Well, it has officially been exactly five years since I posted the first chapter of Loved by (Almost) No One, the fic that saved my life. Well, maybe not saved, but. Bettered and altered my life to such a wild degree that I genuinely don't know who I would be or what I would be doing if I hadn't written it. The fic that introduced me to My Wife.
So, I figured in celebration, I would mark the passing of the LbANniversary by doing a little annotation of all the songs in my writing playlist for it and why I chose them, because it was fun to do for Blossoms and I've wanted to do the same for LbAN forever.
Also everyone please applaud my boundless restraint in ONLY putting four Green Day songs on this playlist. Even as we speak I'm considering adding Peacemaker. Notes under the cut!!!
We're Going to Be Friends // The White Stripes: They're eight! They're one apple tall! In spite of all the darkness they each have going on under the surface they have something very innocent and natural springing up between them! They're going to be friends!
Hayloft // Mother Mother: This and the next song are there for The Darkness They Have Going On Under the Surface. And okay, okay, I know Hayloft is on every blorbo playlist on earth but in my defense, Merc's dad has a gun and that's really the crux of the issue.
¿Viva La Gloria? (Little Girl) // Green Day: Em 😭 my daughter and the cruel voices in her head and her lifeboat of deception 😭 walking with blisters and running with shears 😭
Shoplifters of the World Unite // The Smiths: I mean. It's the plot. That's the plot. It's what it says on the tin. Also the heartless hand on my shoulder line gets me in relation to end of Arc 3 Merc even if this is in the Arc 1 section of the playlist.
Makoki // Paraíso: It is my goal to inflict this fucking song on every person I meet. It's about a comic book character in like '80s era Spain that's a 12 year old boy on the loose from an asylum hitting people with pipes and it just seems like. Exactly the kind of comic Merc and Lav would read at Tukson's in their tweens.
From Eden // Hozier: He is idealism sitting in prison!! She is chivalry falling on her sword!!! They are each other's mirrors and innocence dies screaming!!!! I thought about this song especially in like, parallels between Arcs 1 and 4. Merc leaning on Em's shoulder for the first time and her deciding there's something precious about him and then all the things she does so he can lean on her shoulder again.
My Eyes // Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog: And we're into Arc 2!!! This one I especially thought of for the first couple chapters where Em is befriending Lav and Daily and growing more secure in herself, while Merc is Actively Trapped In The Torment Nexus.
Despicable // grandson: My future wife put this in the Emercury Discord the night before NYE and I listened to it and ascended to a level of mental illness never before documented in my brain. It's. It's him. That's LbAN Merc there he is that's the whole boy.
Boys Will Be Bugs // Cavetown: Once again my beautiful wife @shooty-booties arrives with the most DNA-rewriting Merc bops. She was working on an animatic while I was posting Arc Three and god it's everything to me. Holds him in my hands.
This Life Is Mine // RWBY Volume 4 Soundtrack: THIS LIFE IS MINE IS THE BEST RWBY SONG DON'T @ ME AND ALSO IT IS PERFECT FOR MERCURY BLACK. I listened to this so so many times while writing the chapter where he unlocks his Semblance and I used it to title all the chapters in Arc Two.
Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground // The White Stripes: Start of Arc Three! This song just felt fitting for the more confident and secure in his affections Mercury at the top of this arc. He's gonna stick around for a while so she's not alone.
27 Kids // GRMLN: Team EMLD!!! My good friend @dnainers drew the first group art of all four of the kids together to this song and it's so special to me 🥹
Smells Like Teen Spirit // Nirvana: The number of times. I have re-listened to the beginning of this song trying to perfect the mental AMV of each of the four EMLD kids on the drumbeats before the guitar REALLY hits. Is. Not in the single digits.
Boots of Chinese Plastic // Pretenders: I keep debating taking this song off the playlist but then every dog that lives its life on a chain knows what it's like waiting for nothing and yeah I have to keep it on the playlist.
Head On // Pixies: Song for having a crush that's pretty much it.
Whistle for the Choir // The Fratellis: This is my mental soundtrack for Em and Merc walking home after their thirty-first half-birthday not-date 🥹
Hard To Kill // Bleached: Emerald Sustrai surviving a bullet to the stomach after being ambushed in her sleep four against one and deciding to cover the entire city in taunting graffiti about it.
Bury Our Friends // Sleater-Kinney: Like some doll you thought you could throw away, I found my legs. Once again, The Invincible Emerald Sustrai, specifically her getting back out on the streets with her cool jacket and bullet necklace ready to end Rex Aurum's entire career.
I'm the One // RWBY Volume Three Soundtrack: Idk man something about this song just gives emercury vibes what could it be. Seriously though please rise for the national anthem.
What's Up Danger // Blackway, Black Caviar: EMERALD SUSTRAI OWNS THIS SONG TO MEEEEEEEE SHE LIKES HIGH CHANCES THAT SHE MIGHT LOSE SHE LIKES TALL BUILDINGS SO SHE CAN LEAP OFF OF THEM!!!!!!! My daughter my clever calculating daughter who takes insane hair-raising risks and in the case of Chapter 20 it pays off babeyyyyyyy!!!
Foreigner's God // Hozier: Yeah I listened to this on a loop while drafting Chapter 21 I. Ough. Yeah. The agony. The cruelty. How much they love each other. Her eyes look sharp and steady into the empty parts of him. Nainers sent me lyric doodles the night I posted this chapter and 😭
Good Feeling // The Violent Femmes: Merc watching Em climb back out the window and leave. That's all :')
Boulevard of Broken Dreams // Green Day: Actually wait, fuck, THIS SHOULD SO BE PEACEMAKER INSTEAD FOR THE INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA. Oh well. It was good to write to.
Fangless // Sleater-Kinney: Merc caving to Watts in the wake of All Of The Trauma after getting his prosthetics. Believing that he's going to have to become the killer Marcus wants him to be if he's ever going to free himself from him.
Blood // Water // grandson: Em and Merc having a very Now I Am The Violence I Am The Sickness time of it this arc. Also Em is the people Merc is the storm Lav is the riot Day is the swarm. You understand.
One Thing // RWBY Volume Six Soundtrack: *stealing this from Neo and handing it to Em in her single-minded and self-destructive quest to rescue Mercury and kill Marcus Black* also it didn't end up on the playlist but. You're Gonna Go Far Kid is the Roman & Em dynamic. He's nodding at her with grudging respect as she steals this song from his partner.
Violet // Hole: Hey Em that revenge quest how's it going. Yeah your codependency and desperation to save the first person ever to show you kindness isn't driving you to strip away your own humanity to save him or anything right. Of course not. How are your knees by the way.
All I Think About Now // Pixies: The other side of the coin of the screaming meltdown of Violet. Fondness and grief and yearning for happiness.
The Sailor Song // Autoheart: Once again shooty sending me a song and sniping me in the heart. Mercury trying so so hard to cut out the parts of himself that miss Emerald and failing. He was her armchair, man 😭 Should I Run A Million Miles Away From Every Memory Of You.
Fighter // Christina Aguilera: Look, LOOK. Em has earned a 2010s girl power AMV for the Piper fight she deserves this she's put in the time she's gotten stronger worked harder become smarter made herself that much wiser. And she's going to kill about it.
Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want // The Smiths: You know when your best friend shows up on your porch covered in blood and all your survival mechanisms fall away in how much you cherish her and how badly you want a life with her.
21 Guns // Green Day: MERC BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE!!!! CATHARSON!!! INNER PEACE!!!!!! SURRENDER TO YOUR DESIRE TO BE HUMAN AND FEEL LOVE WOLFBOY!!!
Wouldn't It Be Nice // The Beach Boys: They are dumb teenagers in love who have never gotten to have anything pleasant or normal, your honor. It sure would be nice.
Nevermore // RWBY Volume Six Soundtrack: Chapter-pull song for the final arc!!! When I set out to write this fic I hoped so badly that Em and Merc v Marcus would pack as much catharsis for a reader as Bees v Adam and it was SO fun to let loose for the final brawl.
Hayloft II // Mother Mother: Speaking of the final brawl!!! An eye for an eye a leg for a leg a shot in the heart doesn't make it unbreak!
¡Viva La Gloria! // Green Day: Shooty played this whole album for me on our first road trip together and said this song reminded her of Emercury ("It's about a boy and a girl! What am I supposed to do? NOT think about Emercury?" she said, correctly). And yeah. Em in the end. She found a home in all her scars and ammunitions. She is the saint of all the sinners. I am so proud of her 🥹
Love Again // Dua Lipa: They survived the horrors! They get to be in love! Verse 1 is Merc to me and Verse 2 is Em I am cringe but I am free.
Up the Wolves // The Mountain Goats: Thesis statement for the ending. The first time shooty sent me this song I cried. We got to see the Mountain Goats live last year and they played it for the encore and yeah. Ough. There's gonna be a party when the wolf comes home 🥹
*throws this on my fridge* HAPPY LBANNIVERSARY EVERYONE TO ANYONE AT ALL WHO READ OR COMMENTED ON THIS FIC YOU ALL TRULY DID CHANGE MY LIFE FOR THE BETTER YIPPEE YAY THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!
Damn 5 years makes a difference huh, (redraw from something in 2020) I will truly never be normal about them huh? Just when I think I’m free they drag me back kicking and screaming aha
andulkaphoto
tangentwithtanner
theartofmadeline
dailybridgerton
janainaart
discoholicmusic
jacobvanloon
