#I once out the laser in his water bowl and he splashed himself and got annoyed at me

[rowanhoney]

.

[the-slasher-files]

Hii, i saw your requests are open so I guess I could try asking,

Can I ask how would Michael and Jason (and the other slashers if you'd like) react finding out that it's their S/O's birthday. Like they noticed how much food they prepared but s/o didn't mention the occasion because it's not that big of a deal to them but still celebrates it in a way.

Hey, thanks for the request! I love this idea and it was really fun to write.. also added more slashers so I hope you enjoy 🔪💕

MASTERLIST

SLASHERS REACT TO THEIR S/O BIRTHDAY

INCLUDES JASON, MICHAEL, BO, VINCENT, BILLY and STU

JASON VOORHEES

How he finds out: when you left your wallet face open with your drivers license out.. boy was curious

Ever since living out at the camp you just kind of forgot about your birthday, it never really mattered, you were happy just as is with what you had

but he plans it for weeks, Jason can’t give you much in the day to day and he just wants to spoil you and give you the best day after years of looking after him

Waking up in the morning you smelt fresh coffee and sweets, which was more than unusual in the cabin

Rolling over to look at the nightstand you found your favorite mug steaming with hot coffee and Jason had put in your preferred creamer, just the way you liked it. Beside the mug was a small little note sloppily marked with drawn hearts and the words “I love you”

Jason melted your heart on a daily biases but this... it made your heart feel like it oozed right out of your ribcage

Propping yourself up to sip the coffee there was a sudden crash in the kitchen making you jump out of bed... was there an intruder?? was Jason in danger??... grabbing the heavy machete that was resting against the nightstand you faltered to the kitchen, hair dishevelled, barefoot, only wearing one of Jason’s ripped oversized shirts

oh... OH.. it’s just Jason cooking??? flour was everywhere, about 10 different bowls were scattered along the counter, the bacon was smoking and the pancakes? were burnt

Turning around owl-eyed, with flour on his mask and tattered clothes, Jason gives his biggest grin and signs “happy birthday!!”

Once you help him with breakfast he will be glued to your side all day.. more than usual.. Jason wants to give you back rubs, hugs and kisses as much as he can

His gift to you is a bracelet his mom had worn, it is the most meaningful gift Jason could ever give, and it’s beautiful

In the evening he will take you to a new trail you had never been on, old camp lanterns to light your way through the woods and into a large meadow. A large blanket covers the damp grass and there is a small basket with all your fav snacks

A picnic to watch the sunset and stargaze... perfect

MICHAEL MYERS

How he finds out: Michael knows everything about you, he had watched you for a solid year before you even knew, but it will take him a long time to get comfortable and trusting with you so it will probably be like the 5th year together before he really does something for you

Now Michael is not affectionate and caring is just not in his nature so your birthday is going to be interesting... to the average human it will seem like it is a shit birthday but knowing Michael the way you do it is the best birthday he can give you

All these years together he had done nothing on your birthday so you expected it to just be another day, but nope

Waking up to the smell of fresh tea or coffee (which ever you prefer) a steaming cup was on the nightstand

Michael was still in bed with you which was unusual but it was even stranger when he was running his large hands all over you.. gently

There will most likely be some morning sex but he is oddly gentle, making your pleasure a priority over his own

Michael will allow you to touch him for however long you want and where you want without protest, but ONLY today so take advantage

Going to the living room you will see a present you had been eyeing for yourself for a while now. It could either be a really nice blanket to clothes to cookware to a laptop. Michael is observant about everything so he will notice the tabs in your phone or that time you walked by a clothing store and almost screamed at how nice the shirt was in the window

of course he stole it and there might be a tiny amount of blood on it but who cares lol

That is honestly about the extent Michael will go with you and that’s more than enough for you

BO SINCLAIR

How he finds out: Bo isn’t exactly a gentleman with a lot of things so he really doesn’t mind just asking how old you are or when your birthday is

Most likely Bo will forget when it is the first 2 years but the 3rd year.. oh baby he’s got it now... with the help of Vincent reminding him

Birthdays have never been big for the Sinclair brothers, especially for Bo, he literally has no idea what to do

One of the only ways Bo knows love is through fast pleasure... aka waking up to him eating you out. Like Michael, he will put your pleasure first today and is going to be gentle with you, so enjoy it

Be careful because he might want to spend your whole birthday in bed if you don’t stop him

Your presents will probably be some lingerie he bought you (which is basically his present) and a night out on the town, going to your favorite restaurant and taking you where ever you want

Even in the truck he will let you pick the music which is honestly a miracle

Bo will try to bite his tongue as much as possible and try to be the best gentlemen he can be until you get home ;)

Going home to Ambrose he takes a different road, up a hill that’s long and twisted, Bo just smiles when you ask where you’re going, man is saying nothing for once and it might freak you out

Getting to the destination, it’s a small walk in the woods until there is a large clearing and a small lake to your right, this is where he used to go swimming as a kid and this is sometimes where Bo will disappear to on bad days

He will lead you to the dock and will lay you down, watching the stars and hearing the splashing of the water mix in with the Louisiana nature... It is pure bliss

Bo cannot help himself and will initiate a heavy make-out session

This is the way of showing you he loves you

VINCENT SINCLAIR  

How he finds out: Baby boy is far more observant than his brother thank god, so he will probably check your drivers license if you left your wallet out

Vincent will honestly plan something for weeks if he can

Usually he is a night owl but today Vincent will get up nice and early cooking your favorite breakfast, well at least trying, honestly he can make fantastic omelets

Waking up you will see a small tray of food at the edge of the bed, an omelet, bacon, a glass of juice and some small bouquet of native Louisiana flowers he had picked

Along with a little note card saying “happy birthday” probably with some little doodles on the sides making it fancy

Waking into the room Vincent will have either your coffee or tea, handing it to you with a gentle kiss

It will probably be just a slow, gentle, quiet morning with wandering hands, little kisses and soft words

Today he will let you do whatever the hell you want and will try desperately to get Bo to leave you alone for the day

If you want to go for a walk he’ll go with, if you want to stay inside all day in your sweats watching movies that’s perfect.. whatever you want

Towards the evening Bo will come home with your favorite foods, since Vincent hates leaving town. Dinner will be candle lit with soft music in the background. Vince will try to dress nice and in something that isn’t covered in wax

After dinner he will take you to the theater, watching the old movies you grew up on, even though half of the time you are only paying attention to the tongue down your throat  

For some reason my head kept saying slow dancing in the rain, so I guess when you are coming home it starts to rain and you guys slow dance in the streetlight

Once home he has 2 boxes for you, lovely wrapped. In one box it is your very own knife with a carved handle of your favorite animal to match his blades. In the next box is something you had been looking at getting for a long time, a new pair of boots he watched you look for online

BILLY AND STU

How they find out: Honestly they’re probably just going to ask you

Stu is probably going to be the more outgoing one and screaming happy birthday to you when you first wake up, Billy would just let you sleep in and drink his coffee beside you, running his hands on you and gently whispering happy birthday to you instead

Stu would make you a big breakfast and even try to make you a cake but something would be so off lol.. he tried

Billy just takes a store bought one from the fridge that he had saved just in case this happened

yes, they want cake for breakfast

Whatever you want to do that day they will make it happen, honestly it’s going to be fun regardless with them

An arcade or bowling or crashing some little kids laser tag party is probably going to be it for your afternoon. Winning silly arcade prizes, stu will get you a stupid whoopie cushion and Billy will probably win a little stuffed bear for you

Driving home Billy will let you play your music and he will just drive around the city, just signing your hearts out and laughing and just making memories, watching the nightlife and city lights

Ending up at the City viewpoint, seeing all the lights in the dark never looked so pretty with your boys, it might even leave Stu speechless

Whenever you are ready to come home a horror movie is defiantly on the list, whatever one you want and they will order pizza

Honestly Stu will probably pass out on the couch from the long hilarious day and Billy will quietly drag you to the bedroom.. really getting to show how much he loves you ;)  

[miscellaneous-miraculous]

Painted Lady Chapter 3

Read on AO3 here

*four years later*

The apartment was a mess and Adrien loved it. He loved finding Nino’s headphones in the most random spots. He loved Alya’s ‘conspiracy wall,’ photos and articles pinned up everywhere with sticky notes of every color. She claimed there was a system, but no one except Alya had ever figured it out. He even – no, especially, loved finding Marinette’s stray needles everywhere. It reminded him of when he was younger, before his father became a supervillain and all-around jerk. It also made their apartment feel lived in, something his own home had never been like.

“Marinette!” Adrien dropped his keys in the bowl, kicking off his shoes at the door. “I got the fabric!” It was Nino’s turn to cook dinner if the scent of tajine was anything to go by. Adrien could already feel his mouth watering.

“Thanks!” Marinette called from the mezzanine. Her ‘nest’ as Alya had dubbed it. Marinette practically lived up there during finals or when she had big projects. Adrien had carried her down after finding her asleep at her desk more than a few times. She leaned over the edge, a tape measure draped around her neck and a few pencils stuck in her hair. “I’ll be down in second, I’ve just got to finish hemming this.”

Adrien nodded, turning his attention to Alya and her wall. “Anything interesting happen today?” He noticed a few new sticky notes.

“Miraculous wise? No. Journalism wise? Also no,” Alya sighed, pushing her glasses up. She was still wearing the white button down she’d put on in the morning, but she’d changed from her skirt into a pair of orange running shorts, her plaid blazer tossed over the back of her desk chair. “Any chance Chat Noir wants to graffiti the Eifel tower or something?”

“I think I’ll pass on that one, but I’ll let you know if I see anything on patrol later.”

“Fair enough,” Alya shrugged, returning to her board. “I’ve got a few leads to check again, but I doubt anything new will come up. Still nothing in any international news either.”

“Is bad I just want something happen?” Adrien set down the fabric bag on the couch. “We finally solved the thing with my father, but Lila’s still out there. I just wish we had a clearer target.”

“Me too, Sunshine,” Alya took a sticky note from her wall, eyebrows furrowing. “You’re on patrol later, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Mind if I tag along?” she folded the sticky note into her shorts pocket.

“Sure, you know you’re free to come whenever, right?”

Alya smirked, “Like I’d ever willingly tag along on a day that’s just you and Ladybug.” Adrien blushed, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. “There’s a reason we alternate patrol days.”

“Like you and Nino are any better.”

“Try you and Nino,” Alya snorted in laughter. “Last time you two patrolled together all the news stations were covering a brain freeze contest between Chat Noir and Carapace.”

“That I won!” Nino called from the kitchen.

“Did not!” Adrien protested. Alya only rolled her eyes, looking amused.

 “Case in point.”

Adrien was spared replying by Nino shouting, “Dinner in five!”

“I’ll get Marinette,” he said, picking up the fabric bag.

“Don’t get too distracted, lover boy,” Alya said with a wink.

Adrien ignored her, making his way up the ladder. Marinette had several pins in her mouth as she worked on the hem of her dress. It was plain black aside from the two tiny Ladybug stitched over the right shoulder and there weren’t any fancy folds or stiches because of the jacket she’d paired with it. Adrien hadn’t seen it finished, but he knew it was a pink silk bolero that she’d spent days hand embroidering with different flowers. It was the final piece in a collection of six.

“Marinette, Nino said dinner’s almost ready.”

“That’s five minutes of work I can squeeze in,” she said, taking the pins from her mouth.

Adrien sighed, resting his head in his arms as he waited. Then his eyes zeroed in on the basket of yarn in the corner. He had barely reached for it when Marinette said, “Absolutely not, remember what happened last time you got into my yarn?”

“It was one time!” he protested.

“And how many hours of rerolling the balls?” She shook her head, still focused on her work.

Adrien mumbled something about the softness of the yarn before reaching for it again. “Adrien Agreste, I will bring out the laser pointer.”

“Is that a promise?”

Marinette sighed, “Alright, alright, I’m coming.” She laid the pins and tape measure on her desk, shuffling a few papers before making her way down the ladder. “How was your day?”

“It was alright. Finally finished the equation set from the beginning of the week, with a little help from Plagg. Who knew he was so good at explaining Physics?”

“I’ve been around since before Physics was invented,” Plagg yawned. “Now cheese bread, there’s an innovation worth celebrating.”

“I’ll pick some up next time I’m at the bakery,” Marinette promised. “Just try not to eat through it in two days, Mama was worried last time since three out of the four of us are lactose intolerant and it was all gone in a day.”

“You poor, poor humans,” Plagg sighed. “Missing out on all the gooey goodness of cheese.”

“I’m so glad Wyazz just eats lettuce,” Nino said, placing a large dish in the center of the table. He was still wearing the apron Marinette had made him – a green hexagonal pattern embroidered with the words ‘turtle-ly awesome’ and a little smiling turtle underneath.

“Yeah, you and Marinette really lucked out in the kwami feeding department,” Alya said, taking her seat. “Remember when Trixx had me going to the store for frozen mice?”

“I’d rather not.” Adrien shuddered as he remembered opening the freezer and thinking they looked just a little too appetizing for comfort. Marinette might be fine eating flowers but if he ever found a rodent in his mouth, he and Plagg were going to have a serious talk. Especially since he and Marinette had talked about going to the pet store to pick out a hamster once the school year ended.

“I still remember Nino’s screams when he found one on his pillow,” Marinette giggled.

“That was not cool, dude,” Nino frowned at Trixx who merely shrugged.

“I was saving it for later.”

“And you wanted to see Nino’s face when he found it,” Tikki added. It had been her who told Alya that kwamis could eat almost anything, even if they did have their preferences. After that Trixx had been negotiated down to chicken and the occasional sugar mouse.

“Oh, of course,” Trixx smiled indulgently.

“Nino, do you have a gig tonight?” Adrien asked, changing the subject before he could think any more about the possible taste of frozen mice.

Nino shook his head, “Nope, finally got a break in my schedule. Next week’s packed though.”

“Up for some Mech Strike after dinner then? I convinced Marinette to take a break and join us.”

“Since when?” Marinette raised an eyebrow.

“Since just now,” Adrien said, pulling out his best kitten eyes.

The battle didn’t last long.

“As long as you’re prepared to lose,” Marinette said, getting herself more tajine.

“I’d expect nothing less, my lady.”

“Speak for yourself, bro,” Nino protested. They all gave him a look – Nino was notoriously bad at video games. Even though he’d been getting slightly better over the years, he was still no match for Marinette. “Can’t a man dream?”

They all laughed at that.

After dinner Marinette went to set up the game while Alya and Nino did the dishes. Adrien and Alya had been banned from doing dishes together ever since Alya had realized he hissed like a cat whenever the water splashed him, and she found it entirely too entertaining. The moment Marinette sat down Adrien sprawled himself across her lap. “I hope this isn’t some elaborate scheme to distract me,” she said, shifting to a more comfortable position as she ran her fingers through his hair.

Adrien gasped in mock hurt as he placed a hand on his chest, “How could you think so low of me? I simply missed my lady’s company.”

“We spent the entire day together yesterday,” Marinette said with a teasing glint in her eye.

“Exactly, yesterday, today is an entirely different day.”

"Hmm," Marinette tapped her chin. “Well, we could always meet up for some late-night ice cream after your patrol.”

“Ooh, that new place that just opened? With all the toppings?” Adrien’s ice cream usually ended up at least ninety percent toppings.

“Yeah, I’ve been wanting to try it out.”

"Let’s do it then,” Adrien said, practically purring with excitement.

Continue on AO3

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23580646/chapters/58909261

[siribear]

alice hauls codsworth back to sanctuary. with half his body blown off, he’s lighter than she’d have thought. but still she half carries, half drags the pile of limbs all the way back to sturges. a raider straggler has the unfortunate luck of meeting her in the woods, only to be gunned down without a thought.

‘fix him,’ she says, covered in sweat and blood, when she all but drops him at sturges’s feet.

he looks like he wants to question her, but thankfully doesn’t. he only smiles at her and nods. ‘he’ll be good as new, don’t you worry.’ he waves over jun long to help him carry codsworth further into sanctuary. ‘and thanks for the seeds. marcy’s already started planting.’

she has notes, alice wants to say, but her voice doesn’t work. instead, she hands over some of the scrap she found. aluminum cans, wires, screws. anything to help. sturges sorts them in the utility belt of his overalls.

she turns on her heel and makes for abernathy farm.

-

lucy isn’t surprised to see her come over the horizon, but blake and connie do a double take at the sight of her.

‘we didn’t think you’d actually get it. you kinda stop believing in stuff like this, nowadays,’ connie explains. ‘listen, any time you want to trade, you just ask. we’ll take care of you.’

alice forces a smile. ‘and will you join the minutemen? try to trust us again?’

connie and blake look at each other. behind them, lucy is practically bouncing in place.

‘we talked about it this morning,’ blake says. ‘we’re in. we’ll support the minutemen again.’ he looks to connie with the locket hanging from her fingers and smiles. ‘the commonwealth could use more people like you guys.’

‘we won’t let you down.’ alice bows her head slightly. ‘and actually, i’d like to discuss opening up further trade for the future...’

by the end of it, they agree to supply the minutemen with food as long as the minutemen provide protection for the farm. connie and blake return to working the land, while lucy stands next to her, grinning.

‘knew you could do it.’

‘it was easy,’ alice says with a flippant wave of her hand. she hooks her thumbs in her pockets. ‘that locket the raiders stole - they just stuffed it in some toolbox with a screwdriver and some duct tape. didn’t even care about it after they took it.’

‘well, yeah. doubt they could even get fifteen caps for it even if mom’s family has had it for generations.’

alice sighs. ‘that’s the thing. these raiders took something important to someone and pretty much tossed it away. they killed your sister, took it, and treated it like it was trash. it’s... disgusting. morally.’

lucy just stares. ‘you’re really serious about this stuff, huh?’

‘yeah. yeah, i guess i am.’

-

by noon, alice returns to sanctuary, more caps in hand. however, it’s preston that greets her at the bridge.

‘hey. sturges said i missed you this morning. good you see you made it back.’

‘had to drop something off at the abernathy’s. and,’ she begins with a wink, ‘they agreed to support the minutemen.’

his eyes go wide. ‘really?’

she cants her head to the side, smiling. ‘did you doubt me?’

‘n-no, it’s not that. i just.. can’t believe we’re really doing this. rebuilding the minutemen, i mean.’ he rubs the back of his head. ‘just yesterday we were trapped in the museum, and now this? it’s like a dream.’

alice pauses, considering. to him, this is a dream. to her - ‘we’re just getting started, preston.’

he nods, and she watches his demeanor change. he settles, shoulders squaring. ‘actually, there’s something else i want to talk to you about.’

‘more dark and terrible minuteman secrets?’

preston laughs at that. ‘not as far as i know. but i want to talk to you about... leading the minutemen.’ he holds up a hand when she tries to interject. ‘hear me out. we need a leader, someone who can bring us together. you can do that, you did that.

alice, i’m asking you to be the general of the minutemen.’

she reels. ‘i - me? preston, you just met me. i only learned about the minutemen yesterday. shouldn’t you lead them?’

he shakes his head. ‘i can lead my men through a fire fight, but i’m not general material. you helped us when you didn’t have to. i don’t think you understand how... different, that is.’

her mouth thins into a grimace. ‘that’s kind of sad, actually.’ she clears her throat. ‘look, i want to help you. i do.’ his face falls, and it breaks her heart, just a little. ‘i will. but i want you to think about this, okay? this is all very sudden.’

‘i... understand,’ he says slowly. ‘i’m sorry, i didn’t mean to - ’ he sighs. ‘i need to finish checking the area. excuse me.’

damn, she thinks when he leaves. alice rubs at her eyes, tries not to imagine the bags there, and heads further into sanctuary. the sound of a blowtorch carries across the road from sturges’s makeshift workshop, but alice forces herself not to look. dogmeat trots over with a happy woof.

‘good job delivering those seeds, boy,’ she says, scratching his ears.

he woofs again.

alice grabs a box of preserved snack cakes from her stash of food and heads back to her room. unfortunately, with all the windows blown out and the curtains torn apart, the view from her bed is the workshop. and, of course, sturges knelt in front of a pile of metal limbs, screwdriver in hand as he tries to put together one reminder of her old life.

-

when sturges takes a break, so does she. half of her snack cakes sit abandoned (at least, until dogmeat gets to them) next to her bed when she leaves her house. she spies jun long struggling to carry two buckets of water from the newly fixed water pump and heads over to help him.

‘thank you,’ he says, quiet enough that she almost doesn’t hear him.

‘we haven’t had a chance to talk, have we?’ she makes her voice light. ‘how are you holding up?’

‘it’s... it’s getting better.’ he shifts his weight when water splashes onto one leg. ‘i’m glad we came here.’ he sets the bucket down at the edge of the garden and she does the same. ‘we - marcy and i - lost our son, before we came here. i promised i’d keep him safe, but i... couldn’t,’ he finishes lamely.

alice takes a steadying breath. exhales. ‘i know how you feel. it isn’t easy.’

jun gasps. ‘but you’re still - you’re still going. you haven’t given up yet.’

‘i can’t,’ she says. ‘i still have people to live for.’

he turns his head, and alice follows his gaze to his wife, weeding the area around her planted seeds. ‘i-i see. thank you. thank you, i understand. sorry, no one wants to see a grown man feeling sorry for himself.’

‘hey,’ she starts, softly, ‘what was your son’s name?’

‘kyle.’ his voice is louder, more sure. ‘his name was kyle.’

-

dinner calls alice and the quincy survivors to one of the houses without a collapsed ceiling. sturges, jun, mama murphy, and alice gather in the living room while marcy stirs a cooking pot over a small fire. no need for ventilation when half the wall is made of holes. even preston joins them, eventually, though he sits on the other end of the couch, putting mama murphy between him and alice.

she sighs. mama murphy gives her a knowing look, and alice knows it doesn’t take a drug induced sight see the tension rolling off of preston. he hardly looks at either of them, laser musket held tight between both hands.

thankfully, marcy serves dinner soon after, ladling some sort of soup into a scavenged assortment of bowls. jun hands out cans of clean water to each of them. alice pops hers open first.

‘hang on a moment,’ sturges interrupts. ‘now, this is the first time we’ve all,’ he looks to her, ‘been together since we got here. i just wanted to say another thank you to alice for getting us here.’ he raises his can in her direction. ‘to alice,’ he says, and drinks.

‘to alice,’ a murmured chorus repeats. then, louder, is preston’s, ‘to alice.’

she drinks.

the food is disgusting. her first sip sends a shiver up her spine, but no one else complains. the others eat almost enthusiastically, but all alice can taste is barely flavored water. and soggy meat. the vegetables are passable, though all she can manage is one more bite before she has to set her bowl aside. dogmeat eagerly finishes her leftovers once again.

mama murphy grins at her, too knowing, and it sends alice outside with a quick thank you to marcy before leaving.

‘marcy’s food is an acquired taste,’ preston says from behind her.

she turns and makes a face. ‘it’s not a taste i’ve acquired.’

he chuckles. ‘i wanted to say i’m sorry, for earlier. i shouldn’t have put all that on you so soon.’

‘don’t worry about it. i think i’m starting to understand.’ she shoves her hands in her pockets.

‘good.’ he takes a step closer. ‘because i still think i’m right. and believe me, i’ve thought about it.’

she looks up at him, at his earnest eyes, his determined frown. and sighs. ‘if you’re absolutely sure.’

he rocks forward on the balls of his feet. ‘i am! and the benefit of being the last minuteman: there’s no one to disagree with me. general,’ he adds with a grin.

‘if i’m going to be general, i want my own fancy hat.’ she flicks the brim of his. ‘it’s just not fair if my second in command has one and i don’t.’

‘easy enough,’ he says, smile growing. it’s incredibly endearing and makes her want to believe she can do this. ‘there was another settlement that requested help,’ there’s a pause for before but he continues, sparing a glance for codsworth’s... body, in the corner of the workshop, ‘i’ll go with you, this time. at least until sturges finishes putting codsworth back together.’

‘we’ll leave in the morning, then. i need to sleep off the memory of whatever it is i just ate.’

‘roger that, general.’

alice frowns. it’ll take getting used to.

[koreanpike3-blog]

New Trash make videos with flash, panache, and not much cash

"Water? Coffee? Gushers? Fruit by the Foot?" offered director Connor Wiles as his volunteer crew carried equipment past classrooms filled with board games and crates of toys. Over two days in mid-November, Wiles and his partner in the production company New Trash, Nat Alder, turned part of the Kidz Express Boys & Girls Club in Austin into a music-video set for Chicago hip-hop duo Mother Nature. This was to be New Trash's 30th video in less than three years, and they've developed a vibrant, playful style both despite and because of their typically minuscule budgets—the Mother Nature shoot would cost about $500.

Launched in summer 2016, New Trash quickly earned notoriety working fast and cheap with artists from the local underground scene, filming fistfights, dance troupes, vampires, and more. That reputation helped them land a job this year with breakout Chicago rapper Valee, who's signed to Kanye West's GOOD Music and distributed by Def Jam. Their video for his track "Juice & Gin" has a surreal, B-movie-futuristic party vibe, alternately soaked in DayGlo fluorescence and blood-red light. It's by far the biggest platform yet for New Trash's distinctive DIY aesthetic—coated in spray paint and splashed with radioactive ooze, like something from the VHS collection of the coolest person at a comic book store. "Our guarantee is, we will shoot even if it's two of us and an iPad or 40 people and a Def Jam artist," says Alder.

For the Mother Nature production, Wiles and Alder were joined by four crew members: camera operator David Hughes Jr., lighting director Anastasia Mikolyuk, and designers Olivia Laird and Claire Wiles (Connor's younger sister), who converted a Kidz Express classroom into two color-saturated sets. "Everyone who we bring onto the project is there for that collaboration and is doing it for the chance to make something fun—art for art's sake," says Alder. "We can shoot in a single day, we don't have to hire sound people, and we can do it quick and dirty and emulate people we love."

New Trash's founders are young—Wiles is 24, Alder 23—and with encouragement from their fathers, they developed idiosyncratic tastes even younger. Wiles dug deeply into Gene Kelly and John Waters, while Alder fell in love with Steven Spielberg and Robert Rodriguez. Wiles is into expressionist spectacle—what he calls "smash and panache"—and Alder has a dark sense of humor that drives his interest in the "inner perversions" of his characters. The two of them met in fall 2013, during their first week of classes at Columbia College, where Wiles was impressed by Alder's movie knowledge at an icebreaker event.

"They throw chips at you if you answer trivia questions, and Nat was just ringing them out. He had more chips than he could carry," Wiles says. Through their four years at Columbia, where they both pursued BFAs in Cinema Art and Science, they became friends and colleagues, filling roles on each other's productions.

New Trash began in earnest just before their senior year. Columbia offers select teams of filmmakers in its Advanced Practicum class a small budget to make a short film, in exchange for which the school owns the final product. But Wiles and Alder had a different idea. "We didn't want Columbia to own our work," says Wiles, "so we didn't take any money from them and instead decided to put our time and effort into using grindhouse and classic cheap-movie techniques to produce our own pieces at no to low cost."

Alder and Wiles spent their senior year making music videos. The first was for "Crucifix" by Chicago folk-punk band Little Yellow Dog, whose members Wiles had met while filming at defunct DIY venue the Keep (bandleader Dakota Buyka lived there for several months). Valee has been their only major-label client so far, but over New Trash's brief lifetime they've expanded their reach to work with an increasingly diverse roster of artists.

For Latinx prog rockers Avantist, New Trash crafted a harrowing black-light hallucination speckled with disembodied eyeballs ("Red Bible"); for dark electro-pop outfit Pixel Grip, they conjured a 1980s-style dystopia populated by hazmat-suited dancers ("Golden Moses"); for Milwaukee garage band the Pukes, they turned a slapstick John Waters-inspired heist sequence into a bloody party, complete with a dildo fight, a cameo by a kinky Jesus, and a robber made up like Waters's favorite drag queen, Divine ("Execution"). In April 2017, Alder and Wiles made a video for "Coins," by Chicago synth-rock eccentrics Woongi, that depicts a generic Barney-type dinosaur under siege from a group of kids, with a sort of suburban Lord of the Flies feel. On the day of the shoot, though, New Trash couldn't find anyone to wear the dinosaur costume—so Wiles stepped into the fuzzy purple shoes himself. As Alder filmed from a borrowed golf cart, he ran through a field in Barrington, chased by a preteen soccer team wielding cardboard spears.

Wiles jokes that his dream collaborator is "anyone who wants to," but New Trash's standards are simple. "A good song goes a long way," Alder says. "You hear it once and you think, 'There's no way we're not shooting this.'"

At Kidz Express, Alder and Wiles were making a video for Mother Nature's unreleased song "Simple." In April of this year they'd booked the duo—Shasta Matthews, aka Klevah Knox, and Tierney Reed, aka T.R.U.T.H.—to perform at a New Trash video-release party for Chicago pop artist Liska Steele. They hadn't seen Mother Nature perform before, and they were bowled over by the rappers' command of the stage. Alder and Wiles screened the duo's video for "This Yo Year" at the party too. "That's where we met New Trash," said Matthews, as she weaved metal rings into Reed's hair for the shoot. "They were just playing videos, and then they played our video, which they didn't do—but they celebrated us, you know?"

New Trash later cast Matthews and Reed in the "Juice & Gin" video. "We were thinking that we was gonna be extras," Reed says. "We ended up being the main girls." Alder and Wiles's policy for clients is "pay what you can," and Valee's people could afford to exceed New Trash's usual "no to low cost" range. Wiles says they splurged by hiring "an actual producer who knows how to do paperwork."

Wiles and Alder freelance as video editors and work as production assistants to support themselves, but they're optimistic that New Trash will eventually get them properly paid directing gigs. "We are of course building a portfolio to hopefully land bigger-budget projects where we have the opportunity to pay our crew back," says Wiles. "Many of them have repeatedly donated their time and talent. But at this stage, all the budget goes to what you're seeing on the screen."

The Valee shoot got Mother Nature interested in making a New Trash video of their own. "They're very DIY, which is our approach. We do everything by ourselves," Matthews says. "We're constantly having to compromise and wear all these hats."

Mother Nature had already come to Kidz Express to give a workshop on writing and performing, invited by Imani Hardy, who manages the facility's after-school hip-hop club. (He also raps under the name Mani Jurdan as part of the HUEY Gang crew.) When Reed and Matthews recorded "Simple," they recruited a half dozen kids from the club to add vocals to the hook, complementing the song's bright, bouncy instrumental. These same children agreed to appear in the video too, and New Trash were given use of the Kidz Express space for free.

For New Trash, DIY isn't a philosophy so much as a reality they've adapted to—making videos with little more than passion for the work. "If somebody told me they would give me money to direct a Nickelodeon show," Wiles jokes, "I would be out of here in a fucking second."

When planning their shoots, Wiles and Alder aim for striking visuals that they can accomplish on a low budget. After initial discussions with a client, they guide further conceptualization by assembling a lookbook of references from film, photography, paintings, and architecture. "If [the musicians] have big thematic ideas, it's like, 'Look, we'll try and boil this into the DNA as best we can, but the realities of the day are what they are,'" Alder says. "Maybe we won't have a giant laser cross, but we'll try to do something with lasers."

The "Simple" video draws from the exaggerated aesthetic of maximalist late-90s hip-hop videos, particularly the work of director Hype Williams. The crew's shot list called for colors "shiny and bold like a piece of candy wrapped in cellophane," and its central conceit is that the kids themselves are directing a video for Mother Nature.

On the first day of filming, the six young performers arrived an hour later than expected. Hughes and Mikolyuk set up a set-within-a-set on a parking lot next to the playground, hoping to capture as much daylight as possible. They arranged a director's chair, lights, a VHS camera, and a green screen with an eight-foot dolly track passing in front of it at waist height. The uncanny feeling of watching a real film crew shooting a pretend film crew was only intensified when one of the kids, 11-year-old Jovon Black, began livestreaming the whole thing on his phone.

As the oldest of the children, Black exerted a moderating influence on the others, suggesting, "Be y'all, but don't be too much of y'all." It was 30 degrees outside, and the first snow of the season fell that day, but the kids brought all the pent-up energy they'd usually blow off at the end of a school day to the set. They Milly Rocked and did the Shoot dance, and they sang along to their own voices on the hook: "I do not do what you do / Keep it simple / I am me and you are you / Keep it simple."

Wiles talked the kids through each take, and when Kidz Express assistant director Marco Dodd could take a break from his duties, he stepped in as an acting coach. For a scene where nine-year-old Danielle Reed was supposed to throw a script binder off her directing chair in frustration, he called, "Act like you're mad at your brother!"

As it got dark, the crew moved into the gym. The kids followed Hughes's camera as it spun with them, the background a blur behind their faces. They lip-synced as they stood in a static shot that imitated a class picture. When Wiles lined the kids up for individual dance features, they seemed to find new reserves of energy. Each one leaped into frame, improvised moves for 12 bars, then ran around to the back of the line to wait for another turn—even in slow-motion, as some of that footage will appear in the the finished video, the dance relay was electric. The first day of shooting wrapped up at 6:30 PM, and the crew broke down the set in five minutes so Kidz Express could serve dinner in the gym.

Wiles was constantly in motion throughout the shoot, evaluating angles from behind the camera, then kneeling down to talk to kids before takes. He clutched a Bluetooth speaker that played the Mother Nature song so the children could stay in sync with it. They had little time to spare for reviewing footage and no way to do so except inside the camera—Wiles joked that the kids' prop monitor was the first one New Trash had ever had on set.

Alder moved in a different orbit. He frequently ducked into the building, retrieving equipment and refreshments while checking on Laird's set-construction progress. This dynamic is typical on New Trash sets. The pace of production requires Alder and Wiles to fill multiple roles simultaneously. "I'm a good liaison person. I talk to people and make sure everything's OK," Alder says. "This guy is a war horse, so he's good at calling a lot of the literal shots."

Mother Nature arrived at Kidz Express camera ready on the second day of shooting, both wearing black-and-white checkerboard pants and bright, warm-colored fleeces. Hyping themselves up with their own song and with "Live Sheck Wes," the two MCs strutted and flexed in front of the green screen—which will probably show a beach scene in the finished video—and then the camera pulled back to reveal the set and the parking lot. That visual punch line will dovetail with the lyrics of the bridge: "Should have had it all by now." As Wiles explains it, incorporating their set into a video is one way New Trash turn their low-budget production style into an asset—in this case, it becomes part of a self-deprecating joke.

The shoot was calmer with grown-up subjects, but it didn't go entirely smoothly. New Trash had to abort several indoor takes when a snow machine malfunctioned. Even after Alder figured out how to fix its delay in dispensing fake flurries, the snow still wouldn't blow toward the camera properly—the crew were stumped until Mikolyuk pointed to a vent in the ceiling. The shot was worth the trouble, though: Matthews and Reed leaned into each other against the sudden blizzard, taking pratfalls that drew laughs from the handful of people who'd gathered to watch.

When the kids arrived, they flocked to Mother Nature, and the directors tempted them away from these local celebrities with rough-cut footage from the previous day played on Wiles's phone. The kids were entranced—they've grown up with smartphones, but they'd never seen themselves shot in slow motion at 120 frames per second. Intrigued by the filmmaking process, five-year-old Zyler Kidd pushed the camera back and forth on the dolly track (under Hughes's supervision) until his older brother Zack called him back on set for another take.

Inside the gym, New Trash shot a sequence meant for the video's credits. Hughes's camera zoomed out from a Kidz Express sign, his extended shot taking in each of the kids with their movie-set props and Mother Nature lip-syncing the final chorus. Then Wiles asked everyone to gather together and cheer "like the end of every sports movie." Nine-year-old Trashuwn Jones threw down the papier-mache boom mike he'd been valiantly holding above his head to join the bouncing, noisy throng. After postproduction, New Trash's black-and-yellow logo would roll over that triumphant scene.

The production then relocated to the classroom that Laird and Claire Wiles had spent two days slathering with color. Mother Nature and the kids danced in front of a whiteboard covered in mock storyboards and neon Post-its. Nine-year-old Landon Sanders, freed from his post behind the prop camera, danced to the front as the MCs cheered him on. Each kid took a turn at the head of the room through two takes of the song, one with a stationary camera and another with Hughes floating through the crowd.

Alder called a wrap for the kids, and they celebrated with hugs from Matthews and Reed before rejoining their peers in the gym. The crew then pivoted 180 degrees to shoot the other half of the classroom, which had been transformed into a giant simulation of an elementary school diorama. Models of the planets hung from the ceiling, surrounding a mirrored comet with a cardboard tail. Mars-red gravel covered an off-white tarp. Reflective sheets of silver plastic, draped over two eight-foot stands, flowed onto the floor like carpeting on a spaceship.

The directors filmed Matthews and Reed prowling through the solar system as Mikolyuk twirled a red spotlight. The crew had initially rented a fisheye lens to distort the rappers' faces when they got close to the camera, but they were stymied by a last-minute recall. "The rental company called and said, 'It doesn't work if you shine light through it," Alder says, laughing. "So it didn't work at all." Hughes got the desired effect anyway by setting up the camera even closer to his subjects. Reed watched some of the footage and said, "Looks like Puffy and Mase"—referring to Hype Williams's iconic video for Biggie's "Mo Money Mo Problems."

The moment the crew had finished filming, they flipped on the fluorescent classroom lights and efficiently dismantled the painstakingly constructed diorama. Laird offered the model of Saturn to anyone who would take it. Wiles transferred gigabytes of video to his laptop. The crew loaded up lights and equipment in a matter of minutes, stopping only to hug Matthews and Reed good-bye. Plans to use a smoke machine and shoot on the playground were cut for time. "The reality of production is the greatest decider of everything," Wiles says.

The directors will face another time crunch finishing the production. Wiles and Alder are roommates, and they'll be editing to meet a deadline a few weeks away while also hunting for a new apartment. The release date is still undetermined, but Mother Nature plans to roll out a new project in early 2019. Reed is sure the duo's relationship with New Trash will continue. "This definitely won't be the last video we work with them on," she says.

Wiles and Alder have more projects in the pipeline, including their first video featuring animation. In the long term they want to expand to feature films, their goal since they arrived at Columbia. They also want to encourage fellow purveyors of their over-the-top style. "Give them the opportunities you wish somebody would've given you," says Wiles.

Alder looks further into the future: "I think everybody who wants to make movies has this fantasy of being able to be famous enough that you can see an artist that you love and be like, 'I wanna see what this person is gonna do with this kind of material,'" he says. "A big-picture plan we have would be to open a production company where we could foster talent and finance projects that don't fit into any established line of Hollywood thinking."

"I think New Trash is a writ-large idea, something that could easily transition into an actual production company," Wiles adds. "God forbid we have any success."  v

Source: https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/new-trash-video-wiles-alder-valee-avantist-mother-nature/Content?oid=63969498