#This is a follow up to a previous shorter piece I wrote where the capturing itself happened (it involved Chip which was terrifying yes)

[themagicalghost]

Just finished a 18000+ letter fic that involves Bumble being held captive by the cogs after angering the Chairman too much, which I am only showing to a select few friends because I'm shy like that

Here is a brief moment with the C.O.O. though

[btsinwonderland]

A Drop of Poison - Ch. 8: Conversations

A Loki fanfiction!

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“I can take you back to your room!” You said, reaching for Valkyrie’s bag to carry it for her.

She clicked her tongue at you. “Will you stop fussing about with me, I’m fine! I can carry my own things.”

You smiled tightly and nodded. Valkyrie sighed and put a hand on your arm. “But, I appreciate what a sweetheart you’ve been to me. Thank you.”

“What are you going to do now that practice is cancelled?” You said.

Valkyrie shook her head. “Ugh, I don’t know. I’ve been itching to get back to the field but we can’t even do that! I don’t even know what happened, Freya. One minute, I got the quaffle in my hands and all I care about is that goal. Next, everything’s gone to shit and I’m getting pecked to death by these damn birds.”

“And now Ken’s missing,” you said. Your lips were chapped with dryness.

“Yeah, it seems like our last year won’t be as fun as we thought…” Valkyrie said, a gloom appearing over her face.

You bid each other goodbye for the day and went to your separate common rooms. You did not want to leave her on her own, but throughout your friendship, you found that letting her be was sometimes best. Valkyrie did not like being coddled too much and appreciated the space. You knew she would reach out when she was ready, and you would wait for her as always.

With Valkyrie’s presence gone, you were left to think about your own problems. Professor Laufeyson had already occupied nearly half of your thoughts earlier on, and now he took over most of them. Behind every question, you wondered if he knew something or was a part of it in some way. It had become a strange mystery that you had no way to resolve since he did not tell you anything.

Upon entering your room, you sat on your bed and pulled out a book from your side table: Spells for the Common House Cat. The dark red leather was faded, but the wording still kept its former gloss. You ran a hand over the cover gently. “Alright, you came to me for a reason, and I’m going to find out what it is.”

You opened the book to reveal a random page. Once again, gibberish greeted you:

Capture grunting mermaids and the secret to life is in the cherry pies. They are so good and open fresh like market Thursdays! Hate to spill the dogs and cats, but it is not in good taste to leave the wine hanging from the bedroom. I cannot dream in rainy houses and Leah makes sure of it!

“What are you trying to say?” you said aloud.

You peeled through a couple more pages and though it was different, none of it made any sense. The entire book was filled with words, and yet, none of them meant anything to you. The name Leah came up several times, but even that did not stir any recollection within you.

From your robes, you pulled out your want and pointed to the middle of the open book. “Aparecium,” you said, and a speck of light came out of your wand and disappeared into the pages of the book.

For nearly a minute you waited, and nothing happened. You raised your wand to try the spell again when the words on the pages vanished. The now blank yellowish white parchment paper faced you and readjusted in your bed. “What are you?”

You sat there staring at it when you had the idea to take out your quill and inkwell from your drawer. Taking the book and quill to the small desk against the wall, you sat down and wrote in the middle of the blank page, Hello. Your words gradually disappeared, as if the ink absorbed into the book.

For several seconds, there was nothing. And then, words appeared in the middle of the page - in the same rushed scrawl that had been in the book before. Hello there, it said. Then it disappeared.

You sat back for a moment, shocked. You took a breath and then dipped your quill into the inkwell. My name is Freya Eves, you wrote.

Your words disappeared again. And in their place new words appeared in the other script, Hello Freya Eves, my name is Leah Mai.

You swallowed, your nerves sizzled with excitement and a bit of fear. You wrote again: Do you know about the Tesseract?

You waited.

Yes.

Your heart sped as you wrote: Can you tell me?

No.

You leaned forward in disappointment. But then more words appeared.

But I can show you. Let me take you back fifty years ago…

You jumped when you felt yourself being pulled inwards towards the book. The surrounding air compressed, and you found yourself sucked into a spell. One moment you were in your bedroom and the next, you were in the hallways of Hogwarts. However, everything was in a desaturated sort of colour; as if it were an old film.

Students passed you in the hall talking in anxious whispers, and someone nearly walked right into you. You wandered down the hall and spotted a beautiful black-haired girl, skin as pale as the marble on the facades. She was leaning on the stone railing and staring curiously up the stairs.

“Are you Leah Mai?” You said.

The girl ignored you and continued to look up the stairs.

You spoke again. “Hello, can you hear me?”

She paid no attention to you, as if you were invisible and inaudible. You followed her gaze up the steps and saw a much younger Headmistress Frigga, looking extremely grim while a group of professors carried someone on a stretcher down the stairs. That someone had a white sheet over their body and face. As they descended the steps, a hand slipped out from beneath the white sheet and you saw dark blood drip on the floor in little beads. A small gasp escaped your lips.

“Mai!” Said Headmistress Frigga in a stern voice.

Both you and the black-haired girl beside you turned your head to face her. The girl answered in a calm voice. “Professor Frigga,” she said, walking up the steps.

Frigga crossed her arms and gazed down at the girl. “It is not wise to be wandering around this late hour, Leah.”

The girl looked down and placed her hands behind her back. “Y-yes professor. I suppose...I had to see for myself if the rumors were true.”

Frigga clenched her jaw and unclenched. “I’m afraid they are, Leah. They are true.”

“About the school as well?” Leah said. “I don’t have a home to go to, they wouldn’t close Hogwarts would they, professor?”

Frigga sighed. “I understand Leah, but I’m afraid Headmaster Oppin will have no choice.”

“So if it all stopped? If the person responsible was caught,” the girl said, hands firmly clasped behind her.

Frigga leaned in with a curious, yet gentle, look. “Is there something you wish to tell me?”

The girl raised her brows. “No, madam. Nothing.”

“Very well then, off you go.”

Leah walked up the steps and around the hall. You glanced at Frigga one more time before racing up the steps to catch up with Leah. She went down the dimly lit halls, descending a curved set of stone steps into the lower levels, which you were unfamiliar with despite having seven years of exploring the halls of the school. Leah stopped where there was a statue of an old woman holding a lantern. The lantern cast a yellowish colour over the grey stone of her face. Leah tapped the woman’s nose three times with her wand, once on the left cheek, and then ran her wand across the woman’s lips. The statue’s mouth opened large enough for Leah’s fist to fit through. She pulled out a beautiful cloak of silver and blue.

When she put it on, her entire body disappeared. Then, she placed it overhead, and you were alone in the corridor. You concentrated and could barely see a pale outline which moved quickly past you and back up the stairs. You realized she was completely invisible, but the book wanted you to follow her, so you did.

You went to the Headmaster’s floor, where the halls were dead and empty save for two hushed voices. There was one very tall, thin man with a salt and pepper beard down to his waist, which he stroked frequently. The other was a burlier man, but shorter. His face was stern, and he had an eyepatch over his left eye. There was a black raven perched on his shoulder. This man had an air of power and seemed to be speaking passionately.

“We cannot deny that a student is manipulating the creature, Oppin!” The stern man said. His eye blazed with anger.

The tall thin man, Headmaster Oppin, you presumed, spoke. His voice was a gentle rasp. “Odin, none of our students are capable of such dark sorcery, you must know that.”

You staggered back at the realization that you were staring at the Minister of Magic himself, Professor Laufeyson’s father.

“The Dark One has risen, and his shadow lingers here. Doesn’t the Michaels boy prove that?”

Oppin gazed at the floor through his bifocal glasses. “They found his body just by the Black Lake...it was in two pieces, Odin.” He removed his glasses with a grimace and rubbed his eyes. “I do not know what we should do.”

“We need to use the Tesseract.”

Oppin glanced up at Odin, looking almost upset. “We cannot use the magic of the Primis!”

Odin shook his head. “You have no idea how many good auror’s we have lost at the ministry, Oppin! Tell me where the Tesseract is. You merely delay what will be,” he said, with a hiss. His raven flapped its wings before settling back down.

Oppin set his mouth in a thin line and gave a resigned sigh. “I am sure I will deeply regret this decision, but I cannot bear to lose any more students. Come,” he said and led Odin into his office. You followed them up the steps, with the pale figure of Leah in front of you.

They rushed through the door when Oppin spoke. “Deep in the Forbidden Forest, there is a Weeping Willow with black leaves. At the heart of it is a hollow which leads down into the caves where the Tesseract was found at the bottom of an underground lake. We dared not touch it, and I am the only wizard left who remembers where it is. They erased their own memories to relieve themselves of the burden of the Primis.” His voice was grave.

You saw the pale outline of Leah twitch before she bumped the open door and raced out of the room. Oppin and Odin briefly glanced in her direction before returning to their exchange. You thought you should follow her, but you stayed by Odin, transfixed by their conversation.

Oppin spoke again. “Do you really think this will stop the monster?”

“It will stop the one controlling the monster,” Odin said.

You felt a pull from behind you as the compressed feeling came over you again. No, I need to know more! Light surrounded you as you passed through the book and found yourself thrown back into the chair in your room. You nearly lost your balance and toppled over, but gripped the edge of the desk. Your heart fluttered wildly from what you had just seen and your hands shook.

You knew where the Tesseract was and that it was the key to stopping the monster in the Forbidden Forest.

For a moment, you wondered why events were repeating fifty years later. And a dangerous question arose in your thoughts. Who was controlling the creature now? Your stomach churned when a certain dark-haired and blue-eyed professor came to mind. In your heart, you believed he would never do such a thing. But with everything happening, there was little he had given you to trust him. You wanted to reach out to him, to tell him everything, but your doubts clouded all your hopes. It was up to you now to find the Tesseract and save Pom’s brother.

That night, before dinner, you followed the same path from the book and descended the circular stairs to one of the lower levels of Hogwarts. You nearly jumped from excitement when you saw the familiar statue of the old woman and the lantern. Cobwebs covered her face now. Upon pulling out your wand, you tapped her nose three times, once on the left cheek, and then ran your wand across her lips. Her mouth gaped open, and you reached inside apprehensively. Feeling the softness of cloth, you pulled out the cloak and marvelled at it. After dusting it off, you put it on and cried out in surprise when your entire body disappeared.

“Thank you, Leah!” you said aloud.

You arrived at the Great Hall with the cloak tucked away in a cloth bag. Upon eating a quick meal of pea soup and pumpkin bread, you searched for Mo. He was in the hall with Nila, standing suspiciously close as she giggled at something he said. You hid in a corner and put on the cloak. Sneaking up behind him, you pulled his ear.

He swatted his head, and Nila gave him a strange look. “Are you alright?” she said.

Mo glanced behind him, right through you. “Um...y-yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”

When he turned back, you kicked him gently on the rear, and he jumped up. “Alright, you bastard! Who’s messing with me?”

“Listen, I have to go, I’ll talk to you later Mo,” Nila said and rushed away, giving him a sideways glance.

“What the hell is going on here?” Mo said, exasperated.

You bent over laughing and pulled the cloak off to see the initially angry, then stupefied expression on Mo’s face. It took you a few minutes to stop laughing so you could explain yourself and your plan. He stood in silence, gaping at you, while he listened.

“Are you bloody mad?” he said, after you finished.

“No, I’m just the only one who can help find her brother. The creature is guarding the Tesseract, making sure nobody gets to it. That thing could be the reason everything’s been going to shit!”

“Why don’t you tell a professor?” Mo said, crossing his arms.

You rolled your eyes. “Mo, we have absolutely no idea who is controlling this monster. It could be a student, but have you thought maybe it could only be a powerful witch or wizard who could even conjure this kind of magic? A professor would be much more likely…” you said, dreading the thought of Professor Laufeyson.

Mo sighed. “So let me get this straight. You want to sneak out in the middle of the night, go into the forest where this monster lives, get the Tesseract and then what? Magically fix everything?”

“And find Ken,” you added.

“You’re mental.”

“Will you help me?”

“Of course.”

“Then let’s go get Pom and find her brother.”

***

Loki sat in his office grading assignments. So many poor performing students. What has magic come to these days? Some kids were barely trying. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. An icy breeze blew through the room and knocked a few papers off his desk. He cursed and went to go pick them up. Glancing outside, he thought he saw the faintest movement of a tree branch move against the wind. He gazed out the window suspiciously, but there was no other trace of movement other than leaves blowing against the castle.

The girl surfaced in his mind.

“I don’t want you to die.” She had said.

He laughed at himself for being so utterly pathetic that a single word from a stranger would move him so deeply. Loki dared not admit how his heart pulsated at the girl’s words. He thought of her face, quite beautiful, though she clearly did not know it. She was the kind to grow into her confidence, which was just brooding below the surface. It was that confidence that moved in her body, in her hips, whenever she ran from him. It was that confidence that gave him snarky replies to his accusations. And it was that confidence that gave her dark eyes a defiant glow. Loki chuckled at how silly it all was. She was everything that she needed to be, and yet she had no idea.

“Don’t do it,” he said to himself as he unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk. He sighed as he retrieved a folded piece of blank paper and placed it in front of him. This was a shameful ritual he developed recently. It started when he grew suspicious of the girl’s knowledge regarding the Tesseract. He simply needed to know where she went and who she spoke with. That was all. Reconnaissance only.

As the days passed, he found himself searching for her location on a whim. Finding ways he might run into her again.

“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,” he said, pointing his wand to the center of the paper.

The paper filled out with intricate floor plans of the Hogwarts grounds and little footsteps with name tags showing every single person in the vicinity. He spared a passing glance at the name Frigga Borson, pacing in her office. As he searched the castle, he saw the name Thor Odinson in this office with Valkyrie Brunnhilde. At this late hour? Curious, he would have to tuck that information away for later.

“Where are you, little minx?” He said, exploring the map.

From the corner of his eye, he caught movement outside of the castle walls. He unfolded the map to its outer limit, just at the start of the Forbidden forest. He moved the map closer to his face and nearly crumpled it in his hands as he recognized three names grouped closely together, wandering towards the forest.

Mo Darwish. Pom Clemmens. Freya Eves.

Loki cursed and shut the map. “Mischief managed,” he said as he grabbed his coat and nearly ran out the door.

What was that damned girl up to now?

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Chapter Footnotes

I'm sorry for the late post, I was supposed to post this yesterday but things got so busy this weekend. I made time today though and finished what I hope is an interesting and fun chapter! The plot thickens....

Sending you happy thoughts and good vibes :)

[denbrough-byers]

Perfect For Me 《Stan Uris x Reader》

Requested : For my friend @icannott who requested a Stan Uris fanfiction

Pairing : Stan Uris x Reader ; Platonic!Ben Hanscom x Platonic!Reader ; Ben Hanscom x Beverly Marsh (mentioned)

TW : Cursing

Summary : After an incident that caused you to spend your day talking about soulmates with Ben — something you took interest in — and teasing each other about your respective crushes, you started to wonder about what Stan thought about ‘being made for someone’. When you met Stan you questioned him about his point of view about being made for each other and while his answer was something you expected — logical and not emotional. But what shocked you was his other answer.

A/N : thIS IS THE SEVENTH TIME AND I SWEAR TO GOD—

filter credit to @/pclarrs on instagram ; image credit to the people of Pinterest ; edit by me

“Holy fucking shit!”

The door of the clubhouse swung open, causing both you and Ben to scream — while yours were a string of curses, his was a simple yelp. You both weren’t aware of the other and it shocked you both to the core. Upon realization, the two of you laughed as you stepped into the clubhouse.

“You scared me there [Y/N],” the boy laughed.

You grinned sheepishly as you made your way deeper into the clubhouse. Your eyes watched Ben carefully and his eyes widened as he realized what you were looking at. His face flushed as he tried to hide the paper but you had seen it and — thanks to your ability to memorize things quickly — had it in your head

“Eyes like the ocean / Enchanting and dangerous / Beauty lies within it//,” you read out loud. You looked up at the very much embarrassed Ben. “That is a good haiku Ben.”

“Thanks,” Ben mumbled. He turned and shoved the paper into his bag. Looking at you, he was greeted not with a face that was going to laugh at him but rather one deep in thought.

“But I think them would fit better than it,” you pointed out, “Since it’s eyes and not eye.”

Ben pulled the paper out and read it, mumbling under his breath. “Eyes like the ocean / Enchanting and dangerous / Beauty lies within them//”

You look at him expectantly, wondering what he would do next. He stayed silent for a while before nodding and crossing it out, placing them where it used to be. You grinned proudly.

“Thanks [Y/N],” Ben said gratefully.

“Anytime Ben.”

An awkward silence fell between you two once again as you both wrecked your brain, looking for a topic to talk about. Ben and you had never been so good at talking and socializing.

“You never told me you wrote Haikus Ben,” you said, breaking the silence.

Ben shrugged. “It’s nothing much. I just like to get things out of my head. I mean, it’s not like it’s good anyway.”

“They’re brilliant Ben!” You pointed at the paper in his hands. “It’s talent!”

Ben turned and smiled. “You think so?”

“I know so.”

Silence fell once again but this time it wasn’t awkward like the previous silence but rather a peaceful one. A comfortable one.

A thought came to you. “Who was that for Ben?”

Ben turned red and stayed silent. You looked at his face and smiled knowingly. You had suspicions that Ben liked Bev and you knew about the previous Haiku — Bev told you. It didn’t take long before you connect the dots.

“Bev.”

“I’m sorry?” Ben stuttered as he looked at the girl who sat next to him.

“It’s for Bev, isn’t it?” you asked. Ben awkwardly stammered out what was supposed to be a lie — and honestly seeing him lie confirmed your suspicion — but seeing the knowing look on your face he just sighed and admitted.

“Yeah,” Ben sighed. “It’s for Bev.”

Ben stayed silent, afraid that you’ll tell Bev and the others or maybe — God forbid — thought of him even more of a loser than he already is. He didn’t want to ruin his friendship with the rest of the Losers — you included.

“Don’t worry Ben,” you said reassuringly. “I won’t tell Bev.” Ben sighed in relief but you weren’t done.

“But…” you drawled, causing Ben to stiffen and feel anxious once again. “I’m going to need you to answer one question. Don’t worry, it’s an easy one. Will you answer?”

Ben gulped but nodded. “S-Sure [Y/N].”

“Do you think some people were made for someone else?”

Ben sighed in relief, causing you to laugh at how nervous he was. You knew that he thought you would ask him about his crush on Bev.

“Well that’s easy,” Ben replied. “I think yeah, like a missing piece you know?”

You nodded. “Like two pieces of a puzzle that fit with each other?”

“Yes, exactly like that.” Ben smiled. “I always believed in soulmates. What about you?”

“Same. I believe that everyone is meant to be with someone.” A smirk slipped onto your lips. “Like you and Bev.”

Ben turned red but did not forfeit. “Like you and Stan.”

Laughter spilled out of his lips as your face turned an embarrassing shade of red. Tears leaked out of his eyes and laughs continued to spill as you turned and looked away.

“That’s not fair!” you whined but Ben just laughed.

“I think it is,” he snorted. “You pulled a Bev card on me, it’s pretty fair if I pulled a Stan card on you.”

You huffed like a child before freezing as a thought flooded into your mind. If Ben knew, do the other Losers possibly know too?

“Who else knows?” you asked, paranoia and anxiety masking your voice. “Who else knows?”

“Just me.” Ben shifted in his seat, shrugging lightly. “Well as far as I know. The others aren’t that observant you know.”

You sighed in relief. “Thank God for that. Honestly you should too or else you’d be dead, Haystack.”

Ben nodded gratefully. “Yeah everyday I’m thankful that I’m friends with are blind when it comes to feelings — except you of course. Couldn’t let me live my life peacefully, can you?”

You laughed and shook your head. “Oh I can. I just don’t want too.”

Laughter erupted in the small clubhouse, giving them both waves of relief. Their secret were out to someone they trusted.

“You’re really cool to hang around with, Hanscom,” you noted as the laughter died.

“Back at you, [Y/L/N].” Ben fingergunned.

Silence fell in between you before you both erupted in laughter once again.

—

It slipped your notice but you spent five hours in a stuffy clubhouse laughing and talking with Ben. It was Richie and Eddie who found you guys. You always suspected the two come over at night and slept together, — they both liked to cuddle — talked and joked around but this confirmed your suspicion — this was the second time you were proven right in a romantic situation and you felt proud.

After the two — well, Richie — kicked you and Ben out, you and Ben biked home, making inappropriate jokes about the two. You were both pretty sure that they weren’t going to fuck in there but it was fun to joke about it.

You parted ways — you taking a left while Ben went straight. On your way back, you remembered about what Ben had said and started to wonder if everyone felt the same — that everyone were two pieces of a puzzle.

You wondered if Stan felt the same way.

Stopping midway to check the time — you learned that you had half an hour before curfew. Numbers made their way into your mind as your brain set on calculating the time you have. You decided that it wouldn’t take long and you’d be in and out in a flash.

You grinned as you pedalled quickly, taking a left instead of a right. Stan’s house wasn’t that far from yours distance wise but it takes time to get there when riding a bike since you had a tendency to follow the road.

31, 33, 35, 37, 39, 41!

You found his house and grinned as you wheeled over towards his garage. Dropping your bike at the porch, you quickly knocked on the door, harsh and loud — the way you always did. You were greeted by the usual tuff of brown hair as the door swung open.

His expression was annoyed but when he saw you his face lit up. “Hey [Y/N], what’s up? Wait, shouldn’t you be home —?”

“I got fifteen minutes and a really important question to ask you,” you said giddily.

Stan chuckled. “Fire away my overly excited little friend.”

“Hey! I’m just two inches shorter than you!”

“Still smaller,” Stan laughed. His laughter sent a whole new wave of fresh butterflies into your stomach, causing your heart rate to speed up.

“Do you think some people were made for each other?” you asked.

Stan stayed silent for a few seconds. “No. People aren’t made for others. You exist for yourself, and you don’t owe anything to anyone. Even to those you were made for.”

You nodded weakly, trying not to feel sad. You knew that Stan had always been logical and never really thought of things in a mushy emotional way.

“Yeah,” you mumbled. “Thanks for the answer.”

You turned to bike back home when you felt a warm hand on your shoulder. Turning around, you were met by a smirking Stan — and honestly you felt chills down your spine as you notice how hot and dominating he looked and tried your best not to blush. He stepped closer, his hand still on your shoulder.

“[Y/N], you didn’t let me finish.” He leaned in and whispered, “But I think that you, my love, are the one perfect for me.”

Feeling heat rush to your cheeks, you tried to look down but felt a hand on your chin, making you look at Stan. His brown eyes flicked down to your lips before returning to your eyes.

“Do you think so too, [Y/N]?” he whispered. You didn’t reply as you were frozen under his gaze. He leaned forward and captured your lips in his. You were frozen in place and it took you awhile to let it sink.

Stan Uris — your lifetime crush —was kissing you, and you were doing absolutely nothing.

Your lips moved in sync with his, carefully and lovingly. His hands wrapped around your waist, pulling you closer to him. Warmth radiated off of him as you pulled him in by wrapping your arms around his neck.

The two of you pulled away, your breaths short and shallow as you tried to replace the lack of oxygen in your body. Your forehead still against his, you smiled softly as your fingers played with his soft curly hair.

“I might not believe in being made for each other,” Stan whispered, his voice husky from the kiss. “But I do believe that you’re perfect for me. Do you think so too, [Y/N]?”

“I do, Stan Uris. I do.”

— Extra

“Shit, I gotta go home.” You gave a small peck on Stan’s cheek and rushed to your bike.

“Hey, [Y/N],” Stan called out. “Before you go I need to ask you something.”

“Better make it quick, Uris,” you said, looking back. “My mom’s going to murder me.”

Stan flashed his smirk once again. “Want to be my girlfriend, [Y/L/N]?”

You froze. This was your dream ever since you were old enough to know about dating and crushes. Now the moment came and you couldn’t do anything about it.

“What do you say love?” The boy shoved his hands into his pocket, tilting his head backwards slightly as he stepped over to you. “Shall we tell the world how perfect for each other we are?”

You smiled. “With pleasure.”  

[ends-of-the-wayward-storm]

Frozen--Book 1--Chances

Chapter 4--Questions

_________

Summary

Hans is granted a second chance by a criminal known as the Mystery, someone people have only heard rumors about. How and why the Mystery decided to go out of his way to do this was beyond Hans, and frankly it bothered him. But once the Mystery’s plan goes into action, it’s only a matter of time before something bigger begins to develop.

(AO3 version) (Prologue)

[I've read the book "A Frozen Heart" so I'll be adding/featuring things from there into here.]

_________

“It’s him! The Mystery! Get him!” the jailor yelled, using a spear as support.

“How did you—”

A sheathed sword was shoved into Hans’s gut before he could continue. A yell was heard from behind him, and he unsheathed the new weapon to disarm the charging guard. With the butt of the sword he knocked him out in a swift movement.

Meanwhile with the Mystery he was punching and kicking like there was no tomorrow, and Hans made his way to him to at least try to help him out. Obviously he was younger than he was since he was shorter. But then again he’s met men his age who were shorter than him. But soon the newly made duo was back to back.

“Who are you?” Hans asked, his voice cracking from a lack of voice usage.

The Mystery remained silent.

“Can you hear me?”

That got him a fierce elbow in the back. He was suddenly yanked down just as a whip cracked in the air. Three different yells were heard as three guards held their eyes.

Unexpectedly the Mystery locked arms with Hans, hoisted the man onto his back, and spun around so Hans could kick the guards. When the circle was broken Hans was set down and dragged away from the scene. Clearly Hans’ mind was running. First a criminal gives him breakfast, a rescue was initiated in order to save his neck, and now he was being pulled away from maybe thirty guards. Maybe he would get his answers soon. Or not at all.

“Who are you?!” the green-eyed prince asked again.

As his response, he watched the whip latch onto a hook.

“Oh no.”

Suddenly Hans was swinging in the air, and he found himself yelling. His boots landed on a rooftop seconds later, and he hear a grunt from the Mystery.

“Fire!” a voice commanded, and bolts and spears were shot and thrown at the duo.

The Mystery ran off, Hans following as a spear missed him by mere inches. The duo kept rooftop jumping until the Mystery disappeared when he jumped down. The sounds of the chaos they left behind grew quieter as Hans jumped down after the guy, rolling forward once he hit the ground. The docks were not too far ahead.

As they both ran, he wondered if the Mystery was either going to steal a rowboat or dive into the water like the crazy guy he is. Judging by what actions he took recently, Hans was guessing that they’d be swimming for a while. But to where, was the big question. He found his suspicions to be right when the Mystery dove into the water after sucking in a breath. Reluctantly Hans held his breath and took a dip into the salty water. Just where did this criminal think he was going to go?

~~*~~

The crowd back at the gallows had dispersed and retreated to their homes, leaving several injured guards and other ones unconscious.

The jailor scoffed. “Great. Just perfect. His Majesty isn’t going to be pleased.”

“Should we alert Arendelle?” a guard asked.

“No, you idiot!”

“It’d be wise,” the co-head guard said. “Even though our countries aren’t the best of allies, we should. If we come meaning no harm then I’m sure the queen there will listen to us.”

The jailor mumbled to himself in thought. “Fine, but get the king’s permission first. And if you get yourself killed it’s your own fault.”

~~*~~

The Mystery waited for Hans to come to the shore as he leaned against a tree. It was roughly one-thirty in the afternoon. But luckily the redhead had a good set of lungs on him to last the trip.

“Where did you take me?” Hans asked, squeezing the water out of his gloves.

The Mystery walked off.

“Wait!” Hans followed, slipping his gloves back on. “Can you speak?”

Still, the Mystery walked.

“We won’t get anywhere if you don’t speak.”

A fist-sized rock was launched straight at his gut, but Hans had fast reflexes to avoid it.

Eventually the duo reached a part of the woods where there was a canopy of trees above them, sunlight streaming through the leaves.

Hans stopped by a tree. “Do you use sign language?”

The Mystery gave him a head shake.

“You choose not to speak.”

A nod.

“Then tell me why you saved me when you could’ve left me for dead.”

The Mystery walked behind a tree and grabbed a few pieces of paper and a home-fashioned pencil. He wrote something down before showing it to Hans. And his handwriting was nicer than Hans thought it would be.

~Do you trust me?

“No. I don’t.” Hans thought back to the conversation he had overheard. “You killed a man in Arendelle.”

~Self defense.

Hans didn’t say a word for a few moments. “You stole food.”

~I need to live, genius.

He furrowed his eyebrows slightly. “The reward for you capture is $300,000.”

~What else is new?

“Aren’t you afraid of being captured?”

The Mystery hesitated, longer than he wanted to. ~Yes.

“So . . . why did you go through all that trouble?”

~You’re special. I sense it.

Hans didn’t know whether to think of that as a compliment, weird, or patronizing.

The Mystery wrote something else only to stop. He studied the paper for a few moments before crumpling it up and heading for the tree.

“What were you going to say?”

He stopped in his place. Can't keep him completely in the dark. 

Biting back a sigh, the Mystery smoothed out the crumpled paper and wrote again, appearing as if he was choosing his words.

~I'm giving you a second chance. You weren't always cruel and manipulative.

“How could you know anything about me?” Hans snapped. “You’re nothing but a murderer and a thief.”

The Mystery wrote again. ~So are you.

Hans found himself at a loss of words, and he hated it.

Seeing his expression, the Mystery crumpled up the paper again and climbed up a tree, leaving Hans stewing in his thoughts.

_________

(Prologue) (Next chapter) (Previous chapter)

[lostinfic]

5. New York, Fall

Summary: Travel writer/photojournalist AU, slow burn, mutual pining, angst, fluff and adventures around the world.

Pairing: Alec Hardy x Hannah Baxter Rating: Mature Word count: 1.6k

Prologue  |  Chap. 1  |  2  |  3  |  4  | Ao3  

Hannah was too fond of clothing and accessories to be a minimalist packer. She kept her wardrobe well organized, divided by climates and types of activities, but used creativity to select the right clothes. It was an art. One that began with a theme, a story she wanted her pictures to tell. (She’d once packed only retro-inspired clothes for a long weekend in Paris during which she visited movie-famous locations.) And since, on a cruise, hauling a heavy suitcase around wasn’t an issue, she may have gone a little overboard (pun intended) with the nautical theme: white and navy stripes, tiny anchors, big anchors, sailor collars, mermaids...

“I have nothing to wear,” she whined, dumping half her suitcase on the floor of her cabin.

The ship would dock in Manhattan soon, and she still hadn’t found the perfect outfit to go to Hardy’s photography exhibition. Something that looked irresistible yet like she hadn’t made an effort at all. Not like she worked in a theme park.

The whole thing was ridiculous anyway. Her contract with the cruise line gave her a choice among four destinations and ten dates— she could have gone to Alaska!— but she’d chosen a place she’d already visited on somewhat inconvenient dates in October, just on the off chance she might run into him. He didn’t even know she was going to be there. She couldn’t decide whether to tell him. Whether she wanted to see him again. She didn’t usually keep in touch with people she met abroad. The moments they shared were perfect as they were. Meeting again just wouldn’t be the same. Why ruin a perfectly good memory?

But Alec…

She’d said before she wanted a man who would challenge her, but parachuting or strange foods was what she had in mind, not ethical dilemmas.

At least she had a fantastic leather jacket.

The World Press Photo event took place in Brooklyn whereas the ship docked on the west side of Manhattan. It didn’t look that far on the map but, once again, she’d underestimated distances in America. Google Maps informed her it was an hour-long public transport journey to the building where the conference took place. They docked at 10am, and she had to be back on board by 4pm. What kind of cruise stays only six hours in New York but stays overnight in Nova Scotia?

She was familiar with the subway from previous visits, and seamlessly joined the crowd on the platform. She wore her headphones even if her music barely pierced the metal grinding of the old subway cars. She tapped her feet, at first to the beat of Lana Del Rey, but then out of nervousness. What would she even say to him? Oh, hi, funny meeting you here.

By the time she walked out of the subway station, her skin was clammy and smelled of rust and other people’s sweat. An autumnal breeze refreshed her and chased dead leaves around her feet.

She washed her hands and face, sprayed some perfume on her neck and shook her hair for volume. With a sigh, she blew a strand off her face.

Beside the door, a banner announced: “Alec Hardy, a retrospective”. A black and white portrait of him, with a hand tugging back his hair and an annoyed look on his face, told visitors he didn’t appreciate having the viewfinder turned on him. The lights and shadows in the picture revealed his physical flaws: the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, freckles on his cheeks and nose, even some greying hair at his temples and in his beard. She only ever used black and white to hide a too-red face or unflattering light. He didn’t hide anything, and the photo was stunning.

She read the short biography next to it. Forty-two years old, ten years older than her. She filed the information away. Everything else she knew from looking him up already.

In the high-ceilinged, white room, his photographs, in various sizes, lined the walls and hung from the ceiling to create corridors.

Hannah scanned the crowd of art students, photography enthusiasts and other conference attendees with lanyards around their necks. She didn’t see him, and couldn’t tell which of relief or disappointment swelled in her chest.

The exhibition began with Alec’s early work on the streets of Glasgow in the 90s: poverty, union strikes, and the punk scene. Domestic moments caught through dusty windows, spike-haired lovers in a park, and children playing among burning rubbish bins. She smiled at a self-portrait, his reflection in a broken mirror, an old Leica covered half his face, wire-frame glasses and smoke from a hand-rolled cigarette covered the other half.

Political protests and revolts followed. From Ireland to South Africa. He’d been right in the eye of it, among the armed men, the bleeding noses and mouths shouting for justice. In the rage and lust.

Hannah walked from one to the other, heart beating fast as if watching an action movie. How many times had he been threatened? Held at gunpoint? Kicked and punched? He really made a habit of putting himself in danger’s way. His recklessness scared her, in a good way.

His later work shifted away from the action towards the devastation left in their wake. Destroyed villages, grieving families, scarred men, empty-eyed women. More children featured in his photos. She recognized Pulau Kesuma: a pile of discarded monogrammed hotel towels among flowers, new fishing gear left to rust, an old fisherman with the sea etched on his skin. With every picture, Hannah’s heart grew heavier. By the last photo, tears threatened to ruin her mascara. And yet, something in the way he showcased sunlight gave her hope.

Hannah rounded a corner and gasped: there was a photo of her. Taken at night, darkness hid her face, but she recognized her leg kicking an arch of bioluminescent plankton. She raised her cell phone to take a picture of it and share it on social media, but changed her mind. She looked at it closer. She wasn’t used to seeing herself through someone else’s camera. An image over which she had no control. A moment of unstaged spontaneity. She wasn’t used to feeling humbled. She watched other people’s reaction to it. They didn’t know what it meant.

The picture of her was part of a special section dedicated to his more artistic work. Random snapshots he’d never dedicated an entire series to before now. Breathtaking landscapes, powerful oceans, a colorful Indian wedding, elephants in Thailand, coal-smeared Congolese children smiling bright, several photos of a baby girl. Through his lens, even the streets of London became poetic. And she thought that pain and misery did not diminish the beauty of the world, if anything, the fact that people endured and kept laughing and creating, was all the more wondrous because of it.

She went around the room a second time, always on the lookout for Hardy. She did a double-take at every brown-haired or bearded man, only to be disappointed. Before she knew it, she’d spent more time there than at the Louvre. She lingered in the building for as long as she could, visited the other exhibitions, but had to get back to the port soon. She decided to leave a message in the guest book, leaving it up to fate whether he would see it.

Outside the building, golden sunshine trickled between fiery leaves and alighted every raindrop falling across its beams. Umbrellas bloomed and children laughed, and Hannah was keenly aware that each person around her had their own story, their own unique perspective on life.

Like light shining through a prism, daily life was dissolved into millions of shades by the people experiencing it.

Hannah walked two subway stations farther, fascinated by the city thrumming with life around her.

To capture that variety, she used to write in-depth articles about encounters with one person. She’d gradually abandoned those in favor of shorter pieces for the attention-deficient social media users, and marketing disguised as personal anecdotes. Perhaps she should do that again.

She smiled at the young latina woman walking her dog, but only received a wary look in return.

This strange hyper-awareness followed her on board the cruise ship, but morphed into introspection once alone in her cabin. Seeing Hardy’s journey made her consider her own.

When asked why she started traveling, she always told the same story. She, Ben and Erin formed an inseparable trio of best friends in secondary school. They dreamed of backpacking through Europe. Once in uni, they kept postponing their plans for all sorts of reasons. Unfortunately, Erin died abruptly during their second year. Realizing how short and unpredictable life is, Hannah had packed her bags and left England.

It was a nice story, but it wasn’t the whole truth. She never said how her friend died, that she left even before the funeral, that she stayed too long in Amsterdam to numb her guilt, that there was a reason she didn’t keep in touch with the people she met while traveling.

The rocking waves failed to lull her to sleep. She nearly called Hardy twice, but her longing scared her. Her emotions felt too close to the surface, too easy to bruise.

She wrote all night and deleted the file in the morning.

They docked in Boston next. She filled a travel mug with black coffee and headed off the boat with the firm intention of being her former, professional self. She hadn’t even posted on Instagram yesterday. It really was for the best that she hadn’t encountered Hardy. They had shared a moment in Asia and that was the end of it. She had to focus on rebuilding her reputation after what happened with Elite Travelers.

Outside the cruise terminal, where buses awaited passengers for day tours, the marketing liaison waved her over. Before she’d even said hi to him, someone else called her name.

“Baxter!”

Her heart melted.

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior September 25, 2020 – New York Film Festival, THE WAY I SEE IT, KAJILLIONAIRE, STUNTWOMEN, MISBEHAVIOUR and Lots More!

A mite bit late this week, but it’s another busy week of movies though considerably less than usual in terms of ones I have any interest in watching. Oh, wait, did I say that out loud? Yup, we’re getting to that point after six months, even though I did go out to Jersey City to see The New Mutants on Saturday. It was fine. I didn’t hate it. Josh Boone didn’t rape my childhood.

Before we get to the new releases, we’ll start with the New York Film Festival (NYFF), since that just kicked off on Thursday night with Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock, which is one of five relatively shorter movies he’s made as part of his “Small Axe” anthology that will eventually air on Amazon Prime. Maybe they’ll get some kind of theatrical release then but who knows? I’ve always kind of been up and down on McQueen’s work, loving his early movie Hunger, but then being mixed on his next few films (including the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave) but then loving Widows from a couple years back. There is no question that McQueen is a true auteur in terms of filmmaking, although sometimes he loses track of the storytelling in order to get artsy, and that’s the case with Lovers Rock. It essentially takes place in and around a “Blues Night,” basically a rowdy house party fully of music and dancing and singing, but as much about the meeting of Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn’s Martha and Micheal (Blue Story) Ward’s Franklyn at this party. It’s a fairly short “film” of just over an hour that beautifully captures the music and dance of the time, although it also gets a little too “arty” as tends to be McQueen’s wont. I don’t want to spoil too much about what happens, but I think mileage will vary on this one.

There are two more chapters to be shown at NYFF, spaced out by a week each-- Mangrove and Red, White and Blue – and I’m interested enough in what McQueen has to say about this West Indies heritage and some of the stories he’s telling within the series.

Other movies that have screened for critics already including Sam Pollard’s doc MLK/FBI, which as one can probably can figure out is about the FBI’s attempt to discredit King and take him down as leader of the protesting that led to the eventual passing of the Civil Rights Act. I feel like I knew a lot of what was in this movie from other films, and I didn’t really find that this added much towards my appreciation of King than what already existed. Honestly, I liked Pollard’s other film, Mr. Soul!, which he co-directed with that subject’s daughter.There just feels to be something more personal there compared to the rather clinical MLK/FBI.

At least that has a much stronger narrative than Song Fang’s The Calming, starring Xi Qi, which is the type of movie I almost definitely would have walked out of a press screening annoyed that I was dragged up to Lincoln Center, because it’s very much like some of Hong Sang-Soo’s worst work or some of the work of Zhangke Jia, both who regularly play the New York Film Festival. Sure enough, Zhangke produced this film, so that explains that.

I decided not to even bother with Cristi Puiu’s three-plus hour period piece Malmkrog. I was a fan of his earlier films The Death of Mr. Lazarescu and Aurora, but there just isn’t enough time in the day to see if this one goes anywhere. It’s the kind of thing that I could oddly justify sit in a movie theater and watch, but sitting at my laptop? No, thank you.

I also ended up watching Pedro Almodovar’s English language debut, the short film The Human Voice, starring Tilda Swinton as a woman who buys an axe at a hardware store and walks around a colorful and elaborate set with a dog, and then she gets into a long dramatic conversation (mostly yelling) over the phone with her lover or ex-lover. So yeah, basically a great showcase for Swinton, who we already know as a fabulous actor, and for the movie’s production design and cinematography. I guess I’m a little mixed on this. At least it’s only 30 minutes long?

There are a number of other festivals going on, including IFP Week in New York, which used to be one of my go-tos in terms of screening more obscure stuff between TIFF and NYFF – it’s where I saw Barry Jenkins’ Medicine for Melancholy one year and a few other cool movies since. But over the past few years, it seems to have less and less of interest, and I’ve barely paid attention to what’s in the cards with its shift to virtual. Either way, it’s going on now and through Friday.

Texas has two film festivals starting up this week, the more prominent one probably being Celebration of Fantastic Fest, which as can be expected is a virtual version of the annual Fantastic Fest, which I’ve heard is one of the best genre festivals in the country, showing some of the best of previous fests’ midnight tracks as well as many premieres.  It will kick off on Thursday with Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor, which Neon will release a week from Friday, and then there’s a combination of new and vintage genre and horror films. You can see the full schedule here, as it runs for one full week and then through October 8, closing with Jim Cummings’ The Wolf of Snow Hollow. The opening and closing night films are at the Alamo Drafthouse Slaughter Lane, but all the other movies being offered free to anyone in the country, and then there are a few events like the annual Fantastic Feud, which is available to watch worldwide. Some of the film’s to try to catch include Chad Faust’s Girl, starring Bella Thorne; French filmmakers Ludovic Boukherma & Zoran Boukherma’s Teddy, and Amelia Moses’ Bloodthirsty.

Not too far away in Waco, Texas, the Deep in the Heart Film Festival runs for the next couple weekends. Nothing really jumped out from this year’s line-up, but only because I haven’t seen any of the movies being streamed. What’s great about regional film festivals like this one is that they’re “discovery fests” where you can go and watch a lot of smaller indies by filmmakers who you may not hear about since they don’t have “ins” at the big festivals where they’re guaranteed placement.

Before we get to this week’s new movies, I wanted to draw special attention to a movie from last week, I didn’t get a chance to watch before posting the column, and that’s Dawn Porter’s THE WAY I SEE IT (Focus Features), an amazing doc about former White House chief photographer Pete Souza, whose amazing career working in the White House under Presidents Reagan and Obama led him to becoming a conscionable objector to the current Trump regime by using social media to throw shade. In fact, Souza’s most recent photo book is called Shade, and it collects his social media posts and tweets of some of his amazing photos of Obama during his 8 years in the White House. This is just an amazing film from the director of John Lewis: Good Trouble, which came out earlier this year, and this one does just as much to show Obama’s humanity (and actually, the fact that Reagan had a lighter side we rarely saw in public) but also to contrast those two Presidents with the monster we have in the White House now. I immediately bought Souza’s book after seeing it, and I’m hoping more people will learn about him through this film. This might already be gone from its limited theatrical release by the time you read it, but it will air on MSNBC on October 9 at 10PM.

Because I like to start or continue with the good, I will follow up one great doc with another one, and that’s April Wright’s STUNTWOMEN: THE UNTOLD HOLLYWOOD STORY (Shout Studios), which is fairly self-explanatory. It builds on the ideas in Mollie Gregory’s 2015 book and has interviews and anecdotes from some of the youngest and newest in the stunt field to some of the legends, like Jeannie Epper from the Wonder Woman and Bionic Woman TV shows, and Donna Keegan, who has been almost all of the coolest ‘80s and ‘90s action movies including Robocop, True Lies and others. Narrated by Michelle Rodriguez, the movie mixes the actual stuntwomen like Amy Johnston, Jennifer Caputo, Debbie and Donna Evans and Michelle Jubilee Gonzalez with a few directors like Paul Feig and Anne Fletcher. (Before you ask, Zoe Bell is mentioned but doesn’t actually talk about herself or her career on camera.) I just really enjoyed hearing these stories and learning more about a profession I really don’t know much about.  I definitely recommend this doc to anyone who wants to know more about film history and the behind-the-scenes stuff. (I also wrote a feature on this movie with interviews with three of the stuntwomen from the movie over on Below the Line.)

Focus Features is also releasing Miranda July’s new movie KAJILLIONAIRE, presumably at one point on PVOD but now theatrically as well after picking it up at Sundance where there were rave reviews for it. It stars Richard Jenkins, Debra Winger (yes, that one) and Evan Rachel Wood as a family of thieves who are always planning their next grift to get the $1,500 for their overdue rent. It’s then that they meet Gina Rodriguez’s Melanie, and bring her into their plans, much to the chagrin of Wood’s “Old Dolio,” (Yes, that’s the name of her character – don’t ask!), who already has issues with her parents not showing her the love a child usually expects.  

You know, I absolutely loved July’s earlier Sundance film You and Me and Everybody We Know, so hearing that she was making a heist movie and one with such an interesting cast definitely made me curious about Kajillionaire, which got absolute raves out of this year’s Sundance. It just sounded like it could be very cool, and I genuinely have been a fan of both Evans and Jenkins for a long time. I wasn’t nearly as familiar with Rodriguez’s work on Jane the Virgin, but I definitely became a bigger fan of her after this movie.

If you’re familiar with July’s other work, you know that she’s first and foremost an artist and maybe can be considered a bit of a performance artist with film being just one of her mediums. Being familiar with some of her past work might prepare you for how strange Kajillionaire is, especially in the set-up when we meet the Dyne family – Robert, Theresa and “Old Dolio” (ugh) – and we learn about their suitably quirky lifestyle of trying to con people out of money in order to pay their aggravated landlord Stovik (Mark Ivanir).  When we meet them, they’re three months past due, and Stovik has had enough, so they have to come up with a quick scheme. “Old Dolio” has an idea to scam an airline, and during this plan, they meet Rodriguez’s bubbly Melanie, who is keen on joining this strange family, for one reason. Robert seems more interested in Melanie for sexual reasons.

Going into Kajillionaire realizing how strange July tends to go with her material – whether it’s the Dyne’s living space or their general behavior – I still had trouble getting past not only the name of Evans’ character but her entire dour, emotionless and ultimately monotone performance. (Imagine Evans auditioning for the role of Bill or Ted in a female remake, and that’s her character.)  Evans is such a vibrant performer and maybe she wanted to play down her looks that are played up on HBO’s Westworld, but this character goes so far into the world of July’s headspace that I’m not sure who could possibly relate to her. As with much of July’s work, there are elements that people can relate to, possibly the way Evans’ character doesn’t feel the love from her parents that they immediately give to Melanie, as well as the sapphic bond that develops between the two younger women, but it’s all wrapped up in the most cockamamie attempt at a weird remake of The Grifters possible. Except that the Dynes are really bad scam artists, and the movie as a whole never really goes anywhere.

On the other hand, Rodriguez is almost the polar opposite of Evans, being vibrant and with a big personality and so many more layers, and she almost saves the movie at times. Otherwise, I had high hopes for Kajillionaire and was extremely disappointed, because July has yet to deliver on that earlier film I loved so much, and this is no different.

Honestly, I have no idea why Brad Pitt’s Plan B, let alone Focus Features, shelled out money for this movie thinking it might make them money, as there’s just nothing sellable about it… not the cast, not the premise and certainly not the overall tone. I guess this will be one I will never figure out. (Even so, if you like Jenkins, at least there’s another movie with him out this week, but that one isn’t much better unfortunately.)

On the other hand, one of the nice surprises of the week was Philippa Lowthorpe’s MISBEHAVIOUR (Shout! Factory), starring Keira Knightley as Sally Alexander, a young woman going to university who falls in with the Women’s Liberation Movement of London and their plots to disrupt the 1970 Miss World competition due to the way it depicts women. The movie also stars Jessie Buckley as one of the pluckier young women trying to take down the “patriarchy,” Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Miss Grenada, Rhys Ifans as Eric Morley, who runs Miss World with his wife Julia (Keeley Hawes) and… here’s where it gets weird… Greg Kinnear as Bob Hope.

As far as the latter goes, the movie opens with Kinnear’s Hope performing for the troops in Vietnam for the USO, and I honestly had no idea it was Kinnear, nor did I realize it until about Hope’s third appearance and I finally looked it up and realized it w as him.

But Hope is a very small part of the movie that focuses on three specific women, all real people, as played by Knightley, Buckley and Mbatha-Raw.  Alexander is a divorced young woman with a daughter who is trying to get through life with some help from her disapproving mother, but she’s also adamant about being able to break through the glass wall and meeting Buckley’s Jo Robinson and her group of rebellious young women gives Alexander the motivation to do something.

On the one hand, Misbehaviour is a quaint British period piece, much like a lot of Knightley’s previous films, but it’s also another important story from the struggle of women to get equal rights that seems appropriately-timed to current times. It’s as pretty amazing story what the Womens Lib movement got up to in terms of trying to hijack the Miss World competition – watch the videos, this really did happen, though slightly modified – where young women were literally treated like eye candy or meat. What I particularly enjoyed was that the movie didn’t just focus on Alexander or Robinson, but actually oscillated from the various characters in the story as they would come together on the fateful night.

I was already a fan of the three female leads, so seeing them in a movie together was quite grand, and while Kinnear may have been oddly-cast as Hope, the movie isn’t really about him. I actually liked seeing Ifans playing a very different character, more boisterous and with a different accent, as he adds to what ended up being a fairly entertaining movie that deals with a lot of different things, including the controversy over having a white and black contestant from South Africa decades before Apartheid was abolished.

Philippa Lowthorpe, best known for The Other Boleyn Girl, does an amazing job pulling all of these pictures together but never losing sight of the real women who are being portrayed and the amazing story they had to tell. Misbehaviour is a great example of how a message movie can be done in a thoroughly entertaining way without putting off potential male viewers.

On Wednesday, Netflix begins streaming ENOLA HOLMES, an adaptation of Nancy Springer’s Y.A. book series about Sherlock Holmes’ sister, played by Millie Bobby Brown from Stranger Things. Her brothers Sherlock and Mycroft are played by Henry Cavill and Sam Claflin, their mother is played by Helena Bonham Carter, and it’s directed by Harry Bradbeer, director of Fleabag and other British series. Methinks that Netflix is hoping this will be another franchise for the streaming giant. The film takes place in 1884 England with Enola waking on the morning of her 16th birthday to find her mother having vanished. Her brothers choose to send Enola to a finishing school but instead, she goes looking for her mother in London and falls in with a young runaway named Lord Tewksbury (Louis Partridge) to unravel a great conspiracy.

I never really became a fan of Stranger Things – more due to the lack of time than interest – so I haven’t really been generate much of an opinion for Millie Bobby Brown except for her role in Godzilla: King of Monsters. That said, I DO have an opinion on Sherlock Holmes, as I’m a huge fan of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, and that’s partially what drove my interest in this adaptation of Nancy Springer’s Y.A. twist.

Enola Holmes begins with a rather strange whimsical tone, as Enola constantly breaks the fourth wall and talks to the viewer, but it eventually falls into a steadier rhythm that’s much more palatable. If you’re into the mystery aspects of the Holmes lore, you may be a little disappointed by some of the simple word games concocted for this Holmes’ investigation, but it more than makes up for it with some fun fight and action sequences that made me think this would have been great as a theatrical release. (Just by being on Netflix, I’m sure it won’t have a problem finding an audience.)

All in all, I generally liked Brown in this role; she reminds me a little bit of a young Saoirse Ronan, so she clearly has a lot of potential. I wasn’t as crazy about some of the other casting, including Cavill as Enola’s older brother, nor the cutesy romance stuff with Partridge, but I know I’m also not the primary target audience for the film either. Still, coming so soon after Armando Ianucci’s David Copperfield adaptation, this generally pales in comparison. Probably the biggest bummer is that Helena Bonham Carter barely appears in the movie at all, which seems like such a waste of talent, although her scenes with Brown are some of the best in the movie.

Enola Holmes will find its fanbase for sure, and while it might not be the best or strongest iteration of Holmes, as much as a fun girl-friendlier spin on it, there’s no doubt that it’s perpetually entertaining.

Lena Olin and Bruce Dern star in Tom Dolby’s THE ARTIST’S WIFE (Strand Releasing) in which Dern plays crotchety artist Richard Smythson, whose poor beleaguered wife Claire (Olin) is now living in the shadow of her celebrated artist husband, giving up her own art career, but now having to deal with his memory losses and deteriorating behavior.

Claire (Lena Olin) lives a quiet domestic life in the Hamptons as the wife of celebrated artist Richard Smythson (Bruce Dern). Once a promising painter herself, Claire now lives in the shadow of her husband’s illustrious career. While preparing work for his final show, Richard’s moods become increasingly erratic, and he is diagnosed with dementia. As his memory and behavior deteriorate, she shields his condition from the art community while trying to reconnect him with his estranged daughter and grandson from a previous marriage. Challenged by the loss of her world as she knew it, Claire must now decide whether to stand with Richard on the sidelines or step into the spotlight herself.

Watching this, it’s almost impossible to not be reminded of the excellent The Wife, starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce, but this is a different film from The Wife despite having similar themes of a woman who has allowed her own life and career to come second to that of her husband.

This is first and foremost a showcase for Olin, who at 65 years old, still looks amazing but also gives a fantastic performance, one unlike any we’ve seen from her in quite some time. A lot of the film deals with her character reuniting with her husband’s estranged lesbian daughter (her stepdaughter) Angela (Juliet Rylance) and her son Diego, who is being taken care of by a hunky manny named Danny (Avan Jogia). They all get together for Christmas, and Richard’s behavior just gets worse and worse as Claire vacillates between worrying about him and being infuriated by him.

Sure, it’s a little predicable at times but still a decent little film from Dolby that includes a number of incredibly touching and even some weepy moments. I ended up liking this film way more than I thought I would from the premise and my own preconceived notions of what this movie would be.

The Artist’s Wife is a really nice movie – and honestly, another one I’m shocked isn’t being distributed by Sony Pictures Classics! It’s far better than The Leisure Seekers, for instance, not only in dealing with early-stage dementia but also in the way women often have to put aside their own aspirations to help their elderly spouses through it.

Richard Jenkins also stars in Andrew Cohn’s THE LAST SHIFT (Stage 6 Films) playing Stanley, who has worked at the fast food restaurant Oscar’s Chicken and Fish in Albion, Michigan for over 35 years, but he’s planning to leave to go take care of his mother in Florida. Hired to replace him is a younger lad named Jevon (Shane Paul McGhie), who has just been let out of jail and needs the job to fulfill his probation.

I’m not really sure who this movie is intended since Jenkins plays such a sad sack slacker that I’m not quite sure who might be drawn to his character, and other than his relationship with Jevon, which definitely falls into the Finding Forrester school of movie cliches, I’m not sure that the film offers much else. Ed O’Neill does appear in the film as Stanley’s best friend, but he seemed to be playing down his role as to not steal any of Jenkins’ spotlight.

Much of the movie deals with the odd characters and situations Stanley and Juvan experience on the job, but it feels like such a hodge-podge of ideas thrown together without a suitable and conclusive arc for either character. Also, Stan is kind of a jerk, and there were only so many jokes about his mother’s bad memory – probably due to dementia -- I was willing to put up with. It’s just hard to fathom what Jenkins saw in this role or movie other than to allow the lesser-known McGhie shine a bit.

The Last Shift is a movie that tries to be a comedy without ever being particularly funny, and it just comes across like a flat and rather mundane attempt that never really goes anywhere. (Note: Days after this review was posted, I was informed that the screener link I watched did not have the final music cues and mix that the filmmaker intended. With that in mind, I will make an effort to rewatch the film when I have the film’s final version.)

A few docs of interest this week (other than the ones mentioned above) include Laura Gabbert’s doc OTTOLENGHI AND THE CAKES OF VERSAILLES (IFC Films), which follows Yoam Ottolenghi as he puts together a huge gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the opening of an exhibit about Versailles. Ottolenghi decides to bring together a number of pastry chefs from all over the world, including Dominique Ansel (inventor of the Cronut), Dinara Kasko and more to recreate the look and feel of Versailles through a series of pastries and desserts. Honestly, I really don’t have that much to say about the movie, which is only about an hour 15 minutes and still feels long. It basically just documents the preparation for the event and the event itself, and the whole thing just seems rather pretentious and high-falutin’, and more like the movie that might play at Lincoln Center than anywhere else. It will be playing in theaters (but probably not Lincoln Center) as well as on digital and cable VOD. (I told you I didn’t have much to say about it.)

Premiering on HBO (and presumably HBO Max) on Wednesday (today!) is the first part of Alex Gibney’s AGENTS OF CHAOS, a two-part documentary by the Oscar-winning documentarian about the Russian interference in the 2016 election. Another example of a movie that just wasn’t something I cared to watch right at this minute, despite being a big fan of Gibney’s excellent investigational skills in terms of getting to the bottom of a subject. The first part airs tonight (9/23) and the second part airs tomorrow night (9/24).

There’s also Ric Burns’ doc OLIVER SACKS: HIS OWN LIFE (Zeitgeist Films), which will premiere exclusively as part of Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema on Wednesday (today!). I really tried to get to this, but there’s only so much time in the day especially with NYFF, and everything else going on in my life right now. I do hope to get to it, and maybe it will be like The Way I See It or Mr. Soul! and I can talk more about it in a future column.  Burns’ doc essentially covers the work of a neurologist and storyteller called ���the poet laurate of medicine,” who talks about his struggles with drug addiction, homophobia and a medical establishment that only began to appreciate him decades after some of his work. Sacks is also known for writing the book on which the Robin Williams movie Awakenings is based, but otherwise, I never had really heard of him before or any of the people interviewed. Again, I’ll try to get to this soon, because he sounds like an interesting man for sure.

If the title of Mike Gunther’s ROGUE WARFARE: DEATH OF A NATION (Saban Films) makes it sound like it would be as a video game, then you probably aren’t aware that this is actually an action trilogy with Stephen Lang playing “The President,” who I guess is the villain of the piece. Will Yun Lee plays one of a team of elite soldiers who must put a stop to detonate a deadly bomb in 36 hours. No review screeners for this one, which will be in theaters, on demand and digital this Friday.

Oddly, advance screeners were also not available for Tate Taylor’s action-thriller AVA (Vertical Entertainment), starring Jessica Chastain, which is a movie I was curious about since I’ve generally liked most of Taylor’s previous films – The Help and Get On Up more than Ma or The Girl on the Train. This is the spy thriller he’d been talking about making for a while, and it costars John Malkovich, Common, Geena Davis, and Colin Farrell. What it doesn’t have is screeners for review. It must be fantastic!

Again, lots of movies this week, but I just don’t have the time or mind to spend nearly as much time watching some of them before writing this. There’s many more docs, including Jay Sebring…Cutting to the Truth (Shout! Studios), the Netflix doc Kiss the Ground, yet another doc called Red, White and Wasted (Dark Sky Films), We Are Many (Area 23 Films), Myth of a Colorblind France (First Run Features) and Public Trust (Patagonia Films). There’s also even more non-docs in I’ll Be Around (Indie Rights), LX2048, Foster Boy and Shortcut (both also from Gravitas Ventures), The Swerve and Dead (1091). See what I mean? A ridiculous amount of movies this week and even more next week. Who can possibly watch, let alone review them all?

If there’s one thing I truly miss in this pandemic is being able to go over to my local movie theater, the Metrograph to catch whatever they’re showing, but they’ve still been killing it with their Live Screenings digital series. Tonight, the Metrograph is screening Shona Lynch’s debut political doc, Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed, which follows Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy rep Shirley Chisholm, who became the first person of color and first woman to seek a major American’s political party’s nomination for President, as she fought ridicule and racism. On Monday, Metrograph will present “Matador Records - Revisionist History,” which is a celebration of the artist on the indie label that kicked off in 1989 and released records by the likes of Liz Phair, Yo La Tengo, Pavement and Sonic Youth. Monday’s premiere will include introductions by Matador’s Gerard Cosloy and Chris Lombardi and Yo La Tengo and will be made up of a series of short films and videos. Friday, the Metrograph starts a Robert Kramer retrospective with his 1969 film Ice, and honestly, I don’t really know much about Kramer so not sure what else to say.

Next week has so many frickin’ movies that if I start watching them all without sleeping for the next week, I probably won’t get to all of them. Either way, there’s no Wonder Woman 1984, so you can blame Governor Cuomo and the assholes railing against movie theaters reopening for that one.

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Spears of Clontarf, Mech, Max Brand, Melee, Dresden Files

Robert E. Howard (Jeffro Johnson): This is a great story, a fascinating piece.

In the first place, it shows us up close the sort of peoples, Christian and pagan, that produced the bedrock of the myth and legends that would define our base concepts of fantasy and heroism. But it also presents the notion that we are descended from people that were every bit as heroic as Conan and Solomon Kane. And being written by Robert E. Howard, you can’t help but end up being persuaded!

So many good lines here:

My lords, it may be God’s will I fall in the first onset– but the scars of slavery burn deep in my back this night, and may the dogs eat my bones if I am backward when the spears are splintering.

  Fiction (Rawle Nyanzi): It’s finally here. The project that myself, Brian Niemeier, and Bradford C. Walker set out to complete is under way. Three mech books — two currently released, one in pre-orders — can finally be purchased on Amazon. One even has a sequel out. These stories are very different from one another. Xseed is military sci-fi in the Gundam mold, very grounded in realism; Reavers is “Christian knights in space,” strongly modeled off of both chivalric romances and classic Star Wars. My own book is based strongly on Japanese-style superhero shows, specifically Power Rangers, while also taking place in an alternate history.

      Authors (DMR Books): Frederick Faust, better known to millions of fans over the last hundred years as “Max Brand,” was born on this date in 1892. Awhile back, I wrote a post on H. Bedford-Jones where I called him “King of the Pulps.” I may need to change my mind on that one. I was following the opinion of Darrell C. Richardson–whose opinions and erudition I esteem greatly–in that instance. I think I’ll have to belatedly disagree with Darrell this time.

While Bedford-Jones is calculated to have written about twenty-five million words for the pulps in his career, Faust wrote at least that many in a shorter career–Faust died five years before Bedford-Jones, almost to the day. Both men wrote in various genres, but Faust appears to have made better money doing so.

  Fiction (HiLo Brow): Ernest Hemingway‘s WWI adventure A Farewell to Arms. A hardboiled account — by a disillusioned American, Frederic Henry, serving as a paramedic in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army — of the horrors of WWI. “I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain,” Henry recounts. “I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it…” Our narrator is introduced to Catherine Barkley, an English nurse, whom he indifferently attempts to seduce; he gets to know Catherine better as he recuperates under her care, after being wounded on the Italian front; he is sent back to the front — leaving a pregnant Catherine behind in Milan.

      Fiction (Eldtrich Paths): Grave Peril is the third book of the Dresden Files. I had no major problems with the first two books in the series, but I can see why many readers say the series picks up with this book. A lot happens. Harry Dresden has to deal with more characters, more problems, and more enemies are. The author really puts Harry through the grinder with this one, making it a great chapter in the series.

  Fiction (DMR Books): The second installment in the serialized version of Tros of Samothrace is titled “The Enemy of Rome” and consists of what would become chapters 15 – 26 of the novel published in 1934. Set in the late summer/early fall of the year 55 B.C., this story tells of the aftermath of Julius Caesar’s first invasion of Britain and was first published in the April 10, 1925 issue of Adventure magazine.

Tros has won his first skirmish with Caesar and Rome: he has Caesar’s ship, his pay chests, his seal of office and all of his correspondence (not just military intelligence but much of his foe’s schemes and ongoing plans).

    History (Don Herron): Recently I read A Splendid Savage: The Restless Life of Frederick Russell

Burnham by Steve Kemper. Here’s a paragraph from the book:

Apaches inspired terror for good reason. They were as harsh and pitiless as the landscape they roamed. For non-Apaches, the worst imaginable fate was to be taken alive by them. Captured children and young women were occasionally integrated into the tribe, but men were doomed to torments. Captives were often turned over to Apache women whose male relatives had recently been killed. 

      Fiction (Black Gate): The Wrath of Fantomas is a book I approached with extreme prejudice. It’s a graphic novel that seeks to present a new version of Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain’s Fantomas series, which proved so successful when it was introduced a scant 108 years ago. As a rule, I dislike the concept of rebooting a series.

When first discovering a book series as a kid, continuity was key. It made a property more meaningful if there were numerous volumes to find and devour. Scouring used bookstores for dogeared copies of the missing pieces in the narrative puzzle made such books far more valuable to me.

  Fiction (Hillbilly Highway): You can imagine my interest then, when I discovered that an Appendix N and Weird Tales stalwart, Manly Wade Wellman, wrote an entire series of short stories very much rooted in the lore of my people.  About John.  At least that’s the only way his name is given in the stories.  He is more usually known as John the Balladeer or Silver John.  He may also be a parallel universe Johnny Cash.  Or maybe John the Baptist.  Or maybe both.

  Games (Jeffro Johnson): This game is so rad.

I get it out to show it to people, as if to just explain what it is and show off the components…. But then, if you have time to explain it, you pretty much have time to play it. And once you play it, you gotta play it again!

The sample character cards from the recent Fantasy Trip “Monster” Set make this even easier. Just pick a card. Pick one at random, even. Man, it’s just so easy.

  Games and Popular Culture (Wasteland and Sky): I’m unconvinced there is a Millennial who knows what an actual homage is. They should, but for some reason have discarded this definition from their minds. A “homage” is clearly not swiping passages of another writer’s work and not transforming it to a new form, such as comedy or parody, or attributing the original when doing so. But that aside there is a another quote that gives the game away.

  Cinema (Sacnoth’s Scriptorium): So, the organizers of Tolkien Day in Kalamazoo arranged for a special showing of the new TOLKIEN biopic to a room full of Tolkien scholars. We were on the whole a skeptical bunch as to whether the filmmakers cd pull it off, but willing to see how it had come out.

The first thing that struck me was the trees. Tolkien famously said you can’t get much about trees into a play, one reason he considered drama inferior to fiction, but the filmmakers showed this is not necessarily the case for film.

  Fiction (Classic Mysteries): I’m pretty sure that readers who enjoy some of the great classics of science fiction are already familiar with the name of Fredric Brown. I have particularly fond memories of several of his SF classics, such as Martians, Go Home. But I’m also fond of Brown as a mystery author. And, as a fan of Lewis Carroll, and the Alice in Wonderland books in general, I generally try to re-read one of my favorite Fredric Brown mysteries, Night of the Jabberwock, every few years. It’s funny, medium-to-hard-boiled, and I think its plot is both unique and brilliant. It’s not always available in the marketplace, but – as of May, 2019 – it looks like it’s out there at least as an e-book. So here’s what I had to say about Night of the Jabberwock when I reviewed it on the Classic Mysteries podcast several years ago. I’ve updated the information about the book’s availability, but otherwise it’s pretty much as I first wrote and recorded it.

Pulp Science Fiction (SF Magazine): The Debt by E. Mayne Hull is the third of her ‘Artur Blord’ series, and sees the return of the alien Skal from the previous story. This one starts with Blord coming upon a ravaged spaceship, where all the men are dead and there is only one hidden survivor, Ellen Reith. All the other women have been taken by the Skal’s henchmen to the Castle of Pleasure. Blord realises that they will soon deduce from the manifest that Reith is missing, and that they will return for her. He calls his office to organise a cover up.

  Fiction(Paperback Warrior): Author Paul Bishop is a 35-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department. Receiving “Detective of the Year” accolades twice, Bishop starred as the lead interrogator on the ABC reality show “Take the Money and Run” developed by marquee name producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Along with his 15 published works, Bishop also is the writer and editor of the essential reference work “52 Weeks 52 Western Novels – A Guide to Six-Gun Favorites and New Discoveries”.

Sensor Sweep: Spears of Clontarf, Mech, Max Brand, Melee, Dresden Files published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[theseventhhex]

KEN mode Interview

KEN mode

Photo by Brenna Faris

KEN mode have returned with their seventh full-length ‘Loved’. The album represents yet another pivot point in the group’s sound, a departure from the indie/noise punk focused songs on their previous album, ‘Success’. On ‘Loved’ the group delve deeper, and darker than ever before. This vicious full-length may be the group’s quintessential statement of violence and despair made sonic. Drawing from not only the desperate noise and industrial sonics of the 80’s and 90’s, KEN mode has mixed in the decidedly more extreme tone and presence of death and black metal, expertly captured by Andrew Schneider’s sick vision of noise and girth. With a newfound focus and desire ‘Loved’ is the most collaborative effort KEN mode has ever put together and it continues the band’s impressive progression to date… We talk to Jesse Matthewson about having more fun, doughnuts and Ronda Rousey…

TSH: What was at the heart of your lyrical content this time around for ‘Loved’?

Jesse: The current state of the world was definitely impacting a lot of the lyrical content on ‘Loved’. Also, this album is the most collaborative that the band’s lyrics have ever been too. For the last six years I’ve just been taking notes on my phone of things people say around me. In addition to this my bandmates will send me messages with different quotes and word combinations that we all find entertaining and I’ve been injecting a lot of those into the lyrical content as well. I’ve almost treated a lot of the songs as an editorial type of job in ways. It makes for a new challenge for us because we are changing up the way that we are doing things, it’s more fresh and involves a more family like kind of atmosphere.

TSH: Do you still prefer to not have parameters in place with your songwriting?

Jesse: Definitely. We never have parameters around what we are writing about, we just write whatever we want to, but the sentiment and structures have to feel professional and like they are of a certain standard. The actual subject matter doesn’t matter that much to us; it’s whatever is inspiring us to write something that we feel means something.

TSH: Also, this time around you guys wanted to get back to playing as a band and being in a position where you were doing it for fun...

Jesse: Totally. We wrote this album in a completely different way to any other album that we’ve written. Most of the riff ideas were written by Scott and I just hanging out and throwing around ideas and reacting to each other. We also worked with a friend of ours in Winnipeg, Drew Johnston. We played with him for over a year and a half and he helped us put together a lot of this record, especially since Scott lives further out. Drew supported us a lot and we played as a three-piece whilst Shane constructed the beats to the riffs that Scott and I wrote. Overall, it was just great to just inject some fun into the equation, despite this album sounding like we are having the least amount of fun, haha!

TSH: ‘Loved’ is heavier overall and a lot more experimental than previous works, but there’s also the factor of including jazz and industrial influences...

Jesse: Yeah, that’s just what we’ve enjoyed listening to recently. In 2016 I listened to a lot of jazz, for some reason the genre just really spoke to me. Also, I thought it would be a cool idea to try out some new things with different instruments on this record. The saxophone was also something that specifically worked well with the tones of our guitar and bass.

TSH: Longtime KEN mode collaborator Randy Ortiz did the excellent artwork for this record. As soon as he posted it you knew it was going to represent a lot of the narratives on this record...

Jesse: Yeah, I mean there is so much that is going on with this album cover - it’s both terrifying and unendingly amusing. I feel like that picture wraps up all these feelings at the same time and is the perfect representation of this almost joker like response. It brings to mind absolute terror, yet you can’t help but laugh. The artwork itself was done in 2016 and as we were creating the music we wanted it to live up to that image - even before we talked to Randy. I pitched the cover to my bandmates and they were all on board. We kind of used this picture to create an artistic arms race, where we needed our music to live up to it and we tried to bring up the feelings that this picture brings up in people.

TSH: What do you recall about fleshing out ‘The Illusion of Dignity’?

Jesse: It’s interesting because we significantly changed the structure of this song after we did the pre-production demos. Me and Scott came up with the riff and one day Shane came into the room and started playing along to it. It had a sick, drunk and swampy groove to it and the original working title was ‘Drunk Sex’. But yeah, it was all based around the initial riff. We wanted to hear it repeated, but it was a matter of how to execute that without it becoming boring. I’m happy with the changes we made because we were able to make it something we could beat to the ground whilst still making it engaging, and I think this was mainly because of the interjection of the saxophone in the latter portion of the song. It’s also worth noting that this song was the first time that I vocally caught this specific feeling that I’ve always wanted to in songs - very much like an old Swans, Black Flag and Henry Rollins type of feel.

TSH: What does ‘Fractures in Adults’ convey to you?

Jesse: It takes me back to early 2017 when I was dealing with a bit of depression. A lot of the words on this song are very personal, as opposed to the rest of the record. This song also has a lot more inside jokes and fun wordplay going on, specifically with the riffs themselves. This song entails such an interesting combination of influences being that it was written by a different line-up to the rest of the record, yet it still manages to fit in very well.

TSH: Do you feel that the benefits of Facebook for bands has become somewhat less valuable over time?

Jesse: When social media first came to prominence it was a very good tool for a lot of independent bands, but I’ve recently found that with every record cycle it becomes worse and worse, especially since Facebook completely monetises everything. We’re not a huge band but we have like 28,000 followers on Facebook and our average post only gets seen by 1,000 people - and they expect you to pay for everything if you want to be seen. What is even the point of having a Facebook if we can’t communicate with our fans?

TSH: Would you rather have things back to how they were prior to the rise of the internet?

Jesse: It makes me sound like an old timer, but I prefer the way things were prior to the internet becoming so huge. It was better when you were not constantly being barraged by technology. These days it seems like everyone has complete attention deficit disorder - always wanting that bump of something new and exciting, and it’s made record cycles shorter than ever too. The attention dies down a lot quicker than previous generations for album releases. It’s a lot more intense putting out an album with all of the stress in doing everything right. It becomes the world’s chance to react to your work and you have no control from that point onwards.

TSH: Do you still make sure to get your fix of doughnuts often?

Jesse: Ah, yes. I’m very much a fan of my Saturday morning doughnut fix, but I keep it limited and only treat my body to a pile of garbage on the weekend.

TSH: Being a fan of MMA, what did you make of Ronda Rousey’s transition to the WWE universe?

Jesse: I actually have been following WWE a bit more just because of Ronda Rousey. I think it’s awesome that she’s having a lot of fun, and surprisingly, she’s picked up a lot of it very quickly. I think she’s going to take women’s wrestling to a new level. However, I hope she doesn’t hurt anyone too much though. Some of the judo tosses I’ve seen her pulling off are mildly scary! But yeah, I’m really happy for her.

TSH: Are your intentions with future KEN mode material to always constantly be learning, creating and finding new goals?

Jesse: Yeah, absolutely. We need to keep it interesting, otherwise what the hell are we doing with ourselves? We’re not selling a lot of records, so there’s clearly no reason for us to be doing this for some kind of financial gain. For us, it’s all about at least satisfying our own artistic desires and keeping things interesting on that front. If people like it, that’s awesome and it’s the icing on the cake.

KEN mode - “Doesn't Feel Pain Like He Should”

KEN mode - “Feathers & Lips”

Loved