AU!Crackplot - Morgan Faye's Background
So, it’s maybe seven years ago now that you heard Anna playing Grand Passions in the kitchen. And your sister was playing it really loud because her husband’d just been killed and her four boys wouldn’t shut the hell up and that new band, Forsaken, was just…Well, the songwriter was just…
Genius.
Seven years ago and you were ten, so maybe you didn’t understand all of the subtext but you understood a lot of it because you’ve always been a very clever little girl and, lets face it, your life kinda sucks. Daddy killed when he came off his motorbike when you were only just walking and Mummy went married the bloke she’d been seeing on the side, ‘just call me dragon, cupcake’ and you really hated him ‘cos he just drank and hit her and you and your half-brother, Art, who really wasn’t that bad when he puts his mind to it but like all boys could be an utter jerk. Anna moved out when she was sixteen, so you envied her a bit until that day in the kitchen and she was crying over someone else’s music and without quite knowing why you started to sing along.
As you grew older, you sort of hid in music. Not really writing it, because you’re not that good and you know it but just singing and making up tunes wherever the sounds take you. It’s a drug, it’s your addiction and refuge from the shit that’s going on, so when you wag school except for music, you ain’t doin’ drugs or getting drunk like the other kids, not really, you’re just singing. You sang at stepdaddy’s funeral when you were fourteen, and god it was hard not to sing ‘Hallelujah’ so you sang Leonard Cohen instead. After that, Mummy bundled the two remaining kids into a plane at the London airport and went home to her parents in the big old U.S. of A, which you were previously convinced was full of self-absorbed pretentious wankers and living there didn’t really help, only you didn’t care too much because you’re pretty arrogant and aloof yourself. Or something. Just…you know. Self-confident. Yeah, that’s a good term for it. And once again the music teachers’ are saying ‘come back at lunch, after school, we can help you with your voice’ and you did that, and just gave the finger when the other kids laughed.
Mummy is Mummy, and so she gets a boyfriend around pretty quick. And like all the others, you don’t like him. Only this time it’s ‘cos you don’t like the way he keeps on eyeing you, a bit like a hawk, really. So when your brother Art starts talking to himself and brandishing a knife at you and calling you ‘slut’ and ‘witch’, you decide to just say ‘oh, fuck this’ and hitch-hike over to sunny Hollywood and see what bands need a singer or something, because, hell, even swishing around being a waitress or something is better then staying with your mum’s new bloke hitting on you and your brother being locked up for being a schizo (you don’t think how that hurts, how you know your brother’s gone into madness now and you can’t get him back because god you loved him and it’s just not fucking fair). And as much as your life is kinda shit, there is sometimes luck, because Forsaken needed a new lead singer after whats-her-name quit just when you arrive.
You’re sixteen, now, with nothing but a small backpack with your belongings and your dead daddy’s guitar so you go and line for audition. The line was long, but it moved fast - genius is picky, or something. About two measures was the average of people getting through before Jason Natelle told ‘em ‘No, go away’ without even opening his eyes. Your turn, so you sit and tune your guitar and he wasn’t watching, but that didn’t matter as you worshipped his music not him so you just sang and played like you always did - not for anyone, they could listen or ignore you as much as you cared because music’s your addiction and you’re just doing it for yourself.
You sang Nirvana’s ‘Lake of Fire’, then ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night?’ And then you were sight-reading because he said “Right voice, just making sure you can operate across the range that you will need to.”
And that should have been the fairy-tale ending, right? Only it wasn’t. The third album didn’t do so well, because genius doesn’t matter when it’s fucking weird and creeps people out too much, and you have a good business sense made from necessity. And you're a worldly seventeen who doesn't give a damn, unless it's about singing and/or money because you have to in both cases. And you are loud-mouthed and say what you think in that way that stories always say is good but in Real Life just means you're tactless, you drink and smoke more then you should, more for your age, but you don't do drugs. Oh, no, not after seeing Arthur's collapse, so you just be a Good Girl in that and a bad girl in the rest. Dress how you want, black and silver and fishnet gloves and your black hair is far too long to be fashionable, but that's just all the beautiful people trying to be blonde and plastic.
And Jason just won’t write! Fucking perfectionist, throwing all this amazingly good stuff out because it’s not right or something, so you just sit outside his trailer and curse and swear and then go off to get drunk and unrepress another one of those little repressed singer-songwriter-actresses (another term for starving waitress) because America may be full of wankers, but at least they are cute.
Genius.
Seven years ago and you were ten, so maybe you didn’t understand all of the subtext but you understood a lot of it because you’ve always been a very clever little girl and, lets face it, your life kinda sucks. Daddy killed when he came off his motorbike when you were only just walking and Mummy went married the bloke she’d been seeing on the side, ‘just call me dragon, cupcake’ and you really hated him ‘cos he just drank and hit her and you and your half-brother, Art, who really wasn’t that bad when he puts his mind to it but like all boys could be an utter jerk. Anna moved out when she was sixteen, so you envied her a bit until that day in the kitchen and she was crying over someone else’s music and without quite knowing why you started to sing along.
As you grew older, you sort of hid in music. Not really writing it, because you’re not that good and you know it but just singing and making up tunes wherever the sounds take you. It’s a drug, it’s your addiction and refuge from the shit that’s going on, so when you wag school except for music, you ain’t doin’ drugs or getting drunk like the other kids, not really, you’re just singing. You sang at stepdaddy’s funeral when you were fourteen, and god it was hard not to sing ‘Hallelujah’ so you sang Leonard Cohen instead. After that, Mummy bundled the two remaining kids into a plane at the London airport and went home to her parents in the big old U.S. of A, which you were previously convinced was full of self-absorbed pretentious wankers and living there didn’t really help, only you didn’t care too much because you’re pretty arrogant and aloof yourself. Or something. Just…you know. Self-confident. Yeah, that’s a good term for it. And once again the music teachers’ are saying ‘come back at lunch, after school, we can help you with your voice’ and you did that, and just gave the finger when the other kids laughed.
Mummy is Mummy, and so she gets a boyfriend around pretty quick. And like all the others, you don’t like him. Only this time it’s ‘cos you don’t like the way he keeps on eyeing you, a bit like a hawk, really. So when your brother Art starts talking to himself and brandishing a knife at you and calling you ‘slut’ and ‘witch’, you decide to just say ‘oh, fuck this’ and hitch-hike over to sunny Hollywood and see what bands need a singer or something, because, hell, even swishing around being a waitress or something is better then staying with your mum’s new bloke hitting on you and your brother being locked up for being a schizo (you don’t think how that hurts, how you know your brother’s gone into madness now and you can’t get him back because god you loved him and it’s just not fucking fair). And as much as your life is kinda shit, there is sometimes luck, because Forsaken needed a new lead singer after whats-her-name quit just when you arrive.
You’re sixteen, now, with nothing but a small backpack with your belongings and your dead daddy’s guitar so you go and line for audition. The line was long, but it moved fast - genius is picky, or something. About two measures was the average of people getting through before Jason Natelle told ‘em ‘No, go away’ without even opening his eyes. Your turn, so you sit and tune your guitar and he wasn’t watching, but that didn’t matter as you worshipped his music not him so you just sang and played like you always did - not for anyone, they could listen or ignore you as much as you cared because music’s your addiction and you’re just doing it for yourself.
You sang Nirvana’s ‘Lake of Fire’, then ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night?’ And then you were sight-reading because he said “Right voice, just making sure you can operate across the range that you will need to.”
And that should have been the fairy-tale ending, right? Only it wasn’t. The third album didn’t do so well, because genius doesn’t matter when it’s fucking weird and creeps people out too much, and you have a good business sense made from necessity. And you're a worldly seventeen who doesn't give a damn, unless it's about singing and/or money because you have to in both cases. And you are loud-mouthed and say what you think in that way that stories always say is good but in Real Life just means you're tactless, you drink and smoke more then you should, more for your age, but you don't do drugs. Oh, no, not after seeing Arthur's collapse, so you just be a Good Girl in that and a bad girl in the rest. Dress how you want, black and silver and fishnet gloves and your black hair is far too long to be fashionable, but that's just all the beautiful people trying to be blonde and plastic.
And Jason just won’t write! Fucking perfectionist, throwing all this amazingly good stuff out because it’s not right or something, so you just sit outside his trailer and curse and swear and then go off to get drunk and unrepress another one of those little repressed singer-songwriter-actresses (another term for starving waitress) because America may be full of wankers, but at least they are cute.