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thetaoofzoe · 2 months

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‘It Was Fun to Be Wanted by Someone Like Elvis Presley’: An Interview With Darlene Love

The gifted singer reflects on Elvis’s collaborative presence and his relationship to gospel music

by MICHAEL MUSTO August 7, 2018

The swaggering real-life Jeff Koons statue named Elvis Presley is hot again. Eugene Jarecki’s June-released documentary The King involves a road trip taken in Elvis’s old Rolls to survey his impact on the culture and determine that the American dream the singer represented is officially dead. (But oh, when it lasted!) Even darker is the film’s exploration of Presley’s appropriation of African-American culture, covering songs like “Hound Dog” — originally a non-hit for the brilliant Big Mama Thornton — and making them rock and sell. For singers like Thornton, the American dream never existed.

Enter powerhouse singer Darlene Love, who is represented on another new project, Where No One Stands Alone, a fourteen-track compilation of Elvis’s gospel work due out August 10 on RCA/Legacy. The L.A.-born minister’s daughter started singing in the church choir at ten, on the road to being scooped up by producer Phil Spector to belt hits like “He’s a Rebel,” “Today I Met The Boy I’m Gonna Marry,” and “Christmas (Baby,Please Come Home).” The lead voice of such groups as the Blossoms and Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans, Love ended up working as a maid in the Eighties, but when she heard one of her old hits on the radio while she was scrubbing, it inspired her to get back into performing full-time. Her appearance in the Oscar-winning 2013 documentary 20 Feet From Stardom was memorable, especially when it addressed the way Spector promised her a solo career, but gave other singers credit for her work.

I recently talked to Darlene about her backup singing for Elvis, and how she feels about the King’s relationship to the music he both co-opted and celebrated.

Hi, Darlene. What is some of the gospel work you did with Elvis?

There is “Let Us Pray,” the one from the movie we did with Elvis, Change of Habit. That was his last film.

It was in 1969, with Elvis as a doctor and Mary Tyler Moore as a nun.

We, the Blossoms, are in the first scene. And we were in his 1968 comeback special [Singer Presents … ELVIS].

His new gospel compilation album should be quite interesting.

They [recently] had me do some fill-ins, what we call ad libs, throughout the album to make it sound more gospel. I haven’t heard it yet. Hopefully it’s a wonderful thing.

Elvis went to church and listened to gospel singers to soak up what they did, right?

Even today, it’s more mixed than it was in the Fifties and Sixties. Whites and blacks didn’t go to church together back then. What Elvis told me he would do — we had night service on Sunday night when we did what we called “praise songs.” A lot of them were songs he loved, what we called “hymn songs.”

We didn’t have air conditioners. We had pushup windows, with a little rope. Elvis said he would stand outside the church rather than going in, because they didn’t think black and white should be in the same churches together. He said he would listen through the windows. It gave him such a thrill. It’s a big difference between the way blacks sang gospel and the way whites sang gospel.

Do you feel he was dedicated to the music or he was just taking it for himself?

I found out years later, when we were doing the comeback special, that his mother’s favorite music was gospel. He would always sing gospel around her. I think if he could have had a big career in gospel music, that’s where he would have been. But you can always make more money off secular hits. Elvis had 10 or 15,000 people come to his shows to see him. Today, they have mega churches that hold 25,000, but back then, you were doing great if you had 500 people.

I bet they have air conditioning now.

Oh, lord, yes. [Laughs] I lived in Texas for five years as a young kid with my father, and it was so hot we couldn’t even breathe. There was no air conditioning in church or the house. What a difference it makes to have a cool ensemble. You still sweat because of the energy, but back then, we were soaking wet, when we sang in church.

I love gospel music. If I had a calling — meaning from the Lord — just to sing gospel, I would have, but the secular music got to more people. I bet a lot of secular singers like Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin felt the same way. They never paid us no money. “Do it unto the Lord.” “OK.” [Laughs] We would drive to the gigs and they’d give you an offering — gas money. They were hardly giving us a whole lot of money. But it was worth it, every penny of it. It was a wonderful experience singing gospel.

But was Elvis appropriating the music, or that’s just the way it was?

That’s just the way it was. A lot of people think a white person is copying the black person. He just loved the music and he was singing it the way he felt. He sang “Hound Dog” completely different than Mama Thornton. [Elvis’s version was rock, whereas Thornton’s was blues.] Even today, they take secular music and put it in gospel, and vice versa. You know, Elvis won three Grammys, and they were all for gospel records.

What were your experiences like with Elvis?

One time, Elvis decided we’d all go to the movies. He bought this theater out that night.

What did you watch — Change of Habit?

Don’t even ask me. I don’t remember. [Laughs] We had a lot of free time when we were recording and when we were making the movie. That’s when the Blossoms and myself got a chance to know the gospel side of Elvis. He’d want to know the songs we knew. He’d get his guitar and say, “You know this song?” “Yes, we grew up on it.” He’d say, “Let’s do it.”

Was he funny or serious?

He was funny and he was serious sometimes. If he didn’t think he was doing great, he’d say, “Hey, girls, how’m I doing?” He was very, very funny. I call it that “country funny.” He would do his moves in the studio the way he was gonna do them onstage. It made it easy to be around him, but sometimes it was not easy because his bodyguards were keeping people from him. He wanted to be with the Blossoms, where he could pull out his guitar. We’d say, “We think you’d better go. You’re gonna get us in trouble.” We’d never forget, because he’d be giving us his personal time.

You’d just be hanging out and singing?

Yes! Whatever song he knew — “Amazing Grace” or “River of Jordan” or “Heaven Is a Wonderful Place” or “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” We called them hymns of the church. There was another one called “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior.” The Blossoms were known for their harmony. We’d harmonize with him. There’s something we had with Elvis that others didn’t have. It was fun to be wanted by someone like Elvis Presley.

He had tremendous respect for you.

Yes, he did. That was great. I always say he left us way too soon. He is where I plan to go one day, so I’ll see him again.

You were all rather young and great-looking. Was there any sexual tension in the air?

There was. It could have been. But I was too scared to do anything.

You fool! [Laughs] Kidding. You wanted to keep it professional.

And I definitely did. Something about dating someone you’re working for, it takes away from that. “I know he’s never gonna look at me the same after this.” [Laughs] He’d start playing with me. He’d tap you on the shoulder or do a hip shake, and me and Elvis knew what that meant.

Flirting?

Yeah, I think so, and I think it showed his human side. I wasn’t bad-looking — and I was thin, too. [Laughs] He wanted to take out time and be around us. The reason we sang on his ’68 comeback special is he was the one that insisted that the Blossoms sing in the music section of the show.

So Elvis treated you better than Phil Spector did?

Oh my God, I’d say so.

That’s an easy one.

That’s a real easy one. Phil took advantage of me and my talent. With Elvis, he wanted us to work, and we got paid well. It wasn’t like Phil Spector cracking the whip and us running around!

#elvis presley #darlene love #black women

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agaypanic · 7 days

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I saw that you are writing about Roderick Heffley.

Can I make a request about Rodrick Heffley/reader (punk grunge girl)?

The reader has been friends with Rodrick for a year, she has her own band and she often hangs out with Rodrick.The reader writes songs for the band and when I realized that I fell in love with Rodrick, I wrote an entire album in his honor.(but since the reader replaced male pronouns with female pronouns in the songs, Rodrik did not understand about falling in love.)

You can make an awkward but sweet confession at the end.(like Roderick only got it when his friend told him directly about it, or when the reader was leaving town...)

I apologize if this is too specific and detailed. And I also ask you to forgive me if something is unclear, English is not my native language.

My Muse (Rodrick Heffley X Songwriter!Reader)

Masterlist

Request Something!

Summary: Inspiration for new songs strike you when you realize you’ve fallen in love with your friend Rodrick Heffley. But when you get the guts to play him a song as a way of confessing and he doesn’t understand, you figure it’s a lost cause.

A/N: reader is more of a pop-punk artist, and she wrote the only exception by paramore bc i said so. Idk much about instruments/terminology and also writing a character singing feels so awkward to me so sorry if it’s bad. Reader’s band is named after the one in metal lords (such a good movie ugh)

***

You and Rodrick had been friends for years, bonding over a shared love of music. As the two of you got older, you ventured into this interest by forming your own bands. Rodrick’s band, Löded Diper, was more rock, while yours, SkullFlower, followed more of a pop-punk genre. But that didn’t stop you and Rodrick from jamming and writing together during your free time.

With all the time you spend with Rodrick, you soon realized that your feelings for him grew beyond platonic, as cliche as it sounded. You obviously didn’t want to say anything and risk ruining what you had with him.

But you couldn’t help but have hope that Rodrick returned your feelings. No matter how many crushes he had, how distracted he became with his band’s latest business venture, or how often he got grounded to the point of not being allowed to leave the house for anything besides school, he always found his way to you. Sure, your heart ached a bit to see him so hung up over a girl who wouldn’t give him the time of day. But it was always made better when he’d sneak through your window just to sit with you when he should’ve been at home.

You didn’t want to bottle up your feelings forever, so you decided to write it all down in the form of lyrics. What started as a verse and half of a chorus soon became a complete song. And then one song turned into a handful. When you showed your bandmates, they immediately wanted to get to work on the instrumentals.

After a few long rehearsals and some convincing from the rest of the band, you decided to let Rodrick hear what you had been working on—half for his opinion and half as a love confession to your best friend.

“So…” As you walked to class with Rodrick, you kept having to tell yourself not to feel so anxious. Just think of it as just another band practice, and not you telling your best friend that you’re in love with him. “SkullFlower’s having a little rehearsal tonight. I think we’ve gotten a new song down pretty good. Did you wanna come?”

“Hell yeah!” Rodrick responded, seeming more pumped up than before you had asked. “What time were you thinking?”

“Probably around five. It’ll be at Steph’s place, since she has the best set up.”

The two of you stopped in front of your class, standing a bit to the side of the door to not block anyone’s path.

“I’ll be there,” Rodrick said with a grin, patting your shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “See you then.” Then he turned around and left to go to his own class, leaving you to walk in alone. As you sat down in your seat, the only thing on your mind was how you hoped everything would go right tonight.

***

It was a pretty common occurrence for you and Rodrick to be at each other’s band rehearsals. So, none of your friends were surprised to see him pull up in his somewhat busted van while you tuned instruments and set up equipment. He jogged up the driveway with a grin and two slushies, one for him and one for you. Another common thing between you two was showing up with some kind of sweet treat just for the two of you.

“Hey guys!” Rodrick greeted everyone in Steph’s garage before handing you a large slushie cup filled with your favorite flavors. “Hey, rockstar.”

“Hi, Roddy.” You said, blushing at the little nickname before sipping your drink. You averted your gaze to somewhere else in the room, so you missed the slight pink on Rodrick’s cheeks from the nickname only you were allowed to use.

After a few minutes of mingling, you and the band got ready to play while Rodrick settled in a lawn chair. He sat directly in front of you, so you felt you had no choice but to look at him while fiddling with the microphone stand.

“This one took, like, a day to write,” you warned, taking a final sip of your slushie before setting it on the floor next to you. “It’s a little softer than the stuff we usually play, but I think it’s pretty good. But I wrote it, so I’m a bit biased.”

“Everything you write is good, Y/n.” Rodrick tipped his slushie cup towards you. “Lemme hear it.”

You nodded and turned to Hailey. She started strumming on her guitar as Steph accompanied her on the keyboard. You swayed along to the music with closed eyes, internally counting down to your cue.

Rodrick had probably heard you sing a million times, you’d probably sung more around him than you did alone. But your nerves made it feel like you were performing in front of a sold-out stadium for the first time, instead of in your friend’s practically empty garage.

“I’d never sing of love if it does not exist.” You plucked up the courage to finally look at Rodrick, who was already watching you with a smile so small you almost couldn’t see it. “But darling, you are the only exception.”

You didn’t know if it was the fear of knowing you were confessing your feelings to Rodrick or the bravery from opening your eyes and looking at him in the first place. But for the rest of the song, you and Rodrick maintained eye contact, making it feel like you were the only ones in the room. You wondered if he knew that the words were written just for him.

As Hailey played the final chord of the song, letting it ring out, you gripped the microphone a bit nervously. At first, you thought the hard part was finally over. But then you remembered that Rodrick’s reaction was to follow.

“So… what’d you think?” Everyone eagerly awaited Rodrick’s response. Your friends knew about how deep your feelings went for him. And although they’d sometimes make fun of you for it, they were truly rooting for the two of you.

“That was awesome!” Rodrick said, throwing his arms out wide to emphasize his statement. You grinned, bouncing slightly on the balls of your feet in excitement. “Whoever you wrote that for is lucky, dude.”

And in an instant, all that excitement and hope diminished.

“Oh.” You let out a small sigh before clearing your throat. “Oh, yeah, they are. They are lucky.” You could practically feel the pitiful stares of your bandmates. That, accompanied by Rodrick’s now slightly perplexed expression, made you feel uneasy. “Um, I’ll be right back.”

You were out in a flash, running into the house and to the bathroom to hide. Your band watched you disappear before looking back at Rodrick, whose eyes were stuck on the door you had gone through.

“Wow.” Dylan was the first to speak, looking at Rodrick with a raised brow and crossed arms. “I know you’re kinda dumb, Heffley, but this might be a new low.”

“Excuse me?” Rodrick quickly rose from his seat, looking at Dylan, offended and confused.

“Oh, come on, Rodrick. Don’t play stupid.” Hailey said as she set down her guitar. “Who do you think Y/n wrote that song about?”

Rodrick thought about the question for a moment, wracking his brain for an answer but coming up with nothing. He shrugged, hoping that one of your friends would just tell him outright what was going on.

“I’ll give you a hint,” Dylan said. “She only invited one person to this band practice, and she only wanted to play that specific song.”

The look on Rodrick’s face was starting to make your friends wonder if you were better off without him knowing about your feelings. But suddenly, he gasped in realization, looking at each of your friends for confirmation of what he was thinking. When they all nodded, relieved that he was finally starting to understand, he grabbed your slushie from the floor, muttering something about being back in a minute.

In the bathroom, you were trying not to have a total freak out. You wondered how you could play this off. Although Rodrick wasn’t the brightest, he could be observant and stubborn when he wanted to be. He’d probably ask what was wrong, and if you could convince him that everything was fine, he would probably start asking who you wrote that love song about.

After splashing some water on your face to calm yourself down, you opened the door, only to see Rodrick standing on the other side.

“Jesus!” You jumped in surprise.

“Sorry.” Rodrick laughed nervously. “You, um, you forgot your slushie.”

“Oh, thanks.”

You fell into an awkward silence, standing in the threshold of your friend’s bathroom and slurping down your drink so you wouldn’t have to speak. Eventually, both of you were out of slushies.

“Was that song about me?” Rodrick blurted out, tilting his head in curiosity. You blinked, not expecting that to be the question he would ask. It seemed like he already knew it was.

“That depends,” you said, toying with your straw as you looked down at the ground to avoid eye contact. “Would you still like it if it was?”

Your attention was pulled from your shoes by a hand lifting your head, forcing you to look up at Rodrick. He leaned in to kiss you, just for a quick second, as if he was scared of you freaking out. But you were left in a daze as he pulled back.

“I’d like it a lot more if it was.”

Overwhelmed by what had just happened, you flung your arms around Rodrick and kissed him again. He stumbled back a step but caught you by the waist, kissing back eagerly. The world around you seemed to disappear.

“Ahem.” Slowly and reluctantly, you and Rodrick pulled away from each other to see Steph looking at you amused, Hailey and Dylan standing behind her. “Mom made us all a snack, unless you guys are too busy sucking face.”

“Oh, shut up, Steph.” You said with an embarrassed laugh. Your friends headed to the kitchen, but you and Rodrick slowly trailed behind to sneak a few more kisses to each other.

***

Rodrick Heffley Taglist: @tweedledipshit

#agaypanic #rodrick heffley x reader #rodrick heffley #diary of a wimpy kid x reader #diary of a wimpy kid rodrick

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watermelonsugacry · 1 year

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OMG could you imagine harry or yn on hot ones, I feel like yn would kill it(I’m not sure abt harry)😭

HOT ONES

A/N: this was so fun! ty to the lovies that sent in some questions for this one 💚 (picture credits to harianadimples & harianachile !) (4.6k)

GENRE: 1dbandmember!yn

SINCE 2010 masterlist

“Hey, what’s going on everybody. This is First We Feast, I’m Sean Evans, and you’re watching Hot Ones. It’s the show with hot questions and even hotter wings. And today we’re joined by the one and only YN YLN. You might have known her as one sixth of the most famous and influential bands in history, One Direction. She’s a triple threat and an 8 time Grammy award-winning singer, song-writer, musician, and producer and we shouldn’t be surprised if she adds a couple more on her shelf with her new album Waiting Room. The no features, no skip album that’s quickly making its way to the top of the charts. YN, welcome to the show.”

“What a fookin’ intro, man,” YN laughs and plants her hands on the circular table. “Thank yeh for having me on here.”

“The pleasure is all mine. It’s an honor to have you on the show. How are we feeling today?”

“M’actually extremely terrified,” She lets out a chuckle, clasping her hands together as her eyes look over the lineup of spicy wings in front of her.

“About the wings or the questions?”

“It’s half and half for sure.”

“So how are you with spicy foods?”

“M’quite alright with them but m’bit frightened by this gorgeous array of hot sauces here. Like—” YN holds up one of the tiny, glass bottles to the camera. “—this one quite literally has a picture of a bomb on it so,” She raises her hands in defense with a shrug of her shoulders. “Take that as you will.”

...

“Mhm,” YN nods as she licks her lips. “S’quite tasty. I like that one.”

“For the record, I did see that you ate the whole wing. Do you plan on continuing that as we go down the line?”

“I don’t waste food, man,” She smirks as she wipes her hands on the red cloth.

“So let’s start off with before you came into the spotlight. It was revealed that you actually didn’t want to continue singing as a profession when you were younger, but your childhood best friend and later on One Direction band member, Louis Tomlinson, made you audition on the XFactor with him. How did this come to be?”

“He tricked me actually. Louis had told me about how he was able to get an audition for the XFactor and I was super excited for him. Getting a chance like this was all he had talked about when we were growing up. On our way to Manchester—which was like an hour or two away from Doncaster—he told me that he got me an audition too and I was gonna sing in front of the biggest audience ever. The little shit."

"But do you think you would have auditioned if it were on your own terms?" Sean inquires.

"Probably not, if m'being honest," YN shakes her head. "And that honestly me skin crawl. M'very grateful for the path that I went on and that my fans have been giving me the opportunity to continue to do what I love for the past 12 years."

...

Once YN bites off of the last piece of her next wing, she shrugs her shoulders, “These wings are really good. This is easy, bro.”

“I’m just trying to keep up with you,” Seam chuckles before finishing off his piece. “Okay, so let me brag for you for a sec.”

“Alright,” YN lets out a nervous chuckle.

“You have 8, count ‘em, 8, Grammys in the 12 years since you became a solo artist and you have another impressive 8 nominations for the Grammys 2023. One of your many wins is being producer of the year—a category you nominated for the second year in a row—which you said in a Rolling Stones article that it was probably the best award out of everything you’ve ever received in your professional career as an artist. Can you give us some insight into how that became such an important staple on your shelf?”

“Wow,” YN huffs out a smile in disbelief. Her nostrils begin to flare and she can feel the tears threatening to escape her eyes. She feels uncharacteristically embarrassed that she’s suddenly overcome with emotions. “Woah, sorry. I don’t know why I was gonna cry for a second there.”

YN looks up with a chuckle, shimmies in her seat, before she gives a single clap. “Okay, m’good. Yeah I mean, for the first couple of years of my career, I fell in love with what it takes to actually make a song, how to layer instruments and vocals, and the details you can initially glaze over when you first listen to a song. But being the only woman in a music studio full of my male band members, producers, sound engineers, and everyone—it took me a while to be confident enough to speak out about making suggestions in the process of making a song.

I learned so much by just watching in me corner of the room, then I was shown bits and pieces from 1D’s production team. And when I went onto me solo career, I was taken under the wings of kickass producers like Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson. Being a woman in this industry—capable of making me own music is a huge accomplishment for me as an artist and for all women who want to break out in a male dominated environment.”

“Continuing the brag streak—”

“Oh, no,” YN smiles behind her red napkin. As confident and narcissistic as she can be, she’s never been one to take a compliment—especially the way in which Sean is just throwing them out there like free candy.

“—your first solo world tour sold out in less than 4 minutes, and your current tour sold out in less than two. How was it like to come into a solo tour after touring with the rest of One Direction five years straight?”

“Well to start off, that statistic is absolutely insane,” YN lets out a laugh. “It was such a big change to do this on my own without the boys by my side on stage. I remember doing a final dress rehearsal the day before me first show and while I sat on stage and just looked out at the massive arena I was in, I began to panic. It wasn’t like I hadn’t performed in that big of a room before but I began to think what if they only bought the tickets because they were so used to the boys? Like, what if they didn’t like just me onstage or the fact that I was doing choreographed dance routines and things like that? But that all changed once I was actually on stage performing. I…I’ve never felt that type of love before.”

...

After YN tosses the bone of her next piece of chicken away and as Sean begins his next question, she stares off to the corner of the table for a second and widens her eyes. Out of nowhere, the spice level has officially been kicked up.

“You’ve also made some impressionable fashion choices that have become a staple in not only your own wardrobe but in the closets of your fanbase. From your frilly shirts from your One Direction days to becoming the female face of Gucci. From your signature 7-inch platform heels to your variety of colorful and textured opera gloves. How important is fashion in your life and how you choose to express yourself?”

YN licks her swollen lips, chuckling a bit from the spice is starting to pick up.

“Fashion wasn’t something I was super passionate about growing up. I wore a lot of dark clothing when I was teenager and when I was in the band I began to wear a lot of shirts and pinks and high heels which was a drastic change for me to say the least. I then went into a lot of changes of like—” YN moves her hand fluidly up and down in a roller coaster motion. “—I was angsty to girly girl to frat girl to comfy to leather. And when I went on this solo journey, I was embracing both a new and older side of me with more pinks and heels but putting a sexier twist to it. And now m’all trousers and blazers but m’still very much figuring out me style. All of my different fashion ‘eras’ define a different chapter of me life and I think that’s such a cool thing about fashion. Clothes don’t wear you, you wear the clothes and when you have that in mind, it can give yeh a big sense of confidence.”

YN can’t help the smile tugging on her lips from her memories of being on stage, “And it’s such an indescribable feeling being on stage for tour and just seeing a sea full of the fans in those long gloves.”

“It has officially become one of many infamous YN YLN trademarks,” Sean points out.

“I guess so,” She laughs along with the host.

...

“We have a segment on our show called Explain That Gram where we do a deep dive on your Instagram and pull interesting photos that need more context.”

“Sounds good, man,” YN nods and she reaches for the hot sauce used for this piece of chicken. "This one has like a lemony taste to it. I like it."

"Well, we have this whole set for you to take home today."

"Shut up," Her eyes widen in excitement. "No way, that's very sweet of yeh. Thank yeh so much, I appreciate that."

When Sean pulls up the first picture on his laptop, YN immediately coos at the screen.

“Wow you guys really went far back, didn’t yeh? Yeah so this was at the band’s third tour, I believe. I remember having such a shitty day earlier before the show and to cheer me up, Harry asked if I could braid his hair,” YN giggles at the memory.

She was going through a rough patch with Matthew and they had an argument right before she had to do some interviews for the day and a show later that night. Knowing how to approach her best, Harry knocked on her dressing room door to see a teary eyed YN wiping her cheeks as quickly as she could. He didn’t ask her why she was crying or try to give her comforting words right away. Instead, he repeated his question when she gave him a furrow of her eyebrows and tilt of her head.

For the last 20 minutes before they had to head backstage, Harry sat on the floor in front of the couch in between her legs. As she twisted and weaved his long hair, he kept her laughing with poor jokes and funny vines he saved on his phone.

She didn’t have time to finish the middle section of his head and when she asked him to sit back down to take the braids out, he refused and basked in the warmth of her smile. He went on stage with them on and he never saw the smile leave her face.

“I had been bugging him to let me do it ever since he decided he wanted to grow his hair out and donate it to charity. It was a very sweet thing he did for me.”

“Hehe,” YN giggles happily at the memory this picture holds for her. She sees her 20-year-old self squished in between Harry and Louis, her Ray Bands over her eyes as she smiles brightly at the camera. “So this looks like 2014 1D and if you’ve seen the footage you can tell that we are—” YN hits a higher pitch as she sings her next words, “High as a fookin’ kite. We were in Brazil and we wanted to go out exploring but there was this massive crowd of fans outside our hotel—”

“Oh, don’t touch your eyes!” Sean quickly reminds YN as she goes to wipe at her eyes.

“Ah! ‘Fank you,” She laughs and dabs at her eyes once someone behind the camera hands her a tissue. “Okay, so there were a lot of fans blocking the front of the hotel and we couldn’t have just merely walked out and got to our cars or anything. I can’t remember who suggested it but we ended up getting out through the back of a bread van. We totally went by unnoticed!”

“We’re going in that?” YN points to the back of the white bread van that’s stuffed with pillows. By the tone of her surprised voice, the hotel workers’ eyes widen, their cheeks get red and they can feel the sweat accumulating on their foreheads in fear. They didn’t want to disappoint and anger a member of the most famous band on the planet. Yet their eyes stay wide for a different reason as YN breaks out into a beaming smile. “Sick!”

She grips onto one of the back doors as she swings herself into the tiny space covered in pillows.

Louis gives one of the hotel workers a reassuring smile and a pat on the chest, “Yeh get used to it. Can I come in and cuddle you, Niall?” He teases as everyone begins to squish in together. Ben Winston is the last to come in and close the door beside him. He’s brought a camera with him to record the trip as it’s going to be a part of the many video diaries that YN can’t keep track of.

“I used to be a baker so I love being in the back of the bread van,” Harry notes like he hasn’t brought up his part-time job from his teenage years before.

“Would you give it a rest, mate,” YN groans from her squished position between him and Louis, giving him a playful roll of her eyes before chuckling along with the rest of the boys.

“I quite like it in here,” Zyan smiles happily from his corner of the van. It doesn’t take long before they can hear the hundreds of fans screaming outside the vehicle. Everyone makes a shushing noise to quiet everyone as they pass the masses of fans.

YN already gets anxious when the band has to drive through massive crowds of fans who like to bang on the windows of the Range Rovers. The boys even like to push against the thick glass to counter the weight but that doesn’t stop the anxiety rushing to her chest when it happens.

Her mind starts to race at the thought that if the fans did actually find out that they were in there, they could easily shred the tiny van into pieces.

When Harry sees her chest begin to rise up and down at an increasing weight behind his dark sunnies, he doesn’t think twice about putting a hand over hers that’s gripping the pillow in the space between them. He’s thankful for the dimly lit setting and the way she has her legs bent as it covers their tightly, intertwined hands. She discreetly follows his nonverbal instructions and inhales deeply through her nose to copying how he makes a small ‘O’ with his mouth to exhale.

“Why don’t we make this trip a little more exciting?” Zayn wiggles his eyebrows as he pulls out something from his cargo shorts pockets.

YN pushes her sunglasses up to the top of her head and squints at the tiny object between her bandmate’s fingers before she smiles in relief. She watches as Zayn brings up the rolled-up substance to his lips, flicking his thumb on the lighter before a flame appears. After starting it, he goes to pass it to Niall who immediately shakes his head. Once Louis’s taken a hit, he passes it to an eager YN.

Everyone begins to have their own side conversations and Harry feels the butterflies in his stomach threatening to escape when YN doesn’t let go of his hand.

He watches from behind his pitch dark sunglasses as she holds the blunt between her thumb and first two fingers, wrapping her lips around it ever so gently and hollowing out her cheeks. Her teeth clench together as she holds the smoke in her lungs for a couple of beats, her eyelashes fluttering at the feeling before releasing the smoke into the space above her.

“How yeh feeling, Nialler?” Ben asks and turns the camera towards Niall in hopes of not capturing what the band is doing. Especially YN as it could cause harm to her “good girl” image that fans already know isn’t fully her.

“Not good,” He mutters out.

“Yeh want me to shotgun you one, Ni? It’ll make yeh feel better.” YN asks with a teasing smile once she blows out another puff from between her full lips, passing the blunt off to Harry. As he snickers along with the rest of the band, he has to admit that he’s relieved when Niall politely declines her offer.

Once Harry has it between his lips and takes a deep inhale, he's suddenly coughing a few times into his fist.

"Woah," YN giggles and puts a hand on her bandmate's shoulder, already feeling the effects. "Maybe I should have offered you a hit instead."

Her teasing comment only makes him cough more at the intimate thought as he passes the drug to Liam.

"S'just been a while," He manages to say once he's calmed down.

"Just offering," YN smiles at him, biting down on her bottom lip as she leans her head back to the metal wall behind her.

"Well, you seem to be feeling better," Harry quickly changes the subject before he lets his hazy mind wander. He matches her position and leans his head back. A smile etches on his lips when she giggles, closing her eyes and nodding her head.

"Thanks to you," She whispers and gives his hand a squeeze. Getting into a fuzzy headspace, she doesn't think about how long she's been holding his hand or how it makes her skin tingle at his touch. Instead, she brings their hands up between them and pushes them flat against one another so their palms are together. "Woah, look how much bigger yeh hands are."

His dimples dig into his cheeks as he cheekily chuckles at her, letting her maneuver their hands together as she pleases.

"How long?" Louis asks the drivers through the wall behind him. After letting him know that they've arrived, he dramatically yells out, "Okay!"

As soon as their security teams have opened the back doors of the tiny van, everyone begins to scooch their way out.

"S'almost as big as me face!" Harry lets out a string of high-pitched giggles when YN grasps his hand in both of hers and holds it up close to her face to demonstrate her point.

“It made the experience 10x better than it needed to be,” YN laughs, reminiscing at the fun memories she had with her boys. “I just felt bad for Niall, poor thing got both motion sickness and a secondhand high.”

"Alright, last one."

“Yeah, so—” YN sucks in a deep breath through her teeth from the spicy wing she just had. “Um, this was around the time when I started to write some songs on me own, just out on a whim. This was when me manager told me that someone was interested in buying it. So that was me reaction to the news. As you can tell, I acted very professional and calm about the situation.”

...

"I must say that you're doing a really good job so far," Sean smiles at the pop star across the table. "Most would have finished their first glass of milk by now while you're still drinking water."

"I'm built different."

“It’s no surprise to anyone that you know your way around a guitar. You’ve shown off some of your favorite and unique guitars from your extensive collection over the past couple of years. From your custom-made Daisy Rock Debutante butterfly shape staple to your Fender Vintera '50s Stratocaster that was used in a plethora of ABBA’s songs. From Jimi Hendrix's 1967 Gibson Flying V to your baritone/tenor snail shaped ukulele—The Snailele. Out of the all of guitars in your care, what would you say is the coolest guitar you own and why is it your Red Special?”

YN covers her mouth as she laughs out loud while simultaneously trying not to think about the heat increasing in her mouth.

“How do you even know that? I mean, yeh asking me to pick me favorite is like choosing my favorite child. I love all me guitars and they all have a chokehold over me heart. My Red Special is just—” YN has to take in a deep breath in hopes to cool down the heat building on her tongue. “—one of the fookin’ coolest things I own. It’s a hand-crafted replica of Brian May’s guitar that he uses for literally everything and when I met him I nearly shit meself, m’not even joking. Like, that guy is fookn’ superhero, know what I mean? And when he gifted me the guitar, I saw the light, man. I literally had an outside body experience. Like I saw meself in the middle of Brian May’s dressing room as he handed me the guitar.”

“Some people buy and collect expensive cars, I have cool guitars,” YN shrugs with a content smile.

...

“Now, let’s talk about the infamous Harry Styles.”

YN nods her head towards the host, hissing in a deep breath from the hot wing she just ate. This piece has easily become one of the spicier wings so far and she can instantly tell why that is from the mention of her secret fiancé. She smirks as she raises her glass of water to her lips, “Lets.”

“So, you guys have known each other for a little more than 12 years now as you guys were in One Direction together. And on New Years 2020, it has revealed to the world that you guys were in a relationship. Now, I won’t ask for you to go into the details of your relationship but is there any particular reason as to why you guys have kept your anniversary a secret?”

“You know, from a very young age, mine and Harry’s lives have always been in the public eye,” YN licks her lips and chuckles as the burning sensation only increases the more she speaks. They don’t call this hot sauce DaBomb for nothing. “Holy shit. Think m’gonna have to take off me blazer for this one, is that alright?” YN questions, already shedding off her coat. The tattoos scattered along her arms go on display and fans can see Harry’s handwriting inked on her upper rib cage.

“Go ahead, whatever you need to do,” Sean gives her a comforting smile. “Here, I’ll even take my jacket off, too. We’re in this together.”

“I feel the support,” YN laughs but it only makes the stinging that much more intense. “M’actually starting to sweat. Oof okay umm…yeah, even the way our relationship was ‘announced’ kind of left us vulnerable, in a way.”

“What a start to the new year.”

“Exactly. And there was a time in our lives where we felt that everyone knew everything about us and it was something that just didn’t sit well with us. So to have this one piece of our lives for only ourselves just felt right. And even though I’m on social media more than he is and I post a couple of pictures of us every now and then, we definitely don’t feel that way anymore. Which feels really nice.”

“Moving onto the more professional side of your relationship with Harry, you’ve obviously worked with him during your time in the band. You were initially brought onto his production team as a songwriter for his first album, then a musician, vocal-arrangement manager, and producer for his second, and now you were all of the above plus co-lead producer for his current album, Harry’s House. You’ve also worked with big time artists like Little Mix, The Weeknd, Lizzo, and Olivia Rodrigo just to name a few. How did that initial experience help you grow as a producer and build relationships when working with other artists?”

“You’ve really done yeh research haven’t yeh?” YN giggles before going into a coughing fit, quickly bringing the red cloth over her mouth from the spicy wing. “Excuse me. Shit, sorry,” YN laughs before reaching for her tall glass of water.

“Is it finally starting to hit?”

YN takes a gulp of water, quickly licking her lips as she sniffles away the start of a running nose. Being as stubborn as ever, she shakes her head, “Nope.”

“We do have milk for you there if you need it,” Sean kindly points out and YN begins to chew on a piece of ice.

“Don’t need it, ‘fanks. Umm, oh right. Harry’s me best friend above all else and we’ve been writing together since as long as I can remember. We’ve gone through and learned about this process together for over a decade now. He’s considered one of me biggest clients and when we work together, I tell him the honest truth. I don’t like to suga’ coat shit and it’s how I work. That’s something that he knows, feel comfortable with, and respects. And there’s always that ‘something’ you learn about with every artist you work with. Like sure we can go into the studio cold turkey and make a song together but before I work with someone, I wanna take them outside of the mindset, ‘Okay, I wanna make a #1 hit single,’ and make a song that means something to them.”

YN swallows thickly, swinging her legs back and forth as she tries to get her thoughts in order from her spice-induced brain.

“With Harry, he’s sort of allowed me to explore and experiment when making music; he trusts me in that sense and as a producer, that’s the most important thing I can have when creating something as intimate as music.”

...

YN’s eyes widen when she sees Sean begin to shake the bottle, “O-oh we’re doing this?”

“It’s tradition around here to add a little bit more sauce on the last wing. Now you don’t have to if you don’t want to—”

“Seany boy, if there’s one thing yeh should know about me is that v’got a huge ego. But m’sure yeh already knew that,” YN just her hand out towards the host, wiggling her fingers while sucking in another sharp breath in hopes to ease the pain on her tongue. “Gimme that shit.”

With an uneasy sigh, YN shakes the bottle to pour some of the thick hot sauce to the last wing on the cutting board.

“Come on, YN,” YN whispers to herself. “You’re a bad bitch.”

Making sure to avoid her lips from touching the chicken as much as possible, she takes a heavy bite from the last wing.

She scrunches up her face as she chews but it turns into a pleasantly surprised expression. “Wait, what the fook that one was actually quite good. S’actually not that bad—oh shit, no nevermind.”

Sean chuckles at the rollercoaster of emotions displayed in front of him. YN gulps down as much water as she can.

“Okay, side question as you’re processing all of this: Since you have yet to reach for the milk we have for you, in your honest opinion, do you think Harry Styles could handle the range of spice that you’ve endured over the course of this show?”

YN chews and speaks around a mouthful of ice, “He can try but he wouldn’t make it past the second one.”

“Is that a little trash talk I hear?” Sean laughs.

“Listen up, baby,” YN leans her elbow on the table and points to the camera that’s solely directed on her. “I love yeh, you know I do, but you couldn’t eat any of this shit if yeh tried. Just the smell of it is gonna make your eyes water. Just looking out for you, lovie. And let’s face it, we both clearly know m’the stronger one here,” She blows a kiss at the camera and reaches for her water cup once again.

When she has the glass to her lips, she huffs out a giggle, “He’s gonna come after me for that later. Fook, s’like m’breahting fire right now.”

YN leans her forearms on the edge of the round table and balls her hands into fists to keep herself stable at the burning on her tongue intensifies.

“That last thing I wanna do before be close up shop here is play a little game of association. I’m going to throw out some stuff out to you and I want you to tell me the first thing that comes to your mind. Are you ready?”

“Hit me with ‘em.”

“Jacob Collier.”

YN scoffs and shakes her head with a smile, “A fookin’ mastermind.”

“The restaurant Danny’s Place.” YN throws her head back and laughs at how much research this guy actually did on her past. Her brain has turned into utter mush from the spicy chicken that she can’t come up with a polite, media-trained response.

“It’s still shit,” YN shrugs and she doesn’t even try to hide her smile.

“Loophole.”

“Woah,” YN’s eyes widen with a chuckle. “Oh my word. Hell yeah. Okay—you are like the best interviewer I’ve ever had in me life. Um, bitch’n.”

...

“Okay to this camera, this camera or this camera, tell the people what you’ve got going on lately.”

“Um—” YN blinks away her spice-induced tears away, sniffing and rubbing the red cloth to her runny nose. “M’currently on a world tour. So if yeh bought a ticket, I’ll see yeh lot very soon. Also, me new album Waiting Room comes out the day after tomorrow—Wait, when will this air? Well, it will be out very soon because I can’t really think straight at the moment. Erm, this show was a fookin’ piece of cake and Sean Evans is a legend.”

The Sean and the crew members behind the cameras all clap and cheer making YN laugh. Once the shoot is a wrap and the credits begin to show up at the bottom of the screen, YN gets up and out of her seat to give a hug to possibly her new favorite host.

“How often do you do this?” She genuinely asks.

“Every week.”

“You eat this spicy shit every week?” Sean nods and laughs at how wide her eyes get. “You’re a fookin’ legend, man. I mean it.”

taglist:

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unlovedanchor · 2 months

Text

I AM ALL THE THINGS THEY MIGHT HAVE SAID TO YOU.

a prompt based off of the crane wives 2015 album, " coyote stories, " dark themes present. adjust if needed!

KEEP YOU SAFE.

" when i was a child, my nerves went wild. "

" i watched my friends climb to the tops of the trees. "

" i never climbed at all. "

" i told myself, 'i'm not ready.' "

" my daddy always said nothing worth doing comes easy. "

" nothing worth doing comes easy. "

" time is not your friend, time is not your remedy. "

" time is not your friend. "

" no amount of waiting will make you brave. "

" no amount of waiting will keep you safe. "

" the more fears i collect, i gather them from all the people i meet. "

" their stories reveal regrets their smiles can't conceal. "

" i carry them with me. "

" what if the steps i take turn out to be mistakes ? "

" how can somebody like me learn to stay ? "

THE MOON WILL SING.

" tell me once again. "

" tell me once again i could have been anyone. "

" i could have been anyone, anyone else. "

" i could have been anyone before you made the choice for me. "

" my feet knew the path. "

" we walked in the dark, i never gave a single thought to where it might lead. "

" i never gave a single thought to where it might lead. "

" all those empty rooms, we could have been anywhere else. "

" instead, i made a bed with apathy. "

" my heart knew the weight. "

" my heart knew the weight of ten years worth of dust and neglect. "

" ten years of worth of dust and neglect. "

" we made our peace with weariness and let it be. "

" the moon will sing a song for me, i loved you like the sun. "

" the moon will sing a song for me. "

" i loved you like the sun. "

" bore the shadows that you made with no light of my own. "

" i shine only with the light you gave me. "

" we could have had anything else. "

" instead, you hoarded all that's left of me. "

" i want to feel the fire that you kept from me . "

" i could have been anyone. "

ALLIES OR ENEMIES.

" the words i speak are wildfires and weeds. "

" they spread like some awful damn disease. "

" i swear, i didn't mean what i said. "

" i swear, i didn't mean it. "

" you owe me ears for dripping eaves. "

" forget it all, you caught me in a moment weak. "

" forget it all. "

" you caught me in a moment weak. "

" sometimes i just can't help myself. "

" i can't help myself at all. "

" are we allies or enemies ? "

" this will be the death of me . "

" remember when i could tell you not to smile ? "

" remember when i could tell you not to smile when you were mad ? "

" you would always crack, and we'd both be laughing in the end. "

" we'd both be laughing in the end. "

" now you're not so quick to forget. "

" all is fair in love and war, but i can't fight with you anymore. "

" what happens now ? "

" do we have another go ? "

" do we bow out and take our separate roads ? "

" i'll admit i've had my doubts. "

" i want to be let in, not out. "

UNRAVELING.

" i once loved a tailor who took eager care of me. "

" sewed together my loose ends with stitches. "

" stitches neat and clean. "

" but now my love is gone. "

" and i am left unraveling. "

" i once loved a gardener with his dirt-smudged face and hands. "

" trimmed my weeds and gave me room to grow. "

" i am left here withering. "

" i once loved a carpenter who carved a smile for me. "

" sanded my rough edges, crafted new and lovely things. "

" i can't help fracturing. "

" i never knew that i needed you. "

" i once loved a man who kissed me once before he left. "

" tied me up in knots and said he'd soon return again. "

HARD SELL.

" i'm trying to make something of myself. "

" my better days, i go buy the hard sell. "

" but i feel like i'm working with barbed wire. "

" i really can't get a hold of many things. "

" i'm one deep breath away from a breakdown. "

" my nerves are wrecked and coming unwound. "

" the world is hostile. "

" i'm fragile and i need someone to kiss the cuts. "

" tell me to keep trying. "

" is it me ? is it really just me ? "

" does everybody have it together or are we all pretending ? "

" holding it together with one loose string. "

" i can't stop pulling. "

"i rip myself apart at the seams. "

" i find one weak spot and start unraveling. "

" hoping i can find a better me. "

" a fresh new start. "

" can we stop pretending now ? "

ROCKSLIDE.

" i can hear the rumblin', honey. "

" it's why the weather's got the mountain shakin' weak. "

" i know you want to plant your feet. "

" we best get a move on. "

" or the devil we will meet. "

" i feel the quakin' honey, i feel it deep."

" oh, i pray today my soul to keep. "

" drop dead sprint, my darling. "

" don't look back now. "

" honey, just try to breath. "

" that monster's coming. "

" that monster's coming and it don't care for you or me. "

" it don't care for you or me. "

" the angels we may someday see. "

METAPHOR.

" i've gotten good at leaning on metaphors."

" i've gotten good at living on someone else's page. "

" i cut my teeth on secondhand sentiments. "

" you can't trust a single thing i say. "

" i keep my closet free of skeletons. "

" i'm much better at digging graves. "

" i always dig up bones in your sympathy. "

" i can't trust a single thing you say. "

" don't look too hard, you won't like the scars he left. "

" i've gotten good at stretching the truth out of shape. "

" all these words are sweet and meaningless. "

THE HAND THAT FEEDS.

" i've seen good men spoiled. "

" chained to their jobs like hounds. "

" they work and sleep and work again. "

" in the darkest nights they howl. "

" their cries are a warning to everyone following. "

" no man should stand to work all of his days. "

" and have nothing at the end of them. "

" i got no money but the change that jingles in my pockets. "

" reminding me of how little i have. "

" as for time, i am powerless to stop it. "

" it keeps rambling on like a mad, wandering man. "

" my papa was a howlin' man. "

" my dear papa gave me lessons and regrets. "

" all that he'd gone would be for nothing if [i] followed in his steps. "

" my papa taught me how to howl. "

" how to bear my teeth and growl. "

" he taught me that the hand that feeds, deserves to be bitten when it beats. "

" he taught he how to break my chains. "

" money ain't worth a thing. "

" no man should get more of my time than me. "

" i may never be a rich man. "

" i may never be a rich man but i can make sure that i am free. "

" i can make sure that i am free. "

" as for time, it's mine. "

LITTLE SOLDIERS.

" on the broken backs of all the words we spared. "

" like little soldiers in the trenches. "

" it was a march we made towards ruin and despair. "

" but we held hands all the while. "

" i swear that i loved you. "

" i dragged you through every room inside our home. "

" but you still held me at night. "

"i swear that you loved me. "

" we didn't give up. "

" we didn't dare surrender. "

" it was an honest loss. "

" now the aftermath will ring with songs you've sung. "

" all of our words sent home in boxes. "

" i fought with tooth and nail. "

" i fought with tooth and nail before the flag had flown. "

" but you were already gone. "

" i'll swear that i loved you. "

SLEEPING GIANTS.

" i feel the mountains shifting under me. "

" sleeping giants are finally waking. "

" my pulse is clear, rushing in my ears. "

" i hear something calling me. "

" the moon is humming lovely melodies. "

" the forest echoes, the trees are crowing. "

OF EVERLONG.

" out of the ocean, over the harbor. "

" lay no sons and lay no daughters. "

" among the mountains of everlong, 'twas there i wrote me a sad song. "

" 'twas there i wrote me a sad song. "

" and if my lover will not heed it ? "

" take my voice and take my spirit. "

" leave me weakened and dig my hole. "

" only my lover, not i, can keep my soul. "

NEVER LONG AN ANCHOR.

" on some level i think i always understood. "

" these hands of mine were clumsy, not clever. "

" i tried to do the best that i could. "

" but try as i might, i couldn't bring myself to hold you. "

" it's a secret i keep tucked inside my chest. "

" with this heart of mine that's guilty, not remorseful."

" there is love that doesn't have a place to rest. "

" it would have buried you if it had settled on your shoulders. "

" a ship could never really love an anchor. "

" so i did the only thing that i could. "

" i severe the rope and set you sailing from my harbor. "

" there are times i still wonder about you. "

" you are someone i have loved. "

" but never known. "

" you are someone i have loved but never known. "

" you'll never see the reasons i had for keeping my claws away when they were close enough to hurt you. "

" they were close enough to hurt you. "

" i am selfish, i am broken, i am cruel. "

" i am all the things that they might have said to you. "

" do you ever think of me ? "

" do you ever think fo me and my two hands ?"

" and wonder they never soothed your fevers? "

" and wonder why they never held you gently? "

" and wonder why they never had the chance to lose you ? "

NEW DISCOVERY.

" i want to stand on the edge of the water. "

" see horizons stretch on forever. "

" i want to know that there are lands not yet touched by human hands."

" not yet touched by human hands. "

" i want to be the one to find them. "

" sometimes i feel like i'm lost in a desert. "

" every dune is the same as the other. "

" i see my footprints in the sand. "

" i know where i've been and these steps i take won't go to waste. "

" i'm moving towards something. "

" i want to believe there's something left for me. "

" a new discovery waiting for me. "

" i want to kindle a love that doesn't age. "

" even when all the years carve lines into your face. "

" tell me will i be surprised? "

" tell me will i be surprised when i think i've memorized every touch and every thought ? "

" i want you to prove me wrong. "

#rp meme #rp prompt #roleplay prompt #rp memes #crane wives prompt

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vanwritesfan-fiction · 7 months

Text

What You Heard

A Klay Thompson Insta AU

****

Liked by yourusernamefan, atlanticrecords, user and 202k others

yourusername Cali has been so good to me, this east coast girl just might have to move. Still a Knicks fan till I die tho 🤭

View 12,345 comments

yourbestiesusername you better not, NYC is not ready to let you go!

yourusername I'm thinking summers in NYC, winters in Cali 🤔 yourbestiesusername but you hate the beach yourusername true, but San Fran is so cute, you need to come see for yourself yourbestiesusername hell no, I don't cross over the Midwest yourusername 😂

yourusernamefan when is the new album coming out?

yourusername its part of the reason I came out here! working so hard on it right now

user I'm sure your Daddy will make sure it sells yourusernamefan she's not even signed to her Dad's record label, she's been making music independently for years now

user I heard that her and Klay are dating, wonder if the rumors are true after she went to one of his games? 🤷🏾‍♂️

Liked by yourusernamefan, user, klaythompsonfan and 51k others

tmz Is the other Splash Brother finally off the market after being single for two years? Klay Thompson was seen arriving at Liholiho Yacht Club last night in San Francisco, shortly after Y/N Y/L/N, singer and daughter of Atlantic Records Exec, Y/F/N Y/F/L/N, arrived with a group of friends.

Y/N then posted some photos from the night on her private Instagram, where fan think they can see Klay in a few of the shots.

The two arrived and left separately, but a trusted source says the couple was more than friendly during dinner, with lots of touching and PDA throughout the night.

The pair were first linked together when Y/N was spotted in a suite at the Chase Center taking in a Warriors game last month. Neither management team was available for comment.

View 2,300 comments

yourusernamefan oh I love them together! they make such a cute couple

user It won't last. Y/N Y/L/N has a history of dumping guys right and left yourusernamefan you sound salty🙄 She was with her last boyfriend for over two years

user that nepo baby that can't sing worth shit is going to ruin him

user I think she'll be good for him. He kind of seemed like a playboy

warriorssplashfan this better not affect his season. Warriors need another ring this year

user No, Klay isn't single anymore?!?! 😭

Klay Thompson posted on his story

Klay Thompson deleted his story

Liked by stephcurry, goldenstatewarriors, yourusername and 42k others

View 4,523 comments

klaythompson The people’s champ @mosesmoody . Thank you to the Moody family for having me at camp. That was a blast ! #proudvet

user are your really gonna pretend like you didn't hard launch Y/N on your story and then delete it?

klaythompsonfan its really none of your business

goldenstatewarriors a great guy on an off the court

yourusername couldn't agree more user are the two of you are together? user I think they are, she's currently in in Arkansas as well user no she was just at the VMAs last night, she couldn't have been in Arkansas

stephcurry my brother! can't wait for the season to start

Liked by klaythompson, ayeshacurry, yourbestiesusername and 45k others

yourusername don't get it twisted- the only thing I'm hard launching is my love for Rocco

klaythompson Rocco isn't the only one who loves you, ya know?

yourusername 😘

yourusernamefan I knew it! They make the cutest couple!

user where's the album?

user we're gonna have to wait a while, she only writes her best songs when she's heartbroken yourusername ya'll are getting nothing but love songs from me

yourbestiesusername I can't believe this man got you to go to the beach

yourusername the things you do for love 🤭

#klay thompson imagine #klay thompson #klay thompson instagram au #klay thompon x reader #klay thompson fan fiction #nba fan fiction #nba instagram au

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cowgurrrl · 10 months

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This is incredibly random but it made me think of you; Oh, how I want my rockstar husband Joel to sing Tennessee Whiskey to me..🫠

Saphy, thank you for your patience and your beautiful brain

Tennessee Whiskey

Pairing: rockstar!joel miller x actress!reader

Author’s note: PS sorry this took so long to finish

Summary: A (somewhat) quiet night as you and Joel adjust to sharing life again [1.2k]

Warnings: the tiniest reference to spice, regret, longing, oh they’re so in love and sweet

Since your temporary break from accepting new projects, you and Joel have been together as much as humanely possible. You have a whole year to catch up on, and he's taken every opportunity to spend time with you. Movie nights with Ellie and Sarah (even though she has her own dorm), beautiful, candle-lit dinners at some of LA's best restaurants, walks with Daisy, sleepovers, all of it. But tonight, Sarah is studying for a midterm, and Ellie is seeing a movie with her friends Dina and Jesse, leaving you and Joel alone in the house. Well, Daisy's there too, but she's much quieter than the girls.

He promised to make you a homemade meal but refused your help, delegating you to sit on the island and drink wine while he cooked. The gold necklace he's taken to wearing since you've been gone peeks out from his collar, and a flush of heat rushes through you as you remember the way it swung in your face earlier in the day. He catches you staring and smirks as he tosses a towel over his shoulder. "See somethin' you like?" He asks, and you shake your head, hiding your blush as you sip wine.

"Maybe."

"Maybe?" He parrots. You roll your eyes and rest your hands on the counter. He raises his eyebrows like he's waiting for an answer, and you smile.

"Yes, Joel, you're very nice to look at." You say, and he hums. He leans across the island to kiss you sweetly before turning back to the food. He seems very in his element in the kitchen and getting to add his own spin on the dishes. Watching him cook feels like you're getting to know another part of him. A very welcome part. Many of the people you've dated in the past haven't even owned a kitchen big enough to cook in, so you're perfectly fine being spoiled.

"Now, I'm not a fancy chef or anythin' like that, but I think you'll like this." He says as he puts the salmon in the oven, and you smile.

"I'm sure it'll be great." You reassure him, and he smiles before turning on the stove and filling a pan with vegetables you watched him cut earlier. You're about two glasses of wine in (on an empty stomach), and the room is spinning pleasantly.

These nights are your favorite— devoid of watchful eyes and high-speed cameras. He smells like aftershave, and your body wash when you come up behind him while he cooks, wrapping your arms around his middle and kissing the curve of his spine. His hand covers yours as he sautés the vegetables and hums a familiar tune. You put your wine glass on the counter and let yourself fully rest against Joel. The vibration of his humming thrums through your chest, and you rest your chin on his shoulder.

"You still owe me a song, Miller." You mumble, and he laughs.

"I wrote you a whole album of songs." He says, and you roll your eyes.

"Yeah, but I haven't gotten a real-life Joel Miller serenade yet."

"I was just on tour."

"I was in Ireland, remember?" You ask, and he takes a deep breath like he doesn't want to be reminded of that time. The tour was only in North America, and you weren't in a space, in your work or emotions, to come back to see him. You wish you would've. He wishes he would've come to Europe. You wish you would've gotten to this place of reconciliation and forgiveness sooner. There's no lingering frustration on either side of how things ended, but there's a lot of grief. The air shifts between you, and he swallows thickly. He squeezes your hand a little harder, and you kiss his jaw. "'M here. I'm here now."

"I know." He says as he turns off the knob and moves the sautéed vegetables to a cooler part of the stove. You open your mouth to say something about the ridiculously high heat he had the burner on, but he cups your face and kisses you before you can. "You're here." He whispers, pulling back just enough to kiss you again and again and again. He hums against you, and your hands rest on his waist as he slowly sways with you in the kitchen.

Then, slowly and quietly, he starts singing to you. You were never one for Chris Stapleton or most modern country music, but Tennessee Whiskey sounds so good when he sings it to you like this. He gives each note his full attention and spreads his breath perfectly across each lyric. You don't think many people were born to do many things, but you believe, deep in your soul, that Joel was born to be a singer. You bury your head in his neck to hide the tears pricking in your eyes. You're not sure why you're crying. It could be the wine, or how he's holding you, or the year you spent apart finally catching up to you.

He kisses your temple and rubs your back as he sings. A tear falls down your cheek, and a wet nose nudges your knee as if she could hear the water trickling down your face. You laugh and see Daisy sitting at your feet, whining as she stares at you. You make a sympathetic noise and reach out to scratch her head to tell her you're okay. She doesn't seem satisfied with that, though. Without breaking focus, Joel bends down, scoops all forty pounds of Daisy into his arms, and lets her join in the slow circle you're dancing around the kitchen. She licks your tears away, and you giggle when she rests her head against Joel's chest, too, perfectly content to be babied. You and Daisy each get a kiss, and you take a deep breath to calm yourself down. He carefully places all four of Daisy's paws on the ground again before wrapping you in the biggest, most Joel Miller hug possible.

"'M here. 'M not goin' anywhere." He says, and you nod into his shirt. "I love you."

You've avoided saying the L word since you rekindled your relationship. Not because it wasn't still there but because you were afraid of rushing into anything too fast. The unspoken rule seems stupid now that the words are reverberating across your skull with a scarily easy acceptance. He loves you, and you love him. Enjoy it, dammit.

"I love you, too," you whisper. "Thank you for singing to me."

"I'll sing to you whenever you want, honey."

"Whenever I want?" You ask, pulling back to look at him with a mischievous look. You expect him to try to rescind his statement and launch into a lighter conversation, but he doesn't. He cradles your face in his hands and nods.

"Whenever you want." He says with a kind of finality that makes your heart sing. You won't admit it for two more years, but in that moment, you both know he means forever, and for once, that doesn't scare the ever-loving shit out of you. You stare at him, searching his eyes for any signs of uncertainty or doubt but find none. All you see is love and total adoration.

So, you nod in agreement, the closest you would get to promising yourself to him until your engagement, and say, "I could get used to whenever."

#one for the money two for the show #rockstar!joel miller #rockstar!joel miller x actress!reader #the last of us fluff #tlou fluff #the last of us au #tlou au #joel miller fluff #joel miller au #joel miller series #joel miller x reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x fem!reader

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flamingplay · 2 months

Text

Everything Everything's Mountainhead: a Track-by-Track commentary from AppleMusic

Everything Everything lead vocalist Jonathan Higgs thinks that the thread running all the way through the Manchester quartet’s catalogue is the urge to encapsulate the effect on humanity of living in this time. “That’s really what all our albums are about,” Higgs tells Apple Music. “It’s a varying degree of looking inward and outward, observing how it feels to be alive in this place in this time. This one is very much looking outward for the most part.” “This one” is Mountainhead, Everything Everything’s seventh record and another astounding leap forward from one of the UK’s most inventive bands. It mixes pulsing synths and gleaming guitar licks, euphoric electro grooves and art-rock dynamism—music where the strange and the soothing seamlessly overlap.

The album pairs a dystopian concept about a society which has built a huge mountain and its people live in the shadowed pit it has created at the bottom (a “Mountainhead” is someone who believes the mountain must continue to grow taller no matter the cost) with some of their most rhapsodic pop hooks yet. It’s all been created with the confidence that there is an audience for this sound. “It always feels like we’ve got a lot of goodwill from the last thing we did, so a lot of people are waiting for the next thing we do,” says Higgs. “I think people really liked the last record [2022’s Raw Data Feel] and this one’s better.” This is the sound of Everything Everything on the crest of a wave, confidently hitting new peaks seven albums into their career. Allow Higgs to guide you on a journey to the top of Mountainhead, track by track.

“Wild Guess”

“This was a little demo we made on tour with Foals back in 2017 or something. I put a vocal on it but it was all sung an octave up from what you hear, which was ridiculous. We happened to rediscover it and were like, ‘Remember how ridiculous this song was? Maybe it’s fine to do it now.’ There was just something about the confidence of that big fat solo beginning the record, no vocal for ages and it’s not very nicely played. It’s the same recording Alex [Robertshaw, guitarist and keyboardist] did backstage into his laptop all those years ago. It just felt like this was a good way to start a record, basically, like, ‘Fuck you. Here’s your big fat solo that sounds awful and you’re going to have to wait for your vocal.’”

“The End of the Contender”

“This is vaguely about Ronnie Pickering [ex-boxer who went viral in 2015 for a road rage incident] and people of his ilk, but it’s also about the creep of capitalism and how it’s seeping into everything. I’ve tried to put a reference to money or electricity on every song, so he talks a lot about it in that song—whoever ‘he’ is. Obviously, ‘It’s all about the Benjamins’ is quite a cheeky thing to sing in the chorus, but I don’t think I’m going to get sued for it.”

“Cold Reactor”

“This is setting out the stall of the record. It really hinges on the human element of it and the desperation of it. The ‘I haven’t left the house’ line, somebody being quite isolated and communicating through screens and emojis, felt very relatable. There’s a sad longing for connection that you can’t quite get to that runs through it and because it has this rushing feeling of everything coming to a point, it really emphasises the desperation of it. It was a question of getting the right sort of heartbreaking-versus-hopeful tone and trying to get across a lot of exposition in the verses in quite a short time. It feels like a film script in terms of its simplicity.”

“Buddy, Come Over”

“This is about cancel culture a little bit, it’s got this dark-side- and underworld-type feeling to it. There’s a line, ‘Make me a website so I can completely ruin my life’ and that made the guys laugh quite a lot. Sometimes when that happens, we’re just like, ‘Yeah, let’s go down this path.’ It fell together quite easily, it was more like a really fun one to play live, like, ‘What can we play that feels good in the moment rather than trying to get all these tracks on the go.’”

“R U Happy?”

“This is about the effect of isolation, living in cities, living now and asking the question, ‘Are you happy? Does all this stuff make you happy?’ in the simplest way I could, which is to literally say, ‘Are you happy?’ over and over again. There’s definitely a through line of being an animal and the ‘dance in a skeleton way’ line was me saying if there’s a skeleton there, you’re dead but if there’s a skeleton there, you’re alive as well, talking about being alive and trying not to be sad all the time.”

“The Mad Stone”

“This is more about the religious element to the idea [of the album]. It’s more like a spiritual song in its presentation and its content. It sounds like an argument between two or three people who really believe in this idea of the mountain and people who are very doubtful about it. The thing on top of the mountain [in the chorus] is this big mirror that reflects you over and over again into infinity—that’s the more magical element of what might be at the top of the mountain. I was trying to come up with a metaphor for an idea of something that would be an actual goal that someone might want to get to, but it’s also really obviously selfish and self-aggrandising. It took an afternoon of singing it to get the chorus right, getting it so it just didn’t sound silly—being understood and not sound like I’m mumbling.”

“TV Dog”

“This was a demo that Alex had made that he called ‘Coney Island’ and we all thought it sounded like a New York string quartet. Coupled with that title, it opened up a few little avenues on the record, some strings that appear on other songs. I had about twice as many lyrics and we were like, ‘Is this song going to develop into a bigger thing? Are we going to bring the drums in?’ and then we were like, ‘The most poignant thing you can do is just hear it for a minute and a half, a couple of good lines and then it’s gone.’ Alex went down to a cathedral and recorded loads of ambience in there and put that all over the track in the background, so you get this sense of it being in a huge space.”

“Canary”

“If some of the other songs feel like you’re on the mountain, this one’s very much in the pit, it’s being in the dark. It’s the canary in a coal mine, a warning song that just so happens to fit very well with the larger concept. It’s the darkest underbelly of the album and the imagery is the most fucked up. It feels like a warning about something bad that’s coming, which tends to be where I often find myself as a character in my songs—as a warning character. This was a big production number for Alex, I think he wanted it to be a bit Björk or something.”

“Don’t Ask Me to Beg”

“I started with layering up vocals, I was trying to make a kind of choir thing. I was listening to Massive Attack, even though they don’t really use choirs. We tried different rhythmic schemes for ages to try and get it sounding less white-boy funk and cool. It took us ages working on the drums, actually, and then trying to re-record all of those cluster vocals. I think we just gave up in the end and used the demo ones, so no one knows how to sing those parts. If we have to do it live, we’re going to struggle!”

“Enter the Mirror”

“This is about a friend of mine who was struggling and I wasn’t sure if he was going to make it through. It’s a song about singing to him as if he was gone and remembering our childhood. I haven’t really worked out what it means yet. I think I wanted to say that we’re both the same deep down, even though there’s two of us. But there’s also the mirror on top of the mountain, which might be like you find yourself if you go into it. I don’t know, I’m still a bit too close to that song to even fully say.”

“Your Money, My Summer”

“This was another demo from around the same time as ‘Wild Guess’, something that we thought was just a bit too silly to do something with back then and now, I guess we didn’t. In the past, we would have had a litany of reasons why we wouldn’t do that and now it was like, ‘This is good.’ It’s definitely the most relaxed track of ours you’ll ever find. You won’t find us playing like that anywhere else, a sort of Chili Peppers rhythm section. We would usually run a mile from that stuff but we were just like, ‘Why are we running?’ It’s an example of us being relaxed with each other.”

“Dagger’s Edge”

“This was an older demo. It always had that feeling of being a song of two halves. I think I wrote the second half and Alex wrote the first. We’d binned it because we thought it was too silly. It does sound pretty light-hearted in the first bit, but then the tone changes. I’m taking the piss out of somebody and saying a lot of ridiculous things and then suddenly just turn into this really desperate old wise man on a mountain. No other band could do that and I really believe that that’s very much our thing—a song that sounds like Dr. Dre and I’m taking the piss out of a guy, calling him those ridiculous names, and then suddenly, a harpsichord comes in and it’s turned into a really existential thing about everyone turning into bacon.”

“City Song”

“This is another one that’s got that New York strings thing going on. I wrote the demo and it was much more hip-hoppy. It’s got a hip-hop speed, but, stylistically, that’s been shed. I was trying to do like a David Byrne-style lyric, the sadness of mundanity or trying to make mundane things special. I think there was also some elements of the Mark Fisher book Capitalist Realism, where he was talking about how impersonal it can be to work for a big company where no one really knows each other. I wanted to get across that feeling of isolation, but also no one really knowing who you are and no one knowing each other, living under the lights of the city and it all being very anonymous.”

“The Witness”

“I’ve barely listened back to this because it makes me quite emotional. It was about witnessing somebody go through a weird transition, thinking that it might be a kind of religious experience. It was written on guitars but Alex swapped out the guitars for synths because it sounded like a Radiohead-type song, two guitars picking and a sad guy with a falsetto. It was just like, ‘People would like it but this is really music from 25 years ago that we could do standing on our heads.’ It’s what we were trained to do, we’re good at it, but it wasn’t pushing us in any direction. So we swapped out the guitars for synths and we made a few other weird changes.

#Everything Everything #Mountainhead #I saw someone asking about whether there's a Radiohead-ish song on this album too and choked when saw that there IS xD #Jonathan Higgs #here for Alex discovering his inner Bjork

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atomicwinnerdreamland · 4 months

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Heyyyyyy I saw you were taking requests :)

Can we please have some NY and Louisiana hc’s?

Hii! Yes of course :D

New York:

-He likes to paint and read. His favorite things to paint are sunsets/sunrises, architecture (CA's Golden Gate, FL's Disney World, his own buildings, etc), and plants. His favorite types of books to read are psychological thriller, fantasy, and coming of age classics (occasionally romance as well, though he'd never admit it)

-He and California have little arguments where they talk about how similar they are to each other. "I have the Brooklyn Bridge!" "Well I have the Golden Gate!" "I have the New York Times, you copycat!" "No you're the copycat, I have the Los Angeles Times!" They're not really arguments though since these conversations usually end in laughter.

-Speaking of the NYT, he likes to journal. Whenever he can't resort to violence to let out emotions, he writes his feelings out on the nearest piece of paper he can find. Sometimes he burns them, other times he keeps them in a special drawer to read for later. He also likes to write little moments that occur in his life that he finds interesting; like eating good food, making a snowman, discovering a new song he knows he'll hyperfixate on for months, etc. He also likes to write books, though most of the time they're just little picture books you could read to kids because that's all he has time for

-I've mentioned this before, but New York plays board games with California. He wins against Cal in Monopoly but loses against him in Uno. New York also plays games (board games and party games) against his northeastern besties and he's very competitive when doing so.

-He's a fashion icon. The other states ask him for fashion advice and he delivers since fashion is a passion for him 💅 He's been told he could be a model, but he never actively pursued a modeling career bc of his statehouse responsibilities

-I feel like he'd be a huge fan of Taylor Swift, especially 1989 TV. Evermore's another one of her albums that he vibes with since a song called coney island's on it and bc it's a calming album for him :)

-He's friendly to Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. All three states are kind and don't annoy him, and New York appreciates that. They also all play in the snow at times. He also has a soft spot for Indiana, Wyoming, and Alaska.

-This one's a popular one, but my baby over here has insomnia. The only way he can get a true night's rest is if somebody's there to cuddle him ane calm his mind down, like *coughs* California. This fic by @alaskashigh is a great example of this if you want to read one :)

-Him and Illinois get along well. They buy each other coats for the winter and argue a lot about pizza and sports teams. Through this, New York managed to get along with Indiana and Minnesota, and now all three of them like to grocery shop together lol

-When that whole fiasco of the skies turning orange occured in the Northeast, the first person New York turned to was California, and rightfully so. California helped patch New York up and gave him advice on how to deal with stuff like that. New York told the rest of the NE what Cal told him so that they also know what to do.

-He shows he cares through gifts and actions. He doesn't say "I love you" very often, but he'd hurt anyone who hurts his loved ones, give you his coat when you're cold, make you some food, or plants specific flowers when he finds out what flowers you like. New Jersey usually helps New York with the planting part, and that's one of the rare times those 2 get along.

Louisiana:

-Louisiana hangs out in the woods with Florida and Texas just to get away from the Statehouse and to gossip.

-One of his favorite songs ever is House of the Rising Sun, and he never misses an opportunity to sing it. You can hear him sing it while he cooks, cleans, or when he does really anything. The states aren't annoyed about it though because his voice is captivating.

-He's a very comforting person. The states go to him whenever they need somebody to talk to because Loui can do it all: he can listen, cook, and make jokes.. whatever you need to feel better.

-He enjoys learning about old folk tales, urban legends, and superstitions in the US and around the world. The states often catch him watching paranormal true crime documentaries with a grin on his face, and the only state that's not unsettled by this is Florida.

-Speaking of Florida, he and Florida go on dates by doing the most dangerous stuff. Skydiving without parachutes, doing hit and runs, armed robbery in important government buildings just to make Gov mad, whatever crazy things these goons can think of. But on other times where they're feeling relaxed, their dates are just them cuddling or eating. They enjoy both bc they have each other :)

-(TW: suicide, death) If he was a normal person, he'd be dead a long time ago. He's been stabbed, shot at, beat up, hanged, basically killed, but since he's a personification he just sustained the injuries and went on about his day. When he found out he was a personification, he killed himself just to see what'd happen. Would he clearly see the paranormal stuff he likes so much? Would he see an afterlife? Imagine his surprise when nothing happened to him.

-He can read, but he just doesn't want to. He just likes to read his Mama's recipes and children's books. When New York makes a new children's book, Loui usually asks him if he can read it, and New York lets him.

-He was a nice kid in high school. Respectful to his Mama, probably indulged in some sports, escaped to the woods once in a while, and had a decent group of friends that were just as wild as him. He's the type of guy to not make any enemies, and he was one of those rare ones who were good looking in high school (I wish that were me lmao)

-He and Texas are buddies and cook together a lot. When Louisiana needs help with anything, especially natural disasters, Texas is the first one to make sure he's okay and vice versa. When Florida's off doing... something that definitely is a threat to his life and/or someone else's (aka being himself), Loui and Texas go to parties together. Loui gets drunk and usually almost blacks out whereas Texas only takes a couple drinks to make sure he and Loui get back home safe. They got each other's backs, basically.

-He and South Dakota get along most of the time, and the only time they don't is when SD talks about Pierre and pronounces it "peer". Loui doesn't take it too seriously, but they like to jokingly argue about it.

-He has a big heart and it's obvious. He likes to show love through his words and his actions. Like New York, he wouldn't hesitate to throw a punch to someone who has hurt you, but he also would stop whatever he's doing to make sure you feel loved and taken care of. He's almost burned the statehouse down once because he was comforting his buddy Arkansas, but California was around to stop this potential fire. He also likes to say he cares about you, you can occasionally hear him say je t'aime mon amour/mon ami(e) & tu es magnifique. (I love you, my love/my friend & you are beautiful).

That's all I have for now, thank you for the ask :D

#wttt #welcome to the table #wttsh #ben brainard #welcome to the statehouse #wttt new york #wttt louisiana #wttt headcanons #wttt caliyork #caliyork is slightly mentioned tho #wttt floui

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mrschwartz · 2 years

Text

Alex Turner for OOR Magazine (October 2022)

Conducted in August 20th 2022 by Willem Bemboom

Alex in the sun on a terrace. Leather jacket, classic shades, a big head of hair in desperate need of a handful of Brylcreem. He almost looks like a time-traveller, someone from another dimension, unmoved by the sounds of the city in the distance and the swelling lunch crowd around us.

He talks slowly and dragging, as if the battery is almost flat. His pauses in thought are numerous and stretched out, sometimes to determine what he DOES want to say, more often to think about what he does NOT want to say. Apparently he is so used to intelligent or difficult questions, that the easy ones throw him off. What are you listening to? What has changed? What do you think yourself is the most beautiful lyric? Endless silences, you can almost hear the brain cracking. But they are by no means painful. The lesson taken from previous interviews - and in fact the essence of Arctic Monkeys: just let Alex Turner meditate, that's where eventually the best things come from.

The sunglasses meanwhile are being taken on and off every minute. With wide eyes full of wonder Turner turns the casual things lying on the table into a journey of discovery. OOR's old trusted dictaphone for example. 'Reliable stuff', he judges. ‘At worst eats your tape one time, but such a device will not betray you. Two buttons, on, off, record, play. You don't need more options. I want to start working with these things a bit more.”

He weighs the device for a moment, as if he is testing a peach or tomato at the local fruit & veg. A mysterious short laugh follows. Who knows what goes on in that head.

The Car as a record makes an analogous impression, either way in terms of technique and instrumentation.

Right? Texture wise for sure. Old instruments, string arrangements. The ideas are kneaded to songs with human hands. Although this time we also have a Moog.

And the subjects as well seem to come from a different time. Classic Hollywood, faded glory, but also Cold War stuff. In various songs there are spying elements sneaking around.

That’s for sure what I’m doing in the new songs. Think of Gene Hackman in The Conversation, you have to search in circle of people as such.Vague surveillance stuff, listening devices [focuses on the recorder again]. A bit like how this conversation is also being recorded, haha.

Social media seems completely absent, you are far from sketching a contemporary time frame. People talk on the phone together.

Good point. I imagine that phone in Big Ideas like that, on the wall, with a turntable. It is indeed an analog world, there is no apping or anything like that. On the first song on our first record I sing about a phone that is being unlocked [The View From The Afternoon]. You had to press the asterisk key to avoid accidentally turning on your cell phone. We still play that song every night, I’ve now sang it so often that I’m not thinking about those lyrics at all. A few days ago I did have a clear mind and suddenly I realised: gosh, this is not how phones are any more! Back in the days I was more up-to-date with my technological references, on AM there are still text messages and such. That's gone now. I have gone back in time, it seems.

Your previous album took place at the moon. Where - and especially when - is The Car set?

Hm. [long silence] You know what, I really don't have any idea whatsoever. Even for Tranquility Base I now wonder if it all took place at the moon. That sort of thing reveals itself only later, sometimes even a lot later. The music triggers something in me, I build on the atmosphere and the sound, and I just let The Idea run wild - though I refine the lyrics endlessly after they get into shape. But the source? Dunno, that can't be guided or be explained. I did try to steer away a bit more from the sci-fi idiom than on the previous one. Whether it succeeded is question number two. For some reason there’s somehow always science fiction seeping through.

You now refer in several numbers to old movies and showbiz, like the musical Anything Goes, 1930s Broadway, with music by Cole Porter. New fascination?

Hmmm, no. By the way, it is indeed lifted from a movie. Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom begins with the song Anything Goes, from that musical, sung in Chinese. Nice opening, although I’m certainly not the biggest Indiana Jones fan. I suddenly thought about it, so it ended up in that song. That's how it goes with most things. Who knows where it comes from and what it means. It's suddenly there.

Is Sculptures Of Anything Goes a New York song? Apart from the Broadway link you sing about 'city life 09', the period you lived in Brooklyn, and ‘Village coffee mornings, with not long since retired spies’.

As in: written in New York? No, I haven't been to New York in ages. The Village is in there…. I think this is another of those science fiction things. You've been nervously playing around with that empty cassette box for 15 minutes now, and I’m now imagining that it contains City Life 09. I’m fond of the idea there will be a city life cartridge in the future, a simulation that you can board. I’m imagining a full box of those cartridges, from 1929 to 1959 to 1969 to 1979 to 1989 and so on. That’s because I think there should be intervals of ten years to notice a substantial difference in such a huge city. And the 2009 one is missing from that lyric, it's inside the machine because it's used most often. Whether it's also refers to my time in New York… No idea. It's purely a bit of fantasy.

Let’s swap the fantasy for the facts for a little bit: where and when did you start making this record?

Even before the lockdowns, right away after the Tranquility Base tour in South America. In April and May 2019 I wrote the first attempts of new songs, we already recorded some bits in late 2019, but that attempt led to nothing. Only after the lockdowns we came back together again, last summer, in Butley Priory, an old monastery at the coast of Suffolk. No one knew we were there, it was a remote place. It reminded me of our first record, when we went from the madhouse to the countryside for a while as well. We never did that again ever since, until now. Recording a record in England also was a while ago, same counts for a summer album. So there we were again, at the English countryside, as a rrrrock band! [big eyes and a rolling rrrrr] No distractions, like in the city. Extra focus, no prying eyes. All in the same zone. Good morning, you know.

We will come back at that ‘rock band’ part for a bit later. What did a day in Suffolk look like for the rest?

Oh, every morning we got trumpeted out of our beds with a reveille. And a while after a bell was ringing: go to work, lazy bastards! Thereafter a Powerpoint presentation with schedules and tactics. No, just joking, it was the opposite. Very calm and relaxed, everything in our own tempo. These days I find it essential to take the time. That’s because every project has to search and find its own way. As a maker you also have to let a piece of work go its own way. During the summer of 2019 I read a book about movie editing, In The Blink Of An Eye by Walter Murch. Although movie editing is not my discipline, I did get interesting things out of it anyway, there are parallels with how I put together a record these days. Editing usually involves cutting out bad bits. The question that immediately arises: what is a bad bit? Are there bad bits at all? This Sir Murch calls the process of editing the discovery of a path through all the available material. The more you shot, the more possible paths there are. And because I had quite a lot of ideas, more than ever actually, which all wanted to exist, it was extra important to especially follow the feeling. Sometimes I got a direction in mind, and then the piece itself drags you in the opposite direction anyway. It has other ideas. It lives, it is an entity. Let it go. That’s how it went now as well.

You keep on avoiding the meaning of your lyrics. Is the writing of it not a conscious process then?

Hmmm, that always comes last anyway. I am endlessly adjusting and rewriting. When we were working on the music in Suffolk, I hardly sang on top of it. I do believe that at this moment in time I write down what I am experiencing more directly. I'm a bit more open, more honest, apparently inspired by four guys who are just standing together in a room making music.

What do you consider your favourite find on The Car?

Oh… I forgot to bring my cheat sheet. I’ve got a folder with notes, which I planned on bringing with me. But it also feels a little know-it-all and self-conscious to start giving a lecture from my own notes here. My best line… I wouldn’t know! I simply don’t know all the lyrics by heart yet. [long pause] I think ‘Big Ideas’ as a whole is a very accomplished song.

Ah, with the ‘hysterical scenes’ that are reminiscent of a band just breaking through. ‘We had ‘em out of their seats, waving their arms and stomping their feet’ – that’s where the echo of Monkeymania is audible.

Strange times.

Or just The Beatles. ‘Clap your hands and stomp your feet’, is what Lennon sometimes shouted from the stage…

Hm, yeah. No. Here I imagine sort of more like a movie producer giving someone a call. Or something like that.

Big Ideas is full of melancholy – and that counts for more songs in general.

It’s not just in the words, you know. Yes, so that’s how it works for me: the words arise from the feeling the music evokes. The melody supplies the words and ideally they complement each other. In that way, the things it makes you say are indeed not conscious. It purely revolves around what the music allows you to say.

“Over and out, it’s been a thrill”, you sing on Big Ideas. Hello You, Jet Skis On The Moat and Perfect Sense also contain “goodbyes” and “goodnights”. Are you saying goodbye to something?

Yeah, I think that’s fair. That all has to do with where I arrived in life at the moment. I’m 36, the band exists for about twenty years, including the whole run-up. So I’ve been in the band for more than half of my life. You leave things behind, while the clock keeps ticking. People, places, your younger self. Time. Though that’s not necessarily a bad thing, you get new things in return. But it’s human nature to sometimes look back on what has been, what’s behind you. Though I’m pretty good at leaving things behind.

Like loud guitar music for example.

[big eyes] Ha!

The rrrrrrrrock band you just mentioned is not the same as the one from 2006 anymore.

Haha, not on the record, no! But on stage we just keep on rocking, that all co-exists. But you know what’s the funny thing? We could very well still have made a loud guitar record after all. If the music had asked for it, I think I would have obediently followed. When we finished touring in 2019, everything pointed in that direction. Much louder than Tranquility Hotel, in any case. But that started to shift towards a different direction and that’s why we took a break from it at the time. I was afraid I would start forcing things. And sometimes you just have to accept the fact you can’t go back to the riffs from ten years ago. At the end of the tour I knew what kind of songs I wanted to do, with the lights of the stage still in my eyes and the thundering roars of the audience in my ears. Big, loud guitars should have been part of that. That’s what I’m gonna do! I even put on my motorcycle boots to get a hold of that mood. But that didn’t feel right in the end, as said. You’re not that person anymore, your music wants to go in a different direction. Then I can only follow that.

Put the Arctic Monkeys who were recording at the English countryside in 2006 next to the band working at Suffolk last summer. Not to see what has changed, but what hasn’t changed?

Well, everything has changed. [2 minutes of silence while you can almost hear a movie playing in his head] … except for the countryside and England, haha! I did find it more fun this time though. Maybe because right now we finally know what we’re doing. Yes, that has remained the same. The only reason we now can not make a loud guitar record in all peace and comfort, is because we’re still Arctic Monkeys. Everyone has grown up, the essence of the band has grown with us. The faces are a bit more round, the boys call their children instead of their parents, but the feeling remains the same. Life itself happened – and not in an unpleasant way. It’s all good, everything. Yes, it’s fine.

Why did you have more fun now than back then? Did that 20 year old kid that recorded ‘Whatever People Say I Am…’ not know what he was doing?

Not what happened to him, no. It was a great time, but oh dear, so much stress! Now I’m completely relaxed in everything I do. Looking back at 2006, everything was so… tight! My guitar was hanging just below my chin, the strap was almost pinched around my back. That example alone. I let the guitar nicely hang nowadays. And sometimes I even leave it in its stand. The schedules are looser, the people are looser, the music is looser. Less heavy, not as frenetic and whaaaargh! It’s fitting better in its own skin. Just like ourselves. The jacket is hanging loosely unbuttoned. I’m sitting behind a grand piano in the corner. And still it feels like Arctic Monkeys, because we’re still walking the same path, however strange the path winds. The same timeline and the same principles. The path, following the music, is the constant factor. 15 years ago we followed our instinct as young lads and The Record is what resulted from it. Now we’re still doing that, and this time that record is The Car.

Oh yeah, The Car. What kind of car is it?

Just a car.

Does it stand for anything?

No, it’s standing on a roof. The cover photo was taken by Matthew Helders, our drummer. When I saw that photo a few years ago, I immediately knew it had the potential to be an album cover for the band. There’s not just spies and goodbyes in the lyrics, if you listen closely you can hear a few cars. And after [raises voice] Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino the temptation to call something ‘The Car’ is simply too big. It is what it is.

So just a car.

Yep. And that car on the cover in particular.

Where was the photo taken?

If I’m not mistaken, in Los Angeles.

Ah, Los Angeles. There you’re nothing without a car. What kind do you drive?

I don’t own a car. I’m back in London now and it’s just not practical there. No car…

Where did you used to go on holidays as a kid?

Oh, eh, Eastbourne, on the south shore. With my grandparents on the Dotto Train, one of those tourist carts along the beach. But how did we suddenly end up here?

I wondered about this when I heard The Car, the song. Nicely melancholic, you sing about past holidays, falling asleep at the back seat.

But that doesn’t take place in Eastbourne [rolls his eyes]. But where does it take place, I can hear you think… In a parallel universe full of espionage and science fiction, haha!

Sounds exciting. Have you ever tried writing a script yourself?

No. The kind of stories I tell are mostly… based on the music and the melodical ideas, as I already explained. Those bring forth the story. If I wouldn’t have that, I would struggle. I would like to learn this though, sometime, one day. But I’m not working on it now, it’s a whole different skill to the one I’ve currently got on board. Never say never, we’ll see. But definitely not tomorrow [thinks for a bit, laughs]. Tomorrow’s Pukkelpop. There’s no time for drafting scripts. Although it is a world I would like to roam about, one I’d like to explore. At the Priory I had an old 16mm camera with me, one that fits in the palm of your hand and you have to crank up yourself. Still not even close to Hollywood. But ah well, that’s a hobby.

What music are you listening to yourself at the moment?

[two minutes of silence] I used to be able to always draw a straight line from what I was listening to right to the new record, that’s different now, I think. No more adding this, this, this and this and you’ve got the new Monkeys. It’s not as clear what those things are this time, not even for me.

If you could go to Record Palace at the opposite of Paradiso with 50 euros right now, what would you pick from there?

Oh wow, that place is amazing! I actually should stop by there later. We’ve been so busy fine-tuning the show, this morning I only took a walk in the park for a bit… Lovely morning.

But at the moment you’re listening to…

Oh man… After finishing the record, nothing for a while, for a few months. Now it’s starting up again a bit. Headphones on… listening to things. What do I want to share here right now?

I’ll just write down Nookie by Limp Bizkit.

Oh no. Is that a threat? Alright, in that case do… Nat King Cole! The song ‘Where Did Everybody Go’. Why? That’s why.

At There’d Better Be A Mirrorball you actually sound a bit like Nat King Cole. Coincidence?

Ha, that’s nice! Eh, yes, coincidence. On the other hand: what’s a coincidence?

You sing a lot in falsetto, you croon, sometimes you’re channelling Bowie. Are you still looking for your voice or are you finally coming close?

Always in search of! You look for a manner of singing that guides the music the easiest way. A way that’s in tune with the feeling you wanna convey. That’s the hardest part… no, that’s what you’re aiming for, that connection.

Connection with?

With what you can’t really grasp. And can’t understand. Or can’t express into words. How you as a normal little person can become part of that wonder, the music. There’s a technical component to it, by practicing a lot I can reach a higher pitch or hold a note better. Those are means. The purpose is something bigger though. There’s this great song on Sinatra at the Sands, 'Don’t Worry About Me', that he introduces as one of the best songs ever. In one part of a verse he sings a step-up note, bigger and bigger, that fills all gaps in the notes just to get to the next step. It’s off, but because of that it’s actually perfectly right. It stands out. That’s why I call magic. That’s what it’s about. Getting completely lost in that feeling and getting to a place where everything is right. Even when it’s not right. Even more so when it’s not right. Then you know it’s right.

#arctic monkeys #alex turner #the car #interview #this was veryyy interesting so many good bits here #2 MINUTES of silence?????????????????? 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 no fucking way oh my god #''just a car. and that car on the cover in particular''#''the boys call their children instead of their parents'' 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 oh...#he interviewer threatening to put that limp biskit song as his choice if he didn't give his own vnjdnfjvnjgnjgb #what a power move more interviewers should do that it actually got an answer from him jnfjgngvjbngjbng #but also like #god like. he really is a true Artist with a capital a huh. he talks about music with such reverence and respect #it's so emotive and inspiring to see

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number1mingyustan · 2 years

Text

Moonlight ☾

bandmate!taehyun x fem!reader

Genre: famous!au, fwb!au, smut

Warnings: oral (f.), fingering (f.), brief handjob, protected sex

Summary: You and your bandmate help each other out from time to time.

Word Count: 1.4k

(a/n: no not proofread but for this one imagine txt🤝chase atlantic. also this took so long to write bc i kept changing the plot sorry im indecisive and i still don’t know if i like it 🫡)

“Y/n, for track 6 you and Tae are gonna lead vocals together,” Yeonjun tells you as he hands you a beer.

“What?” you question. “I’ve done backup like twice, why am I lead?”

You’re all seated in Yeonjun’s apartment. You and Beomgyu are seated on the floor in front of the couch. Kai Yeonjun and Taehyun are all on the couch as the 6 of you watch a movie.

“The song needs a female voice and you’re the only girl. So you and Taehyun need to figure out a schedule to rehearse and record or whatever because the managers want it by next Wednesday.”

You turn around, facing Taehyun who’s seated behind you. He gives you a quick glance and a not, mouthing “it’ll be fine.”

You turn back quickly, training your eyes on the screen in front of you. Maybe it really won’t be that bad.

_______________

It ended up being worse than you thought. It was Friday night and you and Taehyun had spent the last hour and a half in his apartment trying to figure out this song.

You had little experience with singing and it was so hard for you to just ‘let go.’ In the band, Kai played drums, Yeonjun on Guitar, Beomgyu on Bass and you on the keys. Taehyun was the lead singer who occasionally played the strings with Yeonjun.

You’d done some backup vocals on songs before, but they were mostly hidden, which was very different than what you were facing now.

It was getting late and you were still struggling. They gave you an entire verse to sing by yourself. You didn’t necessarily sound bad, you simply lacked the confidence and it was reflecting in your performance.

“Hello?” Taehyun snapped his fingers. “Earth to Y/n.”

“Oh,” you say, snapping out of your thoughts. “Sorry.”

Aside from the singing itself, Taehyun’s presence was also making it difficult for you to concentrate. What no one else knew (including your own band mates) was that you and Taehyun had established a relationship that was more than the facade of friendship you two posed.

At least 3 times a week for the last few months you and Taehyun had been hooking up. Your relationship was no strings attached, and purely sexual after one extremely intoxicated night.

Your band had just released your second album and it changed everything. Unexpectedly you guys had blown up literally overnight. Per Yeonjun’s idea a huge party was thrown to celebrate your guys’ new found success. Thus an unnecessary amount of alcohol and drugs consumed, leading to you spending the night with one of your band mates.

With being insanely attractive and now famous, Taehyun alongside the rest of the group started to have fans. And unlike the other members, Taehyun never sought relief in groupies after that night at the party. Because he had you.

Well, partially. Taehyun’s never been the ‘hook up with strangers’ type. He liked familiarity and at least somewhat of a connections with the people he was sleeping with. And when you walked right into his bed, he knew this wasn’t something he wanted to let go of.

Granted, neither of you were looking for a commited relationship of the sort. But the sex was good and you two were comfortable with each other inside and outside of the bedroom.

He kept coming back. What started off as a one night mistake turned into an addiction. The two of you simply couldn’t keep your hands off one another.

“Alright,” he says getting up and walking to the kitchen. He comes back with two waters, handing you one of them. “Think we need a little break.”

You sigh out of exhaustion. “No it’s fine,” you protest. “We can try it one more time, I got it.”

He raises an eyebrow. “It’s getting late, just stay the night and we’ll work on it more tomorrow. You’re clearly exhausted so let’s just get some sleep yeah?”

You fake a gasp. “You really must want me in your bed Mr.Kang.”

He rolls his eyes at you playfully. “Last time I checked it wasn’t difficult to get you there anyway.”

You push him playfully. Your actions take him by surprise, causing him to stumble back. He catches himself, returning the favor and pushing you back. You let out another dramatic gasp, hitting him.

The two of you go back and forth, hitting and shoving one another until you find yourself pinned down on the floor of his apartment. His hands are intertwined with yours as he hovers over your body.

You wriggle beneath him, trying to free yourself of his grasp. Realizing this is a battle you won’t win, you attempt to change the subject.

“Tae,” you breathe. “We have to work on the song.”

He lets out a low chuckle. “Now you wanna work on the song?”

He’s amused nonetheless. He can see right through you.

“Sure you don’t wanna go to bed?” he asks.

Oh shit.

____________________

“Shit Tae,” you hiss.

His face is buried between your thighs. You grip his bedsheets desperately in an attempt to keep yourself grounded. You know how much he hates it when you move around when he’s working his tongue on you.

His tongue is wrapped around your clit, sucking on the sensitive bud as his fingers work wonders on you. He relishes in your taste, overwhelmed with satisfaction from the sheer amount of arousal spilling out of you in such a short amount of time.

You tug at his platinum hair frantically, letting out pleas and whimpers. “More- Fuck I’m so close.”

He looks up at at you, acknowledging your needs with a small smile. He picks up the pace of his fingers, pumping inside of your needy hole just the way you like it. He mumbles a “anything for you.”

Despite carrying the vocals of the group, Taehyun’s knowledge of the stringed instrument came in handy at times like this. Literally.

He allows you to ride out your high on his skillful tongue and fingers. You cry out as the pleasure washed through your body. Your eyes roll back into your head, back arching off the bed as he takes you to another place.

Your eyes flutter open once you finally come down from your high, only to be met with Taehyun’s. He’s hovering over you, ridding himself of his shirt.

“You okay?” he licks his lips.

You nod at him, pulling his face down to meet yours in a needy kiss. He’s quick to reciprocate, kissing you back just as hastily. You reach your hands down, pulling his boxers down enough to let his length spring free.

“Fuck,” he cusses against your lips.

You pump him slowly with an outstretched hand without breaking the kiss. He groans against your lips. His hand taps the dresser adjacent to you, opening it and pulling out a box with minimal movement.

He pulls out a wrapper, finally sitting up and breaking your heated kiss. You lay there breathlessly as he rips open the package and slides the latex down his length.

You feel him slip in, slowly stretching out your insides. Your hands grip his bare body tightly as you feel him full you up.

His body hovers over yours, and it’s not long before you feel him moving inside of you. His thrusts start off slow, gradually picking up in pace.

You were a mess under his touch. Whimpering and moaning incessantly as he fucked you. The moonlight beamed from the uncovered windows, illuminating his skin.

The air around you were crisp and cool, but your body felt like it was on fire. You were particularly sensitive. Every small touch and movement brought you closer to the blissful feeling you so desperately craved.

He groans into your neck, hips faltering in rhythm. You know he’s close too.

It’s not long before you’re crying out his name and squirming beneath him as you ride out your high. Your hips push into his and he feels you tighten around him.

Your movements quickly send him over the edge too. The two of you moan in unison as your orgasms shock waves of pleasure through your bodies simultaneously.

He pecks a kiss on your forehead before getting up to dispose of the now very full condom. He plops down onto the bed next to you, pulling your body into his.

Your fingers find his dyed hair, raking through his soft locs. It’s pretty unusual for you two to be so soft and touchy after sex. It’s rare that either of you have ever bothered to do so much as stay the night.

But for some reason you’re finding an inexplicable amount of comfort from him. It’s quiet, but not awkward. The two of you sinfully enjoy one another’s presence until you fall asleep under the moonlight.

_______________________________________________

#txt fanfic #txt #txt smut #kang taehyun #txt taehyun #kpop #taehyun smut

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