#it makes the song last longer

[chaosxcrushed]

I’VE BEEN UP FOR THREE DAYS / EVERYTHING IS HAUNTED inspired by a Lavendertowne video !! og image under the cut

Haunted - Laura Les

#deltarune #deltarune fanart #deltarune art #jevil #jevil the jester #jevil deltarune #deltarune jevil #wd gaster #gaster #deltarune gaster #at least in shadow form !! #excuse the clusterfuck that is my shading #i love this song so much oh my word #if you're gonna listen to it i recommend listening to the one with both verses #aka the one that also includes the demo !! #it makes the song last longer #my art #chaos art

[maxsix]

#details of Fix On #song mingi #mingi #ateez #ateez mingi #as if there are other mingis in kpop #Crazy Form era was nice but felt so short #i wish it was longer #they did this last year with Halazia #snuck in at the last minute #sometimes i wonder if he likes wearing sun/glasses for the same reason i do #no pressure to make eye contact #its neurodivergent thing i know i know

[braisedhoney]

some tragic love stories be like: if i could bottle the galaxy, i would pour it into a cup so it would be easier for you to drink. do you want them? do you want the stars? or do they suit you better as adornments for your eyes than glitter on your lips?

but they don’t want the stars. they don’t want the galaxy. but how can they not? is that not enough? (it’s too much, that’s the problem. it’s too much.)

#ney's idle chatter (random textposts) #me trying and failing to capture why hadestown has embodied Love in a way i don’t think i’m really capable of comprehending fr #but also this can be about whatever blorbo you want #when i think about that one line in chant #when hades says ‘brighter than the light of day’ #‘look. look at what i can make for you—see?’ #meanwhile the last thing persephone wants is to be reminded of this hollow echo of what their love is in her memories #when i think about that scene when eurydice tells orpheus they need to get food #but he’s working on his song and she makes the choice to trust him and go #to work harder and longer and search for things to feed them and trust he’ll bring spring back #THE WAY PERSEPHONE TRIES TO KISS HADES GOODBYE AT THE START WHEN SHE COMES BACK FOR SUMMER #AND HOW IT PARALLELS EURYDICE KISSING ORPHEUS GOODBYE WHEN SHE GOES TO LOOK FOR FOOD #and hades pulls away. because she’s leaving him and he’s terrified. he’s terrified and turns it into anger because otherwise he’s helpless. #and orpheus doesn’t respond when eurydice leaves because he’s working—he’s working and he’s going to give her what he promised. #but she needs his help. she needs his help now—she needs his support and he isn’t there. #thinking about the moment she takes the ticket from hades and #it almost implies she starves. that she dies. that she starves to death trying to find food for them both #i promise you however unhinged i seem about this musical i am being purposefully restrained so i don’t spam you all too much orz #holy SHIT these tags are LONG #even for me this is ridiculous there’s a whole other post down here #high five to you for reading it ig damn #hadestown

[dootznbootz]

Odypen definitely and equivalently adore each other BUT I weirdly can't see them as the type to actually say "I Love you".

They still definitely vocalize their love for each other but it's more so in "My Joy", and "Extraordinary Woman", "Strange Woman/Man", etc. And very cheesy lines (both say some cheesy shit in the Odyssey, and he definitely does in the Iliad as well. "Joy like a drowning sailor seeing land" bit???)

I could see "I adore you" but even then, that's probably during very specific moments but the actual "I love you"??? I just typed it just now for fic shit and... It weirdly just didn't feel right and I don't know why. 😅

Idk maybe it's kind of because I see them as over the top in ways, they love wordplay and riddles and I think they'd almost think "...That's not good enough >:( " about it??? I don't know???😂

#I wrote this last night. I'll do the asks I got later. don't worry! :D #I am the cheese god remember?😅 #I think these two would try to “out-cheese” each other and whoever is left speechless first loses #“I would forget my own name before I would ever forget you” bullshit. CHEESY #And yes. “I sleep in our nest with you or outside on the dirt” stupidity >:D #I plan for Odysseus as a beggar to ask why she waits so long. As he's been gone a longer amount of time than the time they had together #(Simply asking as reassurance. He knows his answer. Calypso asked him. but what about Penelope?) but she gets mad at the #“Beggar” and pities him as he must be telling the truth about having a miserable life if he never got the chance to know such devotion #How what they have could never be sullied by #something as trivial as distance and years. How the years with him were the best in her life. Only made better by their son. #'My dear Joy made songs and poems about love a reality as that was simply the life we shared. Even separated our 'song' will always echo #no matter how long it's been. I'LL make sure it always does. And I know he's doing the same... That strange man used to say that #even if he died his corpse would drag itself back to us before he'd ever give up.' #...I'm not one for 'odyssey zombie au' but when I first heard it yeah. :'D Came up with this back then #“His eyes as hard as flint or horn-” Bullshit! The sad lil fuck is hiding sobs with coughs and telling her to keep away for fear of her #catching whatever “illness” he has. The nice thing about being disguised as old means sickly old man works. #... #I'm noticing that Odysseus has a lot of silly oneliners while I write Penelope with a shit ton of set up :'D #They are so silly and I love them so much #...I wrote a lot :'D #Mad rambles #shot by odysseus #my headcanons #odypen #yahoo!!! #sometimes I wonder if I should tag this with more things but I don't want to taint the regular tags with my bullshit :'D I KNOW I'm insane

[fistfuloflightning]

I had all and then most of you Some and now none of you Take me back to the night we met I don't know what I'm supposed to do Haunted by the ghost of you Oh, take me back to the night we met

The Night We Met, Lord Huron

#the silmarillion #curufinrod #curufin #finrod felagund #female curufin #this is one of many songs that are perfect for these two #I might post a playlist at some point #but this #this is prob during nargothrond when they have so much more that they’re not saying #and they’re making the other suffer for those choices #but they’ll keep shoving those conversations/problems back in the closet and ignoring them #they don’t linger on the past if they can help it #gildor’s born shortly afterward and they get to play happy family a little longer 🥺 #but it doesn’t last #it never lasts #my art #tolkien art

[activatebutterflyshield]

Time to be long-winded about music again featuring the Four Winds albums by the Oh Hellos. I desperately hope this one will be shorter given how bloody long the thing about Coyote Stories ended up being so to somewhat ensure that this will be split up into four separate posts, one for each album. I’m going in chronological order of release. Come one, come all, but especially @writer-of-random-things, to see me put more effort into tumblr posts than my english essays.

Part 1: Notos (you are here!)

Part 2: Eurus

Part 3: Boreas

Part 4: Zephyrus

Before even getting into the songs, let’s look at the album art. A cicada, the hallmark of summer, buzzing in chorus for a few days before dying. They are a horde, second only to their cousins the bees, wasps, and locusts, but a horde nonetheless. The cicada blindly sits underground for most of its life, growing in solitude and waiting for its cue to escape to the sunlit world, mate, and die. A cicada does not question it’s place in the universe. A cicada harbors no thoughts of doubt in its mission, and holds no grudge when it dies under the sky. But humans are not cicadas.

The first song of the album is “On the Mountain Tall”, a relatively quiet start. It’s very biblical in its symbolism and imagery, but perhaps the most important lines are when the singer calls out, “Still the wild wind blows / Up our of the grave of an angry ghost / Firing bricks from broken canon and prose / To build a wall so high it reaches the heavens in the sky”. The spelling of “canon” is not that of the instrument of warfare on the high seas, but that of generally accepted truth when it comes to creative works, as well as religions. But it is used to describe an action much more befitting the weapon, as the “wild wind” is “Firing bricks from broken canon and prose”, a metaphor for using hypocritical or untrue logic and facts to defend itself. Whomever the singer is singing to, they want the singer to fear them and love them in equal measure, but the singer doesn’t. This nebulous thing is described as being “Quiet as a candle and bright as the / morning sun”, not unlike some angelic thing from on high, and yet whoever they are, they are not “He”, who is “not within them, the clatter of / brass and drums”.

“Torches” soon follows, a quicker paced tune of a back-and-forth between two singers. Each alludes to the other, “Father Ignorance” and “Mother Fortuna”, matching up with the leading male and female vocals. Both figures are referred to by the others as making either “Brothers of us all” or “Sisters of us all” through their actions, though neither seem to be very virtuous people. “Father Ignorance” seems to feed people’s anger and fear, setting “our torch aflame” and burning someone at the stake, no matter their innocence. “Mother Fortuna” turns “shadows into shapes”, stoking paranoia and encouraging violence despite the fact that “the faces in her wake / Look more like our own than the / effigies we immolate”. Neither singer seems to be the one from “On the Mountain Tall”, as the previous song was about someone resisting the carrots and sticks offered by someone quite similar to both Ignorance and Fortuna. And yet these two beings still have power, as they sing together, “We keep that old wheel turning / Over and over, again”, maintaining the endless cycle of fear, paranoia, anger, and destruction.

The next song is an instrumental interlude, “Planetarium Stickers on a Bedroom Ceiling”. It’s a gentle tune that slowly builds into the next song, “Constellations”, but the name alone indicates that whatever stars exist far above are not real things, but rather facsimiles. Pretty things, sure, but nothing like the real, burning, blazing balls of gas that dot the night sky.

“Constellations” begins slowly, as the singer describes the sensation of speaking something that takes their voice away and feels upon their tongue like “Brick and mortar, thick as scripture / Drawing lines in the sand and laying / borders as tall as towers / I babble on until my voice is gone”. The clear and more cloudy references to the Tower of Babel and the Empire of Babylon show how the singer has been confounded and confused by that thick and choking scripture. Everything good in their life, everything good done by them and to them are “like constellations, a million years away”, no more real than those “Planetarium Stickers on a Bedroom Ceiling”. What few pieces of joy they have are no more real than the lines drawn to create “Constellations”. But by the end of the song, those good stars are “imploding in the night / Everything is turning, everything is turning / The shapes that you drew may change beneath a different light / Everything you thought you knew / Will fall apart, but you’ll be alright”. The singer has realized how much they have been smothered by thick scripture, how little they know about the world, how much they want to be free, and how they have been denied their freedom by the world they grew up with, by Father Ignorance and Mother Fortuna.

The titular “Notos” is next, starting with the singer describing the world in the moments before the clouds break and a storm crashes down. The world is holding its breath, waiting for “A thunderous disturbance”, the inevitable response to what the singer has done to those “Planetarium Stickers on a Bedroom Ceiling”. But whatever the world is expecting is not what happens, as the rush that comes “will take you away / Like you’re caught in the undertow / And you will drown in the wake / Of the things you lost to the winds of Notos”. Everything the singer has lost to the thick scripture, all that the spent in hopes that the “Constellations” of good intentions would become real, is now being repaid tenfold over. Their realization is as strong as a hurricane, as untamable as the sea, and more furious than a thunderstorm in this moment. They’re drowning Fortuna and Ignorance in “the wake / Of the things you said that you can’t take back”. It’s a beautifully poetic description of the pure, flaming anger felt by someone in the moment they realized their betrayal, but as the final line of the song says, “You gotta let go”.

The second instrumental interlude of the album is “Mandatory Evac / Counting Cars”. Finishing the wordless cry that began in “Notos”, the song is a slow, gradual build up from gentle guitar strums to the beautiful melody that has haunted the background of the rest of the album, a promising echo that reminds the listener that they’ve come quite far since the beginning of this 20-minute journey, and that they’ve still got plenty of road left to travel.

The final song of Notos is “New River”. The singer’s tune is one of gradual change, of how “though the eons may pass as slow as the sands of an hour glass / Every grain that we’ve counted / Claims that even the mountains can change”. This promise that even the most permanent parts of the landscape can slowly but surely change, that the very land itself can bend to the power of a “New River”, is a powerful metaphor for the prospective journey of the singer. They yearn to carve out a new path, to rise with the tide and bask in the “rain for forty days and nights”, to embrace the change so abhorred by the “Planetarium Stickers on a Bedroom Ceiling”, to erode away where they had once stood “On the Mountain Tall”, to extinguish the “Torches” and prove the “Constellations” to be naught but lines drawn in the sky. Within this wind of “Notos” will they rise and remake themselves anew, casting off the thick scripture and ignoring the roaring fire and wind. The fiery Southern Wind of Summer has risen and raged, tearing apart the walls of “broken canon and prose”, and as stormy Notos leaves, Eurus of Autumn and the Eastern Wind will blow in from the horizon where the sun rises, bringing cooler times and heralding yet more change as migrations begin and more questions are asked.

#the oh hellos #notos #me running my mouth #media analysis #lyric analysis #song analysis #so uh the inspiration has me in a chokehold again #and this thing ended up being so much longer than i thought it would #and theres three more to go… #and i kinda have to do through the deep dark valley and dear wormwood properly too #goshdarnit brain why are you like this #expect the one about eurus either tomorrow or several weeks from now #i have to see how long the inspiration lasts #wait i should make a tag for this thing #being long winded about the four winds #<- tag for this nonsense

[cheekblush]

i'd rather be friendless than to constantly have my boundaries disrespected

#i am so frustrated and annoyed rn #at the beginning of this year my ex best friend reached out to me and i cautiously let her back into my life #things were going great but now she turned a harmless topic into a full blown discussion even though i told her multiple times that i no.. #.. longer want to discuss this matter but she kept going & then accusing me of continuing the discussion as well #and tbh i really should've stopped engaging with her messages much sooner but it's so annoying when someone sends you lots of messages with #their opinion although i mentioned several times that i want to drop the topic & then i'm just expected to shut up lol #she didn't respect my wish to move and made a huge fuss about nothing #i stopped replying to her since yesterday bc i really had enough & i should've just left her on read much sooner #but her messages were truly annoying me #her last message now says that we often have different opinions & she thinks she's more optimistic than me & that makes it hard for her to.. #talk to me..... i was so dumbfounded when i read that this morning #our initial conversation was about whether a song is more pop or rnb....... & she twisted that into me being negative lmao #she was so obsessed with being right that she couldn't drop the topic even though i told her how exhausting the convo was for me #and like it's such an irrelevant topic... imagine being that obsessed with always being right 😭 #idc anymore i'd rather be a negative bitch than someone who disrespects others' boundaries <3 #i thought she changed for the better but she's so self-righteous opinionated & stubborn it's awful #i calmly told her that her behavior is bothering me & we easily could've just moved on but she kept going on and on #and she herself admitted that it's one of her flaws that she always has to be right & she's being petty & yet she didn't stop 🤡 #even writing all this down feels so silly to me bc the initial topic was sooooo trivial #am i supposed to feel sorry for thinking a song was rnb rather than pop???? like go touch some grass please #she even sent me a screenshot of the wikipedia page of the song to prove that it's rnb & it literally said synth pop & rnb lol #but i wasn't even mad about that her not respecting my wish to drop the topic & move on even though i said it multiple times really pissed.. #me off though.... like girl just let it go it's not that deep!!! #but apparently i'm negative & pessimistic for having a different opinion than her 🤷🏼‍♀️ #like imagine starting a fight over smth SO IRRELEVANT but i'm the negative one sure lmao #okay i just needed to get this off my chest bc i don't have anyone to talk to about this & it's just ridiculous to me #☁️

[becauseplot]

The Oldest Story

woe, ordem paranormal au enigma twins angst be upon ye. this is a drabble that came to me as i was falling asleep last night and i've cleaned it up. might still make edits to this throughout the day but who knows. spoilers for my fic Relative, and tw for angst and character death.

qsmp x ordem au created by me and @factorialsotherfandoms. yknow. just for the funnies.

Bagi was born just three minutes before Cellbit. There were three minutes in her life where she existed without him in the world. Even when their parents died and they were separated, she held onto the notion that he was still out there, living, like a good luck charm tucked in her pocket. As she got older and her life smoothed out, she… No, never started to believe him dead, but in the few efforts she made to reach out, to track him down, the paper trails always ran cold. She had waited too long. She had lost her chance. She was forced to accept the fact that she would live the rest of her life with nothing of her twin brother but that good luck charm tucked in her pocket and that quiet sense of reaching in her chest. Besides—she learned that there were plenty of other horrible things in this world that were worth her worry.

The fact that they did find their way back to each other probably should have meant something. She at first thought it cruel (she had already dedicated her life to the Order at this point, she didn’t expect to reach the age of thirty, and now she finds him?) but also kind, in a way: they could try to make something, with the time she had left. 

In the end, though, it was just cruel. He got dragged into this deadly game despite her best efforts. (It was going to happen either way, she knew, but God. God.) They weren’t perfect, and she abandoned him and he abandoned her when they most need each other but they always found their way back, no matter the rift. They always fell back into each other’s orbit, stretching themselves across the caverns, reaching, reaching, fingertips brushing, I’m here, I’m here, twin star, twin stem, twin blood, my twin, I’m here.

…The creature, though killed, has left them both a bloody mess on the floor. Ten feet between them. They crawl. Red trails behind them, sand slipping through the hourglass. Cellbit’s body gives out when he’s just inches from her but Bagi manages to close the distance anyway, grabbing his outstretched arm (reaching... reaching…) and dragging the two of them together. She pulls him into her bloody arms, matching death-rattles in their lungs, and cradles his face. He looks especially thin with how pale he is. He hasn’t been eating enough. Neither of them have. She holds him and looks into his eyes until they’re nothing but balls of glass sitting in his head. His chest has fallen still.

Six minutes. There is a total of six terrible minutes in Bagi’s life where she is without her twin brother. The only mercy granted her is that it is six minutes and not a second more. 

~*~

“Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.”

– Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

#TWLITFAU #qsmp #qsmp bagi #enigma twins #longass incomprehensible acronyms my beloved #had to make it longer so not to mix it up with the tag for the actual bastille song lmao #gonna have to go and retag everything now sigh #anyway i definitely want to do more with opbagi but GOD yall dont understand this has been sitting in my brain since we brough her into- #-this au. finally found the words to articulate it last night. #SPOILERS IN FOLLOWING TAGS BUT fun fact: the twins' fate *technically* hasn't been fully decided by me and factorial? #the other option is that they crawl but they both die just out of reach of each other. #arms outstretched and hands inches apart. #yknow. because we like to be mean. and the imagery goes hard.

[nvskyprospekt]

this is the one situation i wanted most to avoiddd

#chess musical #freddie trumper #anatoly sergievsky #the strings in this song make me geniunely emotional in a way i cannot describe #tfw u r tryign to reclaim any last semblance of control over ur situation </3 #also in my head their hair styles flip between acts e.g. freddie is longer haired in the beginning shorter at the end & vice versa

[jynersq]

+

#last night we were both a little sleepy. #a little wine-drunk. #i asked him to play me something on the guitar while i leaned on his shoulder. #he said he only knows a few songs. i said that's fine #whatever you want. #first song: like real people do by hozier #which has a very tender place in my heart because it's the last song i sang for a real performance (2015). #so i still know all the words. #and he didn't know that! #it just happened to be the song. #anyway it was 1230am. anyway my jacket smells like his apartment. #anyway early this morning i said i thought romance was built of small acts of devotion. like how every morning my dad makes my mom coffee #because she sleeps worse and takes longer to wake up and he wants her to not have to worry about another thing in the morning. #when she comes downstairs every day he has it ready for her to take to work. #he makes it separately because he drinks an entirely different coffee than she does. but he makes it because he wants her to have it. #it's one of many small repeated acts of love they do for each other. they're still in love with each other after 30 years. #anyway my boyfriend is a notorious instant coffee fiend. #it's easy and he likes the flavor. #but when we got up this morning he pulled out a bag of coffee beans and a hand-grinder and said: would you like me to make you coffee?

[mothric]

heard my name on the air while at work btw!! my coworkers heard it too. highlight of my day

#tmbg #tmbptmbg #'this one's for moth' and everyone's heads whipped around skfjdhf #i was like that's me!!!! hehehe (got them to play Whirlpool which made me very happy as they couldn't locate it last year) #this makes year 3 of getting a song request played #and year 2 of subjecting my poor coworkers to as many hours of tmbg as they can physically stand #(in this case roughly three. as that's how long my shift lasted. if it was longer? well. i shan't say) #nov 2023 #music

[curiositykilledtheradiostar]

I made a mock album cover for my submas fansong, Last Trains Home, based on an au that it seems I can do literally everything except actually *write*

[flipped and no text below]

#Belay as a song also does exist but it's much less polished than last trains home is so I'm letting it marinate a while longer. #at this point I’m trying to make this into like a straight up mini album now. I can ao3 does podfic so original music has gotta be fair #game. if that one tma chatfic can do it so can I #curio art #submas #i should really do a lth au tag at this point

[leejeann]

I was only in choir for like a year and a half, but I was in other music programs for a long time. Sometimes I just really miss all that so I try to be my own choir for a minute, as a treat

Reverb makes everything sound so majestic and I love that

#idk if I'll make a longer version to post on youtube or not #I may but we'll see lol #the song was just on my mind and I felt like singing it #sleeping at last #lee speaks

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

#listen. sometimes. when i get emails pertaining to a specific project i worked on that nearly broke my brain. i just stop what im doing #and start playing Losing My Religion by REM. and i wish the person emailing me could see me face down at a table listening to thay song #mostly its fine. its just when someones trying to manage the data files so i kno im gonna have to go back thru and update my code #for a bunch of tiny stuff and its like: does this sound ok? and i just dont care so much that i want to start screaming #and then at the end of the day i hike up a fucking mountain going over what im gonna tell a therapist when my insurance switches #and im gonna say it in a way thats v calm and agreeable but i want to scream and tear my hair out. or maybe i wont b agreeable. i wasnt #last time i was in a therapist office but that guy deserved it and i wasn't being that bad #ugh. im just mad bc working on my stuff makes me so miserable that when i stop its like wow im no longer in agony. cool #coool. fun times. becoming increasingly apprehensive abt how im gonna try to b more healthy abt working while taking on triple #the responsibility with a phd project and being a student and being a TA. i mean. ill try but its gonna b fucking interesting #ugh. had to bust out the burnout playlist. which like. when u try to look at other ppls burnout playlists they all suck #theyre all like former gifted kid burnout Playlists and im like fuckkk offfff. why do u not have the incredibly specific vibes that im #looking for? i just demand the perfect burnout playlist and somehow nobody puts No Surprises on there #like what??? y not? its a song abt being so totally saturated that youve had enough. a heart thats full up like a landfill. a job that #slowly kills u. bruises that wont heal. how is it not THE burnout song? but whatever. i listen to too much radi0head. #ugh. but now my burnout playlist is becoming too much like my My Brain Doesnt Feel Too Good playlist #listen. i just need to curate playlist so that they can express the feelings for me #unrelated

[mooseonahunt]

Serennedy x Noah Kahan’s Music

With the drop of Noah Kahan’s “We’ll All Be Here Forever” album, I’ve just been listening to the added songs nonstop and making connections to Serennedy (as any sane, totally normal person does).

(More on my thoughts below the cut)

Before the drop, however, I had latched onto “She Calls Me Back” as their song. I am physically unable to listen to it without thinking about them. The ones who get it, get it. The ones who don’t are gonna be subjected to my ramblings explaining the connections when I’m not exhausted.

“She Calls Me Back” is not only in my Serennedy playlist, but it’s also been so motivating while I’ve been planning out a multi-chapter Serennedy fic (started planning it in April and I’m gonna properly start writing it soon!). AND ALSO @/SNAILVEE HERE ON TUMBLR POSTED THESE DRAWINGS OF THEM WITH LYRICS FROM THE SONG.

Anyways back to WABHF— “The View Between Villages (Extended Version)” has had me SOBBING over Luis. I keep imagining him coming back to his hometown after being gone for forever and reliving everything he went through. I’m picturing the extended version in particular because of the lyrics to the outro:

The things that I lost here, the people I knew

They got me surrounded for a mile or two

Left at the graveyard, I’m driving past ghosts

Their arms are extended, my eyes start to close

The car’s in reverse, I’m grippin’ the wheel

I’m back between villages, and everything’s still

The mention of ghosts makes me think of Luis coming back to his hometown and seeing the people he grew up around lose themselves after being infected. He eventually fights and kills these infected villagers, and it’s crazy to me to imagine what he could be feeling knowing he has to gun down familiar faces if he wants to make it out of Valdelobos alive. Also, his mother died during childbirth, he never knew his father, and his grandfather was taken from him. He’d lost so much, and being back in Valdelobos was probably hell for him. How could he return to a place like that and not be constantly reminded of everything and everyone he’d lost? He’s haunted.

The last two lines are describing his death. He’s leaving his hometown again, displacing himself one last time. He’s between villages and everything’s still cuz he’s gone for good.

#I could ramble about this for much longer but I am exhausted rn #I have so many thoughts about Serennedy in general related to songs by Noah Kahan #big fan of that guy #Stick Season and Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever) make me go crazy with Serennedy ideas #eurghhh I’m unwell #‘Dial Drunk’ and Leon #‘She Calls Me Back’ and Serennedy #‘Stick Season’ and Serennedy #‘Everywhere Everything’ and Serennedy #‘Still’ and Serennedy #etc etc etc YOU GET IT HOPEFULLY #AHHHHHH JUST THEM #JUST #Serennedy and Noah Kahan man #tug my claws into his last two albums and shoved Serennedy into them #Serennedy #luis serra #luis serra navarro #leon kennedy #leon s kennedy #resident evil 4 #resident evil 4 remake #re4 #re4r #moose rambles

[youssefguedira]

surprise! iron maiden joe sequel snippet

It's going fine, until it's not. 

Joe's too close to the edge, is the thing. Caught off guard by the fact that he's better, now, when it comes to being near the ocean, and there's a low railing. Not paying as much attention as he should be because of the chaos around him. He's only just started going on jobs again, and he's still getting used to guns. 

Which is why he doesn't notice how close he is to the railing, or the soldier raising his gun. Nicky shouts a warning, but it comes too late. There's two sharp cracks, and then pain explodes in his chest, the force of it sending him stumbling backwards, until he hits the railing and then there's another shot and Nicky is shouting his name in terror-

-and then he's falling, over the edge, into the water.

The next thing he knows is that he's drowning, and terror seizes him as he lashes out, trying to get to the surface because he's not too deep yet but his oxygen is running out because he's panicking too much to remember he needs to-

… 

try to conserve it and he's sunk deeper in the time he'd been dead and the surface is getting further in further and he doesn't want this again, has spent-

… 

so long like this but now he remembers what it's like to be out, to not be drowning, and he doesn't want to be trapped again-

…

so he fights harder than he ever has but the water is so heavy, he'd forgotten just how heavy it was, and he still can't calm himself down long enough to do-

… 

anything other than lash out blindly but he doesn't stop fighting because he can't because he doesn't want to drown again-

…

and then there's something, someone, reaching for him and he feels them grab his arm before he drowns again-

…

and then he's in blinding daylight, something holding him tightly, and he thrashes against it and screams and screams and screams as the something - no, someone - whispers in his ear, words he can't make out over the sound of the waves and a strange humming that seems to be coming from everywhere at once, and then the someone - Nicky, it must be - is running a gentle hand over his hair, rocking them both back and forth gently, and only then does Joe stop screaming. 

"I've got you," Nicky whispers in Joe's first language, the one he always defaults to when Joe panics like this, though it's never happened this badly because he's never actually drowned since getting out. A wounded sob escapes Joe's throat, and Nicky hushes him gently. "You're safe, Yusuf. I've got you." 

Finally, Joe looks around - they're on a boat, which explains the humming, and he's seated in the middle of its deck, away from the edge on all sides, between Nicky's legs with his back to Nicky's chest, Nicky's arms tight around him. They're both soaked through, meaning Nicky must have been the one to pull him out of the water. Nile is sitting on a bench nearby, watching him worriedly, though smiles at him when he meets her eyes.

"It's okay," Nicky whispers. "You're out, Yusuf. You're out." 

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

Joe can't seem to stop shaking.

Nicky sits beside him in the car on the way back, as close as he can be, holding his hand. But Joe still can't stop shaking, nor can he breathe properly, like iron bands are clamped around his chest and preventing him from taking a full breath. He keeps his eyes closed and listens to his family talking around him, but doesn't say a word. 

When they arrive at the safehouse, Nicky leads him straight to their bedroom, still holding his hand. He lets go only to dig through the dresser, passing Joe a change of clothes wordlessly. 

Once Joe's changed, he takes Nicky's hoodie from where he'd left it on the bed that morning before leaving and pulls it on, partially for warmth and partially for comfort. When Nicky turns around, having changed too, and sees him sitting on the edge of their bed with the hood pulled up over his head, he smiles, reassuring but sad at the same time. 

"Will you be able to eat anything?" he asks softly, sitting down beside him. 

Joe shakes his head. 

"I'm going to check on the others, then. You'll be okay by yourself for a few minutes?" 

Joe nods this time, and Nicky smiles again, slipping his arm across Joe's shoulders and pulling him close, turning his head in to kiss the top of Joe's head. "I'll be back in a moment." 

With that, he leaves, and Joe is alone in the room. The house is quiet except for the sound of Nicky's footsteps, deliberately hitting every creaky floorboard between their bedroom and the rest of the house. Joe sits there for a moment longer, then stands, crossing to their window and pulling the curtains open. It's dark, now that the sun has set, but he doesn't turn on the light. Just stands by the window and watches the moon for a while. 

It's a clear night. There's only a few clouds in the sky, and they're far enough from the city that the stars are mostly visible above. Joe's hands won't stop shaking. He's so tired. 

He's better, for the most part. But he still dreams about the ocean more often than not, still has days where he can't handle being in contact with water, moments where he thinks it's all a dream and he'll wake up in the coffin any moment and can't seem to remember how to breathe. There are still things he just doesn't know about this new world, languages he can't speak the way he used to. It still haunts him, even though he's better, and he can't get away from it, no matter how much he wishes he could. 

Nicky doesn't speak at first when he returns, just closes the door carefully behind him. Joe doesn't turn to look, but he can hear him moving around. 

This safehouse is one of their nicer ones, and so there's a CD player in the bedroom, with a small stack of CDs beside it. There's some way to play music in every safehouse they've been to since they left Malta - if there isn't, they get one. There's a few albums or songs Joe likes to have wherever they are, but there are others they pick up at random from thrift stores nearby, so each safehouse's collection is slightly different. He listens as Nicky picks one up and opens its case, then places the disc in the tray. He skips forward a few tracks, and then lets it play - it's one of Joe's favourites, familiar and gentle. 

Only then does Nicky approach him, still careful to step on the creaky floorboards so Joe can hear him coming, wrapping his arms around Joe's waist from behind, taking both of Joe's still-trembling hands in his own. He begins to sway them both back and forth in time with the music, not quite dancing, just keeping Joe grounded. 

Joe lets his head fall back onto Nicky's shoulder without really thinking about it. For a long while, neither of them speak, and bit by bit the iron bands around Joe's chest begin to loosen, letting him breathe properly. 

"I don't want to feel like this anymore," Joe says finally. "I don't - I want to be able to stop thinking about it. I want to be able to feel like it was just a nightmare. I want-" His voice breaks. "I hate this." 

Nicky's fingertips brush the backs of Joe's hands. "I know. But you've come so far, Yusuf. This won't change that, and it will pass, I promise. You won't feel like this forever." 

"And what if it doesn't, and I can't ever get past it?" If the bad days never go away? 

Nicky kisses the curve of his shoulder. "I'll be here," he says simply. "Always. If you want to take another break from jobs and go back to Malta for a while, or if you want to stay. I'll be with you, whatever you decide.”

Joe nods.

He won’t make any decisions tonight. They’ll rejoin the others later, and maybe tonight he’ll dream of drowning again, and maybe he’ll scream himself awake, and maybe he’ll be okay in the morning but maybe he won’t. For now, he closes his eyes and listens to the music. 

(If he dreams, Nicky will be there when he wakes. And if he’s okay in the morning, Nicky will help him decide what to do next. And if he’s not, then Nicky will stay with him until he is, no matter how long it takes.)

(Joe will be okay, with time.)

#neon writes #the old guard #kaysanova #iron maiden joe #had. an interesting day. so wrote this enjoy #this belongs in a longer sequel i'll probably write eventually that (mostly) explores joe experiencing More Stuff that didn't make it into #the first fic. but yeah i couldnt stop thinking about this this morning. #the song nicky plays is canzone dell'amore perduto by fabrizio de andre which! fun fact was almost the song in the second to last scene #of libero libero but i changed my mind at the last minute so its actually mona lisas and mad hatters #however i still wanted amore perduto in there somewhere so. this it is #i simply think joe would like it. #anyway! happy tuesday #userlyde #userlinax #lazynbored