#J MARTINS CAREER

[nghubs1]

J MARTINS BIOGRAPHY, EDUCATION, CAREER, CONTROVERSIES AND NET WORTH

J. Martins, born Martins Okechukwu Justice on September 29, 1977, is a Nigerian musician, singer, and producer, widely known for his influence in the Afrobeat and Highlife genres. He is also the Senior special assistant on tourism and entertainment to the governor of Abia State. J MARTINS PROFILE NameJ MartinsReal NameJustice Okechukwu MartinsDate of Birth 29 September 1977Age47 YearsState of…

[f1haaland]

Hey babes, can I ask for something fluffy with a little angst perhaps with fernando? I loved your Instagram au with him 😩

𝐫𝐮���𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 / 𝑭𝑨𝟏𝟒

pairing: fernando alonso x verstappen!reader

summary: fighting for the drivers championship has been the most challenging thing to ever happen in your career, especially when your #1 enemy is your own brother. fortunately, fernando is there to lend you a helping hand.

author's note: this got longer than I expected.

word count: 2.9k

warnings: teammate!reader, friends to lovers, mentions of cars crashing, family issues, slight daddy issues (no mention to j*s), max being a dick, google translated dutch, suggestive description but no actual sexual stuff, significant age gap (reader is 28, fernando is 41), probably more warnings but I don't know what else to put here.

reblogs, feedbacks and likes are appreciated. support your content creators!! 🫶🏽

➜ 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐚 𝟏 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

· ┈┈┈┈┈┈ · ༓  ༓ · ┈┈┈┈┈┈ ·

Media used to say you and your brother got your passion for racing from your parents. The fans used to say you got the beauty from your mother, and Max got the anger issues from your father. That could be true, but you inherited the anger issues as well.

Even though you were older than him, Max always came first. He got into karting before you, he got into Formula before you, and he became world champion before you. Male privilege, perhaps? Yeah, but when you are born female and you were raised to be a racing driver, you need to be better than every male on the grid. Even if that means competing against your own family.

And Max never had a problem with that. He crushed you every chance he had. Every track you both raced on, from karting to Formula 1, you'd see him in your rearview mirror, and then in front of you, finishing first. Until he wasn't there anymore, and would leave the champion title for you to take.

Two years after he made it to Red Bull from Toro Rosso, you finally got to Formula 1. In your rookie year, at Renault, you made your first friend on the grid. You and Daniel had excellent chemistry, and he gave you such help that you never got from Max. That was until he signed to McLaren and left you all alone.

Not long after, you signed with Williams, and beside Alex, you made great results. You scored great points, but you still wanted the podium. You wanted to stand there and raise a trophy. You wanted a taste of the glory.

And two years later, you drove alongside Sebastian Vettel, when you signed to Aston Martin. After Mercedes' fall from grace, it was a really good year for your team. You finally got your first podium. And you tasted it, the glory. You stood there and raised the trophy. That's when you got greedy and wanted more.

Things only seemed to get better when Sebastian announced his retirement, and Fernando Alonso became your new teammate. The team got you a new car even better than last year's. Your trophy collection became bigger after every race. And you were finally, after so many years, racing against your brother for the drivers championship.

Fernando was the best teammate you could have asked for. He was not only a good friend but an emotional support as well. He helped you through your anger crisis and often would take you to ease your head away from the tracks.

Even though he was competing against you too, it never seemed like it. He often said he already had his wins, and he was there to help you have yours. Fernando was racing because he loved to do so, great results were just the consequences of being a fantastic driver.

You were two points behind Max, and knowing that a single little mistake could cost you the championship, it wasn't needed much to trigger your anger issues.

After staying out of Q3 because you crashed into your brother's car, you left your car and tossed your helmet on the floor. You groaned loudly, processing what had happened;

Max crashed into me.

In the middle of a corner, Max crashed into me.

On. Fucking. Purpose.

When you started walking away from your garage and going straight to Red Bull's, Fernando, who had dnfed after engine problems, came towards you.

"Y/n!" He tried to call your attention, as the cameras started to follow you, "Y/n don't do this!"

"Hey, klootzak!" You shouted out loud as you reached the Red Bull garage and your eyes met Max's. (Hey, asshole!)

As the cameras — and Fernando — came right behind you, every eye on the pits was on you. Your teammate held you by the waist, stopping your movements.

"Y/n, don't do this. You're going to get penalized. Please..." He muttered into your ear, making you shiver.

You stared at Fernando as he frowned, silently begging for you to stop. You wanted to listen to him so badly... but then you remembered why you were there.

The championship. The crash. Max.

Your gaze became darker as you turned to your brother, "He should be the one to get penalized!" you yelled.

Switching to dutch, you spat, giving more steps towards him, "Je deed het expres, nietwaar, Max? Verdomde klootzak!" (You did it on purpose, didn't you, Max? Fucking bastard!)

Max tilted his head to the side, smirking. You clenched your fist, ready to do something you would regret.

"Waarom geef je mij de schuld? Leer autorijden, idioot." Max teased, looking down at you being face-to-face with him. (Why are you blaming me? Learn to drive, idiot.)

You pushed him as hard as you could, neverminding the cameras shoved on your face. Max fell onto the ground.

Fernando held tight to your waist this time, as Christian and Daniel got in between you and your brother.

Hours after your meltdown, you received the news of your penalty; Tomorrow, you would be starting off from the pits, while Max would be starting at the back place of the grid.

"Starting off the pits is so much worse than P19. That's unfair." You mumbled, still pissed off with everything that happened.

Fernando snorted. Fortunately, he was there to help you ease your mind. You both were at your place in São Paulo, waiting for your Chinese takeout while pretending to watch a tv show.

You scrolled through your Twitter page, reading the fans reactions to your meltdown. Max had his moments before, but this was your first time getting caught on camera during one of your anger episodes.

And most of the things you read online didn't help with the situation. Weird men were calling you hysterical, some people were excited to see how good this would look on Drive to Survive, and some fans were... shipping you with Fernando?

You frowned, deciding to watch one of many videos where you attacked your brother. From different angles, you saw the way Fernando held onto your waist. Unintentionally, you remembered how he begged, so close to your ear, for you to stop. How it sent shivers down your spine.

And just now, you noticed how close you were to him in your personal life. It has been such a crazy year for you, you never realized you and Fernando were more than a just friendship. He was by your side at every single moment. He often took you out to dinner, you would invite each other to your houses in Monaco. Sometimes he would take you to his place in Spain.

And you listen to him. Most of the time at least, you thought. But the thing is, you usually don't listen to anyone but yourself. No one is right but you. You don't have anyone to trust but you. But that's not true, as he's there proving you wrong. You just never realized, until now.

"Nando, I–" You started, but the sound of your doorbell got in your way.

"It's our food. Let me get it." He patted your thigh, before standing up to answer the door.

After your realization, even his touch felt different. Your whole perspective of him changed. You liked it. It felt different, but also it felt normal, like it was simply meant to be. Like the things you did with each other, the things you shared, things that mostly only couples used to do, it fitted your relationship — if you could call it that way.

You both ate your noodles and watched the tv show, quietly. Your head lay comfortably in his lap as Fernando's fingertips danced around your scalp. You sighed, comfortable in the position you found yourself in. It felt too domestic. You could close your eyes and sleep right there, because you trusted him enough to do so. You trusted him more than anyone.

"What is this?" You asked.

"What is what, cariño?" Fernando murmured, still caressing your head but focused on the tv.

You lifted your upper body from his embrace and sat by his side.

"This." You gestured towards him and yourself, "Us. This is not normal, Fernando. It feels like we're a couple, without the whole things that make a couple... a couple."

"It... does, doesn't it? I came to that realization a while ago." he confessed, "Turns out I like what we have. I never said anything because I didn't want it to end. I thought it would bother you."

"It doesn't. I like what we have. Fuck, I love what we have! I love the way you come to my place, mostly unannounced, and eat all the stroopwafels my mum sends to me. I love the way you invite me to Spain every free week we're not racing. I love the way you listen to me and help me understand my anger, and work through it. I love that I know I wouldn't win half the races I did this season without your help." You blurted out so fast you didn't quite process your own words.

"Fuck, I love this. I love what we have. I love having you around. Fernando, I–"

"I love you." he said, finishing your sentence, "I truly do. I can't describe my feelings the way you did but just know I feel the very same for you."

You smiled, stunned. Your breath echoed to your ear, competing with your heartbeat to see which is the loudest.

You raised your hand to meet his face, where your digits laid gently on his skin. Fernando's eyes closed to your comforting touch. You got closer until his warm breath reached you. His soft lips brushed against yours.

"I love you." You whispered, before losing yourself in his arms and his touch.

The following morning, you woke up alone. You were used to that feeling, but that was you before Fernando. Now, there was you after him. You felt brand new.

So you didn't hide your disappointment when you reached for the side of the bed where he was supposed to be, and found it to be empty. Not only it was cold, but he made it before he left your room. To your surprise, when you got out of bed, you noticed his shirt was still on your floor from last night. You didn't hold back a large smile.

That it quickly disappeared the moment you remembered what day it was: Sunday.

You grabbed your phone to look at the time. You still had a few hours before heading to Interlagos.

You left your room, and as you were walking downstairs, you could hear soft humming and music echoing through the house. The scent of fresh coffee didn't go unnoticed by you.

When you reached the kitchen, you found a shirtless Fernando, scrambling eggs in a pan, and singing to a spanish song. A huge smile emerged in his features when he noticed your presence.

"Buenos días, corazón" He pecked your lips when you got closer.

"Goedemorgen, schat..." You grinned, hugging his waist from behind.

"Go sit. I'm making us something to eat before we hit the paddock." Fernando pecked you one more time before you went to sit by the kitchen island.

"Ah, yes, the race..." you rolled your eyes, "Can't wait to start from the pits."

"It's not so bad... I've won a race where I started from the back of the grid..." He shrugged.

"Really? Singapore 2008? If you want to go there, I have a lot of things to say about that race" You cocked a challenging eyebrow.

The spaniard snickered, "Yeah, I know. What I'm trying to say is that it's possible."

"You were the only person to do so, Fernando. It's not possible. And for you, it's easy to say that. You're on pole!" You chuckled.

"We have a great car, you're an awesome driver, and it looks like it's not going to rain today. Maybe the odds are on your side." He tried to cheer you up.

Scoffing, you rolled your eyes in disbelief, "Yeah, with Max having such an advantage, there's not much to believe in the odds." you smiled, and grabbed his hand across the island table, "But I appreciate your confidence in me. I know you're not a very optimistic person. It's really cute..."

"Eat your eggs, Y/n. You'll need extra energy for today." He dismissed the subject when you mentioned his softness.

The paddock wasn't a huge place. So when gossip flew around and the people talked, eventually it would reach to you one way or another. And you couldn't care less about it. It didn't stop you from driving Fernando to the track on your convertible Aston Martin, even if the photographers caught the moment you left the parking lot with him. It didn't stop Fernando from reaching out for your hand and hold it in front of everyone while you walked down the paddock together, even if the Netflix cameras were there. Different journalists from all around the world were talking about you in their language. No one was talking about yesterday's crash or your angry meltdown. Just you and Fernando.

Fortunately, no one had asked. Yet. You were preparing yourself for the race, and no one was allowed to take your focus away from it.

You were watching the pre-race program from the garage. Unsurprisingly, your father was at the race to prestige Max. Well, that's not true. He was there for the prestige of having a world-champion son, but not to prestige him.

He never came to your garage. Not once.

You and Fernando parted ways to prepare for the race. You didn't see him again until it was time for him to go to his car, and you stayed at the pits, where you'd be starting.

When the lights when out and the starting grid became a mess as the cars tried to overtake one another, Max overtook three cars in front of him, taking place at P16. Fernando started amazing on pole, leading the race, with only Checo and one of the Ferrari's close behind him.

As the laps went by, you overtook car by car, climbing your way to the points. At lap 34, you overtook both Mercedes in an incredible move.

Fernando was still leading the race, Max was P4, and you had just reached the sixth position. As if a miracle could've happened, the Ferrari in front of you started to slow down. One of its tires had exploded. You recognized the driver's helmet, and couldn't help to feel kinda bad for Charles.

The cars behind you were 20 seconds away, so you made use of that advantage and pitted for new tires.

Max's position was ahead of you, but he was still far away. He watched as Checo and Carlos, who were currently P2 and P3, fight for position. Unfortunately, in a tight corner, they crashed each other. It was nothing serious, so the physical safety car came in, and everyone went to the boxes to get new tires. Except for you, who had just got new ones.

Unintentionally, you became P1.

When the safety car left the track, Fernando and Max were behind you, respectively.

There were two more laps to go, and you could feel your sweaty hands squeezing tight on the steering wheel as the nervousness started to rise in your chest. You tried not to focus on what was happening behind you, and pay attention to the way ahead. Fernando tried his hardest to keep Max behind him until he couldn't hold it anymore. Max overtook him on the last lap, where he was only 1 second behind you.

You wouldn't let him take the win away from you. Not anymore.

And then it happened.

"Y/n Verstappen, you are the champion of the world!" Your engineer yelled.

And you couldn't believe your ears.

You. World champion.

You became a world champion.

You parked your car on the 1th place marked spot, but you didn't get out. You couldn't. You tried to process everything that happened, the climbing, the moves, the safety car, the checkered flag... it felt surreal.

Someone pulled you out of the car, bringing you back to reality. You didn't have to look at the green suit, same as yours, to realize who it was. Fernando's presence always reached out to you before the sight of him.

He hugged you, as tight as he could, lifting you from the ground and swaying. His voice was muffled by his helmet, but you didn't have to know what he was saying, you just felt it. You felt loved.

He placed you on the ground and you took off your helmet, as he did the same. You glanced at each other and you saw the pride in his brown orbits. You smiled, sobbing with the feeling of happiness. He took you in his arms once again, and kissed you, deeply and lovingly in front of everyone to see.

Your intimate moment was interrupted once the cameras and the journalists reached you.

"Y/n! Congratulations on winning the championship!" The reporter exclaimed, "How does it feel to be world champion?"

You chuckled, still being held on the waist by Fernando.

"It feels fucking fantastic! I couldn't have done this without our amazing team." You smiled, biting your lip to stare at Fernando, "And my boyfriend, who has been looking out for me ever since the start of this season. He has been not only my teammate, but also my therapist, my cook, and my best friend. He is everything I needed. Thank you, Fernando..." You kissed him one more time in front of the cameras.

[docgold13]

Heroes & Villains The DC Animated Universe - Paper Cut-Out Portraits and Profiles

Elseworlds Addendum - Firestorm

High school student Ronnie Raymond and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Martin Stein were caught in an accident that allowed them to fuse into Firestorm the Nuclear Man. Due to Stein being unconscious during the accident, Raymond was prominently in command of the Firestorm form with Stein a voice of reason inside his mind… able to offer Raymond advice on how to use their powers without actually having any control over their dual form.

The composite being of Firestorm possessed amazing powers, able to fly and fire bolts of energy that had the capacity to rearrange molecular structures of any substance into most anything else, creating different atomic structures of equal mass.  As such he could transform a gun into a bouquet of flowers, a car could be changed into a cloud of gas and so on.  These powers could work on organic beings, but Firestorm almost never used them in this fashion so not to risk accidental harm.  

Following a brief solo career as a superhero, Firestorm was recruited into the Justice League and served as a valued member for many years.  Ronnie Raymond perished in battle after which the mantle and powers of Firestorm were passed on to teenager Jason Rusch.  Ronnie would later become resurrected and he and Jason shared the identity of Firestorm.

Sadly, Firestorm was left out of the extended roster of Justice League Unlimited; although the hero did feature in the Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (voiced by actor Mark L. Taylor) and later in Justice League Action (voiced by actor P. J. Byrne).  

The hero first appeared in the pages of Firestorm the Nuclear Man #1 (March 1978).   

[dozyisdead]

first of all, i must say thank you for your discourse here about williams and alex and also logan, bcs i didn't see that a lot on other platforms.

i agree with most of your points, especially in how alex's career in williams after carlos join the team. i think it's gonna be a test too for alex, and to prove that he's indeed a good driver. okay, we know he has the potential, but we don't really know how far he can go. williams in 2023 is quite good, no? i mean, at least he finished in p7 which is good compared to this season.

i watched a youtube video, talking about what williams want to achieve, like james vowles's idealism (sorry), that's why he treats carlos like that (if you know what he has been said about carlos this summer break), but still, it's not nice to do that, when logan is still on the team. i think they also place money on adrian newey to come, but they aren't as rich as aston martin so that plan is off. sad to say but I'm kinda excited to see them in 2025, although im tired of their tractor 😭

thank you and sorry for yapping in your page 😭

Hi hello! I've been so invested in the other events that have happened and completely forgot about this.

Yes! I think this is going to be a great test of his skill next year, especially with the potential upgrades Williams might bring. We saw recently that Alex was disqualified because his floor was illegal, but he did incredible otherwise. As with Carlos, he's a great "midfield" driver to compare Alex to. We've seen him in comparison to Max, where Max was obviously the number one driver and Red Bull's priority, and he did not perform up the standards set for him.

We've also seen Alex in comparison to Logan, who was picked up from F2 a bit early (In the general public's opinion). In addition, at Williams Alex was clearly the number one driver, I mean they gave Alex Logan's car for Australia. Then, Logan was given Alex's REPAIRED car, and it took them basically a season and a half to have the same upgrades at the same time. In summary, we see a prioritized Alex and a pushed to the side Logan.

basically, two extremes in the field, and even when Latifi was at Williams that was also an extreme, on the same end as Logan (Though there are different circumstances as Latifi's was a skill issue and Logan's was a support issue), meaning the results have been skewed due to outliers. His actual stats are affected the most by his teammate, as with any driver, so we don't have a true rating of his skill level.

And I think that yes, the 2023 car was a good car, but I also think it's due to the fact that Alex has had longer at Williams and can get a general sense of how the car is, and therefore he was more prepared to race, while 2023 was Logan's first season and therefore a learning curve. Not to mention, there's already a learning curve when you're driving a bloody Williams.

I've stayed away from Williams for my own mental health (I get unreasonably angry when I see J*mes V*wles's face, he looks like a Who from Whoville) and therefore haven't seen what he's said. But I'm going to say this every time, the way they handled the news and even more present news was a mess. it was disgraceful, utterly idiotic, and disgusting. Posting an announcement about your incoming driver, and multiple at that, before thanking your outgoing driver? Messy with a Capital M.

Also, don't apologize for yapping! I'm here for it! Literally my favorite thing to do is to talk to y'all!

[mariacallous]

Every president of the United States has within their grasp the power of a vast surveillance state that has grown significantly over the past few decades and has beaten back any real effort to rein it in. Through America’s numerous enigmatic intelligence agencies, presidents possess the ability to dive deeply into the communications, movements, and relationships of everyday Americans. Presidents of both parties have abused the surveillance state, but under a second Trump administration, this power could be abused in ways it has never been before.

Donald Trump, a now convicted felon and the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has said he plans to prosecute his political opponents should he return to the White House. He’s said he would allow states to monitor pregnant women and prosecute those who seek abortions. Trump wants to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. He plans to invoke the Insurrection Act to quell civil unrest, which means sending the military into the streets. The much publicized Project 2025 outlines how he would quickly replace thousands of career civil servants in the federal government with loyalists.

If a president was interested in prosecuting their political opponents, crushing protests, targeting undocumented immigrants, and had the right people in place to help them carry out those plans, surveillance could become a valuable tool for accomplishing those goals. Like former US president Richard Nixon in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Trump could use the surveillance powers available to him to monitor his political opponents, disrupt protest movements, and more.

Nixon and former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover famously surveilled the president’s political opponents and activists, including Martin Luther King Jr., through a program called COINTELPRO. One of the main goals of the program was to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” civil rights groups.

If he so desired, Trump could create his own version of this program, but he’d be working with much more advanced technology—and it’d be in a time when there are countless data points available on every American. Hoover could have only dreamed of a world where everyone was walking around with tracking devices.

“So much of what we depend on, in terms of the rule of law, depends on norms. When those norms are ignored, that’s when things start to fall apart,” says Jeffrey L. Vagle, an assistant professor of law at Georgia State University. “Some of the norms, like prosecutorial discretion, might be eroded or disappear entirely. That could mean a number of things in terms of surveillance.”

Vagle says that if a second Trump administration wanted to defend its abuse of surveillance powers, it could stretch the use of national security as a justification for doing so. He says presidents have done this in the past in other ways.

“Administrations from both parties have invoked the term ‘national security’ and have used national security loopholes to justify surveillance and profiling,” says Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project. “They have too often used national security as a pretext for law enforcement to target Muslims, communities of color, and immigrants.”

Toomey says Trump has sent “mixed signals” when it comes to how he feels about surveillance, but he’s made it clear he plans to target his political opponents in various ways if he’s elected again.

“A second Trump administration could be disastrous for many of our most fundamental freedoms,” Toomey says.

The administration may not even need to come up with a justification for surveilling Americans without a warrant, because it could simply purchase scores of people's personal data. The federal government has been known to purchase data from private brokers in the past, and doing so doesn’t require a warrant.

“We are just awash in data, and data brokers can just collect and sell these data,” Vagle says. “Law enforcement or quasi-law enforcement can collect that information.”

Surveillance can be done in secret so that the people being surveilled don’t realize they’re being surveilled, or it can be done openly as a way to stifle free expression, Vagle says. The government might tell you they’re keeping an eye on people, and then you might be less likely to speak out.

“If you think you’re being watched, you act differently,” Vagle says. “You could see a Trump version of COINTELPRO—only maybe not so covert. They might be more open about it with the idea that it might chill speech.”

As for the abortion issue, some of what may occur will depend on the future legal status of abortion, which could involve a US Supreme Court decision or congressional action. A major change in its legal status would likely affect how the federal government approaches the issue. If it remains a state issue, the federal government wouldn’t typically get involved in how a state is implementing a law it’s passed, but that’s not to say it couldn’t. If a state wanted help tracking people who are crossing state lines for abortions, for example, the federal government could conceivably assist with that.

“The federal government is not in the business of enforcing state laws, but there are a lot of what-ifs. How crazy might a Trump administration be willing to be?” Vagle says.

Whether it’s monitoring political opponents, activists, immigrants, or pregnant people, there are many ways in which a second Trump administration could utilize surveillance powers to exert more control over the populace. If the FBI and the Department of Justice are staffed with people who won’t push back when Trump orders them to do things that might be legally or morally questionable, they may carry out his wishes, and Americans may discover how much their privacy rights have eroded over the years.

“One of the things about Project 2025 is that it’s clear that the Trump camp, and more broadly the Republican Party that’s behind Trump, want to make it a more organized presidency than his first presidency was,” Vagle says. “It would be very unsurprising if the Department of Justice and the FBI dismissed anyone if they even had a whiff of disloyalty.”

[violettavonviolet]

Multifandom Fic Rec's

Fandoms on the list are Spn, James Bond, Harry Potter, Sherlock and Twilight.

All fics are finished and fantastic, the word count goes up as you scroll and the rating is noted. Def do check the tags though!

James Bond

Dramatic Arts

scioscribe

Summary:

In which Spectre is actually Bond's poorly written attempt at falsifying a mission report. Q wants a flight simulator, Eve wants more lines, and M wants a drink. Everybody's a critic.

2.9k teen 00Q humor

Love and Other Hazardous Materials

luchia

Summary:

"This is just getting ridiculous," M says when he finds Q trying to put motorized circular saw blades into a briefcase.

(Or, Q and James Bond love their jobs so very, very much.)

3.5k 00Q

Employee Relations, Friendly Workplace and Team Building: A Guide to Successful Relationships in the MI6

Rosslyn

Summary:

Because even MI6 isn’t exempt from British administrative features and its assorted exercises.

--

“Ah, bollocks. It says that all departmental heads have to attend or their annual budget won’t get approved. Can they do that?"

R finally sets down the iron and pats Q on the shoulder. “If they can make the Double Os take lessons in health and safety,” she says ominously, “They can do whatever the fuck they want."

6k 00Q crack gen

Q's Favourite

IBegToDreamAndDiffer

Summary:

How the double-ohs found out that James Bond is Q's favourite.

6.6k 00Q teen

Handle With Care

winterhill

Summary:

It’s not exactly a secret that Bond and Q are dating. Most people in the agency give Bond the shovel talk; everyone who doesn’t gives Q the “are you sure you know what you’re doing?” talk. Q and Bond ignore them all and have a lovely time, right up until an exploding pen explodes.

10k 00Q

The Mating Dance of Wolf and Fox**

epithalamium, TheCatOnTheMoon

Summary:

In which Moneypenny despairs of her boys, no one in MI6 is the least bit sane, Bond complains to HR about MI6's workplace policies, Q insists that he is not a fainting maiden, and he might have to sleep with 007.

Strictly for professional purposes, of course.

22k 00Q my favorite

Mistletoe

dhampir72

Summary:

She sits down at her chair, coffee in one hand, folded paper in the other. She is just taking a sip when she opens the paper...and promptly spits her coffee back into the cup. 

The paper reads: 

James Bond

That can’t be right. It’s impossible. It has to be.

Right?

10k 00Q teen

dawn

kiyala

Summary:

Bond honestly doesn't begin with the intention of courting Q.

17k 00Q teen

Yours, J

swtalmnd

Summary:

Bond sends letters. Q is vexed. Q-branch starts a betting pool. There are an appalling amount of sweets. Also, 002 is a bit of an arse.

40k 00Q explicit

 Ordinary Numbers

BootsnBlossoms, Kryptaria

Summary:

More than anything, Mike Taylor wanted to be ordinary. Being a genius, he learned early in life, meant people expected too much. A career at the MI6 Help Desk seemed the perfect way to guarantee a lifetime of obscurity, until he got a very unusual tech support call.

44k 00Q humor

Nodus Tollens

Only_1_Truth

Summary:

Nodus Tollens: the realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore

Q's life at the technical help department of MI6 was decently quiet and paid reasonably well - it even gave him vacation time, although he rarely used it. So when Q was finally coaxed to leave work for a bit and relax, he thought that Paris might be fun. 

Of course, that was before the gunfight, witnessing a shooting, and being kidnapped by a strange, blue-eyed gunman named James Bond.

88k 00Q teen

Ulysses

girlbookwrm

Summary:

“Paperwork for the new head of Q-Branch,” Tanner said.

“Of course.” The words were like glass in his throat. Smoke inhalation was a bitch. His brain felt slow and foggy, like it was full of smoke too. “Who shall I take them to?”

M lifted one white brow. “They’re for you, Quartermaster.”

Bond and Q are drawn together by names, work, and a certain Aston Martin. In which Q is kidnapped once, Bond is poisoned twice, and Eve is a badass on at least three occasions. AKA that time I tripped and wrote 80,000 words of 00Q.

All titles unapologetically stolen from Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

89k 00Q teen

Twilight

you woke the lion up

Tsume_Yuki

Summary:

Travelling through England and attempting to adjust to this 'vegetarian diet' that Peter had heard about, Jasper Whitlock comes across a pretty girl abandoned in the woods with far more despair than should be appropriate.

And really, as a Southern Gentleman, he can hardly leave her on her lonesome, can he?

20k Jasper/Harry Potter

The Future Mrs Jacob Black.

JessalynMichele

Summary:

Nobody told Jacob how utterly perfect it would be when he finally imprinted on his soulmate...

“I could kill you in ten seconds flat.”

... or how the moment could be completely ruined the moment she opened her mouth.

27k jacob black/harry potter

The Boyfriend

AverageFish

Summary:

"I like the trees here," Harry said, his accent placing him far from home. "They keep my wrackspurts away." It was twilight, and he wasn't wearing any shoes.

"You can stay at my place," Charlie said.

One night turned into teaching Harry to use the coffee machine, and then he grew used to fresh pancakes every Sunday.

Until Charlie realized one day, while calling Harry down from the old oak out back, that he didn't want the man to leave.

29k Charlie/Harry Potter

Green & Gold

JessalynMichele

Summary:

Harry Potter is a traumatized war veteran in a body that won’t die and a mind that won’t rest.

Jasper Hale is intrigued by this new student who looks so vulnerable but sends off such overwhelming waves of angst.

Everyone else is just concerned.

Set post Battle of Hogwarts, starting in the summer before Bella Swans junior year.

144k Harry/Jasper

Harry Potter

will you walk into my parlor (and ne’er come out again?)

Ellory

Summary:

Heiress Pleione Potter is sure she will not get entangled in the web Mister Mycroft Holmes weaves about himself. He proves her wrong.

11k mycroft holmes/harry potter

Magnificent

esama

Summary:

The birth of the Ministry of Magic and his relationship with the British Government.

20k harry/microft holmes teen

to refuse the givens

snark

Summary:

Daphne Greengrass makes a tidy sum selling contraband at Hogwarts, and a nihilistic Harry Potter wants to buy cigarettes.

33k Daphne/Harry

In Evidence of Magical Theory

bixgirl1

Summary:

When a hex meant for Draco accidentally catches Harry as well, they're forced to learn to understand each other in ways they previously might have thought impossible.

In which Harry and Draco can't fight, so they fall in love instead.

43k drarry explicit

Whispers in Corners

esama

Summary:

Everything started with a stumble - his new life in a new world as well as his surprisingly successful career as a medium.

64k mycroft holmes/harry potter teen

Hermione Granger's Hogwarts Crammer for Delinquents on the Run

waspabi

Summary:

'You're a wizard, Harry' is easier to hear from a half-giant when you're eleven, rather than from some kids on a tube platform when you're seventeen and late for work.

93k drarry teen

Harry Potter and the Welcome to the World of Grey

sobsicles

Summary:

When Harry fails to keep his anger at bay and Voldemort possesses his mind, the events that follow lead him down a long road to realizing the world isn't as black and white as it seems. 

Chaos, hilarity, and tragedy ensue with a Dark Lord being honest all the time, a rival becoming something else, and a world demanding to be saved. Featuring frightened Death Eaters, deep conversations with a monster, Pureblood traditions being ridiculous, and the fight to do the right thing with no true options. 

Harry's life just gets more and more bizarre with each passing moment. 

~~~

Or, the one where Harry's life gets split in half, and he has to figure out how to bring it back together.

456k drarry explicit

Sherlock

Illusory Correlation and Confirmation Bias

VanillaBegonias

Summary:

Looking back, there were a few things that should’ve tipped Greg off long before that night at the pub. A few things Sherlock left fairly obvious, that on reflection, made Greg question how he’d gotten his job in the first place.

10k johnlock

Son of Mine

simoneallen

Summary:

Wilson shrugged. “Well, you’ve met him,” he pointed out. “What do you think House’s kid would be like, if House had a kid?”

13k crossover house md johnlock explicit

Working on the Edges

earlgreytea68

Summary:

No matter where you put Sherlock and John, they click. Including the Winter Olympics.

56k johnlock mature

Nature and Nurture

earlgreytea68

Summary:

The British Government accidentally clones Sherlock Holmes. Which brings a baby to 221B Baker Street.

203k johnlock

Supernatural

I Like Batman

DarcyDelaney

Summary:

Dean's got enough on his plate, what with doing his damnedest to make sure that Sam has the best Christmas possible; the last thing he needs is to figure out a Secret Santa gift for another kid in Sam's class on top of it all.

3.2k weechesters angst

At the bottom of his glass

Mademoiselle_A

Summary:

It was perfectly normal for a Hunter to drink. John's sons were worried for nothing.

At least, that's what John Winchester thought at first.

3.7k genfic angst

Thumbnail Ridges

whiteraven1606

Summary:

As a child, Dean made sure Sammy got feed, even if that meant Dean didn't eat. It was hard work, right up until it wasn't anymore.

4k genfic angst

i drew our car for you

Septembers_coda

Summary:

Nothing kindergarten teacher April Huxley has ever learned can tell her what to do when adorable, troubled little Dean Winchester falls into her life—or when he vanishes abruptly back out of it.

5k angst weechesters

Runaways

keerawa

Summary:

We lost seven teenage boys from the shelter in the summer of '97. The last were a pair of brothers so wrapped up in each other that I never had a chance to save them. Their names were Sam and Dean.

10k gen angst

"I Need a Favor"

alas_horatio

Summary:

Sam agrees to drive a stranger across the country to join Cas while their brother is in the hospital, only to find out that his new road trip companion isn't so much a stranger as the most haunting one night stand of his life.

15k Destiel Sam/Gabriel teen

Neighborly

Spooks, thesuninside

Summary:

There are two kids living next door. They gotta be surviving off ramen noodles by now, and Christ, but it's none of Frank's business.

22k weechesters crossover

Dies Irae, or Something

AlchemyAlice

Summary:

It starts with headaches, and it ends in a clusterfuck. So, business as usual, Apocalypse-wise.

51k Sam/Gabriel Destiel teen

Angels, Alcohol, and Marriage: Awesome

Akira_of_the_Twilight

Summary:

For Sam waking up next to a supposedly dead archangel was shocking enough, then he learned that aforementioned angel doesn't remember him, and they may have gotten married. From there everything spiraled.

78k Sam/gabriel accidental marraige, mature

[militantinremission]

Kamala Harris 4 President: Is She ready 4 Prime Time?

Joe Biden has literally slipped on a banana peel. Following his dismal performance at the 1st Presidential Debate, he has made a series of blunders that now has him under a microscope. It's gotten so bad, that folks are criticizing the way he walks up the stairs of Air Force One... Biden made several appearances to shore up his Social Capital, but few were effective. From his interview w/ George Stephanopoulos, to his 'Big Boy NATO Summit' to his telephone interview on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe'; Joe Biden has raised more questions than providing answers. An increasing number of Congressional Democrats, Elites, & Big Money Donors- from Chuck Schumer, to Jeffrey Katzenberg, George Clooney & Rob Reiner are asking him to step down. Political Pundits across many platforms have expressed publicly how Joe Biden is weakening Congressional Democrats running for Re-Election.

Biden has been adamant about staying in Office, but has recently said that he's open to discussion. Black Politicians & Democratic Shills like Whoopi Goldberg, Roland Martin, Symone Sanders, D.L. Hughley & Joy Reid continue to Circle the Wagon, but hardcore Biden advocates like Joe Scarborough & Van Jones have admitted that his Poll #s are damaging the overall Democratic Party. The Question being asked is: if Joe Biden steps down, WHO is capable of defeating Donald Trump in the General Election? California Governor Gavin Newsome, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, & Maryland Governor Wes Moore have been tossed around; but none of them have enough National Recognition to compete against Trump. 'The View's' Sunny Hostin has stated that Black Women will abandon the Democratic Party if Kamala Harris is not chosen as the heir apparent, but is Kamala Harris 'Presidential Material'?

Presidential Politics IS a Blood Sport. When a Candidate runs for POTUS, their Record of Service is on full display. There is a reason why Kamala Harris hasn't been mentioned before now. Many assume that she is being left out because of her Race, but Political Pundits admit that NO ONE really likes her. Kamala has wore several hats during her Political Career, but she has few accomplishments to tout for her Years of Service. As District Attorney of San Francisco, Attorney General of California, & U.S. Senate Member, Kamala Harris has been detrimental to Black Californians. Her Record is one of disenfranchisement & incarceration of Blackfolk. Harris, Nancy Pelosi, & Dianne Feinstein share responsibility for the Current State of Black America in The Bay Area. She was originally touted as the '1st South Asian (i.e. Indian) American Woman elected into the U.S. Senate', but has somehow been mysteriously transformed into a 'Black Woman'.

For The Record, Kamala Harris is neither Afrikan American or Black. Her Mother is Brahmin & her Father is Brahmin & Irish Jamaican; her Father's Irish side were Slaveholders. She was born in Oakland & later relocated to Berkeley, after her parents separated. Kamala was bused to a predominantly White Elementary School, before her Mother relocated to an affluent Community in Montreal. She attended Junior High & High School in Montreal before returning to America, to attend Howard University. THIS is where Kamala's 'Black Experience' begins. Rumor has it that she became a Sweetheart of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc. (a Kappa Diamond) & later pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. Post Grad, Kamala returned to The Bay Area, where she became associated w/ Democratic Party Power Broker & former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. The former Mayor positioned Kamala on a couple of Commissions (that paid $400K over 5Yrs) & her 1st run to become San Francisco District Attorney.

Kamala Harris has been very fortunate during her Political Career, but her tenure as Vice President has exposed her flaws. She's had a revolving door of Staffers that cite factions & infighting w/i her Camp. Harris has been described as crass & vulgar towards her Staff- dropping F- bombs & denigrating them during Meetings. Former Speech Writers say they were confounded by her inability to follow Scripts. Aside from Abortion Rights, no one can point to an Issue that Harris has championed w/ consistency. Her tenure as Vice President has been compared w/ Dan Quayle's. Joe Biden put Kamala in charge of the Southern Border, but he was forced to issue an Executive Order; to clean up her inability to stop the flood of Illegal Immigrants coming from All Four Corners of The World. Kamala Harris is not known for promoting Pet Policy Projects, like Al Gore or Michelle Obama; She's better known for:

Wearing Chuck Taylors w/ Pearls

Putting hot sauce on her Collard Greens & washing them in the bathtub (???)

Cos Playing Black Americans &

Cackling when she's flummoxed

Currently, Kamala Harris is a weaker opponent against Donald Trump, than Joe Biden. She's only being considered, because the Biden- Harris Campaign Fund can't be accessed if another group of Candidates are selected. Somewhere between $100M- $300M is at stake. A DNC Super PAC is withholding another $90M in anticipation of Biden stepping down. Michelle Obama's name has been tossed around as a potential Candidate for POTUS, but she has said on several occasions that she's NOT interested. I would be surprised if she changed her mind. Personally, I don't think ANY MAN can beat Donald Trump & the only Woman that could give Trump a Real Fight, is Tulsi Gabbard. She's a Generational Candidate that has the pedigree of Military Service, plus the Political & Social Capital needed to get Voters to the Voting Booths. Tulsi is far from being 'The Perfect Candidate', but People can visualize her having meaningful discussions w/ World Leaders. By contrast, Kamala Harris looks like a cartoon character on The World Stage; few actually believe that she can command the respect of Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, & EU Leaders.

At this point, Democrats are in a No Win situation. Joe Biden campaigned in 2020 as a One Term President, but now he dares ANYONE to take him on at the Democratic National Convention. His selfishness & egocentrism has damaged the Democratic Party's chance of holding on to The White House. He says that he wouldn't have chosen Kamala Harris to be his VP if she wasn't capable of being President, but We KNOW that he only chose her because Black Women DEMANDED a Black Female Running Mate, in return for their vote. Ironically, Kamala doesn't fill that slot figuratively or literally. She let Black Women know early in her 2020 Campaign that she wasn't going to do ANYTHING SPECIFICALLY for Black Americans. Like Joe Biden, Harris offered a 'Lift Act' that promised Blackfolk more of the same 'Rising Tide' Democratic jargon. Despite this, roughly 86% of Black Americans supported the Biden- Harris Ticket; hoping this Administration would reward their loyalty & support w/ Real Policy.

Like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris NEEDS the Black Vote to win the General Election. The Problem is, Democrats have NO INTENTION of offering anything tangible to Black America. Despite the Doom & Gloom scenarios being pushed by Democratic Shills, an increasing number of Black Americans are refusing to vote Blue w/o getting something tangible in return. Democratic Elites thought they could play 'Chicken' w/ Blackfolk, but are beginning to realize how serious We are. Black Democratic Shills have been trying to corral The Black Vote, but they don't have the same influence that they held in previous years. Kamala Harris didn't help her Cause, when she said: 'We all know about the 20 Acres & a Mule'... Her casual disregard of Black Specific Issues rivals Joe Biden's. The Fact that Democrats have been forced to admit Biden's physical & mental decline will set The Party back at least 4 Years.

As I said before, Black America sits in the Catbird Seat! The rest of the Country may dread a 2nd Trump Presidency, but it's just 'Another Day in The Life' for Us. Our Ancestors survived 8 Years of Woodrow Wilson & over 50 Years of J. Edgar Hoover. We KNOW what a Dictator looks like. We also know that Every City will burn before We comply w/ The Heritage Foundation's 'Wish List' known as Project 2025. We just have to Get On Code & Stand Our Ground. Unlike the Millions of Colonists that occupy This Land, We're INDIGENOUS & have a Spiritual Connection to it; Millennia of Blood & Bones in The Soil. Unlike the newcomers, Perseverance is in Our Genetic Memory. Donald Trump is just the Latest 'Flavor of The Month'... We already survived a Trump Administration.

The acknowledgement of Joe Biden's decline puts Democrats in a bad position so late into the Election Season. It's not even clear if Dems can take him off The Ballot in several States. The fact that Kamala Harris cannot make a seamless transition into The Oval Office is creating a Civil War w/i The Party. I heard someone classify this 'War' as a battle between Black Shills & White Donors; The Shills want Biden to Stay, while The Donors want him to Resign. If Kamala Harris was truly 'Ready for Primetime', Sunny Hostin wouldn't have to say anything- EVERYONE would be on The Same Page.

-Ultimately, Money Talks.

[persephone-tim]

Can we talk about how the web could have fucking done anything like ever. Like Annabelle Cane could have just decided one day that we were going to have the pandemic (yes yes i know, in their universe there was the eyepocalypse instead blah blah i mean hypothetically alright) or like anything really. The most interesting thing about the web is i doesn't have any specific ritual. We simply do not know what the web is responsible for in all of the events in the magnus archives. My personal theory is that the mother of puppets knew that jon and martin and tim and everyone would be important. She killed of Jon's parents, the more drastic measure of the list, due to his future career of archivist (lets face it that was planned all along). She influenced the stranger to kill danny stoker. Martins connections with the corruption (or even possibly the end- he hates Oliver banks enough to be marked by the end, or perhaps jealousy, not the point) due to the web influencing one of those fears to make martins mother grow sick, readying him for the institute, the lonely and the corruption. There's probably a reason why martin survived literally anything, and that reason is probably the web. Especially because of the whole thing with annabelle in season five just walking off with him. The web most likely wanted someone to guide and protect the Archivist in a way that Jonah Magnus, being the untrustworthy swine he is, could never come close to. So like. Yeah the webs fault for everything. Blame them for season five and anything that happens in the magnus protocol/j

[sapphicbookclub]

Scatter by Molly J. Bragg

When Deputy US Marshal Danielle ‘Danny’ Martin was told she’d gotten a promotion, she expected to be leading her own fugitive retrieval team. Instead, she got transferred to Pontian Florida of all places, and assigned to a Superhero support detail for Focus, a seemingly immortal superhero who is also one of the most famous lesbian icons on the planet.

Bad enough she’s got to spend every day working with a woman she’s had a crush on since she was five years old, but when she arrives at her new post, things start getting weird. It turns out that Focus asked for her by name, and it quickly becomes apparent that Focus wants to be more than just coworkers, or even friends.

After Focus has a violent reaction to Danny getting hurt in the line of duty, she starts looking into why the Superhero might be so fixated on her. She begins to suspect that seeing the future might be one of Focus’ powers, but when a mission leaves her stranded thirty years in the past, right at the start of Focus’s superhero career, everything becomes clear, except why the Focus in the past can barely seem to tolerate her presence.

Genres: superheroes, romance

Get the book from The Book Depository here!

[grahamfolgersdeliciousnotebooks]

Happy Jmart-iversary!!! Have some S1 annoyances-to-lovers (or, well, annoyances-to-mutual pining) Jmart to celebrate their day!

Martin usually has more shame than this.

Despite what certain Archivists might think, he isn’t oblivious. He knows Jon doesn’t like him, and while Jon seems to think that Martin has made it his mission in life to bother him whenever possible, Martin usually does his best to avoid Jon as much as civility and his job will allow.

But the thing is, Martin is lonely.

Worse than that, he’s 1 AM Lonely.

Martin has become something of an expert in loneliness, over the years, and he can confidently assert that 1 AM loneliness is the absolute worst. 7 AM loneliness is rough. 8 PM loneliness can be dire. But 1 AM loneliness is utterly, entirely hopeless. If he felt this way while the sun was still up, he might be able to find an excuse to call Tim and Sasha that wasn’t just, “I wanted to hear your voice.” If nothing else, he could walk to a library, or a coffee shop, and remember that there were other people in the world. But at 1 AM, he has nothing to do but sit with the yawning, aching emptiness in his chest, and feel like he is the last person left on the face of the earth.

Except for Jonathan Sims. 

He’d always sort of suspected that Jon had a deeply unhealthy work schedule, but he was still surprised at how often he wandered out of Document Storage after midnight, expecting to have the Archives to himself, only to run into Jon in the breakroom. He’s always more irritable at night – which Martin wouldn’t have thought possible, a month ago – but an irritable Jon is better than nothing, which is how Martin has found himself standing outside Jon’s office in his pajamas, socked feet barely keeping out the chill of the scuffed linoleum floor.

There’s still time to change his mind. He could still turn around, go back to the cot in Document Storage, and sit in his insomnia with some semblance of dignity intact.

He knocks. 

There’s no response, but Martin’s used to that, so he lets himself in. When the door opens, Jon lifts his head from his work to stare daggers at him.

“Yes?” he snaps. “What do you want?”

“Just– J-Just checking in. Do you need anything?”

“No,” Jon says with a finality that borders on rudeness.

“Right.” Martin can take a hint, so he starts backing out of the door. “I’ll, uh… I’ll leave you to it, then.”

Jon purses his lips like he wants to say, See to it that you do, but is aware that that would be rude even for him, and says nothing. Martin winces as he pulls the door shut behind him.

Well. He did achieve what he was setting out to. He no longer feels like he’s completely alone in the world – there’s at least one asshole here with him.

Somehow, that thought comforts him enough that he is finally able to sleep.

*

The next few days, Martin manages to sleep a bit better. The Archives are remarkably empty on the weekend – not even Jon is working Saturdays, this week – so he has to contend with 3 PM loneliness (and 4 PM loneliness, and 5 PM loneliness…) but by 1 AM he is sound asleep. When the work week starts again on Monday, Martin is feeling almost well-rested.

Jon, it seems, isn’t.

He hasn’t stayed late at the office for the past few days, but whatever he was doing away from work, Martin feels confident that it wasn’t sleeping. He’s in an even worse mood than usual, and chews Martin out for a full 5 minutes about a simple formatting error that Martin has seen Tim and Sasha make before. 

(Tim used to work in publishing, he thinks but does not point out, he built his career on finding formatting problems, so if even he screws this up occasionally, I’m pretty sure it’s not a huge deal. But of course, when Tim makes a mistake, he gets a note on his report asking him to revise it, not a 10-minute lecture in which it’s implied that he doesn’t take seriously the historic institution for which he works, and that he may as well be spitting on the grave of Jonah Magnus with each misused semicolon.)

Which makes it all the more embarrassing when 1 AM rolls around and Martin once again hesitates outside the door to Jon’s office. He’s got tea this time, which is a pretty feeble excuse to barge in at 1 in the morning, but it’s a better one than he had last time. He has to shift both mugs to one hand to get the door open.

“Tea?” he asks in lieu of a hello. “I was making some for myself and figured you might want some.” (It’s a bald-faced lie, but Jon doesn’t need to know that.) When Jon doesn’t respond, Martin trips over himself to fill the silence. “It’s, uh. I-It’s herbal. I hope that’s alright. Thought caffeine was probably a bad idea, this time of night.”

“Hm,” is all Jon says in response, but he still takes a sip.

Martin settles into the seat opposite the desk. Jon eyes him suspiciously, but once again says nothing. He turns his attention back to his laptop, and they drink their tea in silence. 

It’s almost pleasant, somehow. The tea is delicious, in Martin’s completely unbiased opinion, and Jon relaxes enough to become a reassuring presence. He doesn’t speak, but he’s a living, breathing human in the same room as Martin, and that’s all Martin needs right now. Jon sighs and coughs and taps his foot, and whenever he notices a mistake in whatever it is he’s reading, he gives an irritable click of his tongue and starts typing furiously. At one point he even laughs. It’s not much – a quiet little bark of a laugh, barely any louder than his sighs – but it still comes as a surprise.

“What?” Martin asks, and Jon startles as though he forgot Martin was there.

Jon looks vaguely mortified to have done something so human and unprofessional as to laugh, but he explains, “Tim’s report on the Ramao case. His methods for obtaining Ramao’s marriage license were… very Tim.”

“Ah.” Martin has a few guesses at what that could mean. “B&E, bribery, or flirting?”

“Flirting,” Jon confirms. “Honestly, I’d prefer a good B&E. At least then I wouldn’t have to explain to Elias why dinner for two at Frescobaldi counts as a business expense.”

“Always happy to do my part,” Martin grins, but his smile droops as he adds, “Though my last break-in didn’t quite go to plan.”

Jon’s face grows serious as well. “Right. How, uh, h-how are you… adjusting?”

“Fine,” Martin says, and it’s not the biggest lie he’s told in his life, but it’s close.

“Right,” Jon says again. He doesn’t ask any follow-up questions, and Martin can’t help but be relieved to let the subject drop, even if the rest of the conversation drops with it. They go back to drinking their tea in silence, and soon enough it’s time for Martin to collect their empty mugs and slink back out of the office.

This time, at least, Jon says good-bye.

“Good night, Martin.”

Martin’s lips twitch upward, just a hair. “Good night, Jon.”

He sets the mugs in the sink and heads back to Document Storage, and he’s asleep within minutes.

*

Tuesday night he manages to fall asleep at a shockingly reasonable hour. Which is wonderful, right up until it isn’t.

He wakes up in a cold sweat from a nightmare that is already fading from his memory. His dad was in it, which is rare. He tries to recall what his face had looked like, but it’s gone. Maybe he hadn’t even had a face – dreams are like that sometimes – but he can still feel it at the edges of his memory, slipping away with each passing second.

He does his best to remember what the dream had been about. He was back in the apartment he used to share with his mother, the tiny, dingy place that forever smelled like mildew and cigarettes even though neither of them smoked, and his father was there. Then he left, again, and his mother was furious. She didn’t need to say that she blamed Martin, he could read it in her face, but she told him anyway. And then the apartment was a hospital room, and there were nurses yelling at him, too – how could he upset his mother at a time like this? Didn’t he know how ill she was? And then the hospital was his new apartment, and the mildew smell wasn’t mildew at all but worms, worms and rot, and he hadn’t spoken to anyone in weeks. He hadn’t spoken to anyone in weeks, and no one had thought to check on him, and the only one in the world who cared whether he lived or died was the woman trying to break down his door and fill him with worms.

So not the best dream he’s ever had.

He checks his phone. 12:22. Great. Too late to talk to anyone, too early to just get out of bed and start the day.

He stares out at the dark room. Document Storage has no windows, and with the hallway light off, there isn’t even any light spilling in under the doorway, so his eyes have nothing to catch on. He can do nothing but sit in the dark as the afterimage of his bright phone screen gets swallowed up by the gloom.

It’s not as though the dream was real. He’s safe for now; the worms can’t get to him here. And he’s not alone in the world. He’s not. His coworkers didn’t just abandon him to die – he’s seen the texts, he knows they had every reason to think he was safe.

Still, if Tim had been out for two full weeks with a stomach bug, Martin would have been on his doorstep with soup and ginger chews and an offer to drive him to the doctor any time he needed. He would have checked up on him. So would Sasha. So would Jon, probably – as much as he likes to present himself as aloof and coldly professional, Martin knows he cares about Tim and Sasha a whole lot more than he lets on. There’s only one person in the Archives who could disappear without being missed.

It isn’t that his friends don’t care about him. He knows they do. But he also knows, with bone-deep certainty, that they don’t care about him as much as he cares about them, and that’s a very lonely feeling.

Martin pushes himself out of bed. He doesn’t know what to do, exactly, but he’s had enough nightmares in his life to know that getting out of bed and away from the room he woke up in is a good place to start.

There’s a light on in Jon’s office. This time, Martin can’t even bring himself to be embarrassed when he steps inside.

Jon is sitting behind his desk, like always, scribbling furiously in the margins of some document Martin doesn’t recognize. He doesn’t even glance up when Martin enters the room this time.

“Yes?”

“Do you–” Martin’s voice is hoarse and rough – he hadn’t thought to get anything to drink when woke up, and now his throat is painfully dry – but he clears his throat and pushes through. “Do you need anything?”

“No.”

“Right.”

Martin takes a seat in the chair beside the desk. He doesn’t try to make conversation. He doubts Jon wants to hear it, and he isn’t feeling up for it, anyway. He just sits and listens to the scratching of Jon’s pen.

He’d be more than happy to sit in silence all night, but Jon keeps pausing his work to shoot suspicious glances Martin’s way, and Martin knows he ought to say something, so he clears his throat again and asks, “Are you sure you don’t need anything?”

“Quite sure, thank you.”

He sounds more than a little irritated. Martin should definitely take that as a sign to leave, but he isn’t ready to go back to sitting in the dark in Document Storage just yet.

“I could make tea?” he offers. “It’s no trouble, really.”

“I don’t need tea,” Jon snaps. “And I don’t need help, and I certainly don’t need a nosy coworker barging into my office every five minutes to try and guilt me into leaving work.”

“What?”

“I know what you’re doing,” Jon insists. “And it’s none of your business how late I work–”

“I don’t care how late you work! I mean, I think you could stand to get some sleep once in a while, but that’s not–”

“Then why are you always hovering around any time I work late?”

Martin is too tired to think better of it before he snaps, “Because I’m lonely, Jon! Because it’s one in the bloody morning and I can’t sleep and everyone else I know is already in bed. Believe me, if there was a single other person I could be talking to right now, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Oh.”

That’s all Jon says. Martin isn’t sure what he’s going to say if he stays in this room any longer, so he stands up.

“I’m going to make tea. Do you want any?”

Jon nods.

When Martin comes back with two perfectly-brewed cups of camomile-and-vanilla, Jon has set aside his pen and his notes and is fidgeting at his desk. Anxiety and shame flicker across his face when he accepts the mug that Martin offers him.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I wasn’t thinking. I thought you just wanted me out of the Archives.”

“Yeah, well. Not everything’s about you.”

And Jon laughs at that – the same soft, barking laugh he’d given to Tim’s report – and Martin feels a strange sort of affection flood through him at the sound. Pretty inconvenient, given that he was just getting used to being irritated with Jon.

“I suppose I deserve that.” Jon smiles, and it’s somehow worse than the laugh. There are a few more minutes of silence before he speaks up again. “Have you, um. Have you ever tried lavender?”

“What?”

“Whenever I tell people I have insomnia, they always recommend lavender – lavender essential oil, lavender tea, lavender eye masks…”

“Have you tried it? Does it help?”

“Not in the least,” Jon says. “Not for me. But maybe it would help you.”

“Maybe,” Martin agrees, more out of politeness than any real hope. “Never hurts to try.”

Jon nods. He looks for a moment like he’s debating with himself whether to say anything else, then he clears his throat with an awkward little grimace and says, “If– i-if you ever need to talk… I can’t promise I’ll be very good conversation, but I can promise I won’t yell at you next time.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

*

Martin’s insomnia doesn’t get any better. Breathing exercises don’t help, and neither does the white noise app he downloads. A box of lavender tea mysteriously appears in the break room, and it doesn’t make him tired, but it does leave him with a warm, fuzzy feeling that can’t be entirely explained by having drunk a hot beverage.

Jon starts staying late more often. Some nights, just knowing that he’s there is comforting enough to stave off the worst of Martin’s loneliness, but some nights he finds himself once again sitting in the chair in Jon’s office while Jon sits across from him with his nose buried in a statement. Jon never asks for an explanation anymore, just nods at Martin when he comes in and then gets back to work.

They don’t talk much on nights like this, but they do talk. Mostly it’s just chatter – how was your day? Did you see what Tim was wearing today? How long until they fix the aircon in this building? – but some nights the conversation opens up to the kind of vulnerability that only 2 AM can bring.

“I wish I was as close with Tim and Sasha as you are.”

It’s not a complete non sequitur – they were just talking about their coworkers – but Martin can still feel the tone shift between them.

Jon just blinks. “What do you mean? I’m certain they like you more than they like me – The three are always going out to lunch–”

“And we always invite you!” Martin reminds him, “You just never come! And anyway, you three go way back, you all know each other so well… They don’t even know me well enough to know if it’s me texting them or some evil worm woman.” He’s gotten to know Jon well enough over the past few weeks to know that, supportive or not, Jon’s never very quick with words of comfort, so he goes on. “I can’t complain – I mean, they’re nice! They’re really nice! It’s just… it’s not fun, feeling like the odd one out.”

Jon flashes him a grimace that Martin thinks is supposed to be commiserative but mostly just looks awkward. “For what it’s worth,” he says, “I also wish I was closer with Tim and Sasha. Things haven’t been the same since we transferred from Research. And it doesn’t help that they both know Sasha should have been promoted over me.”

Martin wants to reassure him, tell him that Elias must have promoted him for a reason, but he’s the last person who can argue that Elias always hires the most qualified person for the job.

“Anyway,” Jon says, “I know for a fact they like you. Have you just told them how you feel?”

“Have you?”

Jon smiles. “Alright, fair enough.”

The conversation moves on to lighter topics from there, and Martin almost forgets about it. But the next time 1 AM loneliness hits, it’s a relief to know that he isn’t the only one in the Archives who’s lonely.

*

Jon stays late every night the next week. 

Martin knows Jon doesn’t want anyone chiding him, but he worries. He looks more and more worn out by the day, and Martin’s pretty sure he’s getting less work done for all the time he’s spending in the Archives.

When Martin wakes up from another nightmare (just a Prentiss nightmare this time, not a Prentiss-and-his-mother double feature) he doesn’t have to question if Jon’s around. When he checks his phone and sees that it’s well past 2 AM, some small, optimistic part of him thinks Jon might have gone home by now, but he isn’t at all surprised when he sees light spilling in from under the door in Jon’s office.

Jon doesn’t look up when Martin enters the room. 

He looks rough. His head is resting in his hands, shoulders slumped, fingers wearily massaging his temples. When he hears the door click closed behind Martin, he finally looks up, and Martin can see that the dark circles under his eyes have gotten worse.

“Go home, Jon,” he says, and Jon shakes his head.

“I’m fine.”

“You need sleep.”

“I doubt I could get any sleep tonight regardless,” Jon says. “Insomnia, remember?”

“Well, try,” Martin says, patience waning. “Go home.”

“I can’t.” Jon’s voice is small and hoarse, and he sounds more vulnerable than he ever has in all their late-night chats.

“What do you mean, you can’t?”

 “You were alone for two weeks, Martin,” he says, voice hushed as though he’s confessing something. “I can’t leave you alone like that again.”

Oh. Martin puts some pieces together. His boss has been running himself ragged, staying at work past 2 in the morning most days, because he’s convinced Martin can’t handle being alone at night. He thinks that Martin is a child in need of a security blanket, and has decided that the best course of action is to simply never leave work. It is, unfortunately, very sweet, but it’s also utterly humiliating.

“I can handle being alone!” he sputters, mortified beyond belief. “Believe me, I’ve had plenty of practice. I don’t need you to always be around. I-I know I said I get lonely sometimes, but, God, I’m not that pathetic.”

Jon frowns. “I don’t think you’re pathetic,” he whispers. “Believe me, Martin, that’s the last thing I think. I know I haven’t always been… fair to you. Or kind. Or even civil. If I had been fair to you, you wouldn’t be living in this basement.” He drops his gaze and addresses his next words to his hands. “It’s my fault you have to stay here,” he murmurs. “The very least I can do is ensure that you don’t have to stay here alone.”

Martin doesn’t know what to say to that. His brain cycles through several options and discards them all as insufficient. In the end, he decides to forgo words altogether. He stands up, reaches over, and pulls Jon out of his seat and into a hug.

Jon startles, and for a moment Martin thinks he’s made a horrible miscalculation, but then wraps his scrawny arms around his middle and squeezes tight.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“I forgive you,” Martin says. “Now go home.”

*

That Friday, the four of them go out for drinks after work. It’s Martin’s idea, and he insists that they invite Jon. Tim and Sasha tell him it’s a lost cause – Jon’s never agreed to get lunch with them, he certainly won’t agree to drinks – but lo and behold, Jon agrees.

It’s awkward. Martin hasn’t left the Archives much since Prentiss, and he’s on high alert for worms, but he can’t deny that having his coworkers with him is a comfort. Sat around a sticky high-top table in a pub that smells like stale beer and fresh sweat, the conversation simply flows. Every now and then, the other three will laugh at some inside joke from their research days, but Jon always makes a point of bringing Martin up to speed.

Afterwards, Jon walks him back to the Archives. Martin is floating in a warm, hazy middle ground between ‘tipsy’ and ‘drunk,’ and Jon seems to be feeling much the same.

“I could stay, if you’d like,” Jon says.

“I’ll be fine,” Martin says.

When he makes it to the cot in Document Storage, he’s asleep the moment his head hits the pillow.

*

It would be nice, Martin thinks, if getting closer to people were the straightforward antidote to loneliness – if making friends were enough to stop him feeling so utterly friendless. But loneliness is never a simple thing, and some nights he still finds himself lying awake at night feeling like the last man on earth.

He checks the time. 1 AM. Naturally.

For the second time in a week, Jon doesn’t look up to see Martin when he enters the room. This time, he’s slumped over the desk, dead asleep.

He looks smaller, somehow, when he’s sleeping. His face is slack, the perpetual furrow in his brow is gone, and his hair is falling across his face in a way that leaves Martin itching to reach over and tuck it behind his ear. He looks cute, if Martin’s being entirely honest, but Jon’s only started being mostly-nice to Martin in the past two weeks or so, so Martin isn’t ready to be that honest with himself quite yet.

He reaches out a hand and gently shakes Jon’s shoulder.

“Jon.”

Jon stirs but doesn’t wake, so Martin shakes harder. 

“Jon,” he repeats. No luck.

He sighs. He’s still wide awake, and he doubts that’s going to change any time soon. At least one of them should get some use out of the cot.

It’s surprisingly easy to pick Jon up. Jon stirs slightly as Martin scoops him into his arms, and for one terrifying second he thinks he’s going to wake up in Martin’s arms, but he doesn’t. Opening the doors to first the office and then Document Storage is more than a little tricky with his hands full, but he manages.

He sets Jon down on the bed as gently as he can, but Jon finally rouses as Martin tucks a blanket over his shoulders.

“Martin?” he mumbles, voice still thick with sleep.

“Go back to sleep, Jon.”

It doesn’t seem like Jon needs any encouragement. His eyes are already slipping closed again, but he manages to ask, “Will you be alright on your own?”

“Yeah,” Martin says, “I’ll be alright.” 

And he means it.

(View this story on AO3)

[withswords]

as usual tumblr is acting very high and mighty about knowing things that other people might not know, and getting very meanspirited about twitter refugees who haven’t heard of goncharov. additionally, there’s a lot of misinformation and jokes floating around that are probably just confusing a lot of people further, which is kind of unfair. the reason you’ve never seen goncharov is because until pretty recently nobody had since the 1970s!

tumblr has always had a thriving community of lost media enthusiasts, and the search for goncharov was kickstarted on here in 2020 after the discovery of a pair of shoes with a label that seemed to promote martin scorsese’s goncharov, a mysterious mafia movie nobody had ever heard of, leading to the ironic ‘this idiot hasn’t seen goncharov’ meme. however, under the surface, a few intrepid lost media excavators wondered, why hadn’t they seen goncharov? was this movie a total hoax?

then in late 2020- an event that got somewhat lost in the jumble of tumblr’s destiel election haze- gonch-heads found an interview with columbia pictures studio head david begelmen (best known for an embezzlement scandal that would be revealed a few years later) that mentioned goncharov. recently the unearthed movie has received praise for its striking visuals, for being a movie truly ahead of its time for the intended 1973 release, so people are often surprised to learn that goncharov was one of the all time production clusterfucks at columbia.

the interviewer quotes begelmen saying, “We don’t say that word [Goncharov],” in a tone that comes across almost scolding. when asked for clarification, he adds: “You know in theater they have the Scottish play? We have that ****ing Naples movie.”

when you look into it, it’s easy to see why goncharov was internally considered a cursed production. there are more thorough posts out there about all the disasters on the set of goncharov, but i’ll go over the two big ones. the enigmatic presence of ilya was created by practical necessity. his role was originally much larger, before the actor died on set (from a heart attack supposedly unrelated to the filming), and much of his part had to be scrapped. studio shakeups as columbia nearly went bankrupt (not helped by goncharov’s ambitious budget) and moved shooting from gower street to burbank resulted in much of the physical film going missing, thought to be destroyed until nearly 15 years later. around this time, rather than attempt to go into reshoots for an expensive nightmare led by a rookie director, the filming was canned completely.

i think because scorsese is so high profile now, people forget that in 73, he was barely scorsese. he was an up-and-coming director with some borrowed clout, but goncharov was a costly mistake that nearly ended his career. there’s a reason he rarely speaks about it. this was only compounded by matteo j.

a lot of people out there will tell you that j was the real director of goncharov, and this is false, if not an understandable mistake. matteo j has been off the grid for decades now and there’s a lot of speculation about who he was, his involvement with the original goncharov project, and why he went underground. there are rumors that he ran afoul of the actual mafia, but in my opinion that’s just sensationalism- you might as well say that the goncharov curse took him out. all we REALLY know is that he was at some point an employee of columbia pictures who gained access to the lost reels of goncharov.

j may at best be responsible for compiling his recovered goncharov footage in the late 80s, into a film which he tried to release in italy in partnership with procacci, who was attempting at that time to break into production and due to the low profile and attempted studio coverup at columbia was not fully aware of the film’s history. there are conflicting accounts of how much influence j’s editing has on the film, with some people considering him basically the marcia lucas of goncharov, and others believing him to be an opportunist taking advantage of a mostly-finished piece of art for his own gain.

obviously the studio intervened before the film’s actual release, but much of the promotional material including the poster, the shoes, etc. came from this time. it seems that columbia came to some kind of agreement with j vis a vis distribution and profits, probably in the hopes of cashing in on scorsese’s by then ascended name, which was of course splashed across the top of every goncharov poster you can find. however, the release was called off a second time once scorsese himself got wind of it.

and that seemed to be the end of it. the completed goncharov went into the columbia vault, with only a handful of misremembered bootlegs and chopped-up local tv airings even attesting to the fact that it ever existed, until a leaked copy appeared with no warning on archive.org. this seems to have been a prelude from a disgruntled netflix employee to the distribution of the film through the service (although, of course, in inferior aspect ratio, ‘remastered’ and with several scenes edited). you can still find copies of the original film on archive if you want to experience it as... well, it’s hard to say what the ‘intended’ goncharov experience is with such a complicated history behind it, but as close to intended as we can get. i don’t know if scorsese has softened on j’s version of the movie after all this time, or if he’s just let his grudge over it go. all i know for sure is that goncharov really has earned the title of the greatest mafia movie never made

[hit-song-showdown]

Year-End Poll #16: 1964

[Image description: a collage of photos of the 10 musicians and musical groups featured in this poll. In order from left to right, top to bottom: The Beatles (x2), Louis Armstrong, Roy Orbison, The Beach Boys, Dean Martin, Mary Wells, Gale Garnett, Frank Wilson, The Supremes. End description]

More information about this blog here

A lot happened this year. To get the obvious out of the way, this is the first time (and far from the last) we're seeing The Beatles featured on these polls. Like Elvis Presley in the previous decade, so much has been said about the cultural impact of these artists that I feel intimidated to give my two cents. At this stage in their careers, The Beatles offered a middle ground between their rowdier skiffle roots and the squeaky-clean look of teen idols at the time -- which clearly worked for teenage girls in the early 60's. Much like in the 1950s, we're seeing another rock and roll boom, but this time the genre is pulling from other contemporary influences. Especially doo-wop, as seen with The Beach Boys. Parallel to the British Invasion, surf rock will also become a major staple of the decade.

This moment in the 1960s also marks the mainstream rise of another monumental cultural force: Motown Records. While the label was founded in 1958, this is the moment where more Motown acts start crossing over into the mainstream charts, as seen with Mary Wells and The Supremes. The significance of a Black-owned label achieving major crossover success can't be overstated. The Motown sound would soon become synonymous with the 1960s, and we will continue to see their influence (both direct and indirect) beyond.

As an aside, it's interesting to finally get to the years where my parents remember hearing these songs. Apparently Last Kiss was not the only "tragic teen love car crash" song. "Teenage tragedies" were a popular subgenre at the time, and cars became a more popular inciting incident for said tragedies as automobiles became a more prevalent part of teen culture. Here's an NPR interview about it (transcript included).

[singeratlarge]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Desi Arnaz, Benedict of Nursia, Moe Berg, Ed Bournemann, Dale Bozzio, Larry Carlton, Karen Carpenter, John Cowsill, Daniel Craig, John Cullum, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Maxwell Street, Jimmy Davis, Becky G, Rory Gallagher, John Gardner, Mikhail Gorbachev, Laird Hamilton, Sam Houston, Bryce Dallas Howard, John Irving, Jennifer Jones, Léon Jongen, Jon Bon Jovi, Orrin Keepnews, the 1933 film KING KONG, Papa Lightfoot, BarBara Luna, Madonna’s 1989 single “Like a Prayer,” Chris Martin, Gates McFadden, drummer-producer Tony Meehan (The Shadows), Method Man, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Lauraine Newman, Jay Osmond, Ethan Peck, Elvis Presley’s 1956 single “Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” Luke Pritchard (The Kooks), Dottie Rambo, Red Saunders, Dennis Seaton (Musical Youth), Shostakovich’s 14th Symphony (1969), Bedřich Smetana, the 1995 musical SMOKY JOE’S CAFÉ, Ludovico Spontoni, the 1965 film SOUND OF MUSIC, composer-trumpeter Derek Watkins (James Bond films), Kurt Weill, Tom Wolfe, "Théo" Ysaÿe, and the creative provocateur, poet, and singer-songwriter Lou Reed. He was the principal songwriter for The Velvet Underground and his solo career spanned 5 decades. 

Velvet Underground were not commercially successful but are now regarded as one of the most influential bands in the history of rock. Brian Eno said that everyone who heard the first VU album wanted to start a band. Reed had a deadpan voice that, for me, required forgiveness as singers go (though he did step up on occasion, particularly when he sung with The Blind Boys on THE RAVEN album). Eventually I connected with his noir fiction, transgressive “eyewitness reporting” lyrics and songcraft. He neither approved or disapproved of the subjects he sang about and, in the end, he just wanted to write catchy rock’n’roll. Over the years I’ve performed at least 6 Reed/VU songs—recording 2: “What Goes On” and “Sunday Morning,” on which I was joined by members of The Badlees (who did a splendid job in one afternoon). Reed himself commended our cover and promoted it on his website in the mid-90s. HB and RIP Lou.

#loureed #velvetunderground #sundaymorning #singersongwriter #bretalexander #thebadlees #blindboysofalabama #raven #edgarallenpoe #noirfiction #poet #guitarist #eyewitnessreport #johnnyjblair #singeratlarge #birthday

[lol-jackles]

I love your musings on the movie industry and actresses. I am interested in your opinion about Tom Holland, if you know anything about him as an actor. I think he's going through a rough patch. A couple years ago he was the most successful and promising young actor. At this point, his career path is very questionable. Several failed projects, including his latest TV series, which he produced himself. Critics trashed him. And on the whole, they don't like him much. I attribute this to an inappropriate remark about Martin Scorsese. He wasn't rude or disrespectful, but still his words were taken by many in a bad light. Now he has returned to the theater. But judging by the record-breaking two hours of ticket sales, I think he's still loved by his fans. But I still don't understand why he's doing so badly with his projects. At the moment he has plans for another spider sequel, possibly uncharted 2 and a Fred Astaire biographical movie. And none of these projects have any definite shooting dates or even a nominally finished plot.

I've only seen a few of Tom Holland's non-Spiderman films and he seemed miscast in those, however, he still gave very good performances.  The great Christopher Lee once said, "Every actor has to make terrible films from time to time, but the trick is never to be terrible in them."

The great Kenneth Branagh directed and starred in the stinker Frankenstein featuring the great Robert Di Niro as the monster. Kennth was also the best thing about the Harry Potter movies as Professor Lovelock. Meryl Streep's performance was praised in Mama Mia for her energy and commitment, despite the overall critical reception of the movie. Denzel Washington pretty much made a career out of elevating projects from the depths of mediocrity into something approaching watchability, and sometimes, even quality.

Tom's current career trajectory reminds me of Michael J. Fox's dark, experimental phase as a traumatized solider and a drug addict mourning the death of his mother and marriage before returning to what he does best: funny everyman. If I was his manager, I would advise him to hire Channing Tatum's agent and take inspiration from Hugh Jackman and embrace his singing and dancing skills and natural comedic timing, so his Fred Astaire project is a good idea. Tom can still do drama and action that is silly and fun. Point Break is silly and also one of the greatest action movies of the 20th century, and it was one of the first clues that Keanu Reeve’s career trajectory is going to be less “Tiger Beat”, and more “walking away from explosions, looking directly at the camera”.

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

KissFM Flashback: Best of Love 1998 R&B / Adult Contemporary / Pop / Soul / Arena Rock / Pop-Rock

Funny thing about this pretty anodyne and somewhat random assortment of love songs from the Warner Elektra Atlantic catalogue that span between the late 70s and late 90s is that, had you not recognized the radio station logo that's on this album's cover, you'd probably have no idea that this was actually a Finnish release. And that seems to be because of two intertwined things: one, naming your radio station Kiss FM is like the equivalent of naming your American town Springfield; like, I'm pretty sure it's the most popular name for a radio station in the entire world, which also makes it the most generic. And because it's the most generic name for a radio station, it also then makes sense that its own tracklist would not provide a single clue as to where this particular Kiss FM station itself was actually located.

Which I guess just also goes to show how generic the market was overall for one of those hit European radio stations that played a mix of 'the hits from yesterday and today' in the late 90s, because not a single song on this release is actually Finnish-made itself, which would definitely lead you to think that it's not actually Finnish when it so totally is! 

But all that said, despite there not being anything to actually individualize this comp from any other similarly-scoped Euro comp out there, this thing nevertheless still manages to kick itself off with a pair of my all-time favorite big hits of 1996: the terrific Todd Terry remix of Everything But the Girl's "Missing," which was not just undoubtedly that year's single biggest commercial house hit, but was one of its biggest radio hits, period, too; and British one-hit wonder Donna Lewis' dreamy and ever-so-soft disco-pop-slow-dance smash, "I Love You Always Forever," which subtly built up all this tension with an unwavering bassline chug that smacked of the stuttering opening seconds from Survivor's own "Eye of the Tiger," and then suddenly released it all with a much louder and very catchy bridge that was outfitted with some handclaps and sharp, rich, and powerful keyboard chords. Sounds like a ballad that Cyndi Lauper might've made had she been born a decade later, and to that same end, a really lovely tune.

And another thing you might be interested in is that if you wanna hear iconic Swedish teen pop producer Max Martin's signature mid-to-late 90s sound applied to something before he managed to launch the Backstreet Boys into the stratosphere himself, there's Papa Dee's euro-reggae-pop cover of P.P. Arnold's "The First Cut Is the Deepest," which has that same smack-clappy backbeat sound that would define much of BSB's own output. Not gonna say that I particularly enjoy this song at all, but it's still intriguing to hear the Martin sound on something else prior to BSB.

And lastly, we have Lutricia McNeal's largely forgotten cover of Barbi Benton's "Ain't That Just the Way." If you dig that softly bouncy, hip hop-laced contemporary R&B sound of the mid-to-late 90s that made the careers of people like Mary J. Blige, Brandy, and Monica, this Oklahoma City native who ended up launching her career in Sweden and scoring this hit there is a good one too. After hitting big in Europe, "Ain't That Just the Way" crossed over here into the States and achieved moderate success as well, and while it never ended up earning itself the Grammy-winning plaudits of something like The Fugees' Lauryn Hill-led cover of Roberta Flack's own Grammy-winning "Killing Me Softly with His Song," I happen to think that the two tunes dovetail pretty perfectly with each other as 1996 R&B companions 👍.

So, a pretty lame Finnish comp of love songs with most of a selection that could fool anyone into thinking that it actually came from any one of a number of stations named Kiss FM in America instead, but nevertheless, some great intercontinentally popular hits from 1996 on here anyway 😌.

Highlights:

Everything But the Girl - "Missing (Todd Terry remix)" Donna Lewis - "I Love You Always Forever" Simply Red - "If You Don't Know Me By Now" Lutricia McNeal - "Ain't That Just the Way" Mr. Big - "To Be With You" Damn Yankees - "High Enough"

[blueiscoool]

Getty to Acquire Ancient Portrait Bust of Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius

First documented in 1851, the bust was previously unknown to scholars or the public.

The J. Paul Getty Museum is set to acquire an over-life-size ancient Roman marble bust of the emperor Antoninus Pius (ruled AD 138–161).

The work was purchased at auction in December; its final acquisition is subject to an export license being granted by the Arts Council England.

A prime example of Antoninus Pius’s main portrait type, the bust was created sometime after he ascended the throne in AD 138. With minor variations, this portrait type remained the emperor’s official image throughout his reign until AD 161. Carved from a single block of fine-grained white marble, the bust shows the emperor as a mature man with distinct facial features, a full, neatly trimmed beard, and thick curly hair. He wears a tunic, a cuirass (body armor), and a fringed paludamentum (a general’s cloak) folded in half and pinned at his right shoulder. “This exquisitely sculpted and remarkably preserved portrait ranks among the finest of more than 100 versions of Antoninus’s image that have survived from antiquity,” says Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the Getty Museum. “The bust adds a new highlight to the series of high-quality imperial portraits at the Getty Villa, including the full-length statue of Antoninus’ wife Faustina the Elder, and the busts of Augustus, Germanicus, Caligula, and Commodus.”

Born in Lanuvium to a family that had migrated to Italy from Nemausus in southern Gaul (today’s Nîmes in France), Antoninus was not groomed to become emperor. At the advanced age of 51, following a career as governor of the province of Asia and as Roman senator, he was adopted by Emperor Hadrian to be his successor. Antoninus’ long and exceptionally peaceful reign brought great prosperity to the Roman Empire, and the economy, culture, and artistic production flourished. The emperor started the dynasty of the Antonines, which lasted for more than two generations and ended with the death of Commodus in AD 192.

“Many objects in our collection were made in the Antonine period, as it is known today, including portraits, mythological sculptures, sarcophagi, and numerous other works,” says Jens Daehner, associate curator of antiquities at the Getty Museum. “The bust of Antoninus provides a firmly dated visual reference for what characterized Roman aesthetics during that period. On display in our galleries, the bust will convey to visitors how, for example, Antonine sculptors carved drapery folds, used drills to give texture to hair, or incised the eyes of their sitters.”

The marble bust was acquired in 1851 in Naples, Italy, by Robert Martin Berkeley (1823–1897), who brought it to his estate at Spetchley Park, Worcestershire, in England. It remained there with his heirs until it was offered at auction late last year at Sotheby’s, London. Although documented in the estate’s archive, the bust was previously unknown to the public or scholars. Once acquired, the bust of Antoninus Pius will go on display in the Getty Villa’s Later Roman Sculpture gallery with its selection of other Antonine period portraits.