Movie Star
Title: Movie Star
Rating: PG-13, max
Pairing: In order: Addison/Naomi, Addison/Derek/Mark, Derek/Addison, Addison, Alex/Addison, Addison/Derek/Mark, Mark/Addison, Derek/Addison, Derek/Addison, Addison. Whew.
Summary: It’s that ten song challenge thing that’s been floating around. Mostly I discovered that I can't write anything to the tune of the Arrogant Worms’ “I Is A Newfoundlander.” I guarantee you, it was not for lack of trying.
1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
2. Turn your music player on and turn it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a drabblet/ficlet related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!
4. Do ten of these, then post them.
1. Aesop Rock :: Zodiaccupuncture [listen]
we are not trained to divert the crash, the marx-based verse with a prayer for the blitz
She carefully mounts the stairs up to the fourth floor in the sweltering late August heat, cursing for the twelfth time that morning that the elevator is broken. Most of her belongings are already in her room, unpacked and organized into drawers and a closet that’s far too small for her, but now that her parents and brother have left (and took the car with them) she’s recognized the need for things like notebooks and pens and microwave popcorn and is making her way up the narrow staircase with plastic grocery bags in hand, hoping that her roommate has finally arrived, if only to put a face to the name on the piece of paper she’d received over the summer. She finally makes it to her floor and bumps the heavy fire door open with her hip. Trudging down the hallway to her room, she puts on a welcoming smile because the door to her room is open and it wasn’t when she left. She stops suddenly when she sees a shy girl standing forlornly alone in the middle of the room, looking very lost and overwhelmed. Instead of reaching out her hand and introducing herself like she’d planned, Addison simply puts down her bags. “You want a hug, Naomi?”
2. U2 :: Until the End of the World [listen]
in the garden I was playing the tart, I kissed your lips and broke your heart
Addison was always the first one to wax apocalyptic about a test or a lab or a paper (on the off chance that they all made it into the same required diversity course that necessitated the use of verbs and adjectives instead of numbers and equations), so they’d assumed that she wasn’t up to the challenge, that she’d fall apart under pressure. She proved them wrong in college, walking smugly out of the classroom with a 100% scrawled across the top of her organic chemistry exam. She proved them wrong in medical school, graduating with high honors and with an internship with the most respected hospital in the country (that they did the same didn’t factor in; it was her resolute determination that she was going to fail every single class and her constant receipt of top grades that surprised them). And she proved them wrong in love, because they both assumed that she would stay forever with the one she married for fear of anything going against her plan.
3. ABBA :: Mamma Mia [listen]
mamma mia, here I go again, my, my, how can I resist you
She never claimed to be the world’s best vocalist. She could hold her own, of course, because twelve years with the church choir doesn’t result in being unable to carry a tune, but she wasn’t a finalist for a solo spot at the Met either (not that she didn’t fantasize about it on particularly bad days at the hospital when a career change seemed like the only way to make anything better). But when Derek walked in on her cleaning the kitchen and singing glam rock from the eighties at the top of her lungs while she stood barefoot on the counters to dust the tops of the cabinets, he never thought she looked more beautiful.
4. Plumb :: Good Behavior [listen]
‘cause perfect only makes you crazy, there is no way that it can save me
There really are days when she questions the existence of God. Or god. Or gods. Or goddess. She’s met so many patients over the years with varying degrees of faith that all make sense that she’s never really sure who is looking down on her and how many sets of eyes there are. But there are days when she looks up at the sky on her way out of the hospital and mutters a curse under her breath and sometimes she gives the middle finger to a church she passes on the way home because a house of God is about as close to the real thing as she can get here on Earth. “This is fucking ridiculous,” she mutters to herself as she scrubs out after calling time of death on her fourth patient of the day. “Really, dude,” she continues, channeling one of her interns and hoping that maybe a younger generation’s lingo will be more direct. “This is idiotic. Four in the past twelve hours? What the hell? They were all good people. Get off your high horse and let someone live, okay?” Her next patient gives birth to triplets. One of them is named after her.
5. Simon & Garfunkel :: Mrs. Robinson [listen]
where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you
She pushes him against the wall as she kisses him and no matter how hard she tries, that damn song finds its way into her head. As they tumble into the on call room and kick the door shut behind them, she tries to simultaneously remember the words to “All Along the Watchtower” and kiss Alex at the same time in effort to keep their rhythm going and get the song out of her head. She knows it’s wrong and knows that it’s weird and knows that it happens all the time with the male attendings and female interns and nobody thinks it’s weird and wrong but gender roles have always been a problem for her so she tries to recall as much Bob Dylan as she can remember while not giving it away that she’s not fully into this. But then Alex gently tugs at her earlobe with his teeth and everything she knows about music disappears into bliss.
6. Poe :: Control [listen]
I’ve got your pawns and your bishops and castles all inside the palm of my hand
She expected to feel a sense of sadness, perhaps an overflowing bucket of Emotion would fall on her head. She expected many things to happen to her when she scrawled her name on the line marked with a bright yellow Post-It arrow. After all, if her wedding day was supposed to be the most important day of her life (a proclamation that she’d often questioned, since she’s fairly certain that performing her first solo surgery or getting her board certification would be actually more important on a grand scale of human existence), the day she signed her divorce papers should be equally monumental if only to cosmically cancel everything out and balance the equation. Instead, she finds herself feeling nothing at all. The normalcy of the day surprises her and catches her off guard, though she does have the presence of mind to ask Mark if he still has the futon couch. It was the world’s most uncomfortable piece of furniture, and its discomfort was matched only by its hideousness and since Derek felt the need to bring it up on such an (un)important day, she felt the need to close that loop on her life.
7. Sarah McLachlan :: World on Fire [listen]
stay close to me why the sky’s falling, I don’t wanna be left alone
There is nothing redeeming she finds in Mark Sloan. Which is a total lie and every time she tries to tell herself that he’s a completely useless individual, the part of her brain completely dedicated to driving her insane raises its hand and mentions that he’s really good in bed. When the rest of her brain - the sensible part - tries to argue that sex is not enough to completely absolve him of his other failures, she’s reminded that he also gives really good hugs, actually listens to her when she’s ranting like a lunatic about something that, at the outset of the rant, began as something tiny and ballooned into something major. That he sleeps with other women, doesn’t cook, read, watch movies of cultural value or believe in an organized file system so life is easy come tax season is sort of secondary to the sex, the hugs, and the voluntary ear. She’s not sure when her standards changed; she isn’t sure when she stopped looking for a guy with a sense of humor and a good smile who was cultured and intellectual and when she started looking for a guy who was good in bed and paid attention when she was complaining about the tub of sugary Red 40 sauce leaking all over the rest of the Chinese takeout bag. But she did. And even though he does have a sense of humor and a good smile and is intelligent beyond his womanizing flirtation and even though she’s completely happy with him, she still can’t help but be frustrated with the few qualities that create the hyperbole of nothing redeeming.
8. Queen :: We Will Rock You [listen]
buddy you’re a young man hard man shouting in the street gonna take on the world some day
She absolutely hated dodgeball, partly because she wasn’t any good at it but mostly because she was awkwardly tall and everyone hid behind her and got mad when she got hit as if it were her fault that she was the only one visible on her side of the gym. But after a while, when she hit high school and college and grew into her body, she learned to love the game. An uncanny sense of where the ball was going to be and excruciatingly accurate hand-eye coordination led her to be the envy of every other team in Columbia’s recreational league, every team that had passed her over as someone who was in it for the beer and parties afterward and was too awkward to be of any real value. And in her sophomore year, at 12:01 am the day that sign-ups started for the winter league, Derek Shepherd called her and asked her to be on his team. She told him yes, because his team was undefeated in the previous year and she liked winning, and when she hung up the phone she spent a few minutes holding back tears. Because it was the first time that she had ever been picked first in dodgeball.
9. Red Hot Chili Peppers :: By The Way [listen]
standing in line to see the show tonight and there’s a light on
“Whatever,” she says to herself, exhaling a deep breath of frustration. She stands up from the table and flips on the dining room lights and blows out the candles. She leaves dinner where it is and fixes herself a sandwich, positive that it would be okay for her to eat her anniversary dinner (after all, she did cook it) but she’s feeling immature and her immaturity manifests itself in ridiculous ways of making a point. Like leaving a meticulously-cooked dinner exactly where it is in hopes that it will convey a massive guilt trip when he comes home. If she hadn’t had an unfortunate incident with an unattended candle and a window curtain in college, she’d leave them burning even though they’d probably melt all the way down before he gets home. Cold, but unwilling to change out of her dress (again, in case he comes home before she goes to bed and she can make an even bigger point by looking pretty), she pulls her Mt. Sinai hooded sweatshirt out of the laundry basket and tugs it on, somehow comforted by the thumb holes. Sandwich and beer in hand (deciding to leave the wine on the table too), she ungracefully falls into a chair. She turns on Jeopardy and spends half an hour feeling smart even though she knows she’s incredibly stupid for thinking that all of this is going to make an impact.
10. Joss Stone :: You Had Me [listen]
ain't nobody got no business, stressing all the time
It’s without fanfare or flourish that she shoves the last box into the trunk of her car and slams it shut. She winces at the sound and apologies quietly to her car, thinking it was a little bit forceful since it isn’t her car that she’s angry with. But she shrugs and looks up at the hotel that she’s jokingly called her home for the past months and isn’t surprised when she can’t tell which window once belonged to her. This city was never really hers anyway so it’s only fitting that she can’t figure out which room was hers from here. For all she knows, her room is already cleaned and promised to someone else, someone who might have better chances in the city of omnipresent rain and a constant parade of men that didn’t work out for her. She climbs into her car and starts it, confident that the moving truck is already on its way south toward beaches and palm trees and a better life. Her only look backward is to make sure that nobody’s coming before she pulls out of her parking spot.
Roisin Murphy :: Movie Star
Rating: PG-13, max
Pairing: In order: Addison/Naomi, Addison/Derek/Mark, Derek/Addison, Addison, Alex/Addison, Addison/Derek/Mark, Mark/Addison, Derek/Addison, Derek/Addison, Addison. Whew.
Summary: It’s that ten song challenge thing that’s been floating around. Mostly I discovered that I can't write anything to the tune of the Arrogant Worms’ “I Is A Newfoundlander.” I guarantee you, it was not for lack of trying.
1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
2. Turn your music player on and turn it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a drabblet/ficlet related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!
4. Do ten of these, then post them.
1. Aesop Rock :: Zodiaccupuncture [listen]
we are not trained to divert the crash, the marx-based verse with a prayer for the blitz
She carefully mounts the stairs up to the fourth floor in the sweltering late August heat, cursing for the twelfth time that morning that the elevator is broken. Most of her belongings are already in her room, unpacked and organized into drawers and a closet that’s far too small for her, but now that her parents and brother have left (and took the car with them) she’s recognized the need for things like notebooks and pens and microwave popcorn and is making her way up the narrow staircase with plastic grocery bags in hand, hoping that her roommate has finally arrived, if only to put a face to the name on the piece of paper she’d received over the summer. She finally makes it to her floor and bumps the heavy fire door open with her hip. Trudging down the hallway to her room, she puts on a welcoming smile because the door to her room is open and it wasn’t when she left. She stops suddenly when she sees a shy girl standing forlornly alone in the middle of the room, looking very lost and overwhelmed. Instead of reaching out her hand and introducing herself like she’d planned, Addison simply puts down her bags. “You want a hug, Naomi?”
2. U2 :: Until the End of the World [listen]
in the garden I was playing the tart, I kissed your lips and broke your heart
Addison was always the first one to wax apocalyptic about a test or a lab or a paper (on the off chance that they all made it into the same required diversity course that necessitated the use of verbs and adjectives instead of numbers and equations), so they’d assumed that she wasn’t up to the challenge, that she’d fall apart under pressure. She proved them wrong in college, walking smugly out of the classroom with a 100% scrawled across the top of her organic chemistry exam. She proved them wrong in medical school, graduating with high honors and with an internship with the most respected hospital in the country (that they did the same didn’t factor in; it was her resolute determination that she was going to fail every single class and her constant receipt of top grades that surprised them). And she proved them wrong in love, because they both assumed that she would stay forever with the one she married for fear of anything going against her plan.
3. ABBA :: Mamma Mia [listen]
mamma mia, here I go again, my, my, how can I resist you
She never claimed to be the world’s best vocalist. She could hold her own, of course, because twelve years with the church choir doesn’t result in being unable to carry a tune, but she wasn’t a finalist for a solo spot at the Met either (not that she didn’t fantasize about it on particularly bad days at the hospital when a career change seemed like the only way to make anything better). But when Derek walked in on her cleaning the kitchen and singing glam rock from the eighties at the top of her lungs while she stood barefoot on the counters to dust the tops of the cabinets, he never thought she looked more beautiful.
4. Plumb :: Good Behavior [listen]
‘cause perfect only makes you crazy, there is no way that it can save me
There really are days when she questions the existence of God. Or god. Or gods. Or goddess. She’s met so many patients over the years with varying degrees of faith that all make sense that she’s never really sure who is looking down on her and how many sets of eyes there are. But there are days when she looks up at the sky on her way out of the hospital and mutters a curse under her breath and sometimes she gives the middle finger to a church she passes on the way home because a house of God is about as close to the real thing as she can get here on Earth. “This is fucking ridiculous,” she mutters to herself as she scrubs out after calling time of death on her fourth patient of the day. “Really, dude,” she continues, channeling one of her interns and hoping that maybe a younger generation’s lingo will be more direct. “This is idiotic. Four in the past twelve hours? What the hell? They were all good people. Get off your high horse and let someone live, okay?” Her next patient gives birth to triplets. One of them is named after her.
5. Simon & Garfunkel :: Mrs. Robinson [listen]
where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you
She pushes him against the wall as she kisses him and no matter how hard she tries, that damn song finds its way into her head. As they tumble into the on call room and kick the door shut behind them, she tries to simultaneously remember the words to “All Along the Watchtower” and kiss Alex at the same time in effort to keep their rhythm going and get the song out of her head. She knows it’s wrong and knows that it’s weird and knows that it happens all the time with the male attendings and female interns and nobody thinks it’s weird and wrong but gender roles have always been a problem for her so she tries to recall as much Bob Dylan as she can remember while not giving it away that she’s not fully into this. But then Alex gently tugs at her earlobe with his teeth and everything she knows about music disappears into bliss.
6. Poe :: Control [listen]
I’ve got your pawns and your bishops and castles all inside the palm of my hand
She expected to feel a sense of sadness, perhaps an overflowing bucket of Emotion would fall on her head. She expected many things to happen to her when she scrawled her name on the line marked with a bright yellow Post-It arrow. After all, if her wedding day was supposed to be the most important day of her life (a proclamation that she’d often questioned, since she’s fairly certain that performing her first solo surgery or getting her board certification would be actually more important on a grand scale of human existence), the day she signed her divorce papers should be equally monumental if only to cosmically cancel everything out and balance the equation. Instead, she finds herself feeling nothing at all. The normalcy of the day surprises her and catches her off guard, though she does have the presence of mind to ask Mark if he still has the futon couch. It was the world’s most uncomfortable piece of furniture, and its discomfort was matched only by its hideousness and since Derek felt the need to bring it up on such an (un)important day, she felt the need to close that loop on her life.
7. Sarah McLachlan :: World on Fire [listen]
stay close to me why the sky’s falling, I don’t wanna be left alone
There is nothing redeeming she finds in Mark Sloan. Which is a total lie and every time she tries to tell herself that he’s a completely useless individual, the part of her brain completely dedicated to driving her insane raises its hand and mentions that he’s really good in bed. When the rest of her brain - the sensible part - tries to argue that sex is not enough to completely absolve him of his other failures, she’s reminded that he also gives really good hugs, actually listens to her when she’s ranting like a lunatic about something that, at the outset of the rant, began as something tiny and ballooned into something major. That he sleeps with other women, doesn’t cook, read, watch movies of cultural value or believe in an organized file system so life is easy come tax season is sort of secondary to the sex, the hugs, and the voluntary ear. She’s not sure when her standards changed; she isn’t sure when she stopped looking for a guy with a sense of humor and a good smile who was cultured and intellectual and when she started looking for a guy who was good in bed and paid attention when she was complaining about the tub of sugary Red 40 sauce leaking all over the rest of the Chinese takeout bag. But she did. And even though he does have a sense of humor and a good smile and is intelligent beyond his womanizing flirtation and even though she’s completely happy with him, she still can’t help but be frustrated with the few qualities that create the hyperbole of nothing redeeming.
8. Queen :: We Will Rock You [listen]
buddy you’re a young man hard man shouting in the street gonna take on the world some day
She absolutely hated dodgeball, partly because she wasn’t any good at it but mostly because she was awkwardly tall and everyone hid behind her and got mad when she got hit as if it were her fault that she was the only one visible on her side of the gym. But after a while, when she hit high school and college and grew into her body, she learned to love the game. An uncanny sense of where the ball was going to be and excruciatingly accurate hand-eye coordination led her to be the envy of every other team in Columbia’s recreational league, every team that had passed her over as someone who was in it for the beer and parties afterward and was too awkward to be of any real value. And in her sophomore year, at 12:01 am the day that sign-ups started for the winter league, Derek Shepherd called her and asked her to be on his team. She told him yes, because his team was undefeated in the previous year and she liked winning, and when she hung up the phone she spent a few minutes holding back tears. Because it was the first time that she had ever been picked first in dodgeball.
9. Red Hot Chili Peppers :: By The Way [listen]
standing in line to see the show tonight and there’s a light on
“Whatever,” she says to herself, exhaling a deep breath of frustration. She stands up from the table and flips on the dining room lights and blows out the candles. She leaves dinner where it is and fixes herself a sandwich, positive that it would be okay for her to eat her anniversary dinner (after all, she did cook it) but she’s feeling immature and her immaturity manifests itself in ridiculous ways of making a point. Like leaving a meticulously-cooked dinner exactly where it is in hopes that it will convey a massive guilt trip when he comes home. If she hadn’t had an unfortunate incident with an unattended candle and a window curtain in college, she’d leave them burning even though they’d probably melt all the way down before he gets home. Cold, but unwilling to change out of her dress (again, in case he comes home before she goes to bed and she can make an even bigger point by looking pretty), she pulls her Mt. Sinai hooded sweatshirt out of the laundry basket and tugs it on, somehow comforted by the thumb holes. Sandwich and beer in hand (deciding to leave the wine on the table too), she ungracefully falls into a chair. She turns on Jeopardy and spends half an hour feeling smart even though she knows she’s incredibly stupid for thinking that all of this is going to make an impact.
10. Joss Stone :: You Had Me [listen]
ain't nobody got no business, stressing all the time
It’s without fanfare or flourish that she shoves the last box into the trunk of her car and slams it shut. She winces at the sound and apologies quietly to her car, thinking it was a little bit forceful since it isn’t her car that she’s angry with. But she shrugs and looks up at the hotel that she’s jokingly called her home for the past months and isn’t surprised when she can’t tell which window once belonged to her. This city was never really hers anyway so it’s only fitting that she can’t figure out which room was hers from here. For all she knows, her room is already cleaned and promised to someone else, someone who might have better chances in the city of omnipresent rain and a constant parade of men that didn’t work out for her. She climbs into her car and starts it, confident that the moving truck is already on its way south toward beaches and palm trees and a better life. Her only look backward is to make sure that nobody’s coming before she pulls out of her parking spot.
Roisin Murphy :: Movie Star