My Selfless Love - Julian Casablancas, The Strokes

#1 don't you wanna remind me, i don't know a thing?

welcome to the fic. this is just me writing bullshit stuff for myself. i don't really have a plot in mind. any and all criticism desired, please leave commentary if you do read! positive or not!!!

fic begins in february 2017, before virtue (the voidz), after comedown machine (the strokes).
mc - Gwendolyn (just gwen) James. Singer songwriter. in my mind her music is like if Joni Mitchell, Frank Sinatra, Daft Punk, and Deftones had a lovechild. Also kind of Fiona Apple. and LDR. and Mitski. idk i'll figure it out as i go along. her album is called Rosy, Queen of Corona, and was released in December 2016. her success is very new, and shes unsure of how to deal with it. lots of weed apparently.

please correct my spelling mistakes in comments. thx xoxox

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She was hiding. It was ironic, really; after years of mailing taped over CD's to anyone of musical importance, of hounding bars and pubs to let her play, she'd got what she wanted, and she was hiding from it. Gwen was crouched on the floor of one of the porta loos littered through the field of the festival she was to perform at later in the afternoon. She stared, dissociated, between her shaking, clammy hands, at the floor, as though it would give her the ability to deal with the harpies of Los Angeles she would no doubt have to make nice with throughout the rest of the night.

It was only 3 o'clock, and she already needed a joint. The habit of dulling her senses came naturally to her. Back in London, her hometown, it was ritualistic for her to smoke her stress away in exam season, but never with the brevity that came with having the album of the year. Her album, "Rosy, Queen of Corona", had only come out two months ago and she was sick of it already. The songs she had once loved, toiled over on her bedroom floor, begged people to listen to, had become a dagger in her side, and if she heard the Reciprocation - Radio Dance Remix blasting in one more bar, she was sorely tempted to rip out her ears. Nevertheless, there was a certain glee that came with her newfound fame. Gwen adored her fans, and playing a set with the row of shining eyes before her, mouthing every word, was a feeling she never thought would age. Her right wrist was adorned with homemade bracelets, and she'd sown in the patches that people had given her on her white denim jacket. It was still peculiar, though, the scrutiny. The flashing lights, the paparazzi - god, don't even start with the photographers. The day her album had come out, she'd made the foolish decision of leaving the studio with her manager, Ford, to get coffee; the images ended up on the front page of the LA Times under the headlines "RISING STAR SPOTTED WITH RUMOURED NEW BEAU". All of it was faintly ridiculous. She never knew before, but the "sources close to Gwen James" actually meant physical proximity, hiding in the bushes outside her flat, or outside a restaurant, ready to snare the latest gossip.

She was absolutely screwed.

Today was one of the biggest shows she'd ever played. Gwen was one of the headliners for the three day atrocity that was Love Fest Los Angeles. She'd played to crowds before, even to ones plainly disinterested in her music, but the crowd today was 30,000 people strong. When the album began to pick up, almost immediately, she had been under the genuine impression that people would lose interest in her in a week, and move onto the next big thing, but no. To her confused delight and dismay, her desire to stay firmly out of the spotlight only further cemented her within it, and now the pressure was on. Every live performance, every offhand remark to anyone who could be listening, was posted about on the deepest corners of the internet. The raving recognition and the caustic criticism came hand in hand, and nobody was more eager to run from it than Gwen. She lifted her head from her hands in the sweltering heat of the plastic cubicle and tried to breathe in through her nose and out through her mouth. Soon, Ford, her manager and publicist, or Gina, her drummer, would hunt her down, and break her momentary privacy. For now, though, all she had to do was be in the stolen moment in that godforsaken porta loo, trying her very hardest to not hyperventilate herself to death.