i've looked at clouds from both sides now (𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥)

[possessum]

<sup>Who: Peter Graham + you! Prompts will be placed here.
What: Canon update business, potential event things, tba.
When: Through the month of November.
Where: Various places in Trench / tba.

Content Warnings: This character comes with demonic possession by default. There's a gif including nudity (non-sexual, just a couple of people shown naked from behind) in one of the posts. Additional warnings will be placed in individual spaces.</sup>

^{( On Peter's birthday and Blessed Month, he will go through a canon update that's given him updated memories. For weeks 1 - 3 he will mentally be MIA, and Paimon/Charlie may be interacted with. On week 4, Peter will return. Closed starters will be placed under the appropriate posts. Please hit me up @ plot post / plurk / large bat#2354 / pm if you're interested in a starter / if you'd like to plot for the month! )}

Comments

[possessum]

( Peter keeps his joint pressed to his mouth for a long moment, fingers pinching it tight. There's an initial response to that, but he's already used the word "suck" to refer to himself in this conversation, and even he is aware of how stupidly miserable it'd sound it he said it out loud now. That he hasn't tried writing anything because he knows he'd suck. People get tired of him dripping despair every goddamn second. He's not trying to be a drag.

So he focuses on the question, but for some reason his eyes are feeling wet again. It's like he keeps leaking; he doesn't know what to do with it. He clears his throat, takes another drag. )

I don't think so. How's it go?

[terribibble]

Oh, it's a good one. Folks liked it because it was catchy, so they missed how angry it was.

[He picks up the banjo and settles it in his lap. Fingerpicks? Those are for weaklings whose fingers aren't themselves several layers of callus thick. The version that hit the charts was the one by Tennessee Ernie Ford, but the version he grew up with the one by Merle Travis. The way Ford sang it was a little too much like a performance for his taste. His playing is great -- his voice less so, but it has that rough and earnest scratchy nature that works great for this particular sort of music. That's real mountain sound. Somewhere in the middle he gets a little lost and a second melody creeps in. It makes sense in his head. Both have a simple driving beat (he has to approximate it by tapping the heel of his boot against the floor). Both are about the crushing weight of trying to work your way out of poverty. His thoughts always get so mixed up and that extends to the muscle memory of music-- he'd never lose the muscle memory but it gets away from him.

It's just you hear a song like these different when you had family in the mines yourself. It's not charming old-timey Americana to him, it's very recent history, and that's the way he sings it.]

[possessum]

( Peter's straightening up a bit as he listens. There's always something about watching somebody play live that just — makes a shudder ripple down his spine. And the way Fiddleford plays is clearly skilled; it's easy to fall into.

There's a melancholy to it for sure, and he's watching, drawn in by the way the instrument sounds, the way it pushes forwards, urgent. As the other melody winds in, fits into the slots in a way that works but adds something new, something more, Peter's mouth is parted just a little, eyes not moving from where he's staring. He's stopped taking long puffs of his smoke too, holding his joint down in his lap for a moment.

It's nice. It's really nice — and it's upset, the words, the stories behind them. Even he can understand what they're saying, and even if there's no particular nostalgia for him associated with it, the banjo itself makes everything feel nostalgic. Like old woods and dusty-covered things, and stories told through song. They don't have to be his stories to make him feel something.

He's swallowing for a moment, eyes only dropping back down to his lap when Fiddleford's finished. )

It's nice. That was— nice. You're really good. ( He means it, pausing a moment before he actually moves off of the floor (a feat, to be sure...) to find his own acoustic guitar and nab a pick (WEAKLING ALERT), sitting back down gingerly with the thing in his lap. )

Could you play some of it again — slower? I can uh, try to warm up. ( By imitating the melody, even if it's just by ear and inevitably won't be.... perfect, by any means. )

[terribibble]

[This, here? This is a massive improvement. His eyes light up and his posture, usually the hunch of the chronically-poring-over-something-on-a-desk sort of man, straightens up just a little.]

Sure I can. Sixteen Tons is real easy, all the melody's in the voice and not all that much is in the hands. It's real easy to play along to.

[He starts up again at about half tempo, which has the added effect of making the music sound twice as melancholy. That's country music boy howdy!]

A lot of the music I know's like that. Simple, meant for improvisation, because most of the meat's in the lyrics. Not so much this one, but a lot of them tell stories.

[Well. Sixteen Tons tells a story, for sure, but it's more a character study then your classic three act structure. That's more what he means. All genres of music do it, but in his opinion country and bluegrass do it best. Not that he's biased.]

[possessum]

( Peter fiddles with the tuners on his guitar a moment or two, and it leaves his fingertips kissed in a slight layer of dust, which he wipes on his jeans. It really has been a long time since he picked this thing up. But it's there in his hands now, and he folds his legs in crossed, giving a couple of warm-up strums.

Then he's listening to Fiddleford play the slowed-down song and he's watching for a few moments before he starts imitating, finding the notes. He's not bad but he's definitely not close to expert levels — Peter's one of those "self-taught from a book, never really went anywhere far with it", kinds. He's actually a lot better on keys, because he started really little on that one, thanks to the grand piano in the foyer, inherited from way back when.

But guitar was something he got to choose for himself, not something that came with the house, the family. Even after months of neglect, the instrument makes him feel a certain thrill to hold again. It's quiet, padded under layers of all the weird aching shit he's freshly been made privy to — look ma, I'm a teenage sacrifice! — but it's still there, even if he's not perfectly playing by ear and there's a lot of little off-beat sounds as he doesn't quite hit the right note.

The melody is sad, and Peter's a visibly affected by everything, weed-weepy and frowning to himself, but this is... nice. He kind of needs this, maybe. And he starts getting a little experimental, inspired by the melody that's already going on, branching off into some other avenues with it. Is this what the youth call "jamming out?" )