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dethoratsTitle: Back In The Saddle
Rating: PG for language
Word Count: 1039
More than a little drunk and rather out of practice, Pickles was still a thousand times better than the previous asshole Murderface had found to sit behind his band’s logo-ed drum kit. Not that he would tell the redhead that. The former lead singer for a band that had gotten bigger faster than just about any other in the late ‘80s and burned out hotter than a super-nova was too busy concentrating on keeping the sticks in his hands to notice the way the jaw on Antietam’s bassist fell slack and open for the first few minutes or so that he experimented with the music before him. Pickles was good, too good to be in a piece of shit outfit like Antietam, but Murderface was too good to be in his own band too. A gift had drunkenly swerved into his clutches that night and he was not about to let it slip away.
Much to Pickles’ delight, Antietam was NOT a country or rockabilly outfit. They were actually part of the burgeoning death metal scene, current with the underground work coming out of New York and, more importantly, Sweden. The beats were pretty simplistic, either slow and plodding or as fast as they could mother-fuckin’ be. There was a distinct military rhythm, though, that Murderface had hoped would distinguish them from their limited competition. Old march music and drilling patterns mixed with the rapid-fire machine gun spray and the occasional bombastic cannon-style explosion. Being surprisingly gifted with musical talent (hey, the guy plays guitar, sings, takes up drums, writes, and he and Nathan mix most of the music…sounds pretty gifted to me), Pickles had no problem picking up the beats the bassist shoved in his face, the hand-written sheets only mildly complicated because of the wavering penmanship. And, improvising a little, both feet slamming into the pedals and sticks sliding loose between his fingers, Pickles couldn’t stop the slow grin from baring his teeth. Now this was what he should have been doing all along. His manager was really a freakin’ idiot.
Murderface had managed to close his mouth by the time Pickles went for a flashy stick twirl and ended up losing it, sending the piece of wood skidding across the rough stage to tag a leaning drunk on the back of the head. A bark of laughter was his response to his – no way was he letting this guy go – new drummer’s mistake as he traded stained and wrinkled sheet music for another beer.
“You ain’t too bad, for a long-haired losher hangin’ around in a schitty joint like thish. You can play. But I ain’t givin’ you more than half a what my old drummer’sh take woulda been. Experiensh paysh for itshelf.”
Hell, he had more experience and more money that this guy had probably ever seen in his entire life. Even after the drugs and the bad manager and the break-up and the greedy record executives, he’d managed to sock away close to two million. It wasn’t nearly enough to let him keep living the lifestyle he’d lived during Snakes n Barrels’ heyday, but if he didn’t know how bored he’d get otherwise, he could’ve made quite a decent set up for himself. There was a familiar glint of possession in Murderface’s curiously pale yellow-green eyes, the kind he’d seen for himself when his former band had been just about to explode onto the big time, but once again his aspirations matched those of the people who wanted him. He would do just about anything at this point to get away from the signings and the memories and his stupid douche bag manager. And this time it looked like he wouldn’t have to do all the thinking.
Another warm Miller slid down a throat that had sang before filled stadiums. Hell, he could do whatever the fuck he wanted now since he didn’t have to sing, didn’t have to front, didn’t have to take goddamned responsibility for more than himself and the sweet, sweet cadence of the drums. Glass shattered he casually tossed the bottle over his shoulder and into the cinderblock wall that provided the bar with its rough ambience.
“Gimme ‘nother beer and keep ‘m comin’. I don’t give a crap ‘bout the pay’s long as ‘m not thirsty.”
“You got yourschelf a deal.”
Murderface was positively scary when he smirked like he’d just beaten the Devil himself at his own game; leaving Pickles at the drum kit while he went off to inform his singer and guitarist to get the hell back on stage and ready for the show. He picked up another six bottles while he was at it, going so far as to spring for $2 German imports that weren’t quite as warm as the Millers. And so Pickles met Mr. KFC himself for the second time, a guy by the name of Gerald McClintock who liked to call himself The Colonel and who had a surprisingly evil growl despite his dapper appearance. The guitarist, one Shawn Timmer, nearly had a heart attack when Pickles reached across the drum kit to shake his hand. But Antietam’s new drummer just winked at him and made a rather sloppy attempt at holding a finger to his lips. Murderface didn’t seem to know and either The Colonel didn’t care or was oblivious, and Pickles intended to keep his fame under wraps. It was nice sometimes, for the money and the women and the easy access to drugs, but all he wanted at the moment was a little anonymity and the chance to play.
That night, when Antietam finally took the stage – an hour late and with a still-groaning ex-drummer taking up floor space down in front – they managed to surprise even themselves with how well and solid everything sounded. Pickles, trademark red mane tamed into a ponytail and more or less hidden away under another one of Murderface’s Frankenstein-job caps, grinned like a maniac through the entire set. He ended the night with a grand total of forty-one beers, a joint, a ride in Murderface’s rig that doubled as his day job, and fell asleep on the bassist’s couch without ever once giving any thought to calling his handlers or his manager.
Title: Ice And Snow
Rating: G
Word Count: 632
Winter had a thick chokehold on Hastanfjord, snow lying three feet deep and more projected to fall. Being a largely abandoned town, there were no municipal trucks available to clear the streets and the local residents tended to keep to the old ways in any event, traveling on well-packed paths with snow shows and skis. It was the dark time; the sun set well before four o’clock in the afternoon and didn’t bother to show its face again until after nine the next morning. The few inhabitants of the ramshackle, forgotten village kept indoors, venturing out only for occasional food and for church services. School had ceased in mid-December and wouldn’t resume again until the end of January. It was a religious observance, one made also because of the hardships of the weather, and it was the time of the year when Toki Wartooth most despaired.
Three times a day he found himself kneeling in thin cotton pants, trying desperately not to shiver as the frigid cold seeped into his bones from the bare flagstone floor. The Reverend Oslog Wartooth practiced quite a medieval style of religion. A mixture of tenth century Catholicism and pagan Norse beliefs, he ruled his town and his family with an iron fist, and Toki bore the brunt of his very heavy hand. Silence reigned in the Wartooth household, broken only by the archaic Latin and Nynorsk chanting as the Reverend led prayers and gave his daily sermon on how they were all low creatures unworthy of God’s love. The land of Hel was a common theme, as was the rather nihilistic outlook of Norse pagan beliefs, and Toki’s life was largely lacking in the hope that Jesus was supposed to have brought for Christianity.
His mother was no better, Anja being as much as a fanatic as Oslog, perhaps more so for her greater sin of being born a female. The atmosphere of Toki’s family home was cold and dark and depressing, hard for a boy possessed of such a naïve and cheerful nature to endure. His pet rabbit had died only days ago, slaughtered for the stew pot mere hours before his birthday, and he’d cried himself to sleep as he turned sixteen, taking comfort in the only two things left to him, his teddy bear and the battered guitar he kept hidden in the hayloft above the family stable.
The scruffy, old mahogany-made white Gibson Flying V had been abandoned much as the town was three years ago by an itinerant group of German musicians covering Zeppelin and more or less failing to make money on a tour of Scandinavia. Toki had found it when he had been sent by his father to determine if the “heathen riffraff” had finally left so a suitable cleansing ceremony could be performed. On a whim, he’d taken the instrument – a tool of the Devil himself – and hidden it away, sneaking moments of practice whenever he could spare the time. He played in the dark and the cold and sometimes until even his work-roughened fingers caught and bled, and it brought him moments of happiness and the faintest glimmer of hope.
With his pet bunny gone, there was little else left for him for Toki had no friends among the few other children in the village. His father held too much sway and so Toki grew up alone and worked on perfecting his music in the oppressive, snowy silence that gripped his world. And he had never expected it to change until that fateful day his mother found him, hay in his hair and snow melt sinking through his too-few layers to chill his skin, playing to the objective audience of his teddy bear, and broke her wordless streak on day seventy-five with a scream of pure horror.
And, for my own purposes and in case anyone else was curious, ages:
Presuming METALOCALYPSE is set in 2006 and this series of meetings is more or less so far taking place in late '92 and early '93
Pickles – currently 37, then 23 - has Snakes n Barrels striking it big in 1989 at age 20, assume he formed SnB at 17 in 1986, break up in early '92 after major decline in '91 at age 22
Nathan – currently 34, then 20
Skwisgaar – currently 34, then 20 - has him leaving home at 17 in 1989
Murderface – currently 35, then 21
Toki – currently 30, then 16
Chuck – currently 36, then 22
Rating: PG for language
Word Count: 1039
More than a little drunk and rather out of practice, Pickles was still a thousand times better than the previous asshole Murderface had found to sit behind his band’s logo-ed drum kit. Not that he would tell the redhead that. The former lead singer for a band that had gotten bigger faster than just about any other in the late ‘80s and burned out hotter than a super-nova was too busy concentrating on keeping the sticks in his hands to notice the way the jaw on Antietam’s bassist fell slack and open for the first few minutes or so that he experimented with the music before him. Pickles was good, too good to be in a piece of shit outfit like Antietam, but Murderface was too good to be in his own band too. A gift had drunkenly swerved into his clutches that night and he was not about to let it slip away.
Much to Pickles’ delight, Antietam was NOT a country or rockabilly outfit. They were actually part of the burgeoning death metal scene, current with the underground work coming out of New York and, more importantly, Sweden. The beats were pretty simplistic, either slow and plodding or as fast as they could mother-fuckin’ be. There was a distinct military rhythm, though, that Murderface had hoped would distinguish them from their limited competition. Old march music and drilling patterns mixed with the rapid-fire machine gun spray and the occasional bombastic cannon-style explosion. Being surprisingly gifted with musical talent (hey, the guy plays guitar, sings, takes up drums, writes, and he and Nathan mix most of the music…sounds pretty gifted to me), Pickles had no problem picking up the beats the bassist shoved in his face, the hand-written sheets only mildly complicated because of the wavering penmanship. And, improvising a little, both feet slamming into the pedals and sticks sliding loose between his fingers, Pickles couldn’t stop the slow grin from baring his teeth. Now this was what he should have been doing all along. His manager was really a freakin’ idiot.
Murderface had managed to close his mouth by the time Pickles went for a flashy stick twirl and ended up losing it, sending the piece of wood skidding across the rough stage to tag a leaning drunk on the back of the head. A bark of laughter was his response to his – no way was he letting this guy go – new drummer’s mistake as he traded stained and wrinkled sheet music for another beer.
“You ain’t too bad, for a long-haired losher hangin’ around in a schitty joint like thish. You can play. But I ain’t givin’ you more than half a what my old drummer’sh take woulda been. Experiensh paysh for itshelf.”
Hell, he had more experience and more money that this guy had probably ever seen in his entire life. Even after the drugs and the bad manager and the break-up and the greedy record executives, he’d managed to sock away close to two million. It wasn’t nearly enough to let him keep living the lifestyle he’d lived during Snakes n Barrels’ heyday, but if he didn’t know how bored he’d get otherwise, he could’ve made quite a decent set up for himself. There was a familiar glint of possession in Murderface’s curiously pale yellow-green eyes, the kind he’d seen for himself when his former band had been just about to explode onto the big time, but once again his aspirations matched those of the people who wanted him. He would do just about anything at this point to get away from the signings and the memories and his stupid douche bag manager. And this time it looked like he wouldn’t have to do all the thinking.
Another warm Miller slid down a throat that had sang before filled stadiums. Hell, he could do whatever the fuck he wanted now since he didn’t have to sing, didn’t have to front, didn’t have to take goddamned responsibility for more than himself and the sweet, sweet cadence of the drums. Glass shattered he casually tossed the bottle over his shoulder and into the cinderblock wall that provided the bar with its rough ambience.
“Gimme ‘nother beer and keep ‘m comin’. I don’t give a crap ‘bout the pay’s long as ‘m not thirsty.”
“You got yourschelf a deal.”
Murderface was positively scary when he smirked like he’d just beaten the Devil himself at his own game; leaving Pickles at the drum kit while he went off to inform his singer and guitarist to get the hell back on stage and ready for the show. He picked up another six bottles while he was at it, going so far as to spring for $2 German imports that weren’t quite as warm as the Millers. And so Pickles met Mr. KFC himself for the second time, a guy by the name of Gerald McClintock who liked to call himself The Colonel and who had a surprisingly evil growl despite his dapper appearance. The guitarist, one Shawn Timmer, nearly had a heart attack when Pickles reached across the drum kit to shake his hand. But Antietam’s new drummer just winked at him and made a rather sloppy attempt at holding a finger to his lips. Murderface didn’t seem to know and either The Colonel didn’t care or was oblivious, and Pickles intended to keep his fame under wraps. It was nice sometimes, for the money and the women and the easy access to drugs, but all he wanted at the moment was a little anonymity and the chance to play.
That night, when Antietam finally took the stage – an hour late and with a still-groaning ex-drummer taking up floor space down in front – they managed to surprise even themselves with how well and solid everything sounded. Pickles, trademark red mane tamed into a ponytail and more or less hidden away under another one of Murderface’s Frankenstein-job caps, grinned like a maniac through the entire set. He ended the night with a grand total of forty-one beers, a joint, a ride in Murderface’s rig that doubled as his day job, and fell asleep on the bassist’s couch without ever once giving any thought to calling his handlers or his manager.
Title: Ice And Snow
Rating: G
Word Count: 632
Winter had a thick chokehold on Hastanfjord, snow lying three feet deep and more projected to fall. Being a largely abandoned town, there were no municipal trucks available to clear the streets and the local residents tended to keep to the old ways in any event, traveling on well-packed paths with snow shows and skis. It was the dark time; the sun set well before four o’clock in the afternoon and didn’t bother to show its face again until after nine the next morning. The few inhabitants of the ramshackle, forgotten village kept indoors, venturing out only for occasional food and for church services. School had ceased in mid-December and wouldn’t resume again until the end of January. It was a religious observance, one made also because of the hardships of the weather, and it was the time of the year when Toki Wartooth most despaired.
Three times a day he found himself kneeling in thin cotton pants, trying desperately not to shiver as the frigid cold seeped into his bones from the bare flagstone floor. The Reverend Oslog Wartooth practiced quite a medieval style of religion. A mixture of tenth century Catholicism and pagan Norse beliefs, he ruled his town and his family with an iron fist, and Toki bore the brunt of his very heavy hand. Silence reigned in the Wartooth household, broken only by the archaic Latin and Nynorsk chanting as the Reverend led prayers and gave his daily sermon on how they were all low creatures unworthy of God’s love. The land of Hel was a common theme, as was the rather nihilistic outlook of Norse pagan beliefs, and Toki’s life was largely lacking in the hope that Jesus was supposed to have brought for Christianity.
His mother was no better, Anja being as much as a fanatic as Oslog, perhaps more so for her greater sin of being born a female. The atmosphere of Toki’s family home was cold and dark and depressing, hard for a boy possessed of such a naïve and cheerful nature to endure. His pet rabbit had died only days ago, slaughtered for the stew pot mere hours before his birthday, and he’d cried himself to sleep as he turned sixteen, taking comfort in the only two things left to him, his teddy bear and the battered guitar he kept hidden in the hayloft above the family stable.
The scruffy, old mahogany-made white Gibson Flying V had been abandoned much as the town was three years ago by an itinerant group of German musicians covering Zeppelin and more or less failing to make money on a tour of Scandinavia. Toki had found it when he had been sent by his father to determine if the “heathen riffraff” had finally left so a suitable cleansing ceremony could be performed. On a whim, he’d taken the instrument – a tool of the Devil himself – and hidden it away, sneaking moments of practice whenever he could spare the time. He played in the dark and the cold and sometimes until even his work-roughened fingers caught and bled, and it brought him moments of happiness and the faintest glimmer of hope.
With his pet bunny gone, there was little else left for him for Toki had no friends among the few other children in the village. His father held too much sway and so Toki grew up alone and worked on perfecting his music in the oppressive, snowy silence that gripped his world. And he had never expected it to change until that fateful day his mother found him, hay in his hair and snow melt sinking through his too-few layers to chill his skin, playing to the objective audience of his teddy bear, and broke her wordless streak on day seventy-five with a scream of pure horror.
And, for my own purposes and in case anyone else was curious, ages:
Presuming METALOCALYPSE is set in 2006 and this series of meetings is more or less so far taking place in late '92 and early '93
Pickles – currently 37, then 23 - has Snakes n Barrels striking it big in 1989 at age 20, assume he formed SnB at 17 in 1986, break up in early '92 after major decline in '91 at age 22
Nathan – currently 34, then 20
Skwisgaar – currently 34, then 20 - has him leaving home at 17 in 1989
Murderface – currently 35, then 21
Toki – currently 30, then 16
Chuck – currently 36, then 22
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-03 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-05 10:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-03 11:09 pm (UTC)And poor Toki. He is the type to have a bunny, isn't he? ;_; He gonna get beat like eggs in Sanji's kitchen.
Twenty-two-year-old Chuck? Awwww, he must've been cute, fresh out of
Machiavelli U.Harvard and all.no subject
Date: 2007-01-05 10:42 am (UTC)I don't know if I want to make him a fan of Reaganomics and 'publican or totally anti...but in an obnoxiously preppy way. I keep going back and forth on it because Reganomics are so RETARDED but at the same time it WAS that era after all. I dunno, there's something appealing about a Republican being the manager of the harbingers of the Metalocalypse but I think I'd like him more if he was a card-carrying leftist. Except, yanno, it's all about the money.
Decisions, decisions...I think I need to go wiki some economic theories.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-04 01:45 am (UTC)I've finally seen some of the actual canon for this (1-8 with more coming soon) and the friend I dragged over to watch picked up the Wisconsin accent like nobody's business. He now SENDS ME INTO FITS OF GRINNING AT WHIM by quoting Pickles. He does Skwisgaar pretty well too. Speaking of which, I'm a much bigger fan of canon Skwisgaar than the fanon Skwisgaar I've seen. I loves him muches more now.
Lastly... Poor poor Toki!!!! His parents are terrifying. "Toki hasn't said one word." I laughed so much... yet felt so bad. I WANT TO SEE HIM MEET THE BAND. Or at least get out of that awful house. @_@
no subject
Date: 2007-01-05 10:45 am (UTC)And I'm glad you like Skwisgaar. I <3 him. His attitude is so snobby and yet he actually gets away with causing the LEAST amount of overall destruction and seems to care more than anyone else (except maybe Nathan, what with his weird guilt-complexes). Plus, I love when he gets stressed out in the Skwisklok episode and cries. That's just too cute.
Toki's parents scare the crap out of me but it's obvious Toki has SOME sort of feeling for them besides terror or why would he have pictures of them in his room. I'm kind of excited for what I want to do with him and I'm hoping to portray his parents, if not in a positive light, at least in a way that's understandable to see what crazy point of view they are coming from.