Epic songmeme post comin' atcha!
So, in spite of my better judgement, I decided to go ahead and do the 'put your iTunes on shuffle and write drabbles about the first ten songs you hear' meme. Granted, I cheated a ton -- I allowed myself at least three revolutions of each song to finish these, and a couple of songs were skipped because I've already written about them (U2, I'm looking at you here), but here they are anyway.
I was sort of surprised by how well these turned out. I'll post links to the songs I wrote about later, if you'd like to snag them. Be warned, though: this is a completely random sampler of what's on my iPod, and I can't promise it's really any good. *laughs*
The stuff under the cut includes Star Wars, Stargate Atlantis, Iron Man (yeah, I actually wrote something in that fandom!), Catalyst (an original 'verse) and a whole bunch of randomness. Have at it!
1. Echoplex - Nine Inch Nails
He lives in an abandoned movie theatre, part of a seedy strip mall that hasn’t seen another living soul since the day the bombs fell and the plate-glass windows were reduced to dust.
He doesn’t like other people. It’s why he stays in this place. The walls are solid, and though he doesn’t speak often (he’s got nobody to talk to), he can hear his thoughts reflected back off of them.
Loneliness isn’t a problem for him. He has all the company he needs in the form of lives preserved on film. He learned to work the projectors years back, and it was the best thing he could have ever done for himself. He sits among the rows of empty seats, watching the velvet curtains sway back and forth beside the screens.
He has everything he needs - stockpiled cans that he’s collected from the supermarket across the way, water from the fountains, and silence.
No one will ever get to him in here.
2. Us - Regina Spektor
John can’t help but be a little amused and flattered by the statue the villagers have put up in their honor. The bronze versions of Rodney, Teyla, Ronon and himself stand close together, striking a variety of epic poses that look like something straight out of a comic book. McKay, in particular, was quite pleased by his heroic portrayal.
The villagers were so pleased that their saviors had returned through the Stargate that they’d not only presented the statue but given the team a feast in their honor. Really, John had insisted politely, all they’d done was blown up a few Wraith darts and killed a drone who was trying to feed on one of the elders. The locals were adamant about a party, though, and to be fair, John hadn’t really protested too hard.
Now everybody’s sitting around a long low table in the grass. Rodney’s piled his plate high with some alien version of french fries, Ronon’s smirking at a vaguely risqué joke that the almost-Wraith-bait elder is telling, Teyla’s passing a bowl of salad to a woman next to her, and John is halfway through something that, despite being bright purple, tastes like a really good turkey sandwich.
For once, things have wound up perfectly, and for all the bad missions and lost causes that the team has faced, it’s days like this, sitting in the sun and laughing, that make it worthwhile.
3. God Part II - U2
He believes exactly what he wants to, that is, in music and in love. The two are interchangeable as far as he’s concerned.
His satellite-sized headphones are a filter. Using them, he tunes out bunkers, sand, the never-ending snarl of helicopters overhead.
He won’t believe in months of sun and grit inside his combat boots. He won’t believe in rubble, bombs or the lack of letters from back home. He won’t believe that this fight might not have an end. But what he does believe in is the singer on the radio, playing a guitar from a studio half a world away. Someday he’d like to meet one of the bands he listens to, tell them stories about how, in the middle of the desert, they were the only thing that reminded him of home.
Music and love. It’s what’ll get him through.
4. We Do What We’re Told (Milgram’s 37) - Peter Gabriel
Tipoca City is very still and very white and perfect, and Obi-Wan feels terribly out of place with his sodden cloak and hair made disheveled by the driving rain. Following his Kaminoan guides through the gleaming hallways, he studies his surroundings carefully and tries to look like he knows what he’s doing. Everything in the city exudes a pristine serenity, sharing the same strange elegance as its inhabitants.
As he follows Lama Su onto a walkway above the cloning facility, he can’t help but stare. He’s seen a lot of things across the galaxy that many people would never dream of, but he wasn’t prepared for the vast circular tanks studded with what appear to be….yes. There are human beings, or some close approximation thereof, contained within them like so many specimens in test tubes. Thousands of them, in various stages of development, rotate slowly through the cavernous space.
“Impressive, aren’t they?” the prime minister asks, and Obi-Wan can’t help but to agree.
Gazing at the endless rows of growing soldiers, he wonders, for a brief, nonsensical moment, what they dream about.
He wonders if they can dream at all.
5. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - Daft Punk
Pepper walks down the stairs to Tony’s workshop, high heels clicking sharply across the floor. She means to give him a piece of her mind - he’s blown off two conferences already this morning, there are oceans of paperwork that he needs to sign and initial, and her inbox, on his behalf, has already exploded with incoming mail.
…It is, however, very hard for her to stay annoyed at her employer when she finds him doing a ridiculous little shimmy across his workshop to a Daft Punk song, swinging his hips as he puts the finishing touches on some new mechanical component or another. She fights back a snort of amusement and decides to leave him alone for now, or at least let him finish his dance routine.
6. If It’s In My Mind, It’s On My Face - Seal
She’s got an open face and an open mind. She’s never been good at hiding what she thinks, and you can’t decide whether that’s a blessing or a curse for her.
She’s looking out the window of the bus, the sunlight getting into her eyes and making them glow like amber. You can see the rows of telephone poles reflected in them, and beyond that, nothing but blue sky. She’s watching the little birds, flocks of tiny things that form living clouds and settle on the wires like notes in a bar of music.
A smile tugs at the corner of her lips, and you know her well enough to understand that she’s thinking about wings of her own.
7. Red Rain - Peter Gabriel
Siril was looking out towards the ocean, where clouds the color of a blood orange were beginning to roll in over the horizon.
“What is that?” Ana asked, coming to stand beside her. Her footsteps were silent in the ash-fine sand. “Some trick of the light?”
Siril shook her head slowly, still transfixed by the clouds. The ridge of white hair at the back of her neck began to rise. “I’ve heard stories about this.”
“Siril?”
“It’s red rain, Captain. We need to get back to the ship now.” She tore her eyes away from the billowing crimson mass and walked quickly back down the beach, Ana breaking into a jog beside her to keep up.
“Siril, I need you to tell me what’s going on.”
Siril stopped and looked at her human companion. The Atheran’s yellow eyes were completely dilated, and her mane stood up stiffly as a fence. When she spoke again her voice was haunted.
“My people have been telling stories about red rain forever, though very few have actually seen it and lived. There’s something in those clouds that poisons everything it touches. We’ve got to get back. If we’re outside when the storm breaks, Captain, none of us are going to survive.”
8. Extraordinary Way - Conjure One
Dear ---,
I’ve been trying to write you a poem, but nothing’s turning out right. I trip over words and my own feet when I’m around you, if you haven’t noticed, much to my chagrin.
So I’ll send you this song and let someone else do the talking. This is what I would say, if I could articulate it properly - something about listening, and valuing small things, and conversations about promises and bridges to be burned.
Thank you for believing in this.
9. Epicentre - VNV Nation
Dooku likes deep space. It is still, and empty, and he has all the spaces between stars to reflect on things. Out here he can quiet his mind so easily, look through a viewport into infinity and contemplate the little points of light burning billions of kilometers away.
There’s an art to loneliness, and he’s becoming a master. Some days he believes he’s doing a good thing for himself, in regards to that.
Some days he’s not so sure.
10. High Speed - Coldplay
John loves flying more than anything else in the world. If you’ve met him, you wouldn’t exactly find that surprising - he’s a fighter pilot, after all. But what John would love most would be to fly unencumbered. It’s not the planes themselves that he really likes. It’s not the Puddlejumpers or 302s or high-tech alien rockets (though, granted, those are pretty damn cool). It’s seeing the ground stretched out below him and knowing that he doesn’t have to come down just yet.
When John was a kid, he had a swing set in his backyard. He’d spend entire afternoons getting up to the highest point of the swing’s arc and letting go, dizzy with glee from the brief moments of weightlessness before his sneakers touched the grass again.
Sometimes he still dreams about swinging. The best ones are when he lets go of the chains and pushes himself out of the seat and simply keeps going up and away, and into endless blue.
* * *
A few notes on these:
1. At some point I will write a series of stories based on Nine Inch Nails songs. They will probably all be post-apocalyptic and as strange as this. I kinda love them, though.
3. Maybe a part of the U2 Songfic Project, if only by proxy. This started out as something entirely different, and then a music-loving soldier walked into my head and decided to stay.
4. This idea is a very old one. The song reminded me inexorably of Kamino, which is one of my favorite worlds in the GFFA. If you haven't heard of the actual Milgram experiment mentioned in the title, though, look it up.
5. Because we all know that Tony totally goofs off in his workshop when nobody's looking.
7. Catalyst-verse. You'll see more of these characters in the future, and probably more of the story inspired by this song. Peter Gabriel is my muse.
9. Oh my God, I wrote Dooku. I wasn't sure that would ever happen again. *bemused*
10. John Sheppard and I would have been BFF when we were kids.
Woo!
Edit: I've got a few of these up on sendspace now, if you'd like them -- I couldn't put 'em all up 'cuz my computer's doing something bizzare, but I'll see if I can't remedy that later.
I was sort of surprised by how well these turned out. I'll post links to the songs I wrote about later, if you'd like to snag them. Be warned, though: this is a completely random sampler of what's on my iPod, and I can't promise it's really any good. *laughs*
The stuff under the cut includes Star Wars, Stargate Atlantis, Iron Man (yeah, I actually wrote something in that fandom!), Catalyst (an original 'verse) and a whole bunch of randomness. Have at it!
1. Echoplex - Nine Inch Nails
He lives in an abandoned movie theatre, part of a seedy strip mall that hasn’t seen another living soul since the day the bombs fell and the plate-glass windows were reduced to dust.
He doesn’t like other people. It’s why he stays in this place. The walls are solid, and though he doesn’t speak often (he’s got nobody to talk to), he can hear his thoughts reflected back off of them.
Loneliness isn’t a problem for him. He has all the company he needs in the form of lives preserved on film. He learned to work the projectors years back, and it was the best thing he could have ever done for himself. He sits among the rows of empty seats, watching the velvet curtains sway back and forth beside the screens.
He has everything he needs - stockpiled cans that he’s collected from the supermarket across the way, water from the fountains, and silence.
No one will ever get to him in here.
2. Us - Regina Spektor
John can’t help but be a little amused and flattered by the statue the villagers have put up in their honor. The bronze versions of Rodney, Teyla, Ronon and himself stand close together, striking a variety of epic poses that look like something straight out of a comic book. McKay, in particular, was quite pleased by his heroic portrayal.
The villagers were so pleased that their saviors had returned through the Stargate that they’d not only presented the statue but given the team a feast in their honor. Really, John had insisted politely, all they’d done was blown up a few Wraith darts and killed a drone who was trying to feed on one of the elders. The locals were adamant about a party, though, and to be fair, John hadn’t really protested too hard.
Now everybody’s sitting around a long low table in the grass. Rodney’s piled his plate high with some alien version of french fries, Ronon’s smirking at a vaguely risqué joke that the almost-Wraith-bait elder is telling, Teyla’s passing a bowl of salad to a woman next to her, and John is halfway through something that, despite being bright purple, tastes like a really good turkey sandwich.
For once, things have wound up perfectly, and for all the bad missions and lost causes that the team has faced, it’s days like this, sitting in the sun and laughing, that make it worthwhile.
3. God Part II - U2
He believes exactly what he wants to, that is, in music and in love. The two are interchangeable as far as he’s concerned.
His satellite-sized headphones are a filter. Using them, he tunes out bunkers, sand, the never-ending snarl of helicopters overhead.
He won’t believe in months of sun and grit inside his combat boots. He won’t believe in rubble, bombs or the lack of letters from back home. He won’t believe that this fight might not have an end. But what he does believe in is the singer on the radio, playing a guitar from a studio half a world away. Someday he’d like to meet one of the bands he listens to, tell them stories about how, in the middle of the desert, they were the only thing that reminded him of home.
Music and love. It’s what’ll get him through.
4. We Do What We’re Told (Milgram’s 37) - Peter Gabriel
Tipoca City is very still and very white and perfect, and Obi-Wan feels terribly out of place with his sodden cloak and hair made disheveled by the driving rain. Following his Kaminoan guides through the gleaming hallways, he studies his surroundings carefully and tries to look like he knows what he’s doing. Everything in the city exudes a pristine serenity, sharing the same strange elegance as its inhabitants.
As he follows Lama Su onto a walkway above the cloning facility, he can’t help but stare. He’s seen a lot of things across the galaxy that many people would never dream of, but he wasn’t prepared for the vast circular tanks studded with what appear to be….yes. There are human beings, or some close approximation thereof, contained within them like so many specimens in test tubes. Thousands of them, in various stages of development, rotate slowly through the cavernous space.
“Impressive, aren’t they?” the prime minister asks, and Obi-Wan can’t help but to agree.
Gazing at the endless rows of growing soldiers, he wonders, for a brief, nonsensical moment, what they dream about.
He wonders if they can dream at all.
5. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - Daft Punk
Pepper walks down the stairs to Tony’s workshop, high heels clicking sharply across the floor. She means to give him a piece of her mind - he’s blown off two conferences already this morning, there are oceans of paperwork that he needs to sign and initial, and her inbox, on his behalf, has already exploded with incoming mail.
…It is, however, very hard for her to stay annoyed at her employer when she finds him doing a ridiculous little shimmy across his workshop to a Daft Punk song, swinging his hips as he puts the finishing touches on some new mechanical component or another. She fights back a snort of amusement and decides to leave him alone for now, or at least let him finish his dance routine.
6. If It’s In My Mind, It’s On My Face - Seal
She’s got an open face and an open mind. She’s never been good at hiding what she thinks, and you can’t decide whether that’s a blessing or a curse for her.
She’s looking out the window of the bus, the sunlight getting into her eyes and making them glow like amber. You can see the rows of telephone poles reflected in them, and beyond that, nothing but blue sky. She’s watching the little birds, flocks of tiny things that form living clouds and settle on the wires like notes in a bar of music.
A smile tugs at the corner of her lips, and you know her well enough to understand that she’s thinking about wings of her own.
7. Red Rain - Peter Gabriel
Siril was looking out towards the ocean, where clouds the color of a blood orange were beginning to roll in over the horizon.
“What is that?” Ana asked, coming to stand beside her. Her footsteps were silent in the ash-fine sand. “Some trick of the light?”
Siril shook her head slowly, still transfixed by the clouds. The ridge of white hair at the back of her neck began to rise. “I’ve heard stories about this.”
“Siril?”
“It’s red rain, Captain. We need to get back to the ship now.” She tore her eyes away from the billowing crimson mass and walked quickly back down the beach, Ana breaking into a jog beside her to keep up.
“Siril, I need you to tell me what’s going on.”
Siril stopped and looked at her human companion. The Atheran’s yellow eyes were completely dilated, and her mane stood up stiffly as a fence. When she spoke again her voice was haunted.
“My people have been telling stories about red rain forever, though very few have actually seen it and lived. There’s something in those clouds that poisons everything it touches. We’ve got to get back. If we’re outside when the storm breaks, Captain, none of us are going to survive.”
8. Extraordinary Way - Conjure One
Dear ---,
I’ve been trying to write you a poem, but nothing’s turning out right. I trip over words and my own feet when I’m around you, if you haven’t noticed, much to my chagrin.
So I’ll send you this song and let someone else do the talking. This is what I would say, if I could articulate it properly - something about listening, and valuing small things, and conversations about promises and bridges to be burned.
Thank you for believing in this.
9. Epicentre - VNV Nation
Dooku likes deep space. It is still, and empty, and he has all the spaces between stars to reflect on things. Out here he can quiet his mind so easily, look through a viewport into infinity and contemplate the little points of light burning billions of kilometers away.
There’s an art to loneliness, and he’s becoming a master. Some days he believes he’s doing a good thing for himself, in regards to that.
Some days he’s not so sure.
10. High Speed - Coldplay
John loves flying more than anything else in the world. If you’ve met him, you wouldn’t exactly find that surprising - he’s a fighter pilot, after all. But what John would love most would be to fly unencumbered. It’s not the planes themselves that he really likes. It’s not the Puddlejumpers or 302s or high-tech alien rockets (though, granted, those are pretty damn cool). It’s seeing the ground stretched out below him and knowing that he doesn’t have to come down just yet.
When John was a kid, he had a swing set in his backyard. He’d spend entire afternoons getting up to the highest point of the swing’s arc and letting go, dizzy with glee from the brief moments of weightlessness before his sneakers touched the grass again.
Sometimes he still dreams about swinging. The best ones are when he lets go of the chains and pushes himself out of the seat and simply keeps going up and away, and into endless blue.
* * *
A few notes on these:
1. At some point I will write a series of stories based on Nine Inch Nails songs. They will probably all be post-apocalyptic and as strange as this. I kinda love them, though.
3. Maybe a part of the U2 Songfic Project, if only by proxy. This started out as something entirely different, and then a music-loving soldier walked into my head and decided to stay.
4. This idea is a very old one. The song reminded me inexorably of Kamino, which is one of my favorite worlds in the GFFA. If you haven't heard of the actual Milgram experiment mentioned in the title, though, look it up.
5. Because we all know that Tony totally goofs off in his workshop when nobody's looking.
7. Catalyst-verse. You'll see more of these characters in the future, and probably more of the story inspired by this song. Peter Gabriel is my muse.
9. Oh my God, I wrote Dooku. I wasn't sure that would ever happen again. *bemused*
10. John Sheppard and I would have been BFF when we were kids.
Woo!
Edit: I've got a few of these up on sendspace now, if you'd like them -- I couldn't put 'em all up 'cuz my computer's doing something bizzare, but I'll see if I can't remedy that later.