It was the evening of the miniature sing-off between the three popular pairs of artists. The singing/rapping was to be recorded separately, and then streamed live with commentary from all parties involved. It was a fool proof plan to give some fan service and help boost popularity for all parties involved! Or so four of the six of them thought. However, they didn't take into account just how big of fools they were dealing with when it came to the twins behind the rapidly growing 'King Creativity', Remus and Roman King.
The pair had only really started up their musical careers roughly a year and a half ago, but they had a few major hits to start them off, and now have a massive following of their music that's known for being so out-there due mainly to Remus' input and ideas. So far, they've released 5 singles, and two albums, and because of their status of being independent of a record label, it's given them both full creative control of their work. They're both extremely tech-savvy though, and know how to appeal to their audiences. Add onto that the two's heritage and connections their family gave them and it was simply a recipe for success.
The same can't exactly be said for the other four though.
For example, there's 'Heart of Venom', comprised of Janus and Patton Hart. The two husbands have been making music together since they met in childhood, finally sharing covers and original music to a Youtube channel when the platform first came out at age eighteen. Now, a little over fifteen years later, the two have just breached the twenty million subscribers mark and post exclusively original music on their main, and occasional covers on a second channel. As well as this the two have gotten officially signed on a label for the last few years of their musical line up, so a collaboration of this scale was bound to happen at some point.
The other partners in the ditty showdown were the minds behind 'Logical Panic'. The two had built up a reputation of presenting thought provoking and deep music over the course of about four years, the minds behind it being Logan Hooper and Virgil Cook. They met in college and became good friends over many shared qualities, and their friendship evolved from there, leading the two to move into a shared house together and officially enter a QPR. Both free-lancers in the music industry, they thought it'd be a cool idea to form some sort of band together, and now have gathered a fairly large fanbase considering that neither were really taking their music careers seriously, with Logan being an author and Virgil a manager of their local Hot Topic. Now though, the pair were looking into making their musical endeavours more serious, and thought it a good idea to look into contacting some nearby big-shots to collab and really put their names out there.
And that leads us to the present, with Patton, Janus, Logan and Virgil all sitting were they would be streaming from, waiting for the twins to arrive. It was decided the day before that they would have to push the time back further than they had all initially announced due to a miscommunication from the Kings. Now, only ten minutes before they were meant to go live, the twins stumbled up to the building haphazardly, hoping desperately that they hadn't messed up too badly. Lucky for them, they had Patton there to stop his husband going berserk and the other two from completely tearing into the twins, though it'd be a lie to say Patton wasn't very close to doing so also. So, with only three minutes remaining, the twins were able to get set up with the rest of them and sort out their song for the battle.
"Alright everyone," Logan said, being the one mainly in charge of the tech portion of the event. "We are live in 5... 4... 3... 2... and 1. Salutations everyone. I do believe this is now officially live" They said in a calm voice, addressing the large number of people who had tuned in early and were waiting for the stream of the group's set up. Logan looked up and made eye contact with Virgil, nodding softly to show them support, as Logan knew they were nervous about being live, especially with Patton in the room. Patton wasn't the... biggest fan of their music genre, nor their vocabulary (which was worse than a sailor's on a normal day), but everyone had agreed to keep the live swearing to a bare minimum for his sake, albeit reluctantly.
"Woohoo! Greetings everyone! I'm sure that you may know you most of us are, but just in case, how about we all introduce ourselves! Especially for those of you who are listening to the podcast and may know us by our faces and singing voices but not speaking voice." He received nods and a few quiet mumbles of agreement from everyone as Logan turned themself back to the chat. "Well, I am Roman King, one half of the duo 'King Creativity'!"
And with that segue, Remus chirped in, "And with him is the better half of 'King Creativity': me! Remus king. Pleasure to meet you all!" He turned and smirked at Roman who was pouting and murmuring away from the mike about how mean Remus was. After an awkward pause, Logan spoke up.
"Indeed chat, this is really happening. I can assure you we're not some sort of voice simulations of the band members or some of the other stuff you are presenting in chat. Some of you are also curious/ excited about it, but yes I'm Logan from 'Logical Panic', and yes I'm the one who started the stream." They paused and looked over to Virgil, texting them quickly asking if they wanted Logan to introduce them to the stream. And, with a nod from Virgil, Logan added, "And Virgil is also here. They're just warming up to having so many people here live, as it can be a bit overwhelming." Logan then turned to Patton and Dee. "Well you two, would you mind introducing yourselves?"
Patton instantly started bouncing in his chair, looking excited to have his turn to say hi to all the fans who were with them all. "Of course! We'd love to! Hi everyone, I'm Patton and I'm also joined with..." He drew out the with, waiting for the love of his life to give his name and actually contribute to the stream.
"His husband Janus. And we are the faces and voices behind 'Venom Heart'. Hello everyone." He sounded unenthusiastic about the whole ordeal, but his excitement during the days leading up to battle of the bands was not forgotten by Patton, who let it go with a sly smile on his face that would only be visible to those watching the video very closely.
"Anyway, I'm sure most of you tuning in to listen to this have heard it from at least one of us, but to catch you all up to speed, this is basically a face-off between our three bands. We each have prepared a new single and it will be premiering live here. From what we've seen in our analytics there's a fairly large overlap of our fanbases, and so thought it would be interesting for you all to have our interactions and, at the end of the live premiere on Youtube, decide which single you all thought was best." After a quick pause of looking at the chat, Logan then added, "Also, for those of you asking, yes Virgil is using they/them today. Thank you all for the consideration of asking, they appreciate it." A gentle smile graced both their faces at the thought of how considerate the fans were being.
"Alright fuuu-ace... suckers... I've pulled- I've also pulled up the stream and am currently looking at the comments, and there's a whole bunch of questions." Remus stuttered out, taking a moment to calm himself down from almost breaking everyone's one rule. After taking a deep breath, in and out, he continued. "There's a couple to address now, but between songs we'll be adding commentary as well as small QnA segments. If you go over to any of our twitter accounts you'll find tweets that mention this. All you have to do to submit a question is tweet it out along with the hashtag 'askthreebands' for any directed at all of us and 'askKingC/LogicalP/VenomH' for the individual bands respectively."
"Indeed! We will all be checking our various twitter accounts after the first song in a bit. But for now, let's hear those questions that we need to address now Rem!" Roman chirped, turning his body to face his brother. Everyone else did the same.
"Oof, okay everyone's looking at me, I can deal with this kind of pressure! Alright then, first question that we're getting most often so far is about how they're all going to be deciding which one of these singles is the quote on quote 'best'." He looked up at everyone after paraphrasing the question, and waited for one of them to answer. To his surprise, Virgil was the one to speak up, though their voice was a bit quieter than everyone else's had been.
"Well, we have couple ways that we're doing this. The first is a twitter pole up on Thomas Sanders' account. We decided to put it there to try to prevent any obvious biases, and since he's a mutual friends of ours who helped with connections. The second is the pole on the youtube video." They paused momentarily, pondering a question to themself, then added on, "Uh, also this is Virgil from Logical Panic I guess. Hi everyone."
"Yeppers! Also great to see you a bit more comfortable Virgil. Were there any other questions Remus or should we decide who's song we'll be hearing first?" Patton added.
"Uh, from what I've seen there aren't really any more questions that need to be addressed now, but I suppose just a thing to disclose would be that I am aware that some of the people tuning in may be exclusively from Venom Heart, which I know has a generally younger audience/ have fans that express a somewhat dislike for swearing in music. I must warn those of you who aren't fans of that may want to be wary of both mine and Virgil's song as well as Remus and Roman's, as both our bands' music have a tendency to have less than savoury themes and lyrics." And with that final comment from Logan, as well as confirmation that there were no other important questions that needed to be addressed, the six artists decided who's song would kick them all off.
Remus, of course, decided to poke the bear a little, and asked, "Hey Virge. Does your voice feature in Logan and your's song today? I haven't heard much of your guys' music, but from what I have you don't feature that much."
In response to this, Virgil simply huffed, and looked at Remus rather deadpan. "You clearly haven't heard many of songs then, or listened to them fully." They rolled their eyes and then observed their nails in a way that clearly shows they're indifferent to Remus' obvious attempt to somewhat provoke them. "Lo and I try to keep our parts fairly equal, both when it comes to lending out voices and writing the lyrics. Granted, Logical Panic is mostly known for Lo's rapping, but this new one is... Well, you'll hear when we play it." And with that, Roman gave a smirk that rivalled that of Remus'.
"Well, why don't we find out now? You've gotten me and I'm sure everyone else mighty curious about it." But then he swapped out his smirk for a more endearing smile, after seeing the panic rise on both of his new friends' faces, and added on, "Only if you two are comfortable with that though. There's no pressure."
After quickly looking at each other they both calmed down somewhat. Then, turning back, Logan replied to Roman, "It's fine, and we're aware. It's just that..." They paused, then grinned from ear to ear
And then, with an air of confidence, Virgil finished the sentence with "We didn't want you guys to feel bad about not having any chance of winning." And then, before any one else could break from their shocked silence, Logan played their rap.
Once the music faded out, there were no voices to be heard. Just a couple small giggles from Virgil and Logan at the other's reactions. You see, normally Virgil adds in the more melodic and leaves the rapping for Logan. But, it's not like they've ever said they can't rap. And so, for this special occasion, Virgil decided to shock everyone with their rapping and Logan's beautiful singing voice. It wasn't likely to happen again soon though, as the two were quite a bit out their comfort zones, but as a one-off experiment sort of thing it was worth it. Though, after a solid minute of silence from the other four in the room, Logan and Virgil were beginning to worry that they'd broken them. Luckily enough though, Janus was the first to break the silence.
"Uhhh, I apologise Patton, but holy shit." Though he was only met with a nod of agreement from the other males in the room. They were expecting anything other than that masterpiece from the shy genderfluid mess of a person they were all initially introduced to, but while listening to Virgil rapping their heart out about an issue so close to their heart, all while backed by Logan was breath-taking.
"Um, I'm sorry but may I ask how?" Remus seemed genuinely confused/interested about what more the pair in front of him were capable of.
Logan stifled another laugh, and looked at the chat quickly. "Their reactions are mostly the same to be honest. Some are asking for you four to give more clear, more verbal opinions on the song."
After some back and forth banter, as well as answering a lot of fan questions, it eventually became time for Roman and Remus to present their song. It started, and ended, but truly nothing was as much of a shock as the first song, so it didn't take as long to getting to the chat this time. Though, the fans had now become more comfortable playing around with the band members, and Janus let out a wheeze as he read the question to himself. He turned to the others and read it out. "Alright everyone. Question on twitter on the prefer to stay anonymous thread asks: Roman and Remus, why play the song on 50% speed? It was a bit slow after that first one."
Remus couldn't help but snicker at the question, knowing just how bad he and his brother actually were at rapping. Roman, though, put up an obvious fake front of being offended by the question, responding with, "Well I'm sorry, but i actually enjoy being able to breath. Unlike SOME people here." Everyone gave a hearty laugh at his attempt at a comeback, and the stream continued on.
Soon, Patton and Janus' song played, they got everyone's reactions, and answered the last few questions they were asked. They all soon had to start wrapping the stream up, as they all had to get back to their various lives.
Unsurprisingly enough, Logical Panic won that day according to both poles.
Words: 2563.
Day eight of Collabor-may-tion! Okay so I may or may not love non-binary Logan and Virgil. Personally, HC Lo as agender, and Virgil changes from one place to the next... I just love Enby sides. But in this Virge is genderfluid and Logan is agender. Also for this I have specific artists that are close to what I imagine their little bands to be close to.
For Logan and Virgil I like to imagine they create socio-political rap music based on their identities and experiences as non-binary queer people, the main actual artist inspiration for how I imagine their songs to be being something akin to Public Enemy.
For Roman and Remus I immediately thought that their music would be just weird and crazy shit that makes little to no sense most of the time, with the artist that came to mind being Jack Stauber.
Then with Patton and Janus I like to think that Janus used to try to make their stuff more out there and crazy, but being with Patton for so long as caused him to soften his style and now the two make songs similar to that of Dodie Clark's music.
This is long but I felt like I should probably explain my thoughts/ give some insight, but I hope you all enjoyed. Bye all!