#My Cynical Rapture

[shiveagit]

RadioAppleTrickorTreat Day 5 Goth

Take a walk.

Closest i ever got to a goth phase was listening to MCR on repeat. They are both dressed from Helena and Black Parade.

[thoughtlessthinkythoughts]

I think the key to understanding show!Aziraphale is in some lines that are in the book but not the show. Because these lines represent a place that our show Aziraphale hasn't hit yet.

Before I get into this, let me explain why I think things that aren't in the show can be so important to understanding where the show will go.

For another example, let's look at the ending of the book/s1. In the book, Adam is not impressed with Aziraphale and Crowley. There is no pep talk. He actually has a pretty stern message to them about "not messing people around."

A lot of s2 might not have worked the same way if they had gotten that message. It would have cut off room for growth. The whole plotline with Nina and Maggie for one would have been much less likely. So by holding off the stop messing with people message to the end of s2 (and then only giving it to Crowley), it provides more room for the characters to change at a pace befitting a multi-season show.

So what else do I think will end up working this way?

Well, there's a scene I love in the book that hasn't made it into the show yet. It happens after Aziraphale is discorporated. In the show, he goes to heaven, then to Madame Tracy. In the book, he bounces around possible hosts first, including a televangelist. The televangelist is going on about the rapture and such, and Aziraphale cuts in with this:

"Well, nice try...only it won't be like that at all. Not really.

"I mean, you're right about the fire and war, all that. but that Rapture stuff well, if you could see them all in Heaven - serried ranks of them as far as the mind can follow and beyond, league after league of us, flaming swords, all that, well, what I'm trying to say is who has time to go round picking people out and popping them up in the air to sneer at the people dying of radiation sickness on the parched and burning earth below them? If that's your idea of a morally acceptable time, I might add.

"And as for that stuff about Heaven inevitably winning...Well, to be honest, if it were that cut and dried, there wouldn't be a Celestial War in the first place, would there? It's propaganda. Pure and simple. We've got no more than a fifty percent chance of coming out on top. You might as well send money to a Satanist hotline to cover your bets, although to be frank when the fire falls and the seas of blood rise you lot are all going to be civilian casualties either way. Between our war and your war, they're going to kill everyone and let God sort it out-right?

"Anyway, sorry to stand here wittering, I've just a quick question-where am I?"

Because even this more cynical version of Aziraphale is adorable, the scene ends with "Gosh," he said, "am I on television?"

We didn't get this in the show, but I can't help feeling that it might be in season 3, assuming we get a season 3. It might even fit in better there, assuming we are going with a "second coming" plot. In the show, Aziraphale hasn't reached this level of cynicism (yet). I can't picture s1 or s2 Aziraphale giving this speech. Sure, he's seen what a mess the archangels are, he was willing to go against heaven to stop them from starting the end of the world, but I'm pretty sure show Aziraphale still believes in the goodness of God if not the goodness of the way heaven is run. It makes sense that show Aziraphale sees heaven as a fixable mess, an organization that isn't living up to what it should be. Because the show is taking Aziraphale's struggle with morally complex situations and questioning God and making it a longer arc.

My guess it that, as his tenure as archangel is likely to go terribly and not give him any more answers (or at least not answers he likes), he will get to the point where he could give this speech in season 3. My guess is that he's likely to also end up in a horrendous mental state once he reaches these conclusions (a perfect opportunity for some hurt/comfort). He's likely to build himself back up after that, but with a clearer look at the world.

End conclusion: if you are telling a longer story, sometimes you need to hold some things back to give your characters room to grow. So, it isn't a sign something is wrong with a story when partway through a character hasn't hit upon an obvious point.

"

[numetaljackdog]

WILT 8/3/2024

spotify//youtube

and get this. song notes under cut

Limp Bizkit - No Sex: ahaha the funny bizkit band!!!!! except this song speaks deeply to some Themes 😐<-the seriouser. pretty sure i've talked about this one in past WILTs but it just continues to strike me as unusual to hear fred like this on significant other. it's such a shameful song, definitely with some large doses of deflection and passing the blame to the woman he's addressing in the lyrics, but it connects on a base emotional level that fred rarely operated on at this point in bizkit hiztory, and an emotional level which i operate on every day of my life. this is in my top 3 lb songs

Jerk - I Hate People Like That: whenever i'm listening to this song, it's the best song in the world. i discovered this through the "crazy-ass moments in nu metal history" instagram page and loved the live video (the singer looks so cool!!) but hearing the studio version for the first time was the real jaw-dropper. recommend the whole album, some of the crunchiest, tastiest, most australian industrial i've ever heard

Deftones - Lotion: FINALLY entering my deftones era with lots of around the fur. lotion came on shuffle whilst i was mightily zooted one day and i decided that this was, in fact, the best song ever. the little vocal riff in the chorus? wild. plus ngl i do feel sickened

Fabricoh - Arm the Left: what a cool hardcore band :)

Coal Chamber - Fiend: idrc about coal chamber that much but this shit bumps

Klokwise - Bounce With This: as i believe i mentioned, this is one of my current favorite tracks from a newer nu metal band. hype as fuck, good riff, lots of bouncing. one thing i like best about klokwise is that they have a catchphrase. fucking brilliant way to build a community around your band. people can just say WISE UP and if you're with it then you immediately know what's up

Faith No More - Jizzlobber: speaking of themes and topics. i have been getting more into fnm due to reasons beyond my control and well frankly they are so bangers. "banger" doesn't really cover this one though this is straight up freak shit those vocals are crazyyyy

Cradle Of Thorns - Flesh: before videodrone was videodrone they were a strange little diy industrial outfit that made some independently-released records throughout the 90s. i've much yet to explore from the back catalog but this is a jam that's a combination of sexy and nasty and funny. included in the youtube playlist is footage of ty what's-his-name flailing and screeching like a wet little loser faggot boy

Kendrick Lamar - Not Like Us: i followed the beef from about the midpoint to the conclusion and i'm still marveling at how thoroughly kendrick lamar put that man in the dirt. and made some bangers along the way, this shit is in my head everyday

Faith No More - Digging the Grave: the singing so good. that's all i really have for this one rn, this is the newest addition to the rotation

Boskat - Boiler: honestly rudeboy really deserves most of the credit for this, like yeah boskat came up with a catchy riff but otherwise it's like barely their song. plus i checked out some of their other shit and it's mid as hell. really good nu revival track but seems like a total fluke unforch. plus idk why they shied away from just saying "dick" like grow up

Joey Valence & Brae - Packapunch: been bumping some jvb recently, which is where some of the beastie posting has been coming from. i'm a little cynical about some of their new stuff like ohhhh yeah i bet you want to add nu jazz and breakcore and w/e to your sound yeah i bet your online-as-fuck audience eats that shit up. but then also i'm part of that audience and i kind of do. so i guess they've got me there. plus danny brown! i'm serious about the beastie girls thing btw

Blondie - Rapture: another legitimate claim for the title of first-ever rap rock song! which is crazy bc it comes out of nowhere. like wow this blondie song is good in the way that most blondie songs are g- hey wait what. i love new wave and art punk and other stuff too. plus debbie harry's voice sounds realllll sexy when she sings the song title

P. O. D. - School of Hard Knocks: from little nicky. it's nu memtal

Insane Clown Posse - Hum Drum Boogie: oh goody! anyway me + the crew have been jamming this album recently and this song is so funny. MY BALLS

Charli XCX - Guess featuring Billie Eilish: i like girls :) this track strikes me as like a modern take on the paradigm of older club hits where there's like a male rapper who's the main artist and a female singer who's featured and does the hook and through the lyrics the narrative of performance is that they're gonna fuck down on each other. this is that but instead of pitbull or whoever it's billie eilish. and well that's kind of awesome. becuase of lesbian sex

Natalie Portman - Natalie's Rap: i don't give a fuckkkk about snl but i love when women rap and i love when it's violent on purpose

Chris Korda - Save the Planet, Kill Yourself: i got obsessed with the church of euthanasia recently after reading a bunch about the unabomber and that led me to chris korda's music which admittedly is not something i would give a fuck about if not for everything else going on with her. i would have added "i like to watch" instead of this but for some strange reason that i just can't fathom it doesn't seem to be widely available anywhere. weird!

Insane Clown Posse - I'm Ugly: actually awful song but soooo fucking funny. and then it gets kind of hard at the end and i stand by that

BONUS TRACK!

Trapt - These Walls: fuck these guys and their shitty band but also this song is kind of real as fuck....... like yeah man i would trade everything for this. however this was almost certainly purely incidental as all their songs sound like they were made in a lab

[grandhotelabyss]

Which books influenced the way you think about politics the most?

The worth of this question can be measured by how difficult I'm finding it to answer. On the one hand, far too many books come to mind, reputable and disreputable and in-between, fiction and philosophy, journalism and polemic, comic book and conspiracy theory, plus 20+ years on the internet. On the other hand, there's no one book, or even several books, I could recommend to demonstrate the way I think about politics; I learned most about politics from watching politics, in the ages first of cable television and then of the internet not primarily a bookish enterprise. And because politics is famously the art of the possible, and because what's possible changes year by year, neither politics in general nor my politics in particular can stand still. I learn something every year, though not always from books. I don't mean by this to be cynical; one has one's values, but they vary in their expression with the affordances of the moment. For me, the deepest hope—not belief, but hope; not yet a reality but an aspiration—is in the potential of human freedom against all totalizing systems. I doubt I got that from a book, though. More likely it came from somewhere else, in early experience, and prepared me to recognize the theme whenever I did encounter it in books. Nor have I been wholly dead to the genuine sublimity of those totalizing systems, given what I have jokingly called my protracted education at the hands of Catholics and Marxists.

Anyway, the spirit of the question calls for a list, so I'll provide one. It's a narrative list arranged chronologically by my age when I read the book in question with a little summary of what it taught me. I've avoided the temptation of pretending that canonical political philosophy has taught me more than it did: with respect to Plato, Hobbes, Marx, Mill, Foucault, and the like, mostly I read that material in too abstract a mood for it to matter or too late for it do more than confirm what I'd already learned elsewhere.

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen (read age 12) - The world is comprised of systems in dynamic interaction with individuals and ideologies; art may replicate this in significant form; the proper attitude of the artist is an implied sardonic skepticism, albeit open to apolitical spiritual rapture and cosmic consciousness.

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (read age 14) - The political winds can shift like that, between the acts; when power is at stake, you can't depend on personal loyalties; a smooth speech is better than a good cause; the crowd will always kill the poet; those who plead their freedom often have, beneath their own awareness, an envious resentment of power; the artist can manipulate the audience's political sympathies for pedagogical purposes.

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (both read age 15) - The modern problem is the reconciliation of individual and collective such that neither is enslaved to the other, the populace starved by the rich, the citizen trampled by state and society; the novel (unlike nonfiction forms) is almost unlimited in its ability to examine this theme, encompassing fantasy and naturalism, sermon and treatise, journalism and prophecy.

Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae (read age 18) - We are ruled by darker forces than we know, especially if we refuse to know it; the whole complex problem of sex and sexuality is primordial, infinitely more fundamental than the comparative superficies of race and class that political philosophers and pundits prefer to discuss; art and politics both are contra naturam—sex, by contrast, is the tragic collision of art and nature—and therefore under the sign of beauty; the critic's sensibility should be cosmic and unyielding, itself a mark carved hopelessly into nature's loam.

Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (read age 21) - Empire is the primary political fact, inescapable even for artists and angels; the most powerful move a critic can make is to ally art to empire, the more improbably or counterintuitively the better, this to establish the critic's own cultural empire; the critic may rhetorically take the side of the oppressed in a suave rhetoric the oppressed could never master, and charisma will dispel (almost) the consequent air of fraud.

Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (read age 27) - Our genius is our tragedy: the laws we codified to escape and then to master nature have enslaved us precisely because we identify them with nature; we have strangled everything spontaneous and tender in ourselves—and have projected out of ourselves and "other" and slaughtered that, too—in the name of this conquest, necessary to progress as in fact it was, with consequences even including the modern reduction of culture to the machinic product of industries consecrated to entertainment propaganda.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons (read age 32) - Liberalism is not innocent; in destroying every metaphysic but freedom and utility it has cleared the path of psychotic anarchy and brutal tyranny; the artist must understand every inch of this dilemma from the inside.

Albert Camus, The Rebel (read age 35) - The urge to rebel against tyranny and its dialectical concomitant in the urge to become a tyrant in turn are structures of human consciousness traceable through the whole of human culture from ancient myth to modern art, with political philosophy in between; the artist's abundant vision may teach the moderation that preserves the impulse to freedom and holds in abeyance the drive toward tyranny.

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (read age 39) - The enemy is the reduction of the human to a calculus, any calculus, with whatever alibi (liberal, fascist, communist; race, class, nation); the solution is collective creativity.

Finally, for a wild card:

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (read and reread between ages 15 and 40) and Sacvan Bercovitch, The Office of the Scarlet Letter (read age 25) - This is how American politics in particular works: it doesn't; it is sublimated as a cultural conflict about the limits of freedom and necessity waged over open-ended and contested symbols, including Hawthorne's own text; the proper ambition of the American writer is to write a text of such permanently productive ambiguity.

[spacedewey]

2024: The Year In Music by Some Guy

Unlike most outlets, I wait til the year is actually over to discuss what happened, because despite the conventional wisdom that no one drops anything of note in December, you never know when SZA is going to wait until the week before Christmas to release an album. Again. And it's officially the same album the 2nd time, but with an entire new 15-track album bolted onto the front for cynical streaming financials-based reasons. But you know. You can't count out December anymore.

As always, I make a list of my favorite albums, rather than a "best of" list. Best of lists are stupid. There are as many "best of" lists are there are people with ears, and they're all correct. Better to frame it as things I enjoyed the most, I think. More rambling and an actual list below the cut.

2024 was a weird music year for me. It's a year mostly characterized by artists I love releasing records I didn't really connect with. In the past, you'd've heard me raving about the likes of Cassandra Jenkins, Allegra Krieger, Iress, Erik the Architect, Charlotte Day Wilson, Lucy Rose, Touché Amore, Delta Sleep, Middle Kids, Brother Ali, Latto, St. Vincent and so on, but this year... I don't know that any of them made a bad album, but none of them made something I had to listen to over and over.

A lot of the albums that didn't do much for me were huge critical successes, too. Critics raved that Nilufer Yanya had found her groove on 3rd album My Method Actor, which apparently means they've been clamoring for her to make a record where all the songs kind of sound the same, but not me. Nick Cave finally crawled out from under the totally understandable grief from all the loss in his life the last 10 years and produced the worst album of his career, an album so bad I struck it from my memory and forgot to even mention it here on my first draft, released to thunderous applause. English Teacher's debut EP was one of my favorites in 2022, but while I found this year's This Must Be Texas just fine, they've been showered with a truly insane amount of praise and awards for such a new band. Happy for them, tho! I think they're great.

Even Kendrick Lamar, by the time GNX managed to finally come out and make the whole Drake beef feel like an extended marketing campaign, presented his least ambitious project since 2005, fully half of which sounded like inferior versions of "Not Like Us." Is it bad? No. Is it great? Definitely also no, but you wouldn't know that from its rapturous reception. I really hate finding myself agreeing with Pitchfork, but they were basically the only people saying, "Hey, this is actually not so great," and it's true. It's not bad. It's got a couple pretty great songs on it. But it's pretty dumb, and from an artist who's always seemed to put so much thought and care into his work, even when he was young and unknown and had a much smaller budget, that feels tossed off to me. Yelling "mustard" is funny, but GNX had me kind of missing the wildly problematic and overwrought Mr. Morale, even. That album was mostly pretty bad and proudly platformed a serial abuser as its co-star,* but it was very ambitious. GNX is both only ok and not very ambitious, and I think that may be worse. But, I guess, as Andre 3000, he of last year's most overrated, emperor's-new-clothes-ass album, once said, "kinda sour cuz my favorite group ain't comin wit it, but I'm witcha cuz you probably goin thru it, anyway." There's always next time.

*Which sure didn't help Kendrick in the beef once things got personal, in my view, but no one actually cared as long as they saw Drake getting slammed... You can say "Drake is a pedophile" all you want, and he probably is, but Kodak Black is definitely a rapist and a violent lunatic who can't go 2 weeks without getting arrested, and Kendrick apparently loves that guy, so... Some of us have been waiting to hear Kendrick and Drake go at it since 2013, and we got 1 shot from each artist before things devolved into mudslinging based on highly personal accusations both camps would later claim were based on fake information they fed the other side, and it really made things less fun very fast to me. The best rapper vs. the biggest rapper should have been the World Series of beef, and instead it turned into a bunch of bullshit, in the end. Kendrick won, and he was always going to win. I wanted to enjoy the exhibition. End tangent.

On the other hand, Pearl Jam and Opeth released late career shockers better than anything they'd done in ages. Pearl Jam's Dark Matter bests anything they've made in 24 years, at least, and Opeth's The Last Will And Testament is their first real success since 2008, and in both cases, I never expected it, and it was very cool. And to my earlier point, is The Last Will And Testament the best album of 2024? Almost certainly not. Was I so happy to hear a beloved group I'd basically counted out make something great that I was listening to it every day, sometimes more than once? I sure was! And that's how the ranking works. The Cure and Dark Tranquillity released solid additions to their storied catalogs, Heems made a welcome return to rap with not one, but two good records, Moses Sumney was singing in the rain in a video, he brought R&B back!, it certainly wasn't all bad for people I already liked.

As is increasingly common, new and new-to-me artists ranked very high on my list. The Last Dinner Party, Rosie Tucker, Nadine Shah, Charm of Finches, Flyana Boss, RiTchie, Muchi, GloRilla, Upon Stone and Baby Rose all put out really remarkable records, to me, at least. I only checked out Katy Kirby because she was touring with Allegra Krieger, and her Blue Raspberry was my favorite of 2024 for most of the year.

Hip hop was once again the most represented genre in my collection, as it tends to be. Cakes da Killa continued the movement in hip hop to reclaim house music as black music with huge success on one of the most fun albums of the year. JPEGMafia made literally all the most insane beats of 2024, all in one album. As a rapper he's pretty good, but as a beat maker, he is in a class by himself, weird, abrasive, shocking and hilarious. A December entry by the always welcome Smino further proves you shouldn't release your "best of" list in November. I was surprised to enjoy Future & Metro Boomin's ludicrously bloated 2nd hatin'-ass album in 3 months more than the first. When Tyler, The Creator released CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST 3 years ago, I saw a reaction (I think at AV Club?) that went something like "This album is as great as Tyler fans tried to tell you all his previous albums were." Harsh, but fair. Tyler has always been a lot of promise and charisma waiting for a good album, and it finally happened. This year's CHROMAKOPIA is not as good, but it's still very good. A lot was going on.

Big year for Kendrick's former labelmates at TDE. Ab-Soul and Schoolboy Q turned around downswings on Soulburger and Blue Lips, respectively. Doechii's first full-length was worth the wait. SZA's Lana wasn't as good as SOS, but it was still really good. SiR continues to not really do anything for me, but no record label can have a perfect roster.

(I hit the image limit)

What a pleasure for Heems to return to rapping. After the collapse of Das Racist, he seemed to struggle some, though most of his solo projects were excellent, and then he quit. But to hear him back, making great music and sounding like he was having fun doing it twice in one year was really cool.

But the big winner in hip hop for me was Denzel Curry. His King of the Mischievous South, Vol. 2 was as fun as rap got this year. Adding 5 songs and re-releasing it as KING OF THE MISCHIEVOUS SOUTH was weird, but I liked the songs. But also, he was everywhere, stealing songs on records by JPEG Mafia, Your Old Droog, Powers Pleasant, Kid Cudi, Jasiah, Maxo Kream and PlayThatBoiZay. Stellar year for Curry fans.

I don't know what constitutes "rock" music anymore, but for music with guitars that isn't metal or country or folk, there was a lot to like this year. Honeyglaze! Their 2nd full-length, Real Deal, was a pretty dramatic departure from their excellent 2022 debut, but in a good way, taking them down new musical paths and upping the energy. Similarly, Lightning Bug followed 2021's dreamy A Color of the Sky with a much more raucous album on No Paradise, and yet it worked perfectly. Rosie Tucker's UTOPIA NOW! had some of the best commentary on living in this era I've ever heard, bar after bar that made me go "oh shit." But nothing was topping Katy Kirby's Blue Raspberry for me. Delicate, intricate, with themes and lyrics that repeat through the songs, a really rewarding album experience.

Almost every year, it seems like the mainstream music press get together in some room somewhere and decide which metal release to heap praise on while ignoring literally everything else in the genre. Sometimes they at least pick a good one, as when the whole world shouted the praises of Deafheaven's Sunbather in 2013. This year's selection, Blood Incantation's Absolute Elsewhere, is a pretty unremarkable blend of prog noodling and riffs that sound like other bands, and I don't get it. Also, this year, Rolling Stone missed the meeting, choosing Kerry King's widely panned, I Can't Believe It's Not Slayer-sounding "solo debut" as the only metal album on their best of list, seeming even more out of touch than usual.

Sort of a less interesting year in metal, to me, despite a few big hits. Charcoal Grace is Caligula's Horse's best album, and a pretty stunning portrait of a family torn apart by someone getting lost to antivaxxer-type conspiracies, which I don't think a lot of people would expect from a metal album. Similarly, Dark Tranquillity's Endtime Signals is a record essentially about most governments failing their people in 2020, and what better topic than that is there to write angry music about? "Unforgivable betrayal in the hour of our need, no quarter for this treachery, no mercy for the lost." Fuckin' tell em, boys. Upon Stone's pitch perfect impression of the 90s melodic death metal style Dark Tranquillity pioneered continues a revival of that style I am loving. Beyond that, a lot of good albums, but not really great ones. It's the theme of the year.

What is it with BADBADNOTGOOD where their records have gotten less and less interesting, but their joint projects with others have stayed high quality? Their EP with Baby Rose this year was phenomenal, but their own Mid Spiral project was pretty forgettable. The only way you can get what you want out of them is if another artist asks for you.

Nadine Shah's Filthy Underneath initially hit for me as a fun, unpredictable album driven by a wry wit, so finding out it's all about her cracking up and going to a mental institution was kind of shocking. The album cover depicts the story of the song "Greatest Dancer," which sounds like a lot of fun and is about sitting alone in your dark home, crying your eyes out over a TV dance competition because your emotions are out of control. I don't think there's been such a jarring content-to-sound relationship since Elvis Costello's prime material.

I read in some article that the Last Dinner Party was getting hype as "the next Wet Leg" before they dropped Prelude to Ecstasy, and that sounds utterly insane to me, given how different the groups are. Their sort of baroque, ornate, dramatic sound couldn't be much more different from Wet Leg's (excellent) sneering punk sarcasm, but it also really charmed me, and the songs are top notch.

I think Better Lovers' debut EP was better than this year's Highly Irresponsible, honestly, but it's still a supergroup that truly lives up to the name, and they still put out a fun hardcore record. Will Putney continues to bring new flavors to the music of most of the former members of Every Time I Die, and it's easily Greg Puciato's most enjoyable post-Dillinger Escape Plan project. I need to see them live. I don't know if my ancient body would survive the mosh pit, but I'd be in there.

Is A LA SALSA a pretty safe album after the more experimental Mordecai for Khruangbin? I mean, yeah. But if you're into the thing they do, they really do it. I accidentally saw them twice this year, when they added a a make-up show near me after I'd seen them elsewhere, and it was great both times.

Another supergroup that really did it for me was Les Amazons De Afrique, an assemblage of great female singers from around the continent doing music in a variety of sounds. That was one of the most fun albums of the year to me.

That seems like a reasonable segue to mentioning Meklit's long-awaited return with Ethio Blue. It doesn't have the upbeat, celebratory feel of her incredible 2017 When The People Move, The Music Moves Too, but it retains the joy and the soul of that album, and it's just great to hear her again after so long.

So many artists over the years have seemed to follow a delirious, fun, upbeat first album with a downer 2nd one, and so it was with Remi Wolf's Big Ideas. I like it, but the wildness of Juno is replaced with an audible hurt and disaffectedness that just doesn't scratch the same itch.

Asake's 3rd album in 3 years was a real surprise. His previous album was basically just more of the same after his first, but on Lungu Boy, he's trying a bunch of new sounds and styles outside of the amapiano world he's been taking over, and they all work. A crew of international guest stars add still more unique flavors, and you get an album as unpredictable as it is enjoyable.

Charm of Finches was new to me this year, but the sisters' perfect harmonies over intimate, spare music really works. It kept bringing me back as the year rolled on.

What else? Swamp Dogg's Blackgrass was his 4th album in a 4th different genre in 8 years, and that's amazing at 81. I wish Cowboy Carter had been about half as long, it would've been a lot better without all that "for streaming" filler. Becky G's 3-album transition from pop music to traditional Mexican music across the last 3 years, ending with this year's ENCUENTROS, was really something to hear, that album is great. No idea what she'll do next. Seems like every year there's a band trying on the shoegaze thing that works for me, and this year it was From Indian Lakes. Foreign Hands' note-perfect copy of the early 2000s hardcore sound might not be groundbreaking, but I'm a sucker for that shit and I love it. Flyana Boss have a vibe like a cross between Beastie Boys and early Cool Kids, just super fun. I just really enjoyed hearing Latto rhyme "Georgia peach" and "gorgeous beach" this year. Every outlet that talked about Cassandra Jenkins' album mentioned the Clams Casino lyric, and they were right to do so. I wish I'd been more excited about Beth Gibbons' solo debut. I liked it, but I only liked it. I can't believe I listened to two different albums released in 2024 that contained covers of "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaac, but it happened. I could keep rambling indefinitely, probably. I think I'll stop there. Here's the actual list.

Opeth, The Last Will And Testament Katy Kirby, Blue Raspberry The Last Dinner Party, Prelude to Ecstasy Denzel Curry, King of the Mischievous South, Vol. 2 Upon Stone, Dead Mother Moon Baby Rose & BADBADNOTGOOD, Slow Burn EP Nadine Shah, Filthy Underneath JPEG MAFIA, I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU Honeyglaze, Real Deal Charm of Finches, Marlinchen In The Snow Lightning Bug, No Paradise Asake, Lungu Boy Ab-Soul, Soul Burger Doechii, Alligator Bites Never Heal Better Lovers, Highly Irresponsible Pearl Jam, Dark Matter Schoolboy Q, BLUE LIPS Cakes da Killa, Black Sheep Caligula's Horse, Charcoal Grace Rosie Tucker, Utopia Now Dark Tranquility, Endtime Signals Foreign Hands, What's Left Unsaid Smino, Maybe In Nirvana Moses Sumney, Sophcore From Indian Lakes, Head Void Tyler, The Creator, Khromakopia Heems & Lapgan, LAFANDAR Kendrick Lamar, GNX Remi Wolf, Big Ideas Flyana Boss, This Ain't The Album Les Amazones d'Afrique, Musow Dance Meklit, Ethio Blue EP Swamp Dogg, Blackgrass Khruangbin, A LA SALSA English Teacher, This Could Be Texas Beyonce, Cowboy Carter LOMA, How Will I Live Without A Body? Becky G, ENCUENTROS Nilufer Yanya, My Method Actor Lucy Rose, This Ain't The Way You Go Out Rema, HEIS Kali Uchis, ORQUIDEAS Muchi, YOU DON'T LOOK SO GOOD Wheel, Charismatic Leaders Oak, Ash & Thorn, Our Grief Is Thus

[blindrapture]

july 8th.

so today's log is up. this one's The God Machine. the first Cipher of the story, although lore-wise it's number 5 of 7. this log isn't actually all that different from how it originally was, because I think its vibes were necessary. it's a wacky adventure, pretty purely. I did rewrite a lot of Jordan's thought processes, and all the dialogue, but the events are all as they originally were. ...well, maybe Cockroach Jesus didn't push Jordan off the fucking bridge, but that change made sense to me. plus it's funny. I'm happy with that whole scene.

this log, just. that vibe. it has that vibe. a free-wheeling adventure in a colorful landscape, with strange rules. two teenage kids getting through it by the seat of their pants. it's arguably the climax, the pinnacle, of Early Rapture. I didn't believe I was going to be able to match that vibe if I rewrote the log entirely. I think I handled it right.

as you saw, despite being on the Act Poster, the God Machine is really just a one-time thing, it's a boss battle. there will be more boss battles, with different bosses, but on the Act Poster the God Machine represents the whole idea of the boss fights. I think they're a central structural element of this. but for what it's worth, the bosses will get better and better. :) there is at least one that was completely rewritten, and turned into a more complex reference.

//////

it is here that I want to bring back a ramble I had written earlier, some weeks ago, which I posted but then deleted within an hour. it touched upon the "earliness" of Act 1, but it had much more to do with Act 2, which we hadn't reached yet. and it makes sense to me to bring it here instead, while we're still early in Act 2. because this ramble, in some ways, touched upon the Thesis of Act 2. and I want you to be aware of it and consider it as we move forward.

here it is.

//////

I really ought not to discredit the fact that Plenty Of People actually, like, completely love act 1. even the logs I'm most anxious about, such as "Tropes," have their fans. like, say, my girlfriend, who had not read Rapture and is following along the daily distribution. she, like me, had spent a lot of her adolescence reading an inordinate amount of Stephen King books, and so the kind of horror that act 1 goes for came across very well to her. it's chaos, it's vibes, it's bloodshed, it's taboo sides of human nature. I am grateful for that perspective and support.

in my out-of-story posts talking about rapture, I am trying to predict two different perspectives: 1) the fan who is Just Absolutely Into It, and 2) the cynic who wonders if the story will get good. maybe that's a little annoying of me to try and juggle. and that's a reason I don't make more ramble-posts than I currently do. but my bold assertion is that both perspectives will ultimately be satisfied with the story. I am courting both because Rapture is a broad tent. but the people who believe a story needs to "get good..." need to learn that they are only at the college level of Reading, they have not actually finished their quest to Learn To Read. the lowest level of Learning To Read says "a teenager's internet fic is AWESOME!" the middle level says "a teenager's internet fic needs work!" and the highest level says "a teenager's internet fic inherently contains the nuances of literature, by nature of the cumulative effect of the evolution of storytelling, and so it is AWESOME. 'quality' is just taste but mapped to a hierarchy; all stories are equally deep." rapture argues that Proof in its own slow way.

those who are on board with rapture act 1 tend to actually already understand that.

there is something to be said for how this can be interpreted as a generational thing. I am on the younger side of Millennials, but I was raised on the internet, raised by Media, raised by Corporate Franchises and encouraged (by fandom) to seek out non-corporate Individual Art. I always identified more with the children of the internet age, the children who are living guinea pigs for the idea that media can raise us when our parents won't. not that "Media Raised Me And I Resent It" like, say, Gen X. but "Media Raised Me, And What About It?" this is a mentality growing far more vocal thanks to generations of internet users, and all I ever see from The Cool Voice Of Pop Culture is condemnation of them, whether as a sign that "fandom is fucked," "gen z is cooked," or, the ultimate crime, "media is making people so much more Annoying." but I am with those kids. I understand what the fuck it means to be raised by media. I know that the genie won't go back in the bottle, and that condemnation is simply an admission of defeat, an assertion that those kids can be counted out. and that does nothing, as they were already counted out. do you really think that fandom offers a suitable sense of community? in theory it does. but have you seen the internet ever since the 2010s? to be raised by media is a symptom of isolation. but to be raised by media is itself a kind of isolation that shapes you into someone who knows how to speak as if in a community. it is not a substitute for a community; it is a relative of the community. to dismiss this, to refuse to engage with it, is in fact to leave yourself behind, to be unprepared for the nuances of the future.

What Is Media, Anthropologically? rapture is extremely interested in that question. because I am, and even at age 16 was, extremely interested in that question. and even Act 1 engages with the question. it is relatively safe for me to bring this up because rapture will not explicitly bring it up. but, by virtue of being authored by A Particular Human, rapture is about that.

Can Media Have Objective Quality? is a teenager's Internet Fic inherently not worth your time? or are you giving over to impatience because of the bias of discomfort, just like anyone would who thinks your favorites are boring? is sonic 06 even a bad video game? is ocarina of time even a good one? are these questions asinine manifestations of preference? or does every question translate a deeper network of meaning into the comfortable language of Engagement Of The Adequately Socialized?

thank you for your time.

[power-chords]

“Won’t Get Fooled Again” may be #1 on the list of radio-abused iconic Who songs but I never tire of hearing it, ever. It excites me as much as it did the day it found me. “Baba O’Riley” is more beautiful; it is my single favorite piece of recorded music and possibly their greatest composition as a band. But it is a deeply spiritual, contemplative song that projects its kinetic energy into the realm of the transcendent. It elevates itself to this unfathomable height. I am humbled by it as much as I am intoxicated. I listen to it and I am in a state of sensory communion with god. Baba is a prayer, a supplication that ascends toward a generative frenzy. WGFA’s trajectory is downward. It’s obliterative. A bomb dropping.

WGFA possesses a similar intoxicating quality, but it is pure Dionysian physicality that is doing the hypnotism. It delights in the idea that you would be so easily fooled (ha) by simple energetic conversion; that the experience of bodily rapture could indeed lead you astray, and you would enjoy every moment of your most destructive impulses, mistakenly believing them to be acts of creation, in service of or devotion to a higher ideal. What you perceive as the spirit entering you is just brute animal bliss: to fight, fuck, consume, conquer. It taunts you with this and you love it! (“DO YA?”) You rejoice in your own abasement and you encourage your own delusions; you are their fiercest cheerleader. And it’s great. It’s the best thing ever! I watch the Shepperton performance regularly to remind myself that it just doesn’t get any better.

This is also why its continued use in film, television, and advertising is so poetic and hilarious and inevitable and appropriate, even when its meaning is being flagrantly misconstrued or just willfully disregarded. (It may be second only to “Born in the U.S.A.” in this category of politically appropriated AOR.) It is Townshend’s most openly joyous anthem to nihilism. Irony and cynicism have never been so god damned FUN! Bring on the annihilation, the sitcoms, the car commercials, Top Gun: Maverick. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

[tunaculosis]

My favorite take on solarpunk was when Ken Levine said this about utopianism in general, and Atlas Shrugged in specific

What I was trying to do with BioShock was to say, ‘Okay, well, [in Atlas Shrugged] that’s a utopia where Ayn Rand, who made the philosophy, made all the rules, and all the characters were under her control. What if things weren’t under everybody’s control?’ And I think that’s the problem with utopias — we bring ourselves to it, you know? We think we’re leaving our problems behind but – I don’t mean this in a cynical way – we are the problem. Like whatever social problems that occur come out of us. It’s not like they fall out of the sky. I think people think they’re going to go to a utopian society, and I think it’s not really possible.

From this interview

Every time I see how Solarpunk would actually be brought about it often includes some great catastrophe that wipes out like 90% of the human population so that getting to it doesn't take any more work. Like the Rapture.

For once I'd love to see a story set in the comfy pastoral ghibli post apocalypse where the architect of one of these great human genocides like, climbs out of a time machine or a cryopod or something, looks around, and is just like, "Oh hey, nice! I did it!! I knew nuking all those people was worth it! You're all welcome!"

[shiveagit]

MCR x Radioapple

i decided to color it. Cause yall were liking it.

[back-and-totheleft]

TFF

Hurricane Oliver hit the Torino Film Festival. Nothing less could be expected from the most politically controversial director in American cinema. He accused the United States of being the instigators of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and justified Putin, "pressed by the US to take possession of his natural resources". All this on the day in which a debut Ukrainian director, Philip Sotnychenko, wins the TFF with La palisiada and is unable to leave the country to come and collect the award.

Stone is like this, you either hate him or you love him. Yesterday at his masterclass there were no doubts: regardless of his ideological positions everyone listened to him with rapture, lavishing smiles and applause. In turn, the old lion knows how to make himself loved. His first words: "Raise your hand if you understand English", with a forest of arms rising. Many, but not enough to spare the talented interpreter Anna Ribotta the cumulative translation at the end of each of his stories.

Stimulated by the president of the Film Commission Beatrice Borgia, the director Steve Della Casa and the director David Grieco, Stone recalls without filters his life "marked by so many lies". From his parents' separation, which occurred the same year as the Kennedy assassination ("some critics have written that that's why I'm obsessed with him, but that's not true"), to his experience as an infantryman in Vietnam ("I was wounded twice , one from friendly fire"). Intense memories, which never lack a vein of cynical irony. He talks about his musical tastes ("I'm eclectic, I listen to traditional, classical and jazz music, I don't like rap, perhaps because I'm not Black") and the soundtracks of his films ("I don't like to have my choices dictated to me by composers, unless there are reasons to do so").

Just enough time for a lunch at Baratti & Milano (based on veal tuna, agnolotti with roast sauce and veal from the vein), then in the early afternoon the director is at the Massimo cinema to receive the Stella della Mole award, by the Museo del Cinema and Tff. Stone turns it over in his hands and to the laughter of those present he exclaims: "It's the first time I've received a ninja star as a prize."

-Fabrizio Accatino and Caterina Stamin, "Hurricane Oliver at the TFF," La Stampa, Dec 2 2023 (translated)

Videos at the Torino Film Festival

[everythingflowinginbetween]

Tuesday August 22 2023

This blog is basically an accountability spot for myself, a place where I will write everyday (atleast untill 01/01/2024)

I’ll possibly feel cringe shame depression at seeing my self expressed even though it’s incognito

As a twenty three year old I can see the rapture going on within myself and feel myself becoming more jaded more cynical conforming to the western society I was born into

This blog is the release I need and must consciously take a part of daily. I’m holding on the the most inner honest pure parts of myself

So hello!

I’ll post my first writing piece in a bit, no I’m not some prolific writer (yet)

But I hope someone takes a piece of goodness from this blog

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Gonna be a little bit mean: a lot of the useless cynical non-voters who y'all characterize as doing nothing other than derisively mock smart, politically savvy voters and huff their own farts all day while fantasizing about a Glorious Violent Revolution ARE actually part of the people standing with picket lines, donating to strike funds, and getting arrested for giving meals to homeless people and engaging with the dozens of small actions happening all around. A lot of y'all don't want to acknowledge that people who don't engage in electoralism might participate in other useful forms of political action because the image of all non-voters as a people who do nothing but complain and make guillotine jokes and chant useless slogans to feel morally superior for not voting is ITSELF a comforting source of feelings of moral superiority.

I'm not necessarily saying not to vote, or that abstaining from voting is a necessarily good decision (I vote in my country's elections and I think engaging with bourgeois electoralism is to a certain degree a valid and necessary tactic) but the way some people write in the notes of this post like political participation is divided between people who vote vs. people who only exist to criticize others and then stand around all day twiddling their thumbs waiting for the Leftist Rapture to happen very much seems like a "nice dichotomy, idiot, what lies outside of it?" kind of situation.

“LOL. You think your vote matters? ROFL and LOL.” Yes, I am aware my vote carries less and less relative power the more people I’m voting with, but unlike your glorious violent revolution, it actually exists.

[shiyorin]

Some sneak peek from req fics for my friends recently. I won't post full all the fics in here.

All of my friends are primarch/space marine fucker :v

(Their oc's name has been changed)

You stretched languidly against Fulgrim's chest, purring softly as slender fingers traced idly over pale skin. Such pleasures as these were fleeting, but for now the Phoenician was content to simply bask, as was their way.

"You continue to surprise, little plaything," Fulgrim mused, voice a rumble of dark velvet. His gaze traced the lines of your form with possessive pride. They had created such sublime works of art together, and would again.

"And you know I live only to surprise, my lord." You purred in reply, twisting to pepper soft kisses along Fulgrim's jaw. "To push each limit, as only I am able. Our amusements have only just begun."

Fulgrim huffed a slight laugh, curling up a lock of your hair around winding fingers. "Ever the coquette, as befitting one who moves as shadow. But know this, my dark muse, none shall claim your hand but I." His grip tightened warningly, as if to remind this amoral creature who held dominion over their perverse revels.

You merely nuzzled into the hold, grinning with feline cheer. Fulgrim's possessiveness was pleasing in its own way. And so their decadent idyll continued, careless of stellar fate or the Turning of the Great Wheel. In these stolen moments, they knew only sensual delight and sinister mirth. The games were never ending.

_________________

You curled against Perturabo's side, tracing scars on the traitor's chest. His skin bore the scars of infinite wars and conspiracies, a map of cynicism calcified into bitter flesh.

Perturabo's hand came to rest on your hip, clutching with a grim familiarity. Holding on as if to something that had once brought solace but now only reminded of all that had been lost to cruelty or indifference.

They were well-matched in their anguish. Two souls who had long since abandoned hope or purpose beyond proving, again and again, how much joy and meaning had fled this world. What once brought crusades and glory now only fetid carnage and rot.

You nuzzled against Perturabo, finding a hollow cheer in the scratch of old scars against new marks left by nails and teeth. A memento to hold when no longer sate, and all that remained was plunging into bleaker depths.

Perturabo said nothing, as was his habit. Words were the tools of fools, full of lies and false hope. Only in the rapture of flesh could meaning be glimpsed, however fleeting. And in its passing, anguish reclaimed what was always its own.

As were your way, you knows that Perturabo would remain, as he always had.

_________________

Mephiston grit his teeth, unable to look away from your sinuous movements. Each slender limb sliding free of silk and lace seemed to unveil further corruption latticed into flesh.

You sighed, dusky skin and shadows alike rippling as he slowly turned. His throat arched, Adam's apple bobbing, and Mephiston swallowed hard against a surge of yearning. Memories threatening to overtake him, of lips tracing that vulnerable curve and teeth sinking in, marking possession.

He shook himself, knuckles cracking, and gripped the arm of his throne until the pain centered his wandering thoughts. This was a torture, not seduction. There would be no pleasure to be found in your decadence, only a sin at the anguish of noble souls.

You stop. Your gaze was a languid caress, tracing the lines of Mephiston's form as a connoisseur might appraise some rare beauty. Lips twitching in a smile devoid of joy or warmth.

Mephiston trembled, rage and longing curdling within. This corruption had no right to such pulchritudinous grace. No right to make sin seem so sinfully Sweet.

You shrugged, delicate shoulders rising and falling in a sigh. "Your resolve seems weakened. Shall I continue?"

Mephiston hissed, gripping the arms of his throne until the carved stone groaned under his fingers. "Stop now!"

Your smile widened. "My dear Mephiston? Whatever for?"

You slid into a sinuous bow, gloved hands tracing the contours of his thighs in a macabre parody of modesty. "My anguished friend…."

_______________

The sight of you moving with that peculiar grace through the halls of the Fortress-Monastery stirred thoughts in Dorn that had no place dwelling within. As Primarch of the Imperial Fists, duty and discipline were his oaths to uphold, but whenever you were near, other hungers seemed to awaken.

Your presence was a balm, yet also torment. your calm, shadowed beauty a reminder of all he could never have. His devotion was to the Imperium, and to his legion, yet in private moments his thoughts drifted to more lustfull.

Dorn found himself contemplating how that grace and power might manifest in other place. How your composure might shatter under the right touches and tongues. What other sounds might escape those lips, so oft silent, if permitted utterance.

There were nights he woke sweating, arousal pulsing, remembering the feel of your gaze tracing his skin. Nights he thought he heard, in memory, the gasps and sighs of your pleasure mixing with his own.

Guilt would invariably follow such fantasies, yet still he seemed unable to forswear them. His devotion to duty wars with this new, corrupt hunger that knew no restraint.

He found himself wanting to claim you, not for honor or purpose, but for the sake of claiming. To make this shadow, this weapon, his, if only for a night. To know you as something more than a grim tool or a balm for loneliness. Flesh, not fate, binding them.

There were whispers here of corruption, yet still Dorn walks his path. A Primarch beset by dual hungers, in endless conflict. Honor and sin, duty and decadence, at war within his soul. All for the sake of a assassin who'd never know his heart, were it laid bare.

[herrlindemann]

BRAVO - May 1997

Distorted metal chords roar from the speakers, infernal drum thunder makes the earth tremble. Stun grenades detonate, meter-high jets of flame blaze from dozens of flamethrowers. In the midst of the chaos on stage stands a man — hard and strong as a rock. Half-naked and drenched in sweat, Rammstein singer Till freaks out, especially among female fans. At the concerts of Germany's toughest band, girls always occupy the front rows. Fascinated, with a mixture of lust and horror, they follow the wild macho show of the Berlin industrial rockers. “Weißes Fleisch”, “Du riechst so gut”, “Engel” — the muscular ex-basket-weaver with the deep thundering voice sends the fans into ecstatic excitement: bras and knickers rain down on the stage, and some girls pay homage to Till, Richard, Paul, Flake, Olli and Schneider even with bare breasts. In passionate love letters, which are often burned at the corners, there are rapturous lines such as "You are the flowers of evil that bloom at night in my garden" and explicit erotic offers to Till: "Burn my skin with your fiery hands, let me feel the hot pain of love!”. But "Eisberg" Till, privately caring single father of his daughter Nele (12), stays cool. He doesn't think much of hot flirts and, above all, a steady relationship. On the current Rammstein single “Du hast”, which is number 5 in the charts this week, Till gives a clear rejection of love: “Willst du sie lieben auch in schlechten Tagen? Nein!!!” he roars during the refrain of the cynical number.

“In the Rammstein song I scream out my nightmares and my pain until I am freed from my pain and until I am freed from my lovesickness!” explains the new sex symbol of the heavy scene. On the new album "Sehnsucht", Till brings super hard provocative lyrics. Song titles like "Eifersucht", "Bestrafe mich" or "Bück dich” speak volumes. Rammstein will be performing live at festivals in Cologne and Konstanz on August 17th and 30th. From 26.9 to 20.10. the Rammstein hall tour starts with 20 concerts and a new explosive pyro show.

[crownedmemes]

[   sentence   starters   /   memes   from   𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐓   𝐅𝐄𝐀𝐑   by   𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐎𝐓   𝐊𝐄𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐃𝐘   part   two.   (   part   one   )   ]

𝘖𝘜𝘛𝘕𝘜𝘔𝘉𝘌𝘙𝘌𝘋 .

❛ don't   tell   me   this   is   all   for   nothing . ❜ ❛ on   the   nights   you   feel   outnumbered,   [baby],   i'll   be   out   there   somewhere . ❜ ❛ i   see   everything   you   can   be . ❜ ❛ i   see   the   beauty   that   you   can't   see . ❜ ❛ i   could've   showed   you   all   the   scars   at   the   start,   but   that   was   always   the   most   difficult   part . ❜ ❛ see,   i'm   in   love   with   how   your   soul's   a   mix   of   chaos   and   art . ❜ ❛ [i]   became   a   coward   when   i   needed   to   speak . ❜ ❛ i   guess   love   took   on   a   different   kind   of   meaning   for   me . ❜ ❛ when   i   go,   just   know   it   kills   me   to   leave . ❜ ❛ never   let   me   down,   just   lead   me   home . ❜ ❛ i'll   come   for   you   if   you   just   stay   where   you   are . ❜ ❛ there'll   be   days   when   it's   difficult . ❜ ❛ love   is   not   designed   for   the   cynical . ❜ ❛ how   long   can   you   wait   for   the   one   you   deserve ? ❜

𝘋𝘈𝘕𝘊𝘐𝘕𝘎   𝘜𝘕𝘋𝘌𝘙   𝘙𝘌𝘋   𝘚𝘒𝘐𝘌𝘚 .  

❛ give   me   moonlight ,   and   a   smile   from   you . ❜ ❛ those   plans   are   grand ,   but   you   don't   mean   the   same . ❜ ❛ when   they   ask   you   who   you're   living   for ,   you'll   drop   my   name . ❜ ❛ i   found   a   new   courage   that   kills   cowards   i've   been   holding   in . ❜ ❛ let   me   tell   you ,   no   one   ever   got   my   soul   right   like   [she]   could . ❜ ❛ now ,   i'm   close   to   what   i'm   needing . ❜ ❛ let   me   know   when   i've   got   room   to   run . ❜ ❛ i   hold   on   to   your   heart . ❜ ❛ i'll   only   grow   lonely   when   the   silence   starts . ❜ ❛ hear   my   heart ,   play   my   part   in   this   deal   with   the   darknesses . ❜

𝘖𝘜𝘛𝘎𝘙𝘖𝘞𝘕 .

❛ there's   evidence   and   remnants   of   a   spark . ❜ ❛ there'll   be   a better   part . ❜ ❛ every   dream   is   left   among   the   stars . ❜ ❛ to   know   with   all   of   this   potential   should've   raised   up ,   but   i   never   did . ❜ ❛ i   know   every   road   I   run   down   has   a   sundown . ❜ ❛ i'll   try   to   chase   those   days   but   never   catch   them . ❜ ❛ i'll   try   to   walk   the   other   way   and   learn   detachment . ❜ ❛ you   used   to   hold   me   in . ❜ ❛ i'll   never   know   another   feeling   like   your   rapture . ❜ ❛ i'm   gonna   go . ❜ ❛ i   gotta   be   here   in   your   absence . ❜ ❛ hold   me   right ,   i'll   pray . ❜

𝘙𝘌𝘋𝘌𝘔𝘗𝘛𝘐𝘖𝘕 .

❛ every   wrong   i   did   turned   me   to   a   better   kid . ❜ ❛ every   time   we   kissed ,   [i]   knew i   wanted   more of   it,   so   don't   hide . ❜ ❛ you   know   you've   always   been   someone   i’ve   confided   in   on   the   cold   nights . ❜ ❛ redemption   will   come   for   you . ❜ ❛ guess   i'll   just   call   it   a   feeling . ❜ ❛ tonight   i'll   just   comfort   you . ❜ ❛ maybe   you   can   start   to   believe   it . ❜ ❛ all   i   know ,   i   won't   let   go . ❜ ❛ will   you   start   to   believe   it ? ❜ ❛ all   those   nights   alone ,   demons   that   you've   never   known   would   run   through . ❜ ❛ never   let   your   wings   unfold ,   but   i   know   you . ❜ ❛ guess   we   kinda   thought   it   was   easy . ❜ ❛ still ,   i   know   the   thought   of   you   frees   me . ❜

𝘞𝘐𝘛𝘏𝘖𝘜𝘛   𝘍𝘌𝘈𝘙 .

❛ [her]   eternal   summer   smile   is   breakin'   my   defenses . ❜ ❛ loving   thoughts   living   in   my   young   mind . ❜ ❛ i   never   questioned ,   i   was   accepting . ❜ ❛ if   there   were   others   in   that   room ,   i   didn't   see   them . ❜ ❛ [i]   can't   tire   of   thinking   about   you . ❜ ❛ never   hide ,   always   grow . ❜ ❛ i   wanna   do   something   for   you . ❜ ❛ i   can   see   it   now ,   you'd   smile   and   tell   me   not   to . ❜ ❛ love   me   like   there   ain't   another   day . ❜ ❛ lead   with   the   heart ,   ain't   that   the   only   way ? ❜ ❛ keep   thinking   about   how   much   we   changed   today . ❜ ❛ now   i   really   think   you're   heaven - sent . ❜ ❛ you've   been   forcing   all   these   hollow   hearts   to   feel   again . ❜ ❛ there's   a   beauty   in   being   broken ,   i've   been   seeing   it . ❜

𝘛𝘏𝘌   𝘒𝘐𝘓𝘓𝘌𝘙   𝘞𝘈𝘚   𝘈   𝘊𝘖𝘞𝘈𝘙𝘋 .

❛ dark   deeds   in   dark   towers   so   [he]   fled   when   they   came . ❜ ❛ they   want   to   kill   what's   in   [his]   heart . ❜ ❛ says   he's   got   ideas   of   his   own . ❜ ❛ there's   a   hero   in   the   crowd . ❜ ❛ the   scream   tore   sea   and   sky   apart . ❜ ❛ so   you   want   fears ?   we've   still   got   several . ❜ ❛ when   i   think   of   you ,   i   think   of   spirit   defined . ❜ ❛ i   think   of   all   the   love   that   we   shared   in   a   very   dark   time . ❜ ❛ sorrow   won't   be   finding   me   no   more . ❜ ❛ when   you   coming   home   now ? ❜

𝘛𝘌𝘔𝘗𝘛𝘈𝘛𝘐𝘖𝘕 .

❛ this   just   the   way   i   feel . ❜ ❛ mind's   been   racing   so   long . ❜ ❛ it’s   just   no   way   to   deal   with   these   problems   alone . ❜ ❛ i   really   can't   take   it   no   more . ❜ ❛ i’m   young   and   i'm   restless . ❜ ❛ i   never   felt   selfish   before . ❜ ❛ i've   been   living   so   reckless ,   i   know . ❜ ❛ everybody   got   problems . ❜ ❛ i   really   came   up   from   the   bottom . ❜ ❛ i   just   wanna   see   my   people   empowered . ❜ ❛ everybody   got   vices . ❜ ❛ are   you   willing   just   to   make   the   sacrifices . ❜ ❛ i'll   never   sell   my   soul   'cause   that's   priceless . ❜ ❛ i   just   take   the   pain   and   paint   a   picture . ❜

𝘋𝘈𝘠𝘚   𝘓𝘐𝘒𝘌   𝘛𝘏𝘐𝘚 .

❛ when   it's   not   always   raining ,   there'll   be   days   like   this . ❜ ❛ when   you   don't   need   to   worry ,   there'll   be   days   like   this . ❜ ❛ when   you   don't   need   an   answer ,   there'll   be   days   like   this . ❜ ❛ everyone   is   upfront   and   they're   not   playing   tricks . ❜ ❛ it's   nobody's   business   the   way   that   you   want   to   live . ❜ ❛ when   no   one   steps   on   my   dream ,   there'll   be   days   like   this . ❜ ❛ when   people   understand   what   i   mean ,   there'll   be   days   like   this . ❜

[paper-n-ashes]

The Late Shift - Part 2

Characters: Paul Sevier x Female Reader

Words: 2k

Warnings/Tags: Little inklings of sexual themes. Otherwise we’re still in PG territory. Oh and mutual pining from two idiots. My favourite kind.

Authors Note: One shot? I don’t know her. Honestly, I don’t have any excuse. I just felt the urge to continue on with this dumb fluffy story because it makes me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside and I needed that. Will we drive this car straight into smut town afterwards? Ah you’ll just have to see. 

Catch up with Part 1 here

*

Paul always considered himself a smart guy. Perceptive, knowledgeable, with years of grueling education behind him to be where he is today.

His schooling, work, almost every minute of his waking moments was spent in the realm of artificial illustrations of correspondence. He could happily spend hours sifting through the words and numbers that made up all types of message transmission, might even admit he had a talent for decoding their significance and origin. Exchanges born from machinery were easy to analyse – they had set rules and gave little room for differing interpretation. He was comfortable in that world. Knew how things worked, what paths data and carefully devised information would take.

Human communication was infinitely harder to navigate. It was a skill he knew he was lacking in, compared to others at least. His words never came out the way he wanted, he struggled to say exactly what was wished to convey and agonised over the fact expression and tone could morph any remark into something with a whole different meaning.

Every day, he encountered people who used this as a tool - a weapon to obscure the truth and conceal hidden agendas. It was hard not to, working for the US government. In time, he’d become cynical. Wary of what people spoke aloud, assuming it was all said without much sincerity or reliability unless proven otherwise.

And then after another arduous day, there you were. Out of nowhere. Kind. Honest. Genuine. Within such an excruciatingly short interaction, you’d exuded all these traits so effortlessly. A breath of fresh air after being smothered by the smog the rest of his life contained.

Paul would easily admit his attraction to you was surprisingly swift. The rapturing smile you wore when you’d looked up from your notepad had him snared from the moment it appeared, an aura of natural vibrance and radiant energy shimmering out from your animated expression. What he’d expected to be a dry, tedious endeavour turned into a spark-filled scene, where an excited stranger made him feel both horrendously nervous and unusually at-ease. It had been a long time since someone made him feel like that.

It had also been a long time since he’d asked someone out on a date, for more than a few reasons. The more prolific Paul became in his job, the more unpredictable and unstable his life outside of it was. It took him across the country at a moments’ notice and consumed most hours of his day, meaning forging even short relationships was fairly difficult.

Plus… he just wasn’t good at it. Putting himself out there. He was shy, paralyzingly so. It’s not exactly something he could refute. His confidence was always born from experience and understanding, in knowing the reasons behind why things worked the way they did, along with being able to calculate what would happen next. No textbook could ever cover the entire spectrum of human personality, and there was no way to truly predict what a person might do or say. 

So, without the security of knowledge behind him, uneasiness and apprehension took over in most of his social interactions, particularly with those he felt a magnetism to. It’s exactly how he thought he seemed during his time with you. Awkward and floundering. Not exactly the most charming attributes for a man to have. And yet, the longer he was in your presence, the more he sensed those foibles fade into the back of his mind.

Talking to you was easy. Easier than it had been with anyone during a first meeting. What hadn’t been easy was enduring the seconds your touch grazed over him in your delicate workings while taking each different measurement - his heart beating a little faster, his muscles becoming a little more tense. When you’d eventually let your stare reach his, he’d seen how your eyes moved to trace the lines of his mouth, and it set his insides on fire. He’d been frozen by the unique type of burn, his body locked in place while a rare impulse begged him to sink his lips onto yours. In the past, he struggled to kiss a woman even after several dates, unable to push past the fear and doubt to turn his desire into action. However, in that moment, he’d been all too eager. His hand had moved on its own accord, fingers slinking up your waist, about to pull you closer when interruption instantly shattered his resolve.

The urge was still there in the dialogue that followed, although the promise of seeing you tomorrow made it easier to walk away, safe in the knowledge he had another opportunity to ask you out when his confidence was properly steeled. For once, he could be smart about this. Use his natural intellect to plan and act accordingly, giving him the best odds of securing more time with you.

Oh, but that all went to shit when your text message popped up on his phone screen. Seeing those words, even if they were meant for someone else, made his excitement reach an unfathomable peak, and in turn made him recklessly send a response without taking a second to think about the consequences.

And now, Paul had never felt so stupid in his entire life.

Sitting in the driver’s seat, the phone in his palm lit up with your conversation on display, he felt his stomach spasm with anxiety. Were you going to reply? What would you say? What if his bluntness freaked you out? What if you weren’t even talking about him? Was this all something his mind conjured up?

As the minutes passed without any sign of a response, the initially minor sense of panic began to compound, weighing heavy on his chest, the chaos of his mind soon melting into one certainty - he’d totally fucked this up.

About to slump his forehead into the steering wheel in a display of despondency, Paul suddenly felt a flash of courage at remembering the view of your face peering up at him. He knew the image of it would haunt him if he didn’t do something. He had to fix this. Explain himself. But it needed to be in person. He wouldn’t let technology mess this up for him again.

With a purposeful breath, Paul exited his car and began to retrace his steps past the other shopfronts, silently rehearsing what he wanted to say to you. He hoped to surrender himself to a collectively embarrassing situation, laugh off the turn of events, having it all culminate in an offer of dinner once your shift had finished. He already had a place in mind, only a street away, a little dumpling house that was always open late. Perfect for a cosy, quiet date after a chance meeting.

When his eyes latched onto your figure through the glass window, he stopped his hand from reaching for the door handle. You were crouching down in front of a small boy, his mother behind him cradling a newborn baby, your hand gesturing towards an array of child size suits. Paul couldn’t help but watch as your warming smile beamed, guiding the boys hands to touch and feel over the material, your words evidently making him feel more at ease as his expression slowly relaxed out of its worried frown.

Creeping backwards to make sure you didn’t catch him in your periphery, Paul felt a wave of relief wash over his skin, having evidence that your lack of reply wasn’t due to any of the worst case scenarios he’d been fretting over. You were just busy, concentrated on your work, giving your time and expertise to others in the same way you’d given to him.

The realisation was enough for him slink away, still impatient for your next encounter but assured in it being set within the next day cycle. He just had to wait.

Although, waiting wasn’t exactly a talent of his either.

 *

You were dying inside.

A friendly grin was plastered on your face as you conversed sweetly with the woman in front of you, making idle chit-chat while her son changed out of the suit you’d picked together, but the smile had never felt so insincere. Usually you loved when children came in to pick out ensembles for weddings and similarly formal events, but at the moment your mind was stuck on a small battery-powered rectangle sitting at your desk with a half-written message remaining under your lock-screen.

In the time before Paul’s response came through, you’d never felt more humiliated in your whole existence. Evaporating into thin air would have been a welcomed miracle. But when the returning text slid into focus, your whole mindset shifted.

He felt the same. He wanted you too.

You’d been in the middle of typing out a hasty invitation to come back and make true on his intentions when this overwhelmed mother with a fussy baby caught your attention. Her eldest son had done his best to iron out his only formal suit for the role of ring bearer in an aunt’s wedding this coming weekend, unfortunately resulting an a house full of smoke and a clump of burnt wool.

Personal matters withered into the background at the comprehension of her drained, exhausted demeanour, all your focus pointed back towards the job you’d been distracted from. Well, mostly.

You couldn’t avoid the thoughts and questions glinting in the back of your mind. Of what might have happened if this woman never appeared. What might be happening in an alternate timeline where you’d been able to send that waiting reply. Without intention, your wonderings turned into moving pictures – leading Paul into the back workshop, being roughly picked up onto the cutting table, his lips and yours finally connected in a heated clash, shedding all of his clothing until that heinous mustard shirt was crumpled on the floor-

The high pitched beep of the receipt machine snapped you back into reality, noting the relieved smile the mother wore while her son excitedly grabbed at the bags containing his dashing new suit.

“Thank you!” he hollered without needing to be prompted, waving his hand vigorously before skittering away to the door.

“You’re an absolute lifesaver,” the woman echoed, taking the receipt from your outstretched hand. “I’m really sorry for keeping you so late.”

“Oh don’t worry about it.” The time on the monitor screen just ticked over to 8:17pm, long after you would usually shut up shop and head home to your empty apartment. “I've got nowhere special to be.”

You each said your goodbyes, waiting until the precise moment her silhouette was out of sight before jumping to your phone. The same half written message was there, but now it felt impossible to finish. All traces of adrenaline had long since worn off, and the bravery that made you type out the risqué proposition was reduced to almost nothing. Your timid nature rushed back in full force, a thumb pressing hard on the little x button to erase all evidence of your out of character impulses.

Who were you kidding. You weren’t this person. Unashamed and brazen enough to dive into a fiery entanglement with a handsome stranger in the same evening you’d met. You wished you could be. There was never a time the concept was so enticing. But… it was a fantasy not meant for you to live out. They were destined for the outgoing, the cool and composed, the bold and sure-footed. You rarely felt like any of those things. And Paul, like most men, probably reserved their interest and attraction for those types of women. It was so silly of you to think any different. Getting your hopes up was foolish, and would only end in-

The tingle of the shopkeepers bell sounded, internally groaning as you slid your phone back onto the desk. “We’re closed,” you hawked, a coldness in your tone you couldn’t hide. Eyes snapping up to the intruder, a bolt of lightening shot through, barely able to stop the delight mixing into your blood.

“I just, uh, figured out something more that I needed,” Paul said softly, scratching the back of his neck, clearly nervous.

“You did?” you breathed. “W-what was it?”

His chest rose and fell with a calming exhale, making sure your stares were secured before giving his answer. “…You.”

*

Tagging some lovelies who might want to read. Feel free to let me know if you don’t want to tagged in future works!

@tlcwrites @roanniom @princessxkenobi @hopeamarsu @blowthatpieceofjunk @mariesackler @leatherboundriot @foxilayde @modernpaw @cornmousequeen @direnightshade @mylifeisactuallyamess @caillea @jynz-andtonic @paterson-blue @miraclesabound @prismaticpizza​ @millenialcatlady​