#Danny Ching

[kramlabs]

I’m going to miss this board…

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[growingstrong2019]

That time I took a photo of the cast of Iron Fist at London Comic Con in 2017

[phantomrose96]

Sham Sacrifice: Chapter 2

(Sham Sacrifice: Chapter 1)

Chapter 2, because @ciestess voiced an idea that absolutely consumed my entire mind and I could not rest until I made this

...

Danny’s eyes tracked the swing of gunfire raining bullets across the horizon. Tucker reloaded, crouched, dodged left and pivoted, another blast of bullet confetti launched through a gaggle of zombie heads. He tossed the magazine and reloaded. Click. Ching. Danny flinched when a zombie smashed a hammer clean through Tucker’s head.

 “God. Fucking…” Tucker pulled out of his hunch. He unclamped his fingers from his controller like bug legs unfurling. He extended the controller to Danny, bouncing it in his grip. “Your turn.”

“Huh?” Danny asked, as if he hadn’t been watching Tucker’s game the whole time.

“You. You’re up. I died.”

Danny accepted the controller, reloaded the screen, and jogged about a hundred feet forward before the first horde of zombies took him out football-style from the left. The death screen rolled.

“Oops,” Danny said.

“Not your best work.” And Tucker took the controller back. Tucker shot a few spare glances to Danny while the level restart loaded in. “Is it Vlad?”

“No. Well, yes,” Danny answered, flopping back into his normal position on the Foley attic armchair. Tucker’s mom had planned to toss it ages ago, before it became Danny’s chair. “But at least he left when my parents went all zombie mode into the basement.” Danny picked absently at the scabs of leather flaking from the armrest. “It was just weird.”

“I don’t mean this as an insult, but it’s definitely not the first time your dad’s gotten some math wrong,” Tucker said. “He blows up like three things a week doesn’t he?”

“He does. But he doesn’t care when he gets that math wrong. This one was like I broke something important.” Danny’s expression soured, and he picked a leather flake clean off the chair. “Vlad did, I mean.”

“Does any of the math actually work?” Sam offered from Tucker’s desk. She leaned an elbow around the back of his chair, head tilted to Danny. A pencil dangled from her loose fingers, nib-half worn to the History of an Invention report she was actually working on. Tucker had half-assed his earlier in the day about the palm pilot. Danny had not done his. “Like, it’s all crackpot theory, right? Do ghosts even follow math?”

“I think they follow some math. It’s not magic that makes the ecto-bazookas work, or the Fenton-phones work, or—well the thermos DIDN’T work—until I made it work.”

The unspoken thing Danny had been not-quite-saying hung in the air. He said it this time.

“So I’m wondering if I did it. Like the Fenton thermos. And now maybe they’re gonna do the math all over and realize the missing piece of the equation is one half-ghost son.”

“Well the order is backwards, for starters,” Sam said. “Thermos worked because you pumped ghost-energy into it. How would you have done that to the portal? You were human when you walked in.”

“Sam’s right. What do you think you brought to the table exactly? Button-slapping abilities?” Tucker loaded up the next level. “It was their portal, and their math, and it worked. There’s a million-billion kinds of math and they probably just forgot one thing.”

Tucker took a headshot and died. Mechanically, he handed the controller back to Danny.

“Yeah, probably.”

“Ask Vlad. He’s got a portal.”

“Like Vlad’s gonna tell me.”

“Just promise to be his diligent little son minion or whatever. He’s easy. Wait, let me do the next level. You know I like the cyberpunk levels.”

“It’s not your turn,” Danny said, reeling the controller just out of Tucker’s wiggling grasp.

“I’ll let you do two in a row for your next turn.”

Danny knocked Tucker away, distracted just long enough for a zombie cyberbeam to launch from the horizon and take him out through the head.

The screen washed sepia. Danny stared at it. You died.

…

Danny hadn’t really meant to stay the night at Tucker’s place. They’d just gotten really far in Man vs. Zombie, and Sam had gone home, and Danny was just resting his eyes between his turns with the controller.

So when he woke to the bright strip of sunlight beaming into his eyes through the attic skylight, his first thought was Fuck.

He was awake, here, morning, school. Fuck he had not actually done his History of Invention report, despite the stupid amount of grief it had already caused him this weekend. He pulled his face out of the armrest, now pineapple-patterned from the decaying leather, and pawed for his phone fallen on the floor. If it was still early enough, he could maybe still afford to desperately half-ass something before sixth period science.

He flipped his phone open. A text from Jazz. “Don’t come home. Make up an excuse.”

“…Fuck,” Danny whispered, through the sensation of his heart launching itself into his throat.

He scrambled upright, whole body shaking at the mercy of adrenaline shock so soon after being pulled from dead sleep. His mouth was dry, teeth unbrushed, wearing his old clothes from yesterday, report not done, Don’t come home, Don’t come home, Don’t come home.

They knew. He’d fucked it up. Somehow they knew. The math. Something. And it had to be with guns blazing, because Jazz would not send that text if they’d taken the “We accept you” angle.

Were they coming for him? On their way here? Tracking by his phone? Did they like Mrs. Foley enough to not SWAT-slam her against the wall when she opened the door for them so they could come capture the ghost pretending to be their son?

Fuck.

Danny was upright. Danny was standing. Danny was shaking. Danny wasn’t actually sure what the next thing was he was supposed to do.

Tucker’s ball of blankets rustled from the couch. “Mmph?” he asked, articulately.

“I have to. Go deal with my parents, I think,” Danny said, because any plan felt a little better than no plan. “I think they know.”  

Danny was a ghost. Danny was gone. Tucker sat upright, alone, blinking himself awake. He was staring at the You Died sepia screen still displayed on monitor, now burnt into the plasma of the tv.

…

Danny paused with his human hand slick on the Fenton front door. The gears in his mind turned as his plan quickly unraveled into no-plan. He had no plan, right? What was his plan? Handle this Man vs Zombie style—open the front door ready to dodge wide, because both zombies and parents liked to camp behind closed doors with bazookas at the ready?

“—absolutely absurd, and entirely unscientific, with no probability of being true. It goes against everything we know about neurology.”

Oh, Jazz. Was Jazz enough of a bazooka-deterrent? Probably not. Knowing his parents.

Danny turned the knob. His heart hammered. If bazookas, dodge left.

The first thing he noticed was in fact the no-bazookas. It was what he was most looking for. And so it was Jazz’s expression he did not notice until second—whites of her eyes wide, snapped to Danny, with a look that would be accusatory if worry hadn’t won that battle. Her cheeks were pale. Her hair was unbrushed.

He noticed his parents third. Compulsively, he rocked back onto his right foot, still outside the doorway, still outside the threshold of the Fenton family household.

Seeing his parents tired was of absolutely no shock-value to Danny. It was at least a twice-per-month tradition to see them haul themselves up from the basement sweaty and glaze-eyed at 7am, babbling excitement about some new ecto-spectral-hoozy-whatsits whose concept had shimmed into their minds at 8pm and now existed, fully operational, 11 nonstop hours later.

So it wasn’t the exhaustion on their face. It wasn’t the stagnant smell of sweat or the paleness of their faces or the stains on their clothes.

It was the way they looked at him. Like their whole world had fallen apart with his foot passing over the doorstep.

“Danny,” Jazz said, choked, a break in the silence. “Things are…! A little weird here. So maybe, if you wanna just get to school, I’ll finish clearing up—there’s a misunderstanding Mom and Dad have with their math. I am state finalist in Math League and have been studying college-level calculus in preparation for school applications so I’ve offered to help them fix their math, or prove to them—”

“Danny,” Maddie said, an echo of Jazz, but it felt worse. Danny scanned her hands for anything pointed enough to be a weapon. They were empty. “Danny can I just ask you something honestly, just quickly? Jazz is right. I’m just trying to clear up an issue with our math. And I won’t be mad. Whatever the answer is, I won’t be mad. I just want an honest answer.”

She stepped closer. Danny fought the urge to match her with a step backwards. Her eyes roved over him in a starved way, looking for something.

“Were you there when the portal turned on?” she asked.

“No, I wasn’t,” Danny answered. He wasn’t sure what to do with his face to make it look convincing. “It just. It needed some time to boot up, or something, right? That’s what you two said.”

“That was our guess ,but we don’t really know. The security tapes are wiped. We tried to make them EMF-resilient but a very, very strong blast of EMF could still corrupt them.”

“Yeah. I mean the portal’s gonna do that, right? When it turned on? Ripping open the Ghost Zone that’s—gotta be huge EMF.” Danny’s focus bounced between his mother’s eyes. “Just a guess. I really don’t know. I was in bed, already, whenever the portal started working.”

Left eye. Right eye. Why was she looking at him like that? Like she was sad. Was this part a trick? Make Danny let his guard down, go hey Mom need a hug? and that’s when the bazooka-whipping starts? It made his ribs feel scratchy. Stop looking at me like that.

“Have you felt anything weird at all, since the portal started working? Any gaps in your memory? Any parts of you that don’t feel right? Is there any part of you that feels like it’s changed in a way you can’t explain?”

She reached a hand out. Danny instinctively recoiled.

“Uh, yeah. They taught us about this in health class. They call it ‘puberty’ there.”

“Danny,” Jack said, and his voice was scratchy from disuse, from a long and uncharacteristic amount of time spent not speaking. “Did you die in the machine?”

A beat. A moment. Like when the zombie sends a hammer through your head.

“I’M alive!” Danny declared with a crack in his voice, with hands slammed to his chest. “Look at me. What are you talking about?”

“It’s the only math that works,” Jack continued, his words like chalk, his voice too dead. He looked too much at Danny. “If one of you two walked into the portal, and died in it. And I don’t think it was Jazz.”

This was bad. This was weird. Danny had ghost powers, sure. ‘They can’t kill me I’m already dead,’ was a funny joke sometimes. But it was funny as a joke. He was a ghost sham, really. A faker, a LARPer, whatever Tucker had called it. He was a human who was just kind of a freak now. More of a freak than he already was. He looked dead, for someone who was super-duper still alive.

He’d buried that worry, already. They weren’t allowed to bring it back.

“Look… at me!” Danny continued, mouth dry. He threw his arms wide. “Look how super alive I am! I’m awake! Using energy! Eating food and sleeping with my human body. I’ve got flesh and blood and bones and stuff! I’m not a ghost-expert but ghosts don’t have that.”

This was weird. This made Danny feel like something was scratching to get free from inside his rib cage. It twisted his entrails. Sure Tucker and Sam had thought he was dead, for those first horrible few minutes, but then he changed back to a human and the nightmare ended there. Jazz never called him dead. The ghosts called him freak and halfa and whelp, but never ‘one of them.’ That was his whole thing: being different from the ghosts who became ghosts by something so normal as dying.

He was not dead.

“If you died in the portal, your ghost wouldn’t have been ripped out of your body. It would have been allowed to stay, and then you’d be…” Jack hesitated. “I don’t know what you’d be, but you wouldn’t be alive.”

“Dad,” Jazz said, and she stood herself bodily between Danny and Jack. “What an absolutely messed up out-of-line thing to say to your son! You don’t know that! Dad you’re tired, and just because you weren’t able to solve your math problem in one night doesn’t mean you get to treat Danny like this! I said I’d help you with your math! Now apologize to Danny.”

Jazz looked over her shoulder to Danny, her expression falling at the sight of Danny’s face.

Danny backed up over the door threshold. He shook his head. “I’m not comfortable with this. This is weird. I’m gonna go to school now.”

“Danny, I promise they’re just—”

Danny turned on heel. No backpack, no change of clothes. He took to the street without a single school supply and moved, and moved.

It was supposed to be guns-blazing. Molecule by molecule. Headshot you died. He’d prepared for that this whole time, in the shower, in his dreams, in his daydreams in class. He’d duck and dodge and explain himself over and over until they understood him.

Danny wasn’t sure he was capable of explaining himself anymore.

…

Danny knocked the heavy iron knocker. He was in ghost form, as a threat. He wondered if he still smelled like yesterday’s sweat now that he wasn’t wearing yesterday’s clothes. Now he was wearing the clothes he died in.

No one answered the door. Danny phased himself in.

“Vlad!” he called, and his words echoed along the slope of the two elaborate winding staircases that twirled and met at the top like caduceus. Gold-plated banisters. A security camera buried somewhere in the ceiling, no doubt.

Danny phased into the library. His eyes roved the three stories of bookshelves wrapping the perimeter like a sheath. Gaudy. Audacious. Like Vlad would ever read that much. Danny racked his brain because some something in here was the secret to opening Vlad’s laboratory. Jazz had told him. Some gold something to be touched, and pressed down, or pushed up? Or it opened to a button. Or a keypad, maybe.

Danny spat a curse. He was being stupid. He was frazzled. He wasn’t thinking straight.

He dove into the floor below. Intangibility was the only key he needed.

The sheetrock was cold, even when he wasn’t touching it. The darkness was so piercing it made static jump in his vision, some weird trick of the brain Jazz had explained where, in the absence of all light, the brain hallucinates its own. It came with a sensation of pressure against his eyeballs, and a complete disorientation of direction, and he simply just kept going down.

Danny emerged into a wash of cold air. Cold like metal was cold. The low lights of dials and clicking machines were bright to his eyes previously dunked into the pitchest nothing. He drank it in, eyes grateful for light no matter how little, inner ear grateful for orientation that had left his head swimming and his stomach tight.

His feet tapped down to the stone ground, and the air that breezed past him was chilled.

“Vlad!” Danny called again.

Nothing.

He moved by the floor lighting, which ran in trim along the perimeter of the laboratory rooms. It lit things from beneath, made machines gaunt and specimens into sharp geometries of darkness and flesh. It made the Fenton lab feel warm in a way Danny had never considered it warm.

His feet clacked. His breath puffed.

“Vlad!”

He followed light, followed a wash of green miasma percolating from some far room and catching on the particulate of water and dust that disturbed with the air currents. Danny disturbed it too, walking through, wearing its shade of green which his shadow robbed from the wall behind him.

“Vlad. I swear to god Vlad.”

He crossed the threshold of the portal room, where the dusting of green ambience became a medallion wash of golden-green coating, painting every surface of the room. The Fenton lab was one single expansive room, portal anchored into the far wall and facing all the dead and empty air in front of it. This was different. A much smaller room, walled on all sides save for the simple doorway, and each surface reflected the color back deeper and heavier. It was like a fishtank in the wall of an aquarium lit radiant aqua-blue by all the lights within, but green instead, pure ecto-green.

Danny approached the open portal. He stared into its placid swirls, mesmerized, and scared of it, in a way he hadn’t previously felt about the portal in the Fenton basement.

“Ah, seems the cat is a good mouser after all, it dragged you in my boy.” The words came sing-song. They came spine-shivering for Danny, who felt them like hot breath on his shoulder and reeled back, pivoted, fire crackling to life in his palms.

Vlad stood at the doorway, a solid 20 steps from Danny.

“Vlad.”

“So I’ve been hearing.”

“I need you to explain the portal.”

“Ah, I see you’ve spoken to your parents.” Vlad stepped in, washed in the ecto-green which muddied his ruby red eyes. He held his hands behind his back, cape trailing, a smirk on his fanged face. “Last I heard they weren’t taking the news very well.”

“What news. What did you tell them?”

“Me? Nothing. In fact, very kindly for your sake I even tried to drive them away from the answer but… We know how stubborn your parents can be.”

“What answer?”

“That you’re dead, Daniel.”

Shock washed like ice down Danny’s spine. It sent prickles like spider legs across his skin.

“Well, I suppose there’s still chance for some doubt. It could be Jazz. She could take the fall for you, if there’s any benefit to that at all.”

“I’m a halfa. We are halfas,” Danny said.

“A silly made up word by a silly child,” Vlad mused, and the light smile left his lips. “We are dead.”

“I’m not dead,” and Danny’s words were small, and they were childish.

“You are. I am. Embrace it. It’s nicer this way.” Vlad took a few steps closer, lionously tall in his saunter, feet clacking the ground. “It’s very freeing. After you’ve died already what is there left to fear?”

“I’m alive.”

“You’re a dead body with its soul still stuffed inside it like a Christmas goose. A lot of things in your body don’t work anymore, but ghosts don’t work right anyway and it is, for all its defiance of nature, a perfectly symbiotic relationship.” Vlad’s smile brushed his lips again, warm. “It’s nice to share this with you. Isn’t it nice to share things with people?”

Danny’s heart was beating too fast in his chest, and it was a human heart, a human beat. “I’m not dead,” he declared.

“Your wounds heal quickly because the ghost piloting you only needs to remember form. It stacks cells back into place and calls it good. You’ll endure fatal injuries as you no doubt have many times in your fights, but they’re trivial because physical trauma is not what kills a ghost. It’s what creates one. You’ll necrotize in places but it’s okay, because you’ll carry on, and it will bother you only if you let it bother you, if you’re too sentimental about the puppet you’re still inside.” Vlad closed in closer, neck craning to appraise Danny. “Ghosts love a facsimile of life so you will keep your heart pumping, your lungs breathing. You’ll eat and you’ll sleep but you’ll find you won’t perish if you don’t. It just won’t be a good time if you want to keep occupying your flesh form. Take better care of it. You won’t get another.”

“You’re psychotic. And you’re wrong.”

“I have all the math to prove it.” Vlad leered from over Danny’s shoulder. He circled the boy, knocking Danny’s balance, who still on a hair trigger stood ready to fight. The light from the ghost portal painted Vlad’s face like the phases of the moon as he moved. “Did your parents explain that part to you properly?”

“No, because they didn’t get the math right.”

“Oh they’ve gotten it right. This time. It only took them two decades longer than it took me.” The portal rolled like static, and its fizzling pattern crashed like an ocean wave across Vlad’s cape. “No amount of man-made power is sufficient to drag the entire fabric of the Ghost Zone up against our own, tear a hole through it, and anchor it to a stable frame. It requires something with a pull on the Ghost Zone, a strong pull, and that thing is a human life at the moment of an extraordinarily violent death.”

Danny backed a step away from the portal, from Vlad, but the walls boxed him in. He swam in its green light.

“You stepped in and you turned the portal on, that’s what you thought, right, Daniel? Pressed a careless button on the inside and now here we are. Silly parents for not finding that button first.” Vlad’s face hardened. “No. Jack and Maddie knew about the button. Maddie explained it to me over the phone. What engineer designing and building their own portal would forget the location of the on button? They’d pressed it from the outside. It didn’t work. And so you pressing the button was not the important part. It was you dying to the electrocution that clicked everything right into place. And while your ghost should have been torn from your lifeless corpse and pulled to the Ghost Zone you instead pulled the Ghost Zone here. Your ghost got to stay put. You opened the portal. You became the undead freak you are. And now we’re here.”

Danny’s eyes bounced between Vlad’s. His cheeks felt hot, like he was enduring an accusation of wrongdoing. And he had none of the knowledge to refute what was being said.

“You’re messing with me. You’re wrong,” Danny shot back. He thrust an arm out, drenched in the fog of the portal. “If the portal needs a person to die in it then explain your portal! Are you so casual about it? You killed someone? You’re admitting to murder and you think I won’t do anything about it?”

Anger flashed like a storm across Vlad’s face. His aura swelled, pressing down with a pressure on Danny as Vlad halted and cast his shadow clear across Danny, coating the back wall. “The killing of other people with the wanton carelessness of half-baked machines is the domain of Jack and Jack alone. I’ve brought no such harm onto anyone else.”

“Then how do you have this portal?”

“This portal? This portal that I’ve had for 20 years? Which I opened when I solved the piece of Jack’s broken math that he was never able to solve until this morning?” Vlad stalked closer, hunched, imposing. Danny stepped back. “My boy Daniel you’ve had it so easy. You had it so simple. A truly clean break. So clean so lucky. A single lethal dose of electricity and it was already over. I’m jealous. You never even suffered.”

Vlad stepped closer, striking distance, arm extended. Danny flinched, but Vlad only swept his cape around, clenched in his fist, and pivoted to approach the portal.

“Put out of your misery before it even started.” Vlad slammed his fist against the portal rim, and the explosive metallic clang bounced through the rooms. His laugh belted out. “I should have been so lucky.”

19. Vlad Masters was 19. A sophomore in college. A man actively in the midst of sabotaging his social life to chase a woman who was already deeply in love with Vlad’s best friend who he hated more every day. He wasn’t sure what he ever enjoyed about Jack’s bumbling ineptitude, or his loudness, his brashness, his poor social skills, his bad breath, his mullet. Maybe Vlad had gravitated to Jack because deep down he loved how superior it made him feel to surround himself with the likes of Jack Fenton… And now, he hated how enraged it made him to watch Maddie’s eyes skip past his to focus on Jack Fucking Fenton again and again and again and again.

But surely there was hope still. Surely it was a matter of time before the rose-tinted glasses fell away and Maddie saw bumbling and inept and every such word in the basket when she looked at Jack. There’d come the day she tested the waters with Vlad to complain about one of Jack’s little quirks, and they’d find solace together in all the things Vlad was that Jack wasn’t, and all the things Vlad had that Jack didn’t. And he’d be gone, back to bumble elsewhere, and it would be just them.

The day didn’t come. It wouldn’t come. And maybe Vlad needed to change himself for Maddie. If he listened to her and Jack’s ghost ramblings, if he could put Jack in his place and solve the things Maddie couldn’t, it would show her. She’d understand.

Because that was the thing about Jack. His math was never right. Enduring Calculus 1 with Jack was all it took to prove this to Vlad. How many times he’d caught a single error on a single line for Jack, like a dropped stitch that would unravel the whole sweater. Every problem, without exception. Jack only passed on his homework grade with Vlad’s help. On his tests, he failed.

So Vlad was staring at Jack’s equation, full of bogus math, which Vlad knew was wrong because Jack had penned it, and Vlad had not yet fixed it himself.

“I’m telling you Jack, it won’t work.”

“Bogus V-man it totally will!”

It wouldn’t. But Vlad wouldn’t fix it for him. Not yet. Vlad would let Jack embarrass himself first, fully in front of Maddie, watching on, judging. Vlad would solve it for her. After. Once Jack had made a fool of himself for the hundredth time since college began.

He leaned in to study the portal frame. The gears were turning in his head already. He didn’t hear the whir of the power source catch.

…

19. Vlad Masters was 19. A tube ran down his nose and into his lungs, supplying oxygen for lungs which were failed by a diaphragm sloughing itself away. He was poisoned from the outside-in. Irradiated by ecto-energy none of the nurses or doctors could fully understand. It damaged his DNA. First obvious in the skin of his face where the blisters of his ecto-acne drained and sloughed. “Acne” was the wrong word. An unkind word. They were boils where the blast had cooked his skin, microwaved his cells. The skin on his body blackened over time. Organs decayed. Vlad Master read a lot about radiation sickness. He knew everything he had to expect.

Jack and Maddie had stopped visiting. They were dating now. It was on their last visit they’d told him, and Vlad hadn’t taken it well, and he’d perhaps burned a few bridges with the words he chose. It was deserved. Considering what Jack did to him.

He’d found the error in Jack’s math, by the way. Errors, but all the rest paled in impact compared to the lambda. The ecto-energy. The necessary ecto-potential to pull the Ghost Zone here. How stupid. How idiotic. For Vlad to die to a machine so botched in its construction.

When Vlad was released from the hospital, it was not because they’d cured him. It had been because there is a certain cruelty in making a 19-year-old live the last of his days bedded down in a white-walled room with just his books, his equations, and no one coming to visit anymore.

He was released with bedrest instructions. Vlad did not heed them. In his beater car, every cell of his body aching, he drove. At the materials lab, he disconnected his oxygen tank and moved through the lab space with the tube dangling loose from his nostril. No one was Vlad Masters’ friend. No one cared to stare long at his ugly boil-ridden face. No one stopped him as he hauled sheet metal, and supports, and bolts and wiring and resistors and power tools, checked out with a valid student ID, from the lab. The lab inventory room would not be seeing these back.

It was a prep bunker, buried beneath a vast lot of empty Wisconsin land, that Vlad hauled his materials. He and Jack had discovered it as freshmen. Poked through its bowels with flashlights and quipped and laughed over how eerie it was. Deep beneath the sheetrock, boxy rooms carved out of walls of stone. Shelf upon shelf of dusty canned foods, and shotguns sealed in cases fastened to the walls. The locks had rusted with water damage.

His arms ached until they throbbed, dragging beams of metal across the stone floor, scratching chalk-mark stains into the ground. His skin sloughed, inflamed, burning to the touch. Vlad didn’t bother to rest, because these injuries would never heal anyway. He hauled, and welded, and wired up his circuitry and resistors with a care and caution Jack would never have bothered to practice. He checked it against his math by flashlight. He took naps on the cold stone floor and woke with deep purple bruises on every part of his body that had pressed against the ground.

His appetite left him. His lungs filled with mucus. The boils on his face had spread down to his chest, his shoulders. The touch of his shirt chafed them, so he worked without one, a figure of skeletal rib ridges jutting from tight skin that bloomed with the projection of his shadow against stone walls.

He knew why Jack’s math was wrong.

A silly mistake. A stupid mistake. Anyone with half a mind for the paranormal should have realized the Ghost Zone was not so easily at your beck and call. Not without chumming the water with something it would rise to feast on.

And in that violent death, what would happen to the ghost? It would stay, wouldn’t it? If it successfully anchored the Ghost Zone to the portal it stood inside, then by definition the ghost would stay?

And was that death? Yes, in a way. But it was a death one would get to keep living. As opposed to the death Vlad was headed for, whose coldness and finality scared Vlad more than anything he could put to words.

He’d fixed the oxygen tank back to himself. He couldn’t work without it, hauling it about on a little dolly with him, back and forth, while he fetched and affixed the last of the plating he needed to craft the frame of his silent soulless portal.

He’d stolen a generator from the sports storage shed. It was meant to be enough to power the portable stadium lights they hauled onto the fields for late games, an absolute obelisk meant to cast light across an entire football field.

Surely, it contained enough power to kill one simple human.

Vlad fixed the last bolt in place. Jumper cables clamped generator to portal wiring. It was a pure skeleton. A paltry thing, like the bones of something already picked clean. Built in haste, sloppy, by a 19-year-old whose fingers were too inflamed to clutch a wrench any longer.

He could have asked Jack for help. Maddie. But he wouldn’t let them have this. They had to solve the portal on their own. They didn’t get to know his hard work. They did not get to save him.

Vlad would save himself.

A ghost anchored to a body. What was that? What monster was that?

Vlad moved. He coughed mucus from his lungs. It made it hard to breathe. So he moved slowly, and crouched, bony jutting angles, painted blotchy purple, all bruises and skin, sloughing away.

He crouched, because the portal he’d constructed was not large enough to hold him standing up. He bowed inside it, a small thing, a pathetic man of little life. He wheezed. He hurt. His eyes burned.

And he held in his hands the remote to flip the generator switch, and connect the circuit, and bring to life the math Vlad had so kindly corrected out from under Jack’s grip.

Vlad did not. Because throwing the switch would kill him.

Deep in his animal brain, his dying brain, he knew this intimately. It filled him with a drowning fear like paralysis. He did not want to die.

He would die if he did nothing.

It would be this one throwing of the switch which could save him. Which would burst the portal to life right through his heart. Electrocute it out of its rhythm, slaughter him like a pig on spot and… maybe… hopefully… drag the Ghost Zone here. And whatever he was, dead, would stay.

And whatever he was, dead, would be better than this.

Vlad held the remote in his clammy hands.

And from within the humming skeleton of his portal, his fingers caressed the on button.

…

The portal sung its happy contentment, mused in its healthy green aura, staining all the slabs of rock wall. Danny swiveled his head, recognizing now the bunker this had been before it had been a laboratory.

“I’ve harmed no one, Daniel,” Vlad concluded, his voice too measured for the horrors it had spilled forth. Too calm against the blossoming terror its words had wrought across Danny’s face. “I opened the portal to save myself. You’re lucky, Daniel. It was because of my fast thinking that your father is not a murderer. I took that honor from him.” Vlad’s head tilted to the side, suddenly sympathetic. “Although, you’ve maybe made the title whole for him.”

Vlad reached out, Danny shot away.

“Dad didn’t kill me,” he choked. “I did this to myself.”

“How lucky Jack is, to always dodge responsibility for his actions.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Of course you don’t. If you believed me, you’d have to accept you’re not wriggling out of this. There’s no denial you can bring home to your parents. If you believe me, then this is reality.” Vlad smiled, a playful glint to his fangs. “I suppose I should have more sympathy. I quite like being this way. It is so much nicer than wasting away to death, like I was. But you. You were healthy before this. This killed you, and it didn’t save you from anything.” Vlad cocked his head. “Such tragic fates, both of us, due to the carelessness of Jack Fenton.”

Danny shook his head. His heart beat—his human heart beat—all too fast in his throat. It made him sick. It made him feel like the walls were closing in around him. This was Vlad’s doing. Vlad’s trap. Vlad’s prison he’d been forced to join.

"That's not true. I'm not like you."

“Of course not,” Vlad said, sweetly. “How sweet denial is. Deny it if you like. Call me a liar. But if you ever want to come to terms with what your father did to you, consider coming to me. I understand you in a way no one else will.”

Danny gave no response. He gave no acknowledgement of Vlad’s words. He took to the air, phased himself up through the sheetrock that had been packed atop the doomsday prepper bunker. Up through the mansion, which had been built atop the portal beneath it, and not the other way around. Into the open sky, he breathed fresh air not stagnant and damp beneath the ground, bathed in light pure white from the sun and not tainted green like the bowels underneath him.

And he flew back toward the portal that made him, leaving Vlad with the portal from which he’d made himself.

...

(inspiration post from @ciestess)

[papiliomame]

Dannymay Day 8: Electric Core AU

Heavily inspired by the works of Ching Yeh, especially this piece. I really like the character designs,compositions and lighting in the artworks. And with the linked artwork I thought of how Danny would look like with an electric core when he charges up his ghostly wail. With all the lightning pouring out of him it gives a feeling that he's crackling with power.

That's all what I have prepared beforehand for dannymay. Now my output will be slower but I try to make a few more prompts.

Bonus comic doodle I came up with today:

[mercyking]

Hot Fuzz Danny & Nicholas autism vibes are out of control. i love it SOOO much!! Iconic Special Interest moment: when Nicholas mentions he's been stabbed (or, in Danny's terms, seen '''action''') and there's literally a ka-ching sound effect as Danny whips his head around. Also, the way Nicholas has been SO OBSESSED with policing his whole damn life??? And he so clearly sees it as an expression of his strong sense of justice. Like he literally says 'I pretended to be a police officer, arrested older kids on the playground, got bullied a lot for it but I never forgot the clear sense of right and wrong I felt' UHHH "STRONG SENSE OF JUSTICE" HELLO???? This movie is autism central

[lebaronlordking]

Saturday Afternoon Reggae Show DJ LeBaron Lord King April 20, 2024 lebaron@kpoo.com

SaturdayAfternoonReggaeShow

4:00 PM Eek-A-Mouse - Tell Them 4:04 PM Earl Flute - The Betrayer 4:06 PM Sister Nancy - One Two 4:09 PM Yabby U - Jah Over I 4:12 PM Zion Head - Chalice Baptized 4:17 PM T.Natty - Spread Love 4:20 PM Marlon Asher - Strictly High Grade 4:24 PM Glen Brown - Long Live Zion 4:27 PM Kabaka Pyramid - Mary Jane 4:32 PM Busy Signal - Government Gone Luu 4:35 PM Skip Marley - Faith 4:38 PM Hymn Marley - Since You've Been Gone 4:42 PM Anthony B - Wha Dat 4:45 PM Bushman - Steam 4:48 PM Bob Marley - I'm Hurting Inside 4:51 PM Gyptian - Hold You 4:55 PM Beenie Man - Girls Dem Sugar 5:00 PM Monkey Marc - Yaad & Abaard 5:04 PM Samory I - There Is a Spirit 5:08 PM Luciano - No Night In Zion 5:13 PM Sevana - If You Only Knew 5:17 PM Chi Ching Ching & Lila Ike - Wurl a Baff 5:19 PM Alborosie - Journey to Zion 5:24 PM Leroy Sibbles - Jah Far I On a Pinnacle 5:32 PM Stephen Marley - Ghetto Boy 5:37 PM Shabba Ranks - Mr. Loverman 5:42 PM Steel Pulse - Roller Skates 5:47 PM Dennis Brown - Revolution 5:52 PM Tiger - Puppy Love 5:55 PM Wailers - One Love 5:58 PM Eesah - Tell No Lie 6:01 PM DeZaire - Ghettos of Babylon 6:08 PM Proteje - Late At Night 6:12 PM Ruff Neck - Run Dem Mouth 6:16 PM Nature Ellis - Burning Fire 6:19 PM Danny Kilma - Out of Control 6:27 PM I Shenko x Tublence - Yawdman 6:31 PM Yellowman - Lost Mi Lover 6:36 PM Inna de Yard - Let the Water Run Dry 6:39 PM Toots & Maytals - Love is Gonna 6:43 PM Kabaka Pyramid - The Kalling 6:46 PM Popcaan - Heavy 6:50 PM YG Marley - Praise Jah In the Moonlight 6:55 PM Joseph Benaiah - We Nah Give Up

[baddawg94]

1985’s Police Story 👮 🔫 [ging chaat goo si]

Jackie Chan (Star/Director)- Chen Ka Kui

Bridgette Lin Ching Hsia- Selena Fong

Maggie Cheung Man Yuk- May

Chor Yuen- Chu Tao

Charlie Cho- John

Bill Tung- Uncle

Fung Hark On- Danny Chu, Chu Tao’s nephew

Lam Kwok Hung- Raymond Li

Mars- Kim

Kent Tong- Tom

[chicagochinesenews]

馬靜儀以巨大差距打敗吳陳麗貞將篤定連任

(芝加哥時報快訊) 在昨天3月19日舉行的伊州第24區州眾議員選舉中,華裔馬靜儀以巨大差距(5,714票,得票率76.1%)打敗向她挑戰的華裔吳陳麗貞(Lai Ching Ng得了1,792 票,得票率          23.9%) , 馬靜儀將在11月的普選中順利當選連任, 此外, 伊利諾州第七國會選區與華人社區關係緊密的大衛戴維斯(Danny Davis）再次勝出，得了37,416        票,得票率 53.1%,為他在11月的普選及第十五任期鋪平了道路。 Continue reading 馬靜儀以巨大差距打敗吳陳麗貞將篤定連任

[punisheddonjuan]

Favourite Music 2013-2023

As part of attempting to recover/reconstruct my blog here in the event that my old account is not restored, I'm reposting some old things that I've pieced together from Internet Archive scrapes of my old blog, personal files, and cross-postings elsewhere. A tradition I maintained on that blog over its ten year span was putting out a list of my favourite music releases at the end of every year.

I make it a goal to listen to fifty new releases every year, and I frequently manage over seventy or more, occasionally hitting one hundred. At the end of the year I distill all that listening down into a list of thirty-odd releases that I really enjoyed.

I've never much liked numbered and ranked lists so the lists are unranked and have been from the beginning. They are, however, partitioned into three categories. Two of these categories are self explanatory "Favourite Music" and "Favourite Reissues, Compilations, Soundtracks and Live Albums" while the third "Honourable Mentions" acts as a holding tank for things that I either liked "fine enough alright" or which I was/am still digesting. I have not gone back and edited these lists in any way (except to alphabetize earliest ones), as that would be cheating. I wanted these lists to be a document of a moment in time, a personal record of what I was listening to in any given year. Consequently, the further back you go, the more likely it is my opinions have changed. Some albums and artists that were favourites fell out of my rotation entirely, a few honourable mentions graduated to favourites while others slipped off, but a good half or more stayed right where I placed them. Some lists are longer than others. I was more discriminating in the first few years and left a great many things off.

I'm posting this mostly for myself, but please, take a look if you're looking for something to listen to, there are hundreds of recommendations below, something for everyone. My favourites from 2023 are directly below, and 2013-2022 are below the "read more" in reverse chronological order.

Favourite Music 2023:

Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad — Jazz is Dead 16

Algiers — Shook

Anjumile — The King

Annelies Monseré — Mares

ANOHNI — My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross

Brighde Chaimbeul — Carry Them With Us

Chris Watson & Philip Jeck — Oxmardyke

Colin Stetson — When We Were That What Wept for the Sea

Danny Brown — Quaranta

The Drin — Today My Friend You Drunk the Venom

The Inward Circles — Before WE Lie Down in Darknesse

Jaimie Brand — Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war))

Kahil El’Zabar's Ethnic Heritage Ensemble ft. Dwight Trible & David Ornette Cherry — Spirit Gatherer: Tribute to Don Cherry

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard — The Silver Cord

La Baracande — La Baracande

Lankum — False Lankum

Meatraffle — Base and Superstructure

Oxbow — Love's Holiday

ØXN — CYRM

PJ Harvey — I Inside the Old Year Dying

Protomartyr — Formal Growth in the Desert

Squid — O Monolith

Tim Arnold — Super Connected

Tyvek — Overground

Yossari Baby — Inferiority Complex

Water From Your Eyes — Everyone's Crushed

Honourable Mentions 2023:

Gazelle Twin — Black Dog

Lonnie Holley — Oh Me, Oh My

Matmos — Return to Archive

The Mountain Goats — Jenny from Thebes

Mozart Estate — Pop-Up! Ker-Ching! And the Possibilities of Modern Shopping

The Murder Capital — Gigi's Recovery

Neil Young — Before and After

Peter Gabriel — i/o

The Pigeons — Bird Brain Gang

PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS — Land of Sleeper

Shame — Food for Worms

Sparks — The Girl is Crying in Her Latte

Stuck — Freak Frequency

Favourite Reissues, Compilations, Soundtracks and Live Albums 2023:

Alkemie — Pentiment (Original Game Soundtrack)

The Beatles — 1962-1966

The Beatles — 1967-1970

Black Country, New Road — Live at Bush Hall

Devo — Art Devo 1973-1977

John Coltrane — Evenings at the Village Gate: John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy

Lingua Ignota — The End: Live at Islington Assembly Hall

Neil Young — Chrome Dreams

Nervous Gender — Music from Hell

The Replacements — Tim (Let It Bleed Edition)

Shizuka (静香) — Heavenly Persona 天界のペルソナ

Sonic Youth — Live in Brooklyn 2011

Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 — These Things Remain Unassigned (Singles, Compilation Tracks, Rarities & Unreleased Recordings)

Various Artists — Happy Land: A Compendium of Alternative Electronic Music from the British Isles 1993-1996

Various Artists — The NID Tapes: Electronic Music from India 1969-1972

Favourite Music 2022:

Alison Cotton — The Portrait You Painted of Me

Bill Orcutt — Music for Four Guitars

Black Country, New Road — Ants from Up There

black midi — Hellfire

Cate le Bon — Pompeii

Decius — Decius Vol. 1

Diamanda Galás — Broken Gargoyles

Extra Life — Secular Works, Vol. 2

Fontaines D.C. — Skinty Fia

Gnod — Hexen Valley

Hercules and Love Affair ft. Anhoni — In Amber

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard — Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava; Omnium Gatherum

Magma — Kãrtëhl

Moundabout — Flowers Rot, Bring Me Stones

One More Grain — Beans on Toast with Pythagoras

Richard Dawson — The Ruby Cord

Sam Slater — I do not wish to be known as a Vandal

Sault — 151; Air; Earth; Today & Tomorrow; UNTITLED(GOD)

SCUDFM — INNIT

Shovel Dance Collective — Water Is The Shovel of the Shore

Special Interest — Endure

Viagra Boys — Cave World

Honourable Mentions 2022:

The Chats — Get Fucked

Lady Neptune — Noz

Omertà — Collection particulière

Suede — Autofiction

Trupa Trupa — B flat A

Weak Signal — War&War

Yard Act — The Overload

Yoo Doo Right — A Murmur, Boundless to the East

Favourite Reissues, Compilations, Soundtracks & Live Albums 2022:

The Beatles — Get Back: the Rooftop Performance; Revolver Super Deluxe Edition

Bog-Shed — The Official Bog-Set

David Bowie — Divine Symmetry

Diamanda Galás — The Divine Punishment

Iannis Xenakis — Electroacoustic Works

Norma Tanega — I’m the Sky: Studio and Demo Recordings, 1964–1971

Oliver Coates — The Stranger

Oxbow & Peter Br​ö​tzmann — An Eternal Reminder Of Not Today: Live At Moers

Sonic Youth — In/Out/In

Tomasz Stańko Quintet — Wooden Music I

Valentina Goncharova — Ocean: Symphony for Electric Violin and Other Instruments in 10+ Parts

Favourite Music 2021:

Ärabrot — Norwegian Gothic

black midi — Cavalcade

Richard Dawson & Circle — Henki

Desperate Journalist — Maximum Sorrow!

Dry Cleaning — New Long Leg

Gnod — La Mort Du Sens

Greg Coates — Witch Egg

Hawthonn — Earth Mirror

Hedvig Mollestad Trio — Ding Dong. You're Dead

Iceage — Seek Shelter

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard — L.W.

Pharoah Sanders & the London Symphony Orchestra — Promises

LoneLady — Former Things

Low — HEY WHAT

Marissa Nadler — The Path of the Clouds

Mirage — Mirage

Nick Cave & Warren Willis — Carnage

Nyx & Gazelle Twin — Deep England

Oliver Leath and Explorer Ensemble — 'Me Hollywood'

Parquet Courts — Sympathy for Life

SAULT — Nine

shame — Drunk Tank Pink

Shortparis — Яблонный сад

Sleaford Mods — Spare Ribs

Snapped Ankles — Forest of Your Problems

Sons of Kemet — Black to the Future

Squid — Bright Green Field

Taqbir — Taqbir (Victory Belongs to Those Who Fight For a Right Cause)

Viagra Boys — Welfare Jazz

William Parker — Mayan Space Station

Favourite Reissues, Compilations, Soundtracks & Live Albums 2021:

Can — Live in Brighton 1975

Can — Live in Stuttgart 1975

Coil — Love's Secret Domain 30th Anniversary Edition

Faust — 1971-1974

Gang of Four — 77-81

John Coltrane — A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle

The KLF — The White Room (The KLF Director's Cut)

Magma — Simples

Suburban Lawns — Suburban Lawns

Van der Graaf Generator — The Charisma Years 1970-1978

Various Artists ��� Do You Have the Force? (Jon Savage's Alternate History of Electronica 1978-1982)

Various Artists — Cameroon Garage Funk

Willie Dunn — Creation Never Sleeps, Creation Never Dies: the Willie Dunn Anthology

Favourite Music 2020:

Aksak Maboul — Figures

All diese Gewalt — Andere

Baxter Dury — The Night Chancers

Bill Fay — Countless Branches

Bob Dylan — Rough and Rowdy Ways

The Chats — High Risk Behaviour

Cold Meat — Hot and Flustered

Crack Cloud — Pain Olympics

Duma — DuMa

Einstürzende Neubauten — Alles in Allem

The Heliocentrics — Infinity of Now

Hen Ogledd — Free Humans

Hey Colossus — Dances/Curses

Idris Ackamor and the Pyramids — Shaman!

Jeff Parker — Suite for Max Brown

Jennifer Walshe — A Late Anthology of Early Music, Vol. 1: Ancient to Renaissance

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard — K.G.

Lonnie Holley — National Freedom

Nadine Shah — Kitchen Sink

Oranssi Pazuzu — Mestarin kynsi

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs — Viscerals

Protomartyr — Ultimate Success Today

Róisín Murphy — Róisín Machine

Sault — Untitled (Black Is); Untitled (Rise)

Shirley Collins — Heart’s Ease

The Sorcerers — In Search of the Lost City of the Monkey God

Wilma Archer — A Western Circular

Young Knives — Barbarians

Honourable Mentions 2020:

Algiers — There Is No Year

Christine and the Queens — La vita nuova

Fontaines D.C. — A Hero’s Death

fra fra — Funeral Songs

Idles — Ultra Mono

Pharoah Overlord — 6

Richard Skelton — These Charms May Be Sung Over a Wound

Sex Swing — Type II

Sparks — A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip

Thundercat — It Is What It Is

Torres — Silver Tongue

Wire — Mind Hive

Favourite Reissues, Compilations, Soundtracks and Live Albums 2020:

Beverly Glenn-Copeland — Transmissions: The Music of Beverly Glenn-Copeland

Black Sabbath — Paranoid Super Deluxe Box Set

Coil — The Gay Man’s Guide to Safer Sex

David Bowie — I’m Only Dancing (The Soul Tour ‘74); Ouvrez Le Chien (Live Dallas '95)

Fela Kuti — Perambulator

The Heshoo Beshoo Group — Armitage Road

The Jimi Hendrix Experience — Live In Maui

Neil Young — Homegrown

Pylon — Pylon Box

The Sun Ra Arkestra — Swirling

Sun Ra — Live Egypt 1971

Theotis Taylor — Brother Theotis Taylor

Uranium Club — Live for the Very First Time (In Italy)

Various Artists — Join The Future: UK Bleep & Bass 1988 - 1991

Various Artists — Interstellar Funk Presents Artificial Dancers: Waves Of Synth

Various Artists — Deutsche Elektronische Musik 4: Experimental German Rock And Electronic Music 1971 – 1983

Favourite Music 2019:

Alexander Tucker — Guild of the Asbestos Weaver

Ana Roxanne — ~~~

Årabrot — Die Nibelungen

BATS — Alter Nature

Beverly Glenn-Copeland — Primal Prayer

black midi — Schlagenheim

Cosey Fanni Tutti — Tutti

Damon Locks/Black Monument Ensemble — Where Future Unfolds

Drenge — Strange Creatures

Fat White Family — Serfs Up!

Holly Herndon — Proto

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard — Infest the Rats’ Nest

King Midas Sound — Solitude

Lingua Ignota — Caligula

MEATRAFFLE — Bastard Music

The Mekons — Deserted

Michael Kiwanuka — Kiwanuka

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds — Ghosteen

Priests — The Seduction of Kansas

Purple Mountains — Purple Mountains

Richard Dawson — 2020

shortparis — Так закалялась сталь

Sleaford Mods — Eton Alive

Snapped Ankles — Stunning Luxury

Test Dept. — Disturbance

Vanishing Twin — The Age of Immunology

Honourable Mentions 2019

Angel Olson — All Mirrors

Cate Le Bon — Reward

Caterina Barbieri — Ecstatic Computation

CHAI — PUNK

Earth — Full Upon Her Burning Lips

Jenny Hval — The Practice of Love

Kim Gordon — No Home Record

Leonard Cohen — Thanks for the Dance

The Murder Capital — When I Have Fears

Pharmakon — Devour

Richard Skelton — Border Ballads

Sudan Archives — Athena

Swans — Leaving Meaning

Favourite Reissues, Compilations, Soundtracks and Live Albums 2019:

The Beatles — Abbey Road Super Deluxe Edition

Can — Live Rockpalast 1970

David Bowie — Conversation Piece

The Deontic Miracle; Catherine Christer Hennix — Selections from 100 Models of Hegikan Roku

Hildur Guðnadóttir — Chernobyl (Music From the Original TV Series)

His Name Is Alive — All the Mirrors in the House (Early Recordings 1979 - 1986)

Mort Garson — Mother Earth’s Plantasia

Patrick Cowley — Mechanical Fantasy Box

Various Artists — Nigeria 70: No Wahala: Highlife, Afro-Funk & Juju 1973-1987

Various Artists — Tarantismo: Odyssey of an Italian Ritual

Various Artists — Third Noise Principle: Formative North American Electronica 1975-1984

Various Artists — Further Perspectives & Distortion: An Encyclopedia of British Experimental and Avant‐Garde Music 1976–1984

Favourite Music 2018:

Ärabrot — Who Do You Love

Capitol K — Goatherder

The Caretaker — Everywhere At The End of Time, Stage IV; Everywhere At The End of Time, Stage V

Chris Carter — Chemistry Lessons Volume 1

Daughters — You Won’t Get What You Want

Die Nerven — Fake

Lonnie Holley — MITH

The Ex — 27 Passports

Gazelle Twin — Pastoral

Gnod — Chapel Perilous

Hen Ogledd — Mogic

Hawthonn — Red Goddess (Of This Men Shall Know Nothing)

Julia Holter — Aviary

Hot Snakes — Jericho Sirens

Idris Ackamoor and the Pyramids — An Angel Fell

ILL — We Are Ill

Insecure Men — Insecure Men

Idles — Joy As An Act Of Resistance

KELD — You Are Wolf

Laibach — The Sound of Music

Lonker See — One Eye Sees Red

Low — Double Negative

Mamuthones — Fear on the Corner

Parquet Courts — Wide Awake!

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs — King of Cowards

Protomartyr — Consolation EP

Pusha T — Daytona

Richard Skelton — Front Variations (I & II)

Rival Consoles — Persona

Simian Mobile Disco — Murmurations

Sons of Kemet — Your Queen Is A Reptile

Szun Waves — New Hymn to Freedom

Tropical Fuck Storm — A Laughing Death in Meatspace

Yves Tumor — Safe In The Hands Of Love

Honourable Mentions 2018:

Amen Dunes — Freedom

Amyl and the Sniffers — Big Attraction & Giddy Up

The Cavemen — Nuke Earth

Death and the Maiden — Wisteria

The Dirty Nil — Master Volume

Here Lies Man — You Will Know Nothing

Hop Along — Bark Your Head Off, Dog

Iceage — Beyondless

The Limiñanas — Shadow People

Lucy Dacus — Historian

The Messthetics — The Messthetics

Mitski — Be The Cowboy

Nine Inch Nails — Bad Witch

Ought — Room Inside the World

Sarah Louise — Deeper Woods

Scourge of Women — To End It All

Thou — Magus

U.S. Girls — In a Poem Unlimited

Tπc9 — Sekundenschlaf

Favourite Reissues, Compilations, Soundtracks and Live Albums 2018:

Art Ensemble of Chicago — Les Stances a Sophie

Austin Wintory — The Banner Saga 3 OST

Colin Stetson — Hereditary OST

Holger Czukay — Cinema

Holger Czukay & David Sylvian — Plight & Premonition/Flux & Mutability

Neil Young — Songs for Judy

Throbbing Gristle — Mission Of Dead Souls

Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton — Music and Poetry of the Kesh

Various Artists — Uneven Paths: Deviant Pop from Europe 1980-1991

Various Artists — Deutsche Elektronische Musik 3: Experimental German Music 1971-1981

Various Artists — Onda de Amor: Synthesized Brazilian Hits That Never Were, 1984-1994

Various Artists — Venezuela 70 Vol. 2: Cosmic Visions Of A Latin American Earth: Venezuelan Experimental Rock In The 1970s & Beyond

Various Artists — Soul Of A Nation 2: Jazz Is The Teacher, Funk Is The Preacher

Various Artists — African Scream Contest Volume 2: Benin 1963 - 1980

Favourite Music 2017:

Algiers — Underside of Power

Atlantik Wall — Atlantik Wall

Charlotte Gainsbourg — Rest

Circle — Terminal

Colin Stetson — All This I Do For Glory

Gnod — Just Say No to the Psycho Right-Wing Capitalist Fascist Industrial Death Machine

Here Lies Man — Here Lies Man

Idles — Brutalism

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith — The Kid

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard — Flying Microtonal Banana; Murder of the Universe; Polygondwanaland; Sketches of Brunswick East

The Moonlandingz — Interplanetary Class Classics

Nadine Shah — Holiday Destination

Oxbow — Thin Black Duke

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs — Feed the Rats

Protomartyr — Relatives in Descent

Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement — Ambient Black Magic

Richard Dawson — Peasant

Thundercat — Drunk

Waxahatchee — Out in the Storm

William Basinski — A Shadow in Time

The Yossarians — Fabric of Time

Zola Jesus — Okovi

Honourable Mentions 2017:

All Them Witches — Sleeping Through the War

The Caretaker — Everywhere at the End of Time (Stage 2); Everywhere at the End of Time (Stage 3)

The Chats — Get This In Ya

Chelsea Wolfe — Hiss Spun

The Dumpies — The Dumpies

Electric Wizard — Wizard Bloody Wizard

EMA — Exile in the Outer Ring

The Fall — New Facts Emerge

French Vanilla — French Vanilla

Game Theory — Supercalifragile

Japan Blues — Sells His Record Collection

Moon Duo — Occult Architecture Vol. 1; Occult Architecture Vol. 2

NSRD — The Workshop for the Restoration of Unfelt Feelings

Onus — Ratsickles

Priests — Nothing Feels Natural

St. Vincent — MASSEDUCATION

Torres — Three Futures

UUUU — UUUU

Wire — Silver/Lead

Favourite Reissues, Compilations, Soundtracks and Live Albums 2017:

Black Sabbath — The Ten Year War

The Fall — Singles 1978-2016

German Oak — Down In The Bunker

Husker Dü — Savage Young Dü

Midori Takada — Through The Looking Glass

Patrick Cowley — Afternooners

The Pentangle — The Albums

Pep Llopis — Poiemusia La Nau Dels Argonautes

Various Artists — Music From Saharan Cellphones Vol. 1

Various Artists — N.E.E.T (Not in Education Employment or Training)

Various Artists — Noise Reduction System: Formative European Electronica 1974-1984

Various Artists — Silhouettes and Shadows: A Gothic Revolution 1978-1986

Favourite Music 2016:

All diese Gewalt — Welt in Klammern

ANOHNI — HOPELESSNESS

Årabrot — Gospel

Car Seat Headrest — Teens of Denial

Cheena — Spend the Night With…

Controlled Bleeding — Larva Lumps and Baby Bumps

David Bowie — Blackstar

The Dwarves of East Agouza — Bes

Exploded View — Exploded View

Fat White Family — Songs for Our Mothers

Fear of Men — Fall Forever

Hedvig Mollestad Trio — Black Stabat Mater

Jozef van Wissem — When Shall This Bright Day Begin

The KVB — Of Desire

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard — Nonagon Infinity

Leonard Cohen — You Want It Darker

The Mekons — Existentialism

Mélanie De Biasio — Blackened Cities

The Minneapolis Uranium Club — Human Exploration; All of Them Naturals

Moor Mother — Fetish Bones

Mütterlein — Orphans of the Black Sun

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds — Skeleton Tree

Parquet Courts — Human Performance

Savages — Adore Life

SHXCXCHCXSH — SsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSs

True Widow — Avvolgere

White Lung — Paradise

Honourable Mentions 2016:

The Caretaker — Everywhere at the End of Time

Diminished Men — Vision in Crime

Dinosaur Jr. — Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not

Future of the Left — The Peace and Truce of Future of the Left

Hen Ogledd — Bronze

Jenny Hval — Blood Bitch

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Suzanne Ciani — Sunergy

The Limiñanas — Malamore

Marissa Nadler — Strangers

PJ Harvey — The Hope Six Demolition Project

Radiohead — A Moon Shaped Pool

Rangda — The Heretic’s Bargain

SubRosa — For This We Fought the Battle of Ages

Swans — The Glowing Man

Wrekmeister Harmonies — Light Falls

Wire — Nocturnal Koreans

Favourite Reissues, Compilations, Soundtracks and Live Albums 2016:

Big Star — The Complete Third

Cluster — 1971-1981

Nine Inch Nails — The Fragile: Deviations 1

Pere Ubu — Architecture of Language 1979-1982

Scott Walker — The Childhood of a Leader (OST)

Sun Ra — Singles: The Definitive 45's Collection 1952-1991

Various Artists — Close to the Noise Floor: Formative UK Electronica 1975-1984

Various Artists — Killed By Deathrock Vol. 2

Various Artists — Wake You Up! Vol. 1: The Rise and Fall of Nigerian Rock Music 1972-1977

Various Artists — Wake You Up! Vol. 2: The Rise and Fall of Nigerian Rock Music 1972-1977

Favourite Music 2015:

Bad Guys — Bad Guynaecology

Baron — Torpor

The Body & Thou — You, Whom I Have Always Hated

Chelsea Wolfe — Abyss

Circuit des Yeux — In Plain Speech

Couch Slut — My Life As a Woman

Die Nerven — Out

The Eccetronic Research Council — Johnny Rocket, Narcissist & Music Machine…I’m Your Biggest Fan

Feu! Chatterton — Ici le jour (a tout enseveli)

Ghold — Of Ruin

The Inward Circles — Belated Movements For An Unsanctioned Exhumation August 1st 1984

Institute — Catharsis

Jenny Hval — Apocalypse, Girl

Low — Ones and Sixes

MEATRAFFLE — Hi Fi Classics

The Mekons — Jura

Men I Trust — Headroom

Negative Scanner — Negative Scanner

Protomartyr — The Agent Intellect

Pyramids — A Northern Meadow

Thundercat — The Beyond/Where the Giants Roam

Torres — Sprinter

U.S Girls — Half Free

Viet Cong — Viet Cong

Honourable Mentions 2015:

Alessandro Cortini — Risveglio

Bell Witch — Four Phantoms

Container — LP

Gnaw Their Tongues — Abyss of Longing Throats

J.C. Satàn — J.C. Satàn

Księżyc — Rabbit Eclipse

LoneLady — Hinterland

Nadine Shah — Fast Food

Spectres — Dying

Titus Andronicus — The Most Lamentable Tragedy

Tropic of Cancer — Stop Suffering

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats — The Night Creeper

Favourite Reissues, Compilations, Soundtracks and Live Albums 2015:

Coil — Backwards

Harmonia — Complete Works

Patrick Cowley — Muscle Up

Peter Christopherson — Live At L'Étrange Festival 2004

Rose McDowall — Cut With the Cake Knife

Sun Ra And His Arkestra — To Those Of Earth… And Other Worlds

Swans — The Gate

Swans — White Light from the Mouth of Infinity/Love of Life

Van der Graaf Generator — After the Flood: At the BBC 1968-77

Various Artists — [Cease & Desist] DIY (Cult Classics from the Post-Punk Era 1978-82)

Various Artists — Next Stop Soweto: Zulu Rock, Afro-Disco and Mbaqanga 1975-1985 Vol. 4

Various Arists — Small Town Country, Vol. 1

Favourite Music 2014:

Angel Olsen — Burn Your Fire for No Witness

Ben Frost — A U R O R A

The Body — I Shall Die Here

Burial Hex — The Hierophant 

Current 93 — I Am the Last of All the Field That Fell

Die Nerven — Fun

Einstürzende Neubauten — Lament

English Heretic — The Underground Service

Fear of Men — Loom

Feu! Chatterton — Feu! Chatterton

Grouper — Ruins

Hedvig Mollestad Trio — Enfant Terrible

Inga Copeland — Because I'm Worth It

The Inward Circles — Nimrod Is Lost in Orion and Osyris in the Doggestarre

Leonard Cohen — Popular Problems

Pharmakon — Bestial Burden

The Proper Ornaments — Wooden Head

Protomartyr — Under Color of Official Right

Pye Corner Audio & Not Waving — Intercepts

Richard Dawson — Nothing Important

Scott Walker & Sunn O))) — Soused

Silo — Work

Swans — To Be Kind

Thou — Heathen

White Lung — Deep Fantasy

Honourable Mentions 2014:

The Antlers — Familiars

Cult of Youth — Final Days

Earth — Primitive and Deadly

East India Youth — Total Strife Forever

EMA — The Future’s Void

Flying Lotus — You’re Dead!

Gazelle Twin — Unflesh

Iceage — Plowing Into The Field Of Love

Off — Wasted Years

Slim Twig — A Hound at the Hem

Sd Laika — That's Harakiri

Somali Yacht Club — The Sun

St. Vincent — St. Vincent

Tindersticks — Ypres

Ty Segall — Manipulator

White Fence — For the Recently Found Innocent

Wovenhand — Refractory Obdurate

Favourite Reissues, Compilations, Soundtracks and Live Albums 2014:

Austin Wintory — The Banner Saga (OST)

Jack Ruby — Hit and Run

John Coltrane — Offering: Live at Temple University

King Crimson — Starless

The Spies — The Battle of Bosworth Terrace

Various Artists — Native North America, Vol 1.: Aboriginal Folk, Rock, and Country 1966-1985

Various Artists — Sombras: Spanish Post-Punk and Dark Pop 1981-1986

Favourite Music 2013:

Chelsea Wolfe — Pain Is Beauty

David Bowie — The Next Day

Dawn of Midi — Dysnomia

Destruction Unit —Deep Trip; Void

The Devil — The Devil

The Dowland Project — Night Sessions

The Fall — Remainderer EP

Fat White Family — Champagne Holocaust

Iceage — You’re Nothing

Industrial Park — Cold White

Jozef Van Wissem — Nihil Obstat

Low — The Invisible Way

New War — New War

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds — Push the Sky Away

Pharmakon — Abandon

Protomartyr — No Technique, All Passion; Colpi Probiti EP

SubRosa — More Constant Than The Gods

Savages — Silence Yourself

True Widow — Circumambulation

Veronica Falls — Waiting for Something to Happen

Wire — Change Becomes Us

Honourable Mentions 2013:

Catholic Spray — Amazon Hunt

Darkside — Psychic

Diarrhea Planet — I'm rich beyond your wildest dreams

Jenny Hval — Innocence Is Kinky

The Limiñanas — Costa Blanca

Mark Mulcahy — Dear Mark J. Mulcahy, I Love You

Merchandise — Totale Night

My Bloody Valentine — m b v

Nadine Shah — Love You Dum and Mad

Nine Inch Nails — Hesitation Marks

Suede — Bloodsports

Tropic of Cancer — Restless Idylls

Ty Segall — Sleeper

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats — Mind Control

Unknown Mortal Orchestra — II

Favourite Reissues, Compilations, Soundtracks and Live Albums 2013:

Bob Dylan — Another Self Portrait (1969-1970): The Bootleg Series Vol. 10

The Conet Project — Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations

Earth Dies Burning — Songs from the Valley of the Bored Teenager 1981-1984

Jozef Van Wissem & SQÜRL — Only Lovers Left Alive (OST)

King Crimson — The Road to Red

Neil Young — Live At The Cellar Door 1970

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds — Live From KCRW

Patrick Cowley — School Daze

Swans — Not Here/Not Now

Various Artists — Deutsche Elektronische Musik 2: Experimental German Rock And Electronic Musik 1971-83

Various Arists — Everything's Coming Up Profits: The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals

Various Artists — Scared to Get Happy: A Story of Indie-Pop 1980-1989

Various Artists — Sorrow Come Pass Me Around: A Survey of Rural Black Religious Music

[thewelcomehomeexploration]

These are all the episodes of Neighbor Buddies:

Season 1 episodes:

• First Day in the Neighborhood

• Mechanical Artist

• Great to Be a Princess

• Star Bright Gazing

• Cheesy with a Side of Honey

• The Mechanical Sword

• Money Jealousy (renamed as Cha Ching Play)

• Gentle Doggy Heart

• Cookies & Dream

• Broken Boundaries

• Shimmer My Heart

• Game Change / Stars of the Show

• Changed

• Brand New Day

Season 2 episodes:

• Music to My Ears

• Apple A Day

• Obstacled Challenge / The Bleeper

• An Ire's Worse Experience

• Royal Rivalry

• Bree's Goggles / Let A New Show Begin

• Secret Project

• Finding the Old Neighbors

• Exploring the Creation

• Home is Where the Shadow Came

Season 3 episodes:

• Right Past Home (alternative name: The Shadow Below Home)

• New and Old / Apple Painting

• Joyful's Day of Games

• Former Star of the Show

• Hotdogs, Tomatoes with a Side of Acting

(3 parts)

• Mailman Helpers

• Momma Bird's Puppy

• Felt Magic / Howdy and Aileen's Star Shop

• Double Cheesy Jokers / Clowning Around

• Chasing Your Local Mailman / Star Bug Hunting

• Frankly Ire / Am I A Boy or A Girl?

• Game Change 2: Updated Edition

• Golden Poppy Bakery / Playing with Royalty & Business

• Respecting Differences

Here are Season 4 episodes:

• Swap the Role

• Just a Pooch / Call-A-Best-Friend

• Eat with an Eye / You're the Most

• Birthday Neighbor

• Where is Pomme? / Half-Puppet, Half Shadow

• Kinder Garden / Home Flowers

• Guide to the Loving Stars

• Little Puppet

• Friendship Crazy

• Heartlight's Story Time

• The Case of Danni's Mysterious Self (which is the "final episode" for this season)

Here are Season 5 episodes:

• A Surprising Dark History

• Home Sickness

• Comfort of a Neighbor

• Holiday Winters (Holiday Special)

• Spook with Candy (Spooky Special)

• The Magic Rain

• Acting for the Show

• 4th Wall Breaker

• New Royal Rules

• Game Change 3: Inside the Game

• The Welcoming World of Welcome Home

• Playing Through the Color Bars

Here are the Season 6 episodes:

• The Color Bars from Below

• Restore the Things We've Missed

• The Rainbow Cassette

• Below the Dark Forest

• Pomme and the Home's Shadow

• Control Against Trauma

• Start of the End (Final episode of Neighbor Buddies)

Those were the lists of episodes made by the Neighbor Buddies creator, Ellaine Laurier Madden.

We'll update you with these episodes highlighted within this list.

So please, be patient.

[spockvarietyhour]

The Man in the High Castle S04E01 “Hexagram 64″ 

[genevieveetguy]

I've bought several glasses. I know, they will be all broken sooner or later so I've hid one of them. One day when you need this glass, give me a phone, and... I'll tell you where it was hidden.

As Tears Go By (Wong Gok ka moon), Wong Kar-Wai (1988)

[ljones41]

Ranking of "THE DEFENDERS" (2017) Episodes

Below is my ranking of the episodes from the 2017 Marvel Netflix miniseries, "THE DEFENDERS". Created by Douglas Petrie and Marco Ramirez, the eight-part miniseries starred Charlie Cox, Kristen Ritter, Mike Colter and Finn Jones: 

RANKING OF "THE DEFENDERS" (2017) EPISODES

1. (1.03) "Worst Behavior" - Danny Rand aka Iron Fist's efforts to reach the headquarters of the Hand leaders lead to a final team up of the four Defenders. Meanwhile, the secret of Elektra Natchios' surprising re-appearance is revealed.

2. (1.06) "Ashes, Ashes" - Stick, a martial arts mentor and enemy of the Hand, reveal the connection between the evil organization and Danny. Meanwhile, the latter finds himself sidelined by Stick the other Defenders. And Alexandra Reid encounters difficulties being leader of the Hand and Elektra's new mentor.

3. (1.01) "The H Word" - In this premiere episode, the four Defenders - Danny, along with Luke Cage, Jessica Jones and Matt Murdock aka Daredevil - and their friends investigate separate mysteries involving the Hand and a potential apocalypse for New York City.

4. (1.08) "The Defenders" - In this final episode, New York edges closer to disaster, while Elektra sees what is beyond the wall. The Defenders, Danny's girlfriend Colleen Wing, and N.Y.P.D. detective Mercedes "Misty" Knight make a last-ditch effort to save the city from the Hand's plans.

5. (1.05) "Take Shelter" - The Hand's control over Elektra is questioned. Danny's girlfriend and colleague, Colleen Wing, has an unpleasant reunion with her former mentor, Bakuto. And Luke manages to capture Sowande, one of the Hand's leaders.

6. (1.07) "Fish in the Jailhouse" - Matt, Jessica and Luke embark on a desperate search for Danny, who had been kidnapped by the Hand, thanks to Stick's failed machinations. Colleen and former nurse Claire Temple debate over heroism, while hiding with the other friends of the Defenders. And Elektra tries to convince Danny into going along with the Hand's plan.

7. (1.02) "Mean Right Hook" - As the Hand's conspiracy takes shape, Matt decides to investigate the mysteries surrounding it. Jessica investigates another lead and finds herself in trouble with Misty and the N.Y.P.D. Luke, Danny and Colleen investigate separate leads, leading into a brief and violent encounter between the two men.

8. (1.04) "Royal Dragon" - The Defenders finally get to know each other and discuss their separate investigations during dinner at the Royal Dragon restaurant in Hell's Kitchen. Their dinner is interrupted by Stick, who had escaped from the Hand and also by Alexandra Reid and her minions.

[seriesconfession]

― The Defenders (2017) Madame Gao: Ela te fez segurar a mão dela ao atravessar a rua. Você se afastou como se não precisasse dela. Me diga... O que você daria para segurar a mão dela de novo?

[byneddiedingo]

As Tears Go By (Wong Kar-Wai, 1988)

Cast: Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung, Jacky Cheung, Alex Man, Ronald Wong, Ang Wong, Huang Pa-Ching. Screenplay: Jeffrey Lau, Wong Kar-Wai. Cinematography: Andrew Lau. Production design: William Chang. Film editing: Cheong Bei-Dak, Kai Kit-Wai. Music: Danny Chung, Teddy Robin Kwan.

It takes mastery of a genre to transcend that genre, as Martin Scorsese did with the gangster film and Douglas Sirk did with the romantic melodrama, and Wong Kar Wai does just that with his first feature, As Tears Go By. Scorsese looms larger here, in that his Mean Streets (1973) was an acknowledged influence on Wong's film, but I can't help seeing touches of Sirk in the portrayal of the romance between Wah (Andy Lau) and Ngor (Maggie Cheung). Yet Wong is very much his own man, and the film is a smashing (in all senses of the word) success full of fire and energy, yet able to show the ameliorating effect that Ngor has on the initially standoffish Wah, preoccupied with making his way in the underworld and defending his friend Fly (Jacky Cheung). The use on the soundtrack of Sandy Lam's version of Giorgio Moroder and Tom Whitlock's Oscar-winning “Take My Breath Away” evokes its source, Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986), but it also accentuates the pop-culture-saturated milieu in which the action and the romance take place.