#my friend is obsessed with spaceships and space travels and aliens and stuff | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

web-of-fics · 4 years

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Worlds Away

Requested by @spaghetittiesbcimgay : hey! could i get something with our boy peter with a really smart reader?? who’s an intern at nasa or smth? and is obsessed with her instruments (guitar, bass, etc) and also space? (can you tell i’m projecting?) idk if this would be wayy to specific (if it is, totally leave out the last bit!! :) ) and i have no idea where to go from there but ive been dying for some peter x smart!reader sooo.. thank u so much in advance xx

Summary: You and Peter Parker are two of the smartest kids at Midtown High. So why are you both completely clueless at the fact you both have massive crushes on each other?

Words: 1391

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Obviously Midtown was full of students with extraordinary smarts and subsequent extraordinary internships because of it. Naturally, Peter had gotten a lot of attention when word spread that he’d swung (no pun intended) an internship with Tony STARK. The superhero hype around the school was real even months later. And after news broke about aliens visiting earth and all that a couple years ago, every hyper intelligent teenager’s hopes were directed on working with space tech: protection or exploration, it didn’t matter. But that was mainly Tony’s domain now and the world knew it, so Midtown’s students scrambled to find prestigious positions in other areas.

When you got accepted to intern as a research assistant for NASA, you immediately shared the news with a few close friends. And they were, of course, absolutely stoked for you. They were also huge blabbermouths so by the time everyone returned to school that Monday, the entire grade knew. Jealousy emitted from them like the energy of an exploding star. But unlike a star, the only visible evidence were the side-eye glares and slight shaking of the heads in disbelief. If you could read minds, they would be a mix of chatter saying: ‘why does SHE get to work for NASA?’ ‘I’m twice as smart as her—that should be my job’ ‘I bet she paid her way in—they’re not even accepting interns in the middle of the school year’ ‘she’s two years younger than me! I need that internship more than she does!’ Etcetera.

But not everyone was so green. Peter Parker, for example, was over the moon (still no pun intended) when you told him. He was also your number one suspect for blabbing. At least with him and his big mouth, you knew it was from a place of pride rather than an attempt to spread gossip. As if anyone went to Peter Parker for gossip. Maybe that was part of the reason you found him so appealing.

“If they send you to space will you let me know?” He said earnestly. You just laughed.

“I’m doing research, not training to be an astronaut. I don’t have the physical endurance!”

“But you’re smart enough to engineer a spaceship.”

You rolled your eyes. “Not on my own.”

“Still!”

“They’re not sending me to space and I’m not engineering a spaceship for other people to go to space,” you laughed.

“Well what are they not paying you for then?” he pressed.

“I’m joining the student research team that assesses alien remnants from the battle of New York to help find ways to improve our own space technology. NASA’s actually working closely with Mr. Stark on a lot of it--I’m sure he’d tell you more...”

You stopped talking at the awestruck expression on Peter’s face. He leaned forward.

“No way,” he gushed. “Mr. Stark didn’t tell me any of that. Wow, you sounded really smart just then.” He paused, thinking. “This is gonna be awesome for you, y/n!” he beamed, sounding just as enthused as you felt.

“I know!”

“When do you start?”

“Not for a few weeks.”

“Good,” Peter said.

You raised an eyebrow.

“I mean, I--I’m going to miss being able to hang out with you and stuff when you’re off doing space stuff.”

“Well, I won’t actually be in space at any point, so we should be good,” you smiled.

“Well, you’re definitely smart enough to go to space, so when you do eventually end up on a spaceship--” Peter held up a finger to cut off your objections before you could open your mouth. “--You could entertain your fellow astronauts with some tunes.” Peter mimed an air guitar.

“Shut up,” you laughed, swatting at his arm. “I think a theremin would be a better soundtrack for outer space anyway. Acoustic guitars have college-student-on-the-quad vibes.”

“Not when you play.”

“Okay Peter,” you rolled your eyes, flattered but embarrassed by his persistence. “I’ll show up on the first day of my internship with a guitar slung on my back and ask if they’d prefer the sounds of Brian May or John Mayer.”

“Perfect,” Peter said without a hint of sarcasm behind his smile. You blushed.

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After school that day, Peter came by your house as usual so you could work on homework together. You asked him once why he preferred to work at your place—not that you minded whatsoever, but you became curious after picking up on the pattern—and he said because your place was more “stimulating” than his. Stimulating! You had laughed so hard that his confusion had circled around until he worried he’d said something offensive.

“Stimulating? Really?” you had said after composing yourself.

“Well, yeah,” he’d replied. “You have all these cool instruments and your whole room looks like space.”

As you both entered it now, you bypassed the light switch and plugged in the strand of white Christmas lights that encircled the ceiling. Instantly the room was bathed in a soothing glow. You weren’t allowed to paint your walls black ("But it would look so much more like space, mom!”) so you’d ordered four giant tapestries with different galaxies on them and hung one on each wall. A sun-shaped lamp rested on your nightstand. It was one of those sunrise lamps that woke you up by gradually getting brighter in the morning to mimic the elusive wintertime sunrise. Your precious string instruments—an acoustic guitar (Gary) and electric bass (Lily)—stood opposite your bed. You couldn’t think of a better definition of a safe space.

And now school felt like worlds away. Minus the fact Peter was here with you to do homework.

Peter assumed his usual position in the bean bag chair furthest from the door. You collapsed into yours, closest to your instruments. A long ottoman served as a makeshift desk for you both to dump your school materials.

But today you both melted into the cushions without moving to open your backpacks, abandoned at your sides.

Peter--usually a ball of energy that would lead you to believe he was a puppy in a former life--closed his eyes and laid his head back. It had been an especially long week.

Without giving it a second thought, you leaned sideways and removed Gary from its stand. Humming a little, your fingers grazed the guitar strings until the notes strung into the beginning of one of your favorite songs.

After you finished you looked up and spotted Peter watching you. Of course you’d known he was there, but you’d half expected him to drift off before the first chorus. Your face burned.

His forehead creased. “Was that ‘Here Comes The Sun’?”

You lit up. “Yeah! You listen to The Beatles?”

Peter nodded, feeling confident. “John Legend is the best.”

You stifled a giggle. “Yep,” you said. You had an unreasonably strong urge to hug him.

You hesitated, not sure if you wanted to stop playing or continue.

“Can I hear another?” Peter said after a moment, making the decision for you.

“Sure,” you said, suddenly feeling shy. “What do you want to hear?”

“Anything.”

“Okay,” you steadied your breathing. Deciding to stick with the space theme, you strummed the beginning chords to Muse’s ‘Starlight’ and sang along quietly, losing yourself to your music and completely missing the infatuated grin that found its way onto Peter’s face as he got lost in thought:

Not only was he hanging out in the coolest bedroom he’d ever seen, he got to spend it with the coolest and smartest person he knew. He wanted to spend as many hours with you as he could, even though you would probably have a lot less free time once you started the internship. But until then, he would enjoy every moment he could. Like this one.

And who knows, maybe one day space travel would be a regular thing and then you could both hang out on the moon together for real and get away from it all. Peter could listen to you play guitar and sing random songs all day. He might even tell you how he really felt about you once he built up enough courage.

But Peter realized those possibilities were still worlds away. And right now, his world was sitting across from him, humming like a windchime that told him he was home.

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dillydedalus · 5 years

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august reading

minus my women in translation month reads, because i’m still working on the last one but want to include it... that wrap-up will come in a few days once i’m done with the last book.

not all dead white men: classics and misogyny in the digital age, donna zuckerberg classicist donna zuckerberg (facebook dude’s sister!) talks about how the alt-right, pick-up artists, incels etc. use the classics to assert & justify their misogyny and racism & portray themselves as the inheritors/saviours of western civilisation etc. the main examples she looks at are stoicism, ovid’s ars amatoria, and ancient narratives about sexual violence, which were all really interesting, but i feel like this could have been expanded a lot. 3.5/5

magic for liars, sarah gailey fun & cool crime story about a murder at a secret magical school (school nurse cut in half in magical library!), answering the burning question of what would happen if petunia dursley became a somewhat dysfunctional PI & had to solve a magical murder at hogwarts, where lily is a teacher. 3/5

the lie tree, frances hardinge frances hardinge writes the kind of middle grade/YA books i wish i could have read between like 10-14, where the world is spooky and the girls are angry spiteful stubborn resourceful sneaky things. i loved a skinful of shadows and i loved the lie tree, where curious snake girl (not literally it’s not that kind of a book) has to investigate her scandal-hounded natural scientist father’s death by spreading lies on the miserable island he died on and literally feeding them to spooky science-defying tree - and faith is very good at lying, and very angry, and very much willing to drag the whole island down with her. read for spooky trees, fake ghosts, and victorian male natural scientists being dumb and sexist & victorian female (& thus secret) natural scientist being smart & awesome. 4.5/5

the dead ladies project: exiles, expats & ex-countries, jessa crispin i have been at turns in love & really annoyed with crispin’s 2012 essay on william james, berlin & her own mental breakdown (x) since uh..... 2012 - it says some really interesting things about berlin’s capital-i Image as the city for self-destructive broke & weird messes, it’s very quotable, while also being some of the most irritating Anglophone Expat in Berlin Bullshit ever concocted (’we have surprisingly affordable rents’ sure didn’t age well.....) and saying almost nothing about the actual city outside of the Expat Bubble (apparently every single person in berlin is here because they feel like a failure.... YALL SOME PEOPLE JUST LIVE HERE). this book, structured around crispin’s soul-searching trip around europe, with each city being discussed in connection with an artist/writer/artist’s wife/etc who lived there, opens with that essay and i’m still torn. the thing is, crispin is smart & well-read & occasionally capable of some interesting insight & good writing..... she is also at times utterly insufferable, ranting at length about how she despises women who perform learned helplessness & prioritise men over everything else only to turn around & do the same fucking thing over & over, incl. going on endlessly about her torturous affair with a married writer, performing her ‘broke but independent woman traveller’ while uh.... staying at a friend’s luxurious farmhouse in switzerland for free... at one point she says she never felt at home in kansas bc based on her looks people don’t believe she’s really from kansas & constantly ask her where she’s REALLY from because.... y’all.... while she’s a good-looking white woman she has an ANGULAR FACE. sure jan. there is so much cool stuff in here, and i wish crispin had kept some most of the personal stuff out of it. 2/5

mansfield park, jane austen hmmmm... austen is always good but this feels like it’s maybe the one novel of hers that is most negatively affected by values dissonance in that its morality feels like it’s from an alien culture which considers a private theatre performance to be the very height of impropriety (aka regency england apparently); as a result, fanny, a passive, timid, neglected girl of strong convictions often comes across as a moralistic prig (i will make no excuses for edmund, who’s just a patronising sanctimonious prig outright). there’s a quiet sort of triumph in fanny’s integrity & conviction in the face of a literal campaign of harrassment from everyone in her life including the dude she’s in love with to marry a reforming (maybe) rake & i love her for that, but her triumph in returning to mansfield park elevated in the esteem of everyone there (except aunt norris who is delightfully vile) feels empty considering that these are the same people who previously neglected her. also edmund sucks. 3/5 #justice4marycrawford #mary/fannyOTP #alsoarewegonnatalkabouttheslavery #guessnot

fool’s quest (fitz & the fool #2), robin hobb the first one in this trilogy was pretty much slow-paced set-up and character development... this one is much better: there’s a lot going on & the character development feels much more organic & complex - fitz seems to have come down from Peak Dumbass a bit & i really liked how it developed shun (shine!!!) and lant, who felt really one-dimensionally awful last book. also there are so many moments when the farseer family really comes thru for fitz & i cried literally every single time. so yeah. this one’s great, can’t wait for the next one but i also really don’t want it to be over :/ 4/5

what matters in jane austen, john mullan fun little collection of essays looking at specific details and minutae and their meaning/importance in austen’s work - like, how old are the characters (incl. age differences), how do characters address each other, what do games do they play, what about the servants, etc. don’t expect deep litcrit but it’s fun. 2.5/5

dead mountain: the untold true story of the dyatlov pass incident, donnie eichar hello i’m fred & i am obsessed with mountaineering disasters. the dyatlov pass incident refers to a night in 1959 where 9 russian hikers died in the ural mountains after they left their tent half-dressed without shoes for ~mysterious reasons. it’s pretty creepy & theories about it run from ‘avalanche’ to ‘animal [yeti] attack’ to ‘aliens and/or soviet conspiracy theory’. eichar too is super obsessed w/ this mystery and even went to the ural mountains & the dyatlov pass to investigate, which sadly makes for the least interesting (and possibly the longest) part of this book (the other timelines are the dyatlov group hike & the investigations after their deaths). the ‘59 timelines are both interesting tho & provide a good look into how weird the whole thing is. i enjoyed this, but i wish he had cut the endless chapters of him investigating, which is mostly russians being like ‘idk man aliens/radioactivity/secret govt agents?’ and him hiking around in a lot of snow, neither of which really added to his theory or my enjoyment. 2/5

if beale street could talk, james baldwin baldwin’s prose is staggeringly brilliant as always. this is a story about a young black couple (tish, who is the narrator, and fonny) in the 70s who are planning to move together and marry when fonny is wrongly arrested for rape by a racist cop with a grudge; tish and her family try to get him out, especially once tish realises that she’s pregnant. tish is a great narrator, at the same time kind of naive and soft, and full of world-weary cynicism about white institutions and racism, and her narrative voice at times drifts in and out of other characters’ minds, which i found an interesting effect. as many baldwin’s novels this is full of rage & violence & tenderness & tiny sparks of hope. 4/5

lady susan, jane austen epistolary novella about a 35-year-old lady susan, a scheming, ruthless, not-so-grieving widow, who is trying to get her timid daughter frederica married to a buffoon. while staying with her sweetly clueless brother-in-law vernon and trying to win over his much more suspicious wife, she makes the wife’s brother reginald (lol) fall in love with her. a very different protag and story for austen & while the end can’t quite commit to either punishing susan very much or letting her triumph, it is a lot of fun. 3/5

on a sunbeam, tillie walden this is an absolutely beautiful (the colours!) graphic novel about a spaceship crew (the spaceship is a fish) who fly around & restore old space buildings. it’s also a story about a romance between two young girls at a boarding school (in space) and about found families and deep space and there’s not a single man in this, just women and elliot, who’s nonbinary. lovely, dreamy and completely gorgeous. want me a fish spaceship. 4/5

between birthday books and birthday giftcards i also acquired uh.... 12 new books??? which is INSANE. i’m not committing to a book buying ban but i should probably chill a lil in the next few months.

#crispin talks about potsdam as the outskirts of berlin and like.... it's a whole different city #the books i read #austen august didn't quite pan out but i'm planning to read one of her novels per month #i am planning to skip p&p bc i read it last year but.... it's really good y'all

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pour-allumer · 6 years

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INTERVIEW: JOHN + GUS OF ACID CAROUSEL

INTERVIEW: JOHN + GUS OF ACID CAROUSEL

By: Sloane Lenz

I happened to catch Acid Carousel at Saturnalia Festival in Austin a couple weekends back and was blown away by their presence and energy on stage. Lined up perfectly across the inside stage at the Sahara Lounge, you could tell they were there to pump out some sound. Three guitars and a bass on the front line, backed up by keyboards and a drummer, the room was in awe from the first song. Birthed almost two years ago from the minds of John Kuzmick and Gus Baldwin, now based in Denton, TX, the guys have been traveling and releasing music at a shockingly rapid rate ever since. With a current lineup of 6 members (John Kuzmick (21) on vocals and guitar, Gus Baldwin (19) on vocals and guitar, Ian Salazar (20) on bass and saxophone, Lucas Martins (18) on guitar, Fielder Whittington (21) on drums, and Drew Wozniack (21) on keyboards) the stage is always full of a rotating crew of musicians, nearly busting at the seams, but effortlessly getting their point across. They’re a great blend of heavy psych vibes, while incorporating dreamy pop elements and classic rock and roll energy behind it all. They have a new mini record titled Street Cowboy coming out soon on Dreamy Life Records, as well as three full lengths set for next year. I had a chance to chat with John and Gus and hear a bit about how the band was birthed, who inspired them, and what we can look forward to coming from them in the next few months. Check out the full interview below:

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INTERVIEW:

Sloane: “How was Acid Carousel born?”

John: “Acid Carousel was born when I decided to record a few songs I'd had for awhile that I wasn't going to use for the band I was in at the time. I released one of those songs as a single on Facebook where Gus saw it. He commented that he was going to play bass for the band and I just said alright.”

Gus: “Yeah, and eventually I wanted to play guitar too so I did that.”

Sloane: “Describe your sound in three words.”

Both: “I guess you'd describe our sound as like enamored, sexy pop. (laughs)”

Sloane: “I read that you guys try to stay on a strict release schedule of putting something out every three months. What made you make that decision to work towards a goal like that?”

Gus: “Three months I guess is just the amount of time it takes John and I to get bored of our last release and get antsy to put out something new. We don't necessarily keep up a release schedule that tight, but we just like the idea of always working on a new release. Always.”

Sloane: “Who are some of your main influences musically?”

Gus: “My main peeps I try to draw inspiration from are people like James Brown, Tim Presley, Captain Beefheart, Ray Davies, Can, Serge Gainsbourg, and some heavier stuff like the Damned and Sabbath and things. But we listen to anything we can find so our music tends to sound like a weird blend of all the different things we like.”

John: “I get a lot of inspiration from Anton Newcombe, The Beatles, mid-sixties Brian Wilson, Brian Jones, Spoon, The Olivia Tremor Control, Syd Barrett, Donovan, etc. I could go on, but we try and draw inspiration from as much as we possibly can.”

Sloane: “What's your writing process like? Does everyone have a certain "job" in the process, or does it vary song to song?”

Gus: “Writing process is usually all John and I. We'll both write songs to either bring to the group to learn, or we'll bring ideas to each other to help finish. Recording wise its usually just a free for all between us two and a few other people, but generally John ends up writing all the bass lines, which I'll then put drums on top of.”

Sloane: “Has music always been something you knew you wanted to do? Or do you remember a moment that you realized it was a path you wanted to pursue?”

John: “There hasn't really been a moment in my life I can remember where I didn't want to be involved in a band or just making music. Even through some of the dumb phases I went through in middle school, like thinking I could play football, I was always thinking about how a certain artist might have gotten a certain sound or how I could write music like my influences.”

Gus: “I guess I started playing music around age 6 and kept playing. Music was the only thing I would consistently be interested in or any good at, so eventually I just stopped doing anything else and made it my full time obsession.”

Sloane: “So you guys started your own label, 'Get With It Records'. What inspired that and how has that been working from both angles?”

John: “The inspiration for the label was mainly just having a platform to release stuff on. We want to record other bands or release other people's music, but we're always busy working on stuff of our own, or playing shows, so we haven't had time. I also feel like it makes more sense to release on your own label, because then you can do whatever you want.”

Gus: “Yeah if anyone wants to be our label CEO feel free to hit us up (laughs).”

Sloane: “If you weren't playing music, what do you think you'd want to do for the rest of your life?”

Gus: “If I wasn't playing music I'd probably wanna be a goat farmer or a butler or something hot like that.”

John: “I'd be a vagrant.”

Sloane: “If you could collaborate on a song with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be and why?”

Gus: “I wouldn't wanna collaborate with James Brown because that would just be silly, but I'd give my right arm to play in the J.B.'s for like ten minutes.”

John: “I'd probably wanna work with Brian Jones, he could play anything he wanted and write such amazing parts. We could make a super Middle-Eastern vibe record together, I feel like.”

Sloane: “Stylistically, were you guys all on the same page about how to dress and how you guys present yourselves? Or was it something that sort of developed into what it is?”

Both: “The street cowboy life chose us, so thats how we present ourselves to the world.”

Sloane: “What's your dream venue to play one day?”

Gus: “My dream venue to play has been the Paradiso in Amsterdamn ever since I went there a few years back. Old church. Sound Huge. Lots of Dutch too, they're really nice. But I think it would be cooler to do a set on the international space station, or one of Richard Branson's spaceships if we could.”

John: “I feel like we need to be the first band to tour space. We can do a several planet, solar system run that'll have the aliens going crazy.”

Gus: “We're gonna throw a huge festival 53 miles West of Venus.”

Sloane: “What's been your favorite gig so far?”

Gus: “My favorite set we ever played was when we played to 15 people after a sold out Walters show and got our power cut after 3 songs cause we got too rowdy.”

John: “My favorite set was when we played a house show festival with 15 or 16 members as Acid Carousel and The Tangerine Dream Machine.”

Sloane: “How was the name Acid Carousel decided upon?”

John: “I came up with the name Acid Carousel from Brian Jonestown Massacre references. "Acid" being another name Anton Newcombe released a few songs with in the early 90s, and "Carousel" which is a song from the If I Love You EP.”

Sloane: “What message do you hope to get through with your music?”

Gus: “I guess my songs don't really have any message, they're just a way for me to have fun expressing all the weird things I find entertaining about life.”

John: “A lot of my songs are about actual experiences I've had or things I see going on around me. There's a lot of memories I write about, just expressing how I feel or felt about those.”

Sloane: “Anything new in the works you can tell us about?”

Gus: “We've got this new EP mini album thingy wingy called Street Cowboys that’s gonna be out on cassette from Dreamy Life Records very soon that we’re really excited to finally be done with and share with people! Other than that, for the new year we’re planning on recording a new record we've been making with a dear friend of ours named John David Bartlett, who used to be active in the Texas psych scene back in the late 60s, also for Dreamy Life. We're also about to hopefully start recording the first parts of this rock opera we wrote about a cult that our drummer is the leader of.”

John: “We're always writing new stuff though, so who knows, we might have even another record this upcoming year, but I wouldn't say for sure just yet.”

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Keep up with Acid Carousel on their Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/Acid-Carousel-935297826554283/

#acid carousel #allumer #interview #music news #new music #texas

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