand and take a bow. “However, I do think you’d feel a lot better with a pamper session. Ya know, face washed, mask applied, those weird little eye patches you put on.” Shooing me a little bit and heading toward their bedroom.

I curtsey in return, “You’re right, thank you, my liege. If you’ll excuse me, I shall retire to my bedchambers for the evening. Because this bitch is tired.”

“Goodnight, Winslow,” they call back to me from their bedroom doorway.

“Goodnight, Quinndolyn Christie.” I giggle.

“That is Ser Quinndolyn Christie to you.”

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I run a makeup remover wipe over my face, taking off my makeup from my failed date. Finding the smallest bit of solace in my nighttime routine and ‘me’ time, Quinn suggested. And you know, they were right. I do feel a bit better wiping off my makeup. I splash some water on my face, creating a slick base for my cleanser. As it foams on my face, I think back to my evening. Honestly, what a mess.

I hear Quinn giggle and shuffling. That’s weird?

Then I hear a loud thud.

I turn and feel around for the door handle, eyes closed so I don’t get my face wash in them. That would hurt like a bitch.

“Hey Quinn, you okay?” I call out.

“Huh? What?”

“I heard a noise.” trying not to get too many of the water droplets falling off my elbows on to the floor below me.

“It was just the knitting needles I was talking about earlier. Was just prepping them for battle. Make sure they were at the ready.” They giggle again.

“It sounded a bit heavier than a knitting needle.”

“Are you sure you’re not hearing things? You should get your ears checked.”

“Okay keep your secrets then.” feeling my way blindly back to my bathroom to wash off my face.

As I apply my various serums and moisturizers, my thoughts find their way back to Sam. Sam. No. Not gunna go there.

I start whispering to myself, “I bet he doesn’t even need to do all this stuff. Stupid, perfect skin on his stupid, perfect face. Probably only uses bar soap. And it’s probably the same bar of soap he uses to wash his ASS.” Yes, that’s it, talking out loud to yourself is completely normal, Willa. Please keep going. I groan internally. “Ridiculous freckles on his ridiculous cheeks bet he’s never heard of SPF specifically for the face. What he should be doing is investing in an exfoliant for his stupidly perfect but chapped lips.”

Woah, now, Willa. What the fuck?? No. Go to bed.

I stare at myself in a mirror for a long minute before I rush to turn off the light and jump into bed. I settle in and wait for the soft plush of my blankets to lull me to sleep.

When I wake up, I look over at my clock. It’s 3:15 a.m., and my first thought is Sam.

Fuck.

<- Chapter One Chapter Three ->

Masterpost | Taglist

Taglist 💜 :

@gvfsstardust, @myleftsock, @mindastreamofcolours, @imleavingyoufornewyork, @dont-go-home-without-me, @literal-dead-leaf, @lizzys-sunflower, @threadofstars, @mackalah,@klarxtr, @ourlovesdesire, @writingcold ,@edgingthedarkness, @takenbythemadness, @i-love-gvf, @ladywhimsymoon, @earthgrlsreasy, @peaceloveunitygvf, @violet-hayes, @anythingforjtk

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aiscapades · 3 months

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so it seems some of the ,, bad parts of the developing fandom are due to the fact some people seem to think touchstarved is an otome game. like not otome-adjacent which the creators definitely meant (they mention enjoyers of otome games may enjoy this one in the trailer description, but that's it), but these people are upset about the gayness and the pronouns and the fact it's more of a self-insert because they are judging it by otome standards. comments on an otome reddit thread complain that the cgs won't feature the mc due to their faceless nature. i was confused by this since i'm a huge fan of the arcana, a game where we NEVER see the mc, not even their hands. then i recalled other otome games where the love interests are kissing and holding a skinny pretty girl and i was like oh.

#scratches back of head #y'all are mad about that? 😬#you dont want ais loving on vere but you want him loving on a skinny girl that definitely looks nothing like you? 😬#umm 😬#psychological problems and insecurities idk ........ talk to someone abt that maybe #peace and love #touchstarved game #IT'S NOT AN OTOME !!!!!!!!!!!#if you dont like it then HUSH!!!!;#ZIP YOUR LIPS!!!!!! IT'S NOT FOR YOU;!!!!#it's that simple #anyway #( A SPARROW SINGS ) * my posts!

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livingfictionsystem · 4 months

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Let me guess: You're "self-diagnosed"?

Lemme guess, you "Tell it like it is"?

Why are you even trying to act like this line of interrogation will change the course on how you view us? Just tell us what you think you know about us better than our therapist, say that psychology is a lie, and bounce.

☄️🏌‍♂️

To everyone else, I could post a nice official-looking doc to have the own on Random Harasser #91. Buuuuut the fact is that the process of getting diagnosed costs hella money and having it on your record can fuck you up on judgments and custody battles and such, and people like this will still treat you the same. Nothing I say, from posting documented proof, to having my therapist call them and sing my dx's to the tune of Old McDonald is going to stop this person from harassing people living their lives with mental illness.

If you're thinking about putting yourself through that just to stop being fakeclaimed, don't. People see us a few steps above being institutionalized and think they've been bamboozled lmaoooo

-Sparrow 🧷

#we started going to therapy because of random Blackout periods #my guy arrived at the conclusion before we did #as for the bpd #i once tried to set myself on fire #because i didn’t feel good enough #so that's a p fair conclusion tbh #disassociative identity disorder #borderline personality disorder #self diagnosis #ask #tw fakeclaiming

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moonlitmastery · 7 months

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Stained Glass Shadows

AN // So, this is literally the first thing I've posted on tumblr in ages, is mostly unedited and literally my only knowledge of MW2 is through fandom, so I apologize if anything is a bit wonky. I mainly did this as an exercise in getting back into writing, so feel free to leave comments/criticism/etc. I hope you enjoy! :)

TW: Blood, Mention of Severe Injury

She’d have to remember to thank whoever decided it was common practice to leave church doors unlocked. Despite the smell of old hymnals and decades old carpet, it was dry. And empty, at least for the most part. Her partner was up in the wings, silently watching for anything following in her wake. Did Soap make it here yet? Eyes and hands steady, silent. Her steps are heavy, uneven. Dully thudding against worn carpet before she all but collapses against the side of a nearby pew. Pain blooms below her ribs as she pulls a hand out from underneath her vest. Tacky and slick with blood, she fumbles with the switch on her comms unit.

“G-ghost? How copy?” She coughs out his name, wincing as she tries to push herself up against the side of the pew before abandoning the effort.

There’s a beat of silence before he replies, “Here, Sparrow. All clear on my end.”

She coughs out a laugh, “Got here at least. Think they pinged me, ‘least what it feels like. Might just sit here for a bit, that’s alright with you Lt.?” She drops a hand to the carpet, damp with blood that blends with the deep maroon shag. She hears a thud somewhere distant as he drops from his position, is he really that far away? Everything blurs and sways as Ghost makes his way towards her, footfalls coming faster. Crosses on the sides of pews blurring into rectangles. Stained glass becoming a mess of colors in the moonlight. There’s a distinct smear of red across his mask, broken by deep brown eyes.

“Shit sparrow, that’s more than a fuckin’ ping!” He lifts her tac vest slightly, seeing the clear tear across a blood smeared abdomen. She all but shatters under the pressure of his hands, biting back a yowl and writhing before a second hand steadies on her shoulder.

Cold. She’s so cold. Still she tries to sputter out a laugh, blood dotting her lower lip and copper in her mouth, “Si-,” she coughs, a rattle deep in her chest “ hurts like a bitch, Just wan’ it t’ stop fucking hurting” Since when were there two of him? She hears his voice over comms, muffled and distant despite his closeness. Who was he talking to? Price? Soap? Shit, Soap.

She misses the wet panic edging his voice as he presses down harder, a new surge of blood wetting his gloves and the carpet. “Gonna patch you up soon, jus’ hold on for me, yeah? You gotta hold on, lovie.”

Black spots her vision as she sobs, “Tryin’ to Si, swear ‘m trying. Hurts so goddamn bad. Please Simon, fuck- can’t feel you,” another sob, “please don’t let me go.” She hears the doors to the church open again. Heavy steps rushing towards her. Soap asking what happened. Ghost snapping as he applies more pressure, always more pressure. Her bloody hand rests towards his shoulder, stained nails biting into his bicep, other hand covering his own. With a shuddering breath, her vision fades completely and for a brief moment, she swears she can hear the angels singing.

He’s there when she comes to, blood stained gloves draped over the end of the hospital bed, stark against sterile white hospital sheets. Arms crossed over his chest as he stares up at the blank tile ceiling. She shifts up onto the pillows a bit and bites back a groan through her teeth. Why is everything so bright?

“Didn’t know I was worth waiting for,” her voice is low, hoarse. Mouth dry with one of the worst cases of cotton mouth she thinks she’s ever had. Where is everyone? His head snaps down, eyes bloodshot and puffy. He’s not wearing the balaclava. Opting for a simple black mask and cap in the privacy of the hospital room. They must be back home. A low, withering sigh escapes his lips as he drops her gaze almost immediately.

“Thought I’d- we’d lost you, lovie.”

“Can’t get rid of me that easy, Si,” she pauses, questions dancing on the tip of her tongue, “How long was I out?”

“Couple of days,” he swallows thickly before continuing, “ya lost alot of blood before we could get you back.” He pauses, choosing his next words carefully, “Bullet did more damage than they thought at first.”

It’s then she sees just how large the bandage is spanning her torso. Running down from under her ribs to the middle of her abdomen.

Oh.

Silence spans the length between conversation, straddling the line between awkward and comfortable before he finally moves, leaning down and pressing his forehead to hers.

He’s the one to break the silence, words hardly a whisper against her cheek, “So damn sorry, lovie. Shoulda had a better eye on you.”

Carefully, she wraps an arm around his neck, pulling his mask down and pressing a tender kiss on his lips. “It’s not your fault, Simon. Nothin’ you could’ve done, they got me in a blind spot. Not your fault.” A gentle hand rests on his cheek, thumb stroking light circles on a scarred cheekbone. Stubble prickling the palm of her hand, he hasn’t shaved since before the mission. Hasn’t been home since before it happened.

His head drops to her shoulder after a moment, breath fanning against her neck as he’s hunched awkwardly over the bedside. Hand resting lightly over her bandaged side. “Love you so much, darlin’. So much.” The words are barely a whisper, cracking when they leave his lips, as if he speaks too loud or too fast, she’d break. She swears for a moment that she feels tears in the crook of her neck, warm and damp as they pool at the neck of the hospital gown.

Pulling him even closer, she cards her fingers through short blonde hair. “I love you too, Si. Always.”

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

It’s three months before she’s cleared for duty because of the wound itself, scar still pink and spanning, stretching as she tries to maintain some semblance of normalcy while sequestered at home. Its eight more weeks when she’s told she needs a shrink before she can go back to full duty, twice a week for eight weeks with homework. It’s a routine, she adapts. She learns to ignore the dull ache that happens a couple weeks out of each month, worsening when it rains. Learns to ignore the way she can’t stretch as well on that side anymore.

Sometimes it haunts her.

She wakes in a cold sweat. Swearing that her shaking hands are covered in crimson. That the motifs of stained glass are laughing in cold moonlight as she slips and grasps at green khaki.

#simon riley x reader #ghost mw2 #simon riley #tw blo0d #tw injury #drabble

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lex-the-lesbiann · 1 year

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Linda Stampler Webweaving

She means so much to me

(Inspired by @jayferins Sparrow post, definitely go check it out if you havent already, its very good!!)

The Moon Will Sing by The Crane Wives, The Wedding Dress by Frederick William Elwell, Ep 61 of Dndads, I Don’t Smoke by Mitski, Ep 61 of Dndads, The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche, Mary Shelleys Frankenstein, Take Me To Church by Hozier, cover art for Mary Shelleys Frankenstein, Class of 2013 by Mitski, quote from Emily Palermo, Remember My Name by Mitski, Ep 61 of Dndads, Not Strong Enough by boygenius

#girl help im taking silly media seriously #linda stampler #linda stampler dndads #dndads #dungeons and daddies #dndaddies #dndads s1 #dndads odyssey #web weaving #thinking about linda stampler hours #posts i make for exactly three people #autumn oak/linda stampler

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gavroche-le-moineau · 1 year

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L’Alouette

Being a total bird nerd, I had to do a little dive into this somewhat bird-themed chapter of Les Mis.

What is an “alouette”? Many have heard this bird’s name through the children’s song “Alouette, gentille alouette” which is popular even in non-French speaking countries. An “alouette” is a “lark”, the common name for the avian family Alaudidae (which contains 100 species).

What type of lark is Hugo referring to in 1.4.3? It is almost certainly the Eurasian Skylark (Alauda arvensis) or “Alouette des champs” in French.

[Image ID: A small brown and white bird (Eurasian Skylark (Alauda arvensis)) on a wooden fence post.] [Credit: Natural England/Allan Drewitt, 2015. https://flic.kr/p/vDvojm]

This species has been referenced in literature throughout history, likely due to its proximity to humans and its distinctive song. The Eurasian Skylark lives in open habitats such as fields and pastures and has an incredibly long song which it sings persistently while in flight.

So why did the townspeople choose to call Cosette an alouette? The text tells us that Cosette is a:

“...trembling, frightened, and shivering little creature, no bigger than a bird, who was awake every morning before any one else in the house or the village, and was always in the street or the fields before daybreak.” (Hapgood translation)

The Eurasian Skylark is a relatively small bird around the size of a sparrow (17.5-19.0 cm). They forage on the ground where their plumage can make them nearly invisible. They are also said to be the first bird to sing in the morning. I couldn’t find any scientific evidence that this is true, besides learning that their “ground song” (sung by both males and females from the ground) is mostly sung in the morning. However, I did find some cultural allusions to this idea.

“Au chant de l’alouette” (literally translated as “at the singing of the lark”) means “very early in the morning” or “at the crack of dawn” [wiktionnaire]. (Though I don’t know anything about the usage of this phrase, i.e. how much it’s used or when it’s from.) From wikipedia: “Ethnomusicologist Conrad LaForte points out that, in song, the lark (l'alouette) is the bird of the morning, and that it is the first bird to sing in the morning, hence waking up lovers and causing them to part, and waking up others as well, something that is not always appreciated.”

My guess is that since the skylark is a small, drab bird that is often found flittering on the ground and is generally considered to be the first bird to sing in the morning, Cosette was dubbed “l’alouette” by the neighbors.

[Image ID: A color drawing of a small brown and white bird (Eurasian Skylark (Alauda arvensis)) on a background of yellowed paper.] [Plate XCIV Skylark Alauda arvensis. Coloured illustrations of British birds, and their eggs. London: G.W. Nickisson,1842-1850. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40246756]

#les mis #les mis letters #1.4.3 #lm 1.4.3 #lark #birds #alouette #cosette #translation #les mis language

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warrenwaskilledbyadeer · 7 months

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Okay when I was like 14/15 I was REALLY obsessed with Into the Woods since the Disney version had come out recently, and I was ALSO obsessed with Ever After High since the series was at its peak at that point

You can see where I'm going with this already I'm sure

I had this whole scenario in my head that I adored, where Headmaster Grimm wanted to illustrate to the students the dangers of going off-script, and so mandated a performance of Into the Woods, that he cast and directed himself

So to start with our main two girls, Grimm casts Raven as the Witch, so she can practice being evil and doing evil magic, using people to get what she wants, and because of the Witch's relationship with her mother. Apple is cast as the Baker's Wife, the leading lady who is kind, clever and caring (but also has a thing for Cinderella's Prince)

The Baker, main man, is played by Hunter, since part of what the Baker does in the story is save Red and her Granny from the Wolf. Cinderella is Ashlynn of course, as well as Jack being Jillian and Red being Cerise. All self-explanatory enough

Cinderella's Prince is Daring, and Rapunzel's Prince is Dexter. The two Charmings playing the story's two Prince Charmings. Daring is more full of himself and cocky, and gets to have a fling with Apple's character. And Dexter is more sincere and not really invested in the stakes of the main events, just trying to pursue his and Rapunzel's own happily ever after. Also, these two singing Agony together would just be hilarious

I always thought Rapunzel would be played by Holly until the Witch cuts her hair, then it would switch to Poppy haha. Also the Wolf used to be Sparrow until they added Ramona as a character. And of course Grimm would cast Ramona as the Big Bad Wolf, but Sparrow as the Wolf was so funny

Ashlynn's step-cousins will play her stepsisters, and Farrah will be her mother's spirit who makes her ballgown for her. And Tiny, of course, will play the Giant's Wife.

At that point we've covered everybody whose destiny plays a part in Into the Woods so the rest of the roles go to whoever would play the part best! Duchess is cast as the Stepmother, because I think she would just be great in that role. Same with the casting of Lizzie as Jack's mom, I think she could make that really really funny

Briar could also be funny as Granny, and Alistair I think is the only guy left who could give an even somewhat emotional performance as the Baker's Father. Sparrow is relegated to Cinderella's Prince's Steward, which is a great hateable character that Sparrow could make comical!

I saw a production of Into the Woods where the Narrator was a separate character that had a little spotlighted podium just off-stage. After Rapunzel gets crushed by the Giant's Wife, the characters all suddenly become aware of the Narrator and realize if he hadn't started telling the story none of this would have happened. So they grab him, drag him onstage, throw him under the Giant's Wife's foot, and then come up with their plan to take her down themselves, knowing they're really the ones who are coming up with it. If Ever After High decided to go this route with their production, I think Maddie should be the Narrator, since Brooke can't actually appear at the school.

And last but not least, Milky White will be Humphrey Dumpty in a cow costume

There are so many little tidbits and moments from the EAH production of Into the Woods that have lived in my head rent free for like 8 years, but this post is already long enough so I'll leave it here! I hope this is entertaining to somebody out there

#eah headcanons #is this a headcanon?#i think so #ever after high #eah #long post #just me rambling #i scream into the void

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