#We made it through FOUR YEARS of it being a pandemic without getting it!

[ixloom819]

A Year In the Life (P7)

Days were pretty much uniform at the Onychinus base. There might be some special missions, some variation on what needs to get done, but otherwise one day was like any other.

Which is why it came as a shock when you found out that today Sylus had cleared out the entire schedule.

“Why?” you asked him when he announced the news at breakfast (at least, you called it breakfast despite the hour you ate). “I’m pretty sure I remember you saying you had some important meetings coming up.”

“Well, some things take precedence over that, my dear,” Sylus responded in that cool tone when things should be obvious. “I rescheduled what I need to do to free up the day.”

“Why?” you asked again. “Is something wrong?”

“Not at all.” The playful smirk on Sylus’ face made you wonder if there was need for concern. “In fact, you’ll find out why in just a few moments.”

It was then you noticed the twins’ absence at the table. It wasn’t abnormal for them to be late, but Sylus’ cryptic message made it seem suspicious. “Did the twins finally pull you into one of their pranks? Because if I have to spend all day cleaning up their mess-”

Sylus chuckled, cutting you off. “No actually, it’s quite the opposite.”

You only had a moment for the thought Huh? to cross your mind before the doors burst open and the twins came barreling in with… party hats and noisemakers tucked strangely in their masks?

“Happy birthday!!” they yelled in unison.

What??? You turn to Sylus, who’s pinching the bridge of his nose and muttering something about idiots. “It’s not my birthday.”

“Don’t worry, we’re well aware,” Luke chirped happily.

“But it’s another yearly celebration we hold near and dear to our hearts,” Kieran added in a bit of a dramatic tone.

“It’s the day you appeared at our home, darling,” Sylus explained.

Wait… really? Admittedly you weren’t in a good mindset when you first arrived - you had been killed by a truck only to wind up in a world you thought was a video game. You were going through grief, denial, and an existential crisis.

Yet… they remembered. They considered it an important enough event to spend the day celebrating it, even if you didn’t feel the same. It left you speechless, trying to come up with something to say and coming up blank.

The twins giggled at your stunned expression. “Looks like we got her good boss,” Luke said cheekily.

The feel of Sylus’ hand on yours snapped you out of your trance and brought your focus on him. “I know we threw you on this without warning,” he spoke in that velvety voice that made you melt, “but would you do us the honor of celebrating the day the most important person in the world came into my life?”

Your face warmed at his words and the twins audibly awed. Turning your hand so you could interlock your fingers with his, you gave him a soft smile. “Well, when you say it so sweetly, how can I refuse?”

And that’s how you found yourself taking what you thought was a completely normal day and having a nice day out.

After breakfast, the four of you headed out for Linkon City to hang out at the Game Center. Luke and Kieran, ever the supposed men of mystery, wore sunglasses and black face masks, giving you pandemic flashbacks.

You and Sylus got duo cards and were your respective Gaming Buddies, the twins being their own Gaming Squad. You had a lot of fun playing with each other, especially at the shooting game. It was very similar to laser tag and the top dogs at Onychinus took out the enemies with ruthless efficiency. You just tried to follow along and shoot who you could.

Once you had all worn each other out, you left and went to get snacks at Meow’s Cafe. You’d hoped you could visit here someday. The Evol kitties were even cuter in person and you cooed at them more than you focused on the food.

Sylus pretended to be pouty at the lack of attention, which you responded by putting a kitty on his head. To his dismay and your delight, the kitty was perfectly fine staying there. You made sure to take plenty of pictures as the twins cracked up.

The time slipped by quicker than you expected, and the next thing you knew, you were strolling through Azure Center as the sunset painted the sky a beautiful mural of colors.

“We’ll be taking the bike,” Sylus spoke, breaking the silence. “Luke, Kieran, you take the car.”

“Wait, what?” Sure enough, when you looked, Sylus’ motorcycle was parked in front of the car you came in. You turned to him. “How did you get the bike here?”

His only response was a smirk as he tossed your helmet towards you. “Ready?”

You sighed, reluctant to go on what you termed the death machine, but put on your helmet. “I swear, these surprises are going to be the end of me.”

You couldn’t make out a lot of your trip. The scenery blew by and the wind roared in your ears. You just hugged Sylus’ torso and squeezed your eyes shut, waiting for the ride to be over.

Finally, the bike rolled to a stop. You swung off the bike, took off your helmet, and took a look at your surroundings. There was a peaceful forest area. The light hit the trees from the left side. A place near Linkon that was naturistic and towards the north… were you at the outskirts?

That was all you got before a piece of cloth covered your eyes. “What- Sylus!” you exclaimed, hands raising to move the cloth away.

The cloth tightened a bit, as if a warning. “Ah ah ah,” Sylus’ voice was tinted with amusement, “you wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise, would you?”

Somewhat reluctantly, you dropped your hands. “I hope it’s not too far,” you responded, “because I won’t be getting far like this.”

“You won’t have to worry about that.”

“What do you-” You were cut off by your own yelp as you felt strong arms sweep you off your feet, throwing your center of balance askew before you rested in his arms princess style.

“Sylus! Warn me next time!” you scolded.

You felt the rumble of his chest as he chuckled, and soon after that steady footsteps. “I’ll be sure to, daring. For now, enjoy the ride.”

“Dork,” you said with no zing, settling in his arms and letting the atmosphere creep in. The cool breeze was being kept from chilling you from the body heat Sylus provided. The wildlife settled with the growing night, the light chattering making soothing background noise. You felt that eventually, you could’ve fallen asleep there.

It was a bit of a surprise when you felt Sylus come to a stop. This time you were prepared for the shift in balance as he set you down. “I’m guessing we’re here?” you guessed.

You felt a slight pressure on your blindfold. “Ready?” Sylus prefaced before the darkness was removed from you. The sight made your breath catch in your throat.

You were brought to a cliffside overlooking Linkon City. The lights of the nightlife made the buildings sparkle. Laid out on the grass was a blanket, allowing comfort for watching.

You turned to Sylus, whose eyes were fixed on you with a tender softness. “When did you do this…?”

He gave you a knowing smile. “I took the long way here and had the twins set this up ahead of time.” He gestured towards the blanket. “After you, my lady.”

Unable to hide your smile, you sat down on the blanket and stared out at the city. You felt Sylus sit next to you and you leaned on his side. Together you gazed at the landscape of Linkon.

“It’s beautiful,” you murmured softly.

“I thought you might like it,” Sylus responded with equal quietness.

Your eyes drifted up to the sky. “It’d be nice to see the stars. All this light pollution doesn’t help much.”

“I’ll be sure to remember that next time.” You laughed softly.

“Picture it,” Sylus continued, waving his hand across the sky. “We’re laying on the blanket, looking up and seeing endless stars. The entire universe displayed for us to see.”

You let out a content sigh. “This has been the best day, Sylus.”

He turned to look at you. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but my best day was one year ago.” He brushed the side of your face. “Because you appeared.” A light blush adorned your face and you glanced away bashfully.

An idea started growing in your head. “Hey, Sylus?” He looked at you quizzically.

You turned to face him. “I have a surprise for you.”

His eyebrows shot up a bit and he gave an amused smirk. “Really? I doubt you had the time to procure something for me.”

“Well, I’ll show you,” you answered, “but now it’s time for you to close your eyes.”

His amusement grew but he complied, closing his eyes.

You took a breath to steady yourself. C’mon, don’t be a coward.

You slowly pushed yourself up and positioned yourself so you were straddling Sylus.

His breath hitched like a gasp. He murmured your name like a prayer. His eyelids flickered, threatening to open.

You knew that if you looked into his eyes, you would lose confidence and shy away. So you quickly covered his eyes with your eyes. “I said don’t look…”

His lip quirked a bit as if he was holding back a laugh, but he settled back, letting you have your way.

You suddenly remembered Sylus’ Night of Secrecy card, where he had covered MC’s eyes in a similar fashion. A smile of your own threatened to spread. You forced the moment of humor down. This wasn’t the time for that.

You moved closer to Sylus, eyes locked on his lips. It was a bit awkward trying to get a good angle with your hand covering his eyes.

You sat there for a long moment, your breaths mingling together. Don’t be a coward. You gently pressed your lips on his.

Sylus had always been careful about kisses. He’d kiss your face, your head, your hands, and sometimes up your arms if he was feeling playful. But he didn’t kiss anywhere he didn’t think you were comfortable with, especially not the lips.

You didn’t have a lot of experience in this and you were certain it showed in your uncertainty. Sylus, however, was shown again to be your perfect match. He shared your gentleness, guiding you on how you should act.

Eventually, you drew away and you looked in each other’s eyes, breathing deep and shaky.

Sylus looked at you like you had hung the stars in the sky. “My treasure…”

You swallowed, trying to push down your nerves. “Sylus… I think… I’m ready to start a real relationship with you.”

His eyes widened in shock and scanned you as if looking for assurance. And despite your nerves, you were.

All this time he had been giving you his affection and you had accepted it. But tonight confirmed to you that you wanted more from this. You wanted to return his love. There had been some bumps on the way, but you were ready and wanting to give your love to him.

Sylus breaks into a grin. Not a typical smirk or his rare soft smile, but a full-out grin of complete and utter joy.

Without hesitation, he gently grabbed your face and pulled you in for another kiss. It seemed as if he poured all his love, his longing, every fiber of his being into this kiss.

It felt overwhelming. You couldn’t keep up with him. You returned the kiss, but did so gently without trying to match his fervor. Thankfully it had the effect you wanted. Sylus lessened the intensity so it turned from passionate to tender.

When you broke, he gazed at you with the most lovestruck expression you had ever seen. “You just made me,” he said, sounding a bit breathless, “the happiest man in existence.”

You laughed a bit. “I’m glad you enjoyed my ‘thank you’ so much.”

He pulled you into an embrace. “If I could live forever in this moment, I would.”

You closed your eyes and took a moment to feel him. His warmth, his comfort, his strength.

“I love you Sylus,” you whispered into the wind.

“And I love you, my treasure,” Sylus whispered back.

With that, this is the last part of the Yan!Sylus series! I might still take requests, but I’m not planning on writing anymore. I’m not entirely happy about how this turned out (can you tell I have zero experience in the subject?) but hopefully you guys like it. I hope you’ve enjoyed this series!

[alacants]

No one can make a crowd gasp like [Monfils] can, or laugh in unison, or sometimes groan. He is regarded as more of an entertainer than a winner, even though he often won. The suggestion that he could have done more to win is not crazy. I have seen him sky impossibly high for an overhead, and then goof it. I have watched him slide into a split to dig out a deep shot, and then needlessly scissor-kick a backhand into the net. During a changeover in a 2014 U.S. Open match, I saw him sip a Coke. “Sometimes, you know, I just feel like I want a Coke, you know, and I drink a Coke, you know,” he explained after the match. He made the quarterfinals of that tournament, where he took the first two sets off Roger Federer, had match points in the fourth set, and from there got rolled. It was the suggestions that he didn’t care enough, that he was undisciplined, that he didn’t maximize his talent that Monfils disputes. “No one is not working. Not top athletes,” he said. “Please write it. For kids, it is very important. Everybody is working hard to be the best.” When we spoke, he had just made the third round of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, where he ended up narrowly losing to Grigor Dimitrov, in one of the most thrilling matches of the year. He went on to Miami and made the fourth round; there, Sebastian Korda, one of the top young Americans, avenged a loss to him at Indian Wells, in three sets. Monfils has been playing some of his best tennis this season, relying less on his ability to retrieve any ball, perhaps, but maybe that’s a good thing. For all his shotmaking ability, Monfils sometimes defaulted to a defensive-minded approach, waiting for his opponent to make a mistake instead of forcing it. At times, it could seem that he was the only one in the stadium unaware that he was capable of hitting a forehand a hundred and twenty-four miles an hour—one of the fastest ever recorded in an A.T.P. match—and of doing it without straining much. At other times, it could seem that he’d forgotten that hitting a fun shot wasn’t the point. But why not? ...He liked tennis, he has said, because it is an individual sport, one that offers so many opportunities for creativity. He told me that his parents taught him that tennis was a “gift,” a “way to let go of the emotion, run a lot, be disciplined.” No one in his neighborhood played tennis. It made him feel “lucky,” he said. Even when it became his job, it remained a place where he could be happy, and where he could be himself.

...Monfils has said that Svitolina kept him in tennis, particularly through the pandemic, when he might have otherwise quit, and that being a father has changed his perspective. And I’m sure that’s true—but perspective, above all, is what Monfils has always seemed to have, compared with other players. In Australia this year, after he’d beaten the fourth seed, Taylor Fritz, who was the finalist at the 2024 U.S. Open, in a display of tennis so dazzling and clean that Fritz could only commend him, he was asked whether it was his dream to win the tournament. “That’s your dream, I guess, to win a Slam. I’ll tell you my dream,” Monfils replied. “My dream is to have an unbelievable family. Tennis is cool. Of course, you want to have goals, dreams, whatever. But my dream is out there.” Svitolina, as it happens, was playing on Margaret Court Arena, the same court on which Monfils had just played. When his press obligations were done, Monfils hurried back to watch her, and waited for her after she rallied to win and walked off. There won’t be many more moments like that, or like the one that will come when he takes the court on Monday at Roland Garros, where the French Open is held. If he can get past Hugo Dellien in the first round, he could face the fifth seed, Jack Draper, in the second. The crowd will be in Monfils’s corner. There is an intimacy there, on the red clay, where every shot leaves its mark. It is a special place for him. “My parents, they’d been separated super early in my life,” he said. Roland Garros is “a place where all my family gather together, the full family reunited.” People sometimes wonder what tennis might have become if he’d ever won that tournament, if he’d ever ascended to the top ranking—how many fans he would have drawn in, how much excitement he would have sparked and interest he would have drawn. But he doesn’t think that way. “Of course, my thinking at twenty and thinking at thirty-eight is different,” he said. And if he hadn’t experienced what he experienced then, he went on, he wouldn’t be the man he is now.

— Louisa Thomas, "Gael Monfils Is Winning In His Own Way"

[seshathawk]

I’d like to address something from season four that I haven’t seen anyone else address yet, though some people have spoken critically of the plots surrounding it.

A quick caveat: this is based off of my own experiences, and is not by any means an attempt to excuse, forgive, or erase any of the many mistakes that season four made. (This is going to be about parenting, for anyone who would like to avoid said topic.)

Hi. I’m the mother to a 4.5 year old child. When I met my husband, we were both working jobs, although he made more than me. I quit my job eventually for reasons that don’t need to be detailed here, and three years later had a baby and ended up being a stay-at-home mom to our child. At the height of the pandemic, I felt this was lucky; we wouldn’t have to scramble to find child care or anything like that.

Two years later, I was absolutely miserable and a completely different person.

Parenthood changes a person. A lot. Like, a lot. You have to sacrifice things, things that used to be important to you, again and again, in order to support your children, and you do it because you love them so much and you want them to succeed.

But something else happens, specifically to women who become parents. Some women intend to go back to work and never do. In some families, it’s cheaper for mom to provide childcare than it is to pay for daycare. Somehow, women end up being the managers of the household and primary caregiver for any/all children, all day, every day. This isn’t to say that these women don’t love their children. But, rather, that women end up carrying the burden of the invisible load for their entire household, including their husbands.

And this also isn’t to say that those husbands aren’t loving, or that they don’t take care of their kids too, or that these women don’t love their husbands. But it’s a huge burden.

Some examples of the invisible load: meal planning, grocery shopping, packing bags for outings or school, managing the family (kids) schedule, arranging for childcare, managing communication with childcare or school, making all appointments for kids or entire family, planning parties, making holiday (Christmas/Easter/4th of July/take your pick) magic, finding activities for kids to do, packing lunches, restocking things like toiletries or pantry staples, cleaning up clutter or getting family/kids to do same, putting away laundry, doing laundry, and…the list goes on. The list is eternal. There is no end to the invisible load.

And when you’re managing all of this and your husband does things like not know if you have a pantry staple at home, isn’t sure where your child’s clean underwear is, or forgets to do something very simple such as grab extra milk, it’s really easy to feel frustrated and resentful.

This is never explicitly stated in The Umbrella Academy, that this is how Lila feels. But it was pretty obvious to me. Her random statements like, “Why are you doing the cake now?” and “I told you to do the pinata two hours ago!” and “This isn’t about you!” felt true to me. Like, OH MY GOD, I do this every day, HOW ARE YOU DOING THIS SO WRONG. And, also, Diego casually says, “Hey, let’s just up and leave just like the old days, the kids will be fine with your family,” without appearing to have ANY IDEA about what goes into planning for kids to stay with relatives for what has to have been at least two days. (Sidebar: I’m not sure if the writers thought that bit through but I definitely read into it that Diego thinks it’ll be easy to slip away while Lila understands the intense logistics of this suggestion.)

So, when Lila said, regarding book club/undercover operations that she just needed something just for herself, I felt that, SO hard. Because you know what happens when you’re a mom? You’re doing the invisible labor and the emotional labor for (in Lila’s case) a family of five. When you finally have some time to yourself, it’s maybe an hour, and your choices are to try to do something relaxing by yourself, spend time with your husband (who you might resent a little), or do something for the house/family. Getting to escape and do something fun, just for you? That’s SO magical.

I do wish we’d seen more of their domestic life together, because I think that could have said a lot about their relationship. But I didn’t think for one second that Lila was unhappy because Diego is never present and never stops complaining, although I’m sure that’s part of it. I saw instantly that she was unhappy because her personhood has been crushed under the weight of motherhood and wifehood and that she was struggling. And that all she wanted—all any of us in similar situations want—is for her husband to understand that and step up, in a way that husbands really don’t understand, because patriarchy.

Does it mean she’d cheat on Diego? Does it mean she’d cheat on him with his brother? Not necessarily. Does it mean she might look for companionship or friendship elsewhere, outside of her family life? Does it mean she might be happy, for a while, living a more adventurous or quiet life, away from the demands of her family? Maybe! Would have been great if the show had explored that a little instead of turning her into part of a love triangle.

But I thought that Lila, burdened with motherhood in a way that Diego cannot ever truly know (because patriarchy), felt true to me and was one of the highlights of season four to me.

[bweeeb]

OLD FRIENDS

Charlie Gillespie × reader ( Y/n Pitella )

I know no one remembers anymore, but these days I miss the vibe of 2020 and Charlie

Summary: Charlie and the reader haven't spoken since Julie and the Ghosts was canceled, but someone does something about it.

Five years. Five years ago, I found everything that made me the happiest girl in the world. Four years ago, I lost that happiness. I probably sound like the most dramatic person in the world saying that—sorry. Of course, my family will always be one of my greatest joys. Mom and Dad have always done everything for me, and Bella and Léo made me believe I could handle everything I was being exposed to, even though I had no experience at all. But still, it’s impossible not to feel my chest tighten with longing when I think about those who welcomed me during the first few months after Dad had to return to Brazil. Kenny accepting me into the show was one of the biggest turning points of my life when I was just sixteen, and I’ll probably never forgive Netflix for canceling my show.

I had the best six months of my life alongside wonderful people, and that became even clearer when the pandemic hit. The way we stayed connected through video calls, lives, TikToks, interviews, and stories made the monotony and worry of that moment much more bearable. But, of course, after the pandemic passed, the distance between us became a big issue. Plane tickets were expensive, everyone had their own schedules, and then the cancellation of Julie and the Phantoms happened. I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much—especially since I couldn’t even be on that stage when Kenny announced Netflix wouldn’t renew our show. Life went on, just as the Earth keeps spinning around the sun, and that’s okay.

My eyes drifted up from my phone, and all I found was my sister staring at me.

" What? " I asked, watching her climb into my bed and throw herself on top of me a millisecond later. " I feel like eating pistachio cookies " she mumbled against the pillow resting on my stomach. “Then just go downstairs, walk up the street, turn left, and buy the pistachio cookies ” I said, and she huffed. Bella is always too lazy to get anything from the shops just up the street from my apartment, and today was no different. “Bella! You’re not ordering cookies and paying double the price through an app when the store is right there.” “I know! I know. Maybe I’ll stop by later when I leave.” “Oh no, you won’t. I wanted you to bring me one too.”

“Well, tough luck,” my sister teased, making me huff without actually getting mad. I turned back to my phone, and a new post caught my attention, accompanied by a familiar voice in the audio. “Hmmm, Charlieeeeeee,” my sister groaned, teasing me, only to get a slap on her arm from me. “Shut up. I’m not buying you cookies after this,” I replied. “Come on. Look at the way you’re staring at him.” She turned and sprawled out beside me, resting her chin on her hands. “I’m just trying to listen to him sing. If you could kindly stay quiet, I’d appreciate it.” The song, apparently called "RODEO," was written by him, and I could almost feel my body combusting along with my mind. Charlie’s voice had always been one of my favorite things in the world since I met him. So much so that, during the time we shared an apartment with Owen for filming, he would hold me in his strong, long arms when I felt homesick, worried, or just plain cold—because, man, that apartment was freezing as fuck—and sing me to sleep. Not that I had a favorite, but Charlie became my best friend, and it was impossible not to cry when we filmed our last scene together, knowing it was the end. “You were in love with him once,” Bella’s voice snapped me out of my head, and I laughed. “I’m pretty sure you two were in love, actually.”

“I was sixteen, living with him, and he played my romantic interest. I won’t deny I had a crush on him, but it was an illusion. I love who he is, obviously. But you all need to stop thinking there was some romance happening.”

“Oh, please. I have eyes. Have you seen the videos of you two? You have! I’ve never seen anyone’s eyes light up like yours did.”

“Yes, I’ve seen them, and I lived it. So thank you, but there’s no need to say more because I treated him, and he treated me, like anyone else. Owen and I were just as close.”

“But you didn’t have the same chemistry with Owen. You and Owen almost never slept in the same bed.”

“Because he had a sort-of girlfriend, and I respect my friends.” Bella rolled her eyes, put her shoes on, and looked at me with mockery. “You’re blind.”

“I’m not blind. I haven’t seen him in five years.” “But you look at him like you’re about to cry.” Bella narrowed her eyes as if challenging me. “Because I miss the best friend I had once.” I got up from the bed, narrowing my eyes back at her. “Then talk to him.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

“Why not?” “Because I said so!” Our playful argument shifted into something more serious. Bella seemed genuinely intrigued by my hesitation.

“That’s not an answer.” “Of course it is. I’m not texting someone who’s perfectly fine on their own.” Silence hung for two seconds, and then it was too late. Bella grabbed my phone from the bed and ran off, doing something I couldn’t see. “Bella! No!” I yelled, chasing her around my apartment.

“You don’t even have his number? What?” Her voice was pure indignation. “Americans and Canadians don’t use WhatsApp, you idiot.” All my 21-year-old maturity vanished in that second.

“And that’s why you don’t have any of your foreign friends’ numbers? Please. You have SMS.” Bella gritted her teeth, and I let out a loud sigh. “Isabella, put the phone down.”

“Why? Give me one good reason.”

“Your life is a good reason. I suggest you don’t.” “You know what? I’m going to buy cookies. Be right back.” Before I could stop her, Bella pressed the elevator button and closed the doors quickly. Did she seriously just steal my phone?

I rushed to the back exit, but it was pointless. She’d already be halfway there, and there was no way she’d be waiting for me at the cookie shop. So I sat and waited. She wouldn’t do anything crazy, right?

Right?

Wrong.

Half an hour later, she returned with a terrifying smile and a pistachio cookie for me.

“He thinks you should text him.” She shrugged, giving me a smug look.

“What did you do?” “You didn’t log into anything? Computer?” “Mom has the computer because I lent it to her, and you know that.” I clenched my teeth as she laughed. “Don’t worry; I only posted on your Daily account.” Sure, I’d created the unofficial account to talk about a million irrelevant things, but not that.

“Looks like Charlie and S/n need a reunion, don’t you think? @CHARLES_GILLESPIE 🙏😨👀”

The caption sat atop a picture of Bella making a hilariously exaggerated face. "Seriously?" "Delete it if you want."

"Now that roughly 10,000 people have already seen it, yeah, that’ll help." I said, rolling my eyes and deleting the post anyway, knowing full well it was already out there. "Weren’t you going home?" "Are you kicking me out?"

"Yes!" "Okay, okay. Sorry for meddling. I even brought you a cookie as a peace offering—look at the bright side, he answered. Bye, see you tomorrow." As soon as she left, I threw myself on the couch, getting up and pacing around more times than I could count. "Damn it." I muttered. "Fuck, Isabella." What was I supposed to say now?

It had been so long that I had forgotten your name saved in my contacts , cute.

CHARLIE BEAR🧸

— heeyy, she should text me little Pitella. — It's ridiculous how long we haven't spoken.

Of course, Bella didn’t even bother to answer his response to her story. Seriously?

— Hey! How’s it going? — Sorry about that! my phone was stolen for half an hour 😬. — Not cool at all.

That was good, right? Solid? As soon as his reply came almost immediately, I groaned, feeling my anxiety tighten every nerve in my body.

CHARLIE BEAR🧸

— Can I call you? Or is it a bad time?

The moment I sent my confirmation, my phone rang. Running my free hand through my hair instinctively, I realized how absurd that was—he couldn’t see me, after all. "Hey, stranger." His voice found me, warm and familiar, and I couldn’t help but let out a small laugh, some of the tension dissipating. "Well, hi."

"How are you? It’s been so long, this is insane." Charlie had always been like that—bright and exuberant—and it was impossible not to let my smile widen.

"I’m good! Just trying to make better decisions. What about you? How have you been?" "Good, you know. Trying to make the world a better place and take care of what we’ve messed up." " Yeah, I’ve seen your trips—they look amazing." "I try to live a bit of good in every place I visit." "Classic Charlie Gillespie effect." I closed my eyes tightly, only reopening them when I heard his soft laughter.

"You’re not wrong. So, tell me—I heard you’re in the cast of some big movie? That’s incredible." "Yeab! It’s a book adaptation. I just hope people won’t be disappointed." "You could never disappoint anyone, beau. " words stretched the smile on my lips further. What was happening? "I try…" I kept it simple, hearing his deep sigh on the other end.

"I’m glad Bella posted that, you know?" He shot it out casually, and I adjusted my position on the couch, hugging my knees to my chest.

"I didn’t mean to bother you like that; she literally stole my phone. She’s seventeen but acts like she’s ten."

"Relax. She didn’t have a Charlie Gillespie at sixteen to keep her entertained." He bragged, and I burst into laughter. "You’re still so full of yourself.''

"I’m realistic." "And very, very arrogant." "I miss you. You know that, right?" His words hit me softly, and my smile turned bittersweet.

"It’s almost a crime that we’ve gone four years without a proper conversation." I whispered, hearing his agreement on the other end. "I still don’t understand why you never accepted moving here and staying with me. You know you’ve always had a room here. Koa would love you here. I would love you here."

"Charlie, you travel too much, and you know I’d drive you insane. I work too much, and I talk too much."

"I loved when you’d speak Portuguese to me." His words carried a chuckle from my end as memories flooded back—the nights he couldn’t sleep and would crawl into my bed, asking me to ramble in my southern-accented Portuguese until he drifted off. It was like soothing a baby.

"We haven’t spoken in four years, and you’re already nearly convincing me to abandon my life in Brazil." His laugh followed, accompanied by what I could imagine was his signature smile.

"I really do miss you. And don’t let the others hear this, but you’re the one I missed the most during this time. You were so soft to cuddle at night—you ruined me for everyone else." He said it like it was casual, but my lips pressed tightly together. What was happening? "I’m sure plenty of girls have kept you just as warm as I did, Charles."

"But none of them were you." His quiet murmur had my teeth sinking into my bottom lip. What was this? "Uh… okay. I’ve been thinking of traveling, but I’m not sure if I’ll have the time off. Maybe I could swing by?"

"Please do."

"Okay! I…" My gaze darted to the clock, my lips pressing tightly again. "I’ve got to go, but let’s keep in touch, please. You’re important to me." I whispered, feeling the vulnerability seep into my tone.

"Go ahead. Just don’t disappear again, please."

"Of course." I replied, and just as I was about to hang up, he called out.

"S/n."

"Yeah?"

"You’re important to me too, okay? Stick around." With that, the call ended, and I was pretty sure my neighbors could have reason to complain about the muffled scream I let out into the couch cushion.I felt sixteen again, back when Charlie first hugged me to sleep in that cold apartment. The circumstances were different, but the emotions were just the same.In the end, maybe Bella wasn’t so wrong to steal my phone after all.

[robertreich]

Why Does Flying Suck so Much? 

You might not believe this, but I’m old enough to remember when flying was fun.

Now I'm sure you've got your own airline horror stories, which I hope you’ll share. But what happened to make flying such a nightmare?

The answer is simple: the same things happening across most industries. In fact, a close look at airlines reveals five of the biggest problems with our economy.

Number 1: Consolidation means fewer choices.

While there were once many more airlines, a series of mergers and acquisitions over the last three decades has left only four in control of about 80% of the market.

This kind of consolidation has been happening all over the economy. For example, four companies now control 80% of all beef production, and two control over 60% of all paper products. This lack of competition has led to:

Number 2: Companies Charging More for Less

Even before recent airfare spikes, air travel was getting more expensive because of new fees for things that used to be free, like in-flight meals, checked bags, or even carry-ons.

Spirit Airlines even charges $25 to print your boarding pass at a ticket counter! It’s just a piece of paper!

One of the ugliest ad-ons is the fee some airlines charge for families to sit together. That doesn’t even cost them anything!

Airlines are leading an economy-wide trend of adding often unexpected new charges to goods and services without adding value.

And you’re getting less in return. Airlines have cut an estimated 8 inches of legroom and two inches of seat width in the last two decades. Doesn’t bother me (I’m short), but many of you may feel the squeeze.

This parallels other industries where you’re paying more for less — just look at how cereal boxes, rolls of toilet paper, and candy bars are all shrinking.

Number 3: Exploiting Workers

While their jobs have become more difficult, many flight attendants haven’t had a raise in years.

And a lot of their hardest work is totally unpaid, because most flight attendants don’t get paid during the boarding process. They’re off the clock until the plane’s doors close.

And if the flight is delayed, those are often extra hours for no extra money.

Again, this mirrors trends in the overall economy, where too many workers are pushed into unpaid overtime or made to do work or be on call during their off hours.

Number 4: The Illusion of Scarcity

Airlines pretend they have no choice but to raise prices, cut services, and limit payroll. But their profits are in the stratosphere. In the five years before the pandemic, the top 5 airlines were flush enough to pay shareholders $45 billion, largely through stock buybacks.

During the pandemic, they got a $54 billion bailout from taxpayers (you’re welcome).

In the years since, they’ve resumed flying high, with nearly $10 billion in net profit expected across the industry in 2023. They can afford to take care of workers and customers.

Whether it’s multi-millionaire movie moguls pretending they can’t afford to pay writers or a grocery chain blaming “inflation” for high prices while raking in record profits, this illusion of scarcity is a sham.

Number 5: Misdirected Rage

Instead of being mad at the people at the top, we’ve been tricked into being mad at each other. Fights have broken out over whether it’s ok to recline a seat or who gets overhead bin space. But reclining’s only an issue because airlines intentionally put the seats too close together. And bin space is only running out because they’ve made it expensive to check bags — and also risky, with the rate of lost bags doubling over the last year.

Airlines are pitting us against each other the same way billionaires and their political lackeys pit groups against each other in society, hoping we’ll blame unions or immigrants or people of other races or religions or gender identities for why it’s so hard to get ahead, and that we won’t notice how much wealth and power is in the hands of so few.

So what do we do?

A lot of these problems could be solved with tougher antitrust enforcement — which we are starting to see. The Justice Dept is suing to block JetBlue from buying Spirit Airlines. We need that kind of anti-monopoly protection across the board.

Another part of the solution is unions. Airline workers are among the wave of American workers organizing to demand better pay and working conditions.

And then there’s your power as an informed consumer. Companies get away with bad behavior when we accept their excuses that there’s just no other way to run a business. They’re counting on us not knowing what’s really going on. So share this video, and share your airline stories in the comments.

Finally, try to be a little nicer to service workers and your fellow passengers — on planes and in life. After all, we’re all on this journey together.

[autistichalsin]

I love my mom but the lying and guilt tripping gets to be so much sometimes.

IE she overheard me talking about getting my brother a ticket to fly to comic con with us. She got pissed about money (fair enough I guess since he still lives with her and my dad) but then I brought up we were helping, and she got mad at me saying she missed my college graduation because of money so why didn't we help?

I just about lost it. I BEGGED her to come. I offered to pay for all the hotels or plane tickets. She's scared of flying so wouldn't do that, and won't let my dad go anywhere without her, so that was a no. And she said the drive was way too long, she'd be really uncomfortable, and my dad couldn't take that long off work.

She didn't come because she didn't think it was important. Bottom line.

In fact, I even mentioned at one point before the graduation I was grateful, as much as the pandemic sucked, that the graduation would be getting livestreamed because it meant she and my dad would see it no matter what. And she (granted, drinking at the time, but still) said it was horrible for me to celebrate people dying just so I could have a graduation.

EVERY TIME I brought up my graduation, she never showed the slightest interest, nor the slightest bit of sympathy that she was missing it. She went out of her way to blame me, act like I was the one being unreasonable. She continued showing absolutely no interest for my Masters graduation, so that I ended up not even bothering to travel (online program) because I knew no one would be there for me anyway, so why bother.

I didn't even get to go to my high school graduation, because it was an online program on the other side of the state. I had to be held back a year when depression hampered my academic performance, and my older siblings had already dropped out; in desperation, trying to motivate me not to do the same, my dad promised me that if I made it, they would too. So I worked through, got the credits I needed... and nope. My mom screamed that my dad spent too much on getting the car up to pass inspection standards (how does that even make sense) and that we therefore couldn't afford to go. So I didn't get to attend that either.

And you know what? Honestly, I made my peace with it- with the fact that my mom will never care about me the way she cares about my sister, that she just doesn't think my successes are worth celebrating (unless she can brag to someone online to seem like a good parent, I guess) and lacks the empathy to understand why me having my parents with me at major life events is a big deal. I worked through that and made my peace with it and have quietly decided I am not even going to bother inviting them to any future events I have, unless maybe I get married one day, I guess, though I feel she'd still try to find excuses not to go to that if it was more than a four hour drive from her.

I could deal with all that. But she fucking LIED about it to guilt trip me. She lied that she WANTED to come and it was money preventing her. That I never tried to help her get to me. And that's the part that hurts the most. That she wasn't there to celebrate when it mattered, but now has the nerve to lie about it and play victim, as though I'm the reason she wasn't there.

She always does this shit! When I was a senior in undergrad, there was an undergraduate research symposium everyone in my major was required to present at. It was ALSO on Zoom, so no excuse not to make it. I asked her and my dad multiple times if they'd like to see my present my research paper on a Japanese death cult and the effects it had on Japanese culture. They BOTH declined. So I invited my grandma, who was happy to be invited, and my best friend even walked her through setting up Zoom for the first time. AFTER the event, when I was telling my mom and dad on the phone about my grandma loving my presentation, THEN my mom got livid and said she had NEVER been invited, and of COURSE she would have come if she had the chance, why did I invite my grandma and not her?

She doesn't want to share in important things with me but then she gets pissed if I then share them with others instead. I guess she wants to feel so important that her declining would make me refuse entirely instead (as with my Masters degree ceremony?) I don't know.

I'm just tired of this man.

[spacecatdraws]

my immortal bamboo plant

^yes I am fully aware that sounds like a bad webtoon title

One of my hyperfixations a couple years back was plants. So, for my birthday, I got 5 lucky bamboo stalks, to which I was very excited and very enthusiastic. I named the bamboo こんにちは (Konnichiwa) and put her on my windowsill. And she refuses to die. So I’m gonna talk about her because I am in awe and slight terror of what this plant is fine with. (And I mentioned her in a previous post so why not)

Yes, I did name my plant the Japanese word for hello. I was (and still am) a weird kid. It was also 2020 at the time, and my judgement was not the best. Here’s a picture of her:

“I thought you said she had 5 stalks?” She did, but four of them dropped one by one. It’s been a couple years since a stalk has turned yellow, which is good because she only has the one left. But she’s still alive and well, in her perpetually unchanged water and underground sunlight. No clue how or why she just. Stopped dying. She’s still here, bright green and beautiful and probably magical. It’s been a while since I did a lot of things you’re supposed to do with plants:

4< years since I changed that water/added fertilizer

3< years since I pruned her/removed a stalk

and very infrequently getting the dust off her leaves.

This plant was given to a mentally odd little girl in the middle of a pandemic. There was no way she would live past a few years. And yet, she made it the COVID-19 pandemic pass. Survived multiple presidential changes. Witnessed over 20 seasons. Heard the grief when my grandfather died. Watched birds fight for seeds under the porch and my dog running after the tennis ball. Been headbutted countless times by my cat. Tolerated being draped with a necklace. Lived through it all, and is still living on.

I’m proud of her, honestly. She’s a testament to life’s ability to be anywhere, to be able to grow when the world is dark. Because each winter, the sun ducks below the horizon, and she presses her leaves again the glass of my window, with conditions that should in no way allowed her to survive. And each spring, the snow melts, the frost dies back, and the sun shines again. Every single time, she’s there, taking in the light she’s been deprived of, challenging the gods, saying “I am here and I am not going down without a fight.” Thankfully, the gods have not fought her for this, and she still sits here, next to me as I write this.

This is not an obituary. This is not a memorial. This is a celebration of the soldier who does not fall in battle. This is a tribute to life and its audacity. This is a letter of gratitude.

So thank you, こんにちは, for being here with me. Thank you for the time we’ve spent together. Thank you for being the light that shines when the world is dark and hopeless. In 24 days, we will have made it five whole years. Half a decade of work and play and joy and sadness. 60 months that changed more than I thought possible. Several times around the sun. A handful of parties for a kid who keeps on growing. Countless memories.

Five years that we’ve had with each other. Five years that I’d never want to forget.

So raise a glass of whatever you’d like, dear reader, and toast with me-

To five years, to the many more that come after, and most of all, to the immortal bamboo. Thank you, こんにちは. Thank you for being part of my life. And thank you, the one reading this, for making it this far. We’re glad you came.

[eisforeidolon]

Question: What episode are you guys most proud of, that you just made and you really knew this is something special?

Jared: What episode are we most proud of that we made - of Supernatural?

Question: Of any show.

Jared: I'll go with Supernatural because we've got some Supernatural family members up here. What episode - I guess I'll start - sorry, I hear a little "Eeeeeeeeeeee" Was E.T. just up here? Why are we hearing "Eeeeeeeee" - just kidding, kidding. I think for me, this may seem obvious, the episode I'm most proud of and the most difficult episode to shoot was the series finale. It was rough. It was really rough. And it was a weird - I think when the COVID strike happened, we got - Jensen and I got sent home from Canada on Friday March 13th, Friday the 13th, appropriately, of 2020 because they thought they were going to shut the borders down. So they were like, get across the border, go see your family, we don't know what's going on, you know, there's a worldwide pandemic. And so we had the scripts by then, we had the last two scripts of the series and we got home and didn't go back to Vancouver until August 1st-ish? So I had four months - and a half - to sit there and read through the dialogue, I couldn't read through the scene, the barn scene especially, without crying. And so I'd like go - yeah, we have a little treadmill at our house - and so I had nothing else to do, I'd be like hey Genevieve can you take the kids for a second, I'm gonna go and just get a little run in and read through the episodes. And she's like, yeah, do it. So I'd go and I'd come back and my face would be all puffy and red, and she'd be like, oh shit, are you okay? Like, thinking I got bad news about a friend with COVID or something, and I'd be like yeah, just read the finale, it's cool, it's cool. Yeah, so that was very difficult. But I was very proud of that and it was very heartbreaking as well. Guys and gals?

[Julian Richings talks about being proud he was able to hit his mark in the big boat of a car Death drove in his intro, Sam Smith talks about all the little missing pieces character moments of Mary in Absence, and Alaina Huffman reminisces about getting "to kick the shit out of Crowley" and how great Mark Sheppard is.]

Mitch Pileggi: I'm gonna keep it with Supernatural, because I've been so fortunate to have such a long career and I can't remember most of it, so I couldn't remember moments from it. Probably the hugest, one of the hugest moments of my life was the day that I met Jared Padalecki. And, I mean, I've got the job, so I don't need to say that. Yeah, he ain't gonna fire me. So it was huge, I met an individual that has been so giving and so - to my family, to me and to my family and everybody around us on the show that we're doing now. I have to say that the show that we're doing now is my favorite show that I've ever done in the forty plus years of my career. Without a question, without a doubt, if you haven't seen it, start watching, please. But I think as far as Supernatural, I didn't understand most of what that character was doing and I'm still trying to figure it out. So, I mean even Bob Singer was like, what the hell is going on with those Campbells? So. But I have to say, the scene that I had with Jensen where he turns into the Yellow Eyed Demon was a blast. I had so much fun. I got to get up and sniff on Jensen real good and it was fun, I really enjoyed doing it. And just - like for both of them, when I met both of them, I think I took Jensen aside about four days working on the show and I said I just want to say that you two guys have got your heads screwed on right. Keep it that way, because this business can really twist you up and it hasn't done it to this day, so.

[13docwriting]

NOTE: this post was made on November 26th, 2023, before the 60th specials aired. I wasn't going to post it but due to the recent episodes, I feel it really fits. It's me, more than a year after the Power of the Doctor! As time moves on and more spoilers / interviews / trailers / content comes out for the 60th (and then some), my already limited hope continues to dwindle for human kindness. Why? Here's my twenty page essay down below! (I'm not kidding, it's 20 pages)

The Thirteenth Doctor has been a life changer for me, as many could tell from my username. Chibnall's series came to me in the midst of the pandemic and a very hard time in my life. Ironically, my motivation for watching DW once again after more than a four year hiatus of the show was actually the idea of the Doctor being a woman. My reason to stay, however, was the stories we received. I've lived through the Chibnall and Jodie bashing on this hell-site in real time. I've read downright nasty comments on any/all of Doctor Who's social media posts about thirteen's series. I've seen people call each other horrible names for simply liking one of the Thirteenth Doctor's episodes... And now, as her series has ended a year ago, I'm even more saddened to see her era get pushed to the side as if to be forgotten. Nobody came at me with the whole "it's not because of Chibnall/Jodie's era! DW just needed a reboot!" I would have agreed! I would have agreed that a fresh coat of paint would have helped DW gain some more traction, especially in the states! The more people who watch DW, the better! But the change RTD is presenting and the continued changes come at the cost of dealing with bullies online and defending something I love with all my heart.

I'd like to remind everyone that Chris Chibnall did not just barge his way into Doctor Who. He has written episodes for DW for a while before he took over as showrunner. Tenth Doctor: 42 Eleventh Doctor: The Hunger Earth, Cold Blood, Pond Life, Dinosaurs in a Spaceship, the Power of Three. Recognize some of those titles? Yeah, even when I was a wee lass, those were some of the best episodes DW had ever done. "42" scared the crap out of me in the best way, "Dinosaurs in Spaceship" had me smiling ear to ear, etc. etc.

Don't just take my word for it, read some of the reviews for those episodes. They are highly positive if not still mid-range.

That being said, I have a hard time believing that every single one of Jodie's episodes have been awful. And, if not outright stated as awful, certainly below every single nuwho Doctor.

Was there some not-so-great episodes? Yeah, of course! But every Doctor has had some questionable episodes. With a show that has a new plot nearly every episode, you're going to have some misses! My point being... Chibnall CAN write good episodes and, with that being said... Why HAS Thirteen's era been considered one of the worsts? Well, I think it's because, as always, people hate change. We've just come off of Twelve's era which was rooted in deep and meaningful conversations with a underlying of, dare I say it, Time Lord Victorious. Twelve holds a special place in my heart for the amount of care he showed through his era. From the Twelve's darkest moments, Thirteen is born. Thirteen is a ray of sunshine that holds hope in the palm of her hand. She's happy, bubbly, and ready to smile. She wants the universe and everything it has to offer and she's ready to travel the stars again.

Chibnall introduces a series of stories that are rooted in that hope. There's kindness at every turn, there's compassion, there's empathy... Is that the reason people hate her era? No. A new Doctor has never stopped anyone from getting back into the show. So, it's the writing, you say? I have one thing to say to that: Prove it. Point me in the direction of bad writing without ONCE mentioning the word "woke". If you found Jodie's era to be preachy, perhaps there's a reason that you take offense to it. DW has always been a progressive show and it will forever stay that way. And I am the first one to admit that, again, there are weak episodes. There IS some bad writing, but the hate that Jodie's ENTIRE era gets, I feel, is unjustified. So, if not writing, must be the acting! Where? When? I had no problem watching Jodie Whittaker be the Doctor. She's quirky and fun and eccentric... She has a thousand different emotions on her face at one time. Any actor that knows how much a smile can hide is a talented one. Besides that, her work on Broadchurch and her newer works (One Night, Time) have some raving reviews. She clearly has talent. So, not the acting or writing... Companions, then? Why? "The fam" had all of their moments to shine. I won't say their character arcs were perfect, especially for Ryan and Graham, but they did have their own arcs. Was it the fact that there were three totally separate companions at once? Was it just too big a job? I can't answer that one. I personally felt that they all got a good ending, one that makes sense and that isn't tragic for the sake of tragedy. This my be my opinion piece, but I liked having multiple companions that had their own little storyline, but that's MY opinion and I'm fine with someone calling me out on that. Let's go really basic... It's because the Doctor isn't meant to be woman, right? Oh, so, the Master can be a woman and that's totally fine, but when it's the Doctor... Woman can be villains but they can't be the main protagonist, right? I didn't see people up and arms over Missy, why was Thirteen so different? I remember seeing her very first introduction trailer and having people immediately be upset by the gender change. Well, forget my opinions, let's look at the statistics and viewings numbers, right?

HOW ABOUT NO. Remember the writing strike that just ended? Remember how regular cable has been nearly done with? Remember how writers are fighting to earn something for streaming services? We can't rely on normal/live views while a literal pandemic was happening, while streaming has become the norm, while watching online for free has existed for so long... Views have CHANGED. The way people consume media has changed, especially during the pandemic. Now, for an excuse... The pandemic happened. It changed how people were filming, it changed how close people could get to one another in terms of acting, it changed filming times and locations. I can't confirm, but I know that the Flux storyline was cut by two whole episodes, which could be the reason a lot of people felt disappointed by the end of the Flux. Chibnall and Thirteen's era had so many real-life obstacles to overcome that past era's did not have to deal with.

I'm tired, alright? I'm tired of defending my love for a character. And to have that love be spat out in the form of a different writer by.... 1. Discarding the Thirteenth Doctor's iconic outfit after a regeneration for the first time ever (under the guise of calling it "drag" if Tennant was to wear her outfit even after a male co-star had just worn it.) 2. Introducing a very popular Doctor back into the show ("to gain views") 3. Doing a soft reboot by calling the new season "season 1" (could be Disney's fault, but I'm not entirely sure of that fact) Every day I read another article about how RTD is "saving" Doctor who when I myself have been saved by the Doctor already. I didn't ever need to justify my love of a character until today.

[epithetical]

2024 UPDATE (OFFICIAL)

Hey, everyone. Longtime no talk. Despite being weirdly active on this account, I haven't really made any textposts since high school. So I've decided to fix this by giving a gigantic update post about my very busy 2023. If you're new and don't know anything about me, or knew me as a teen and are wondering what I'm up to now: buckle up.

TL;DR:

Dropped out of art school. Released an award-nominated(???) dating sim, ValiDate. Killed the Golden Girls Take Manhattan DX. Conquered Jaw Explosion Disease. Hung out with some friends. (Also, a lot of NDA shit that I can’t talk about.)

ART-SCHOOL DROPOUT

From 2021 to 2022, I was attending a prestigious and overly-expensive art school for their (brand new!) game design program. When I first graduated from high school, this college was my dream choice, and coming off the success of my early game dev career, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to polish my skills while I kept working on the side. My first commercial game was still in development, but we were feeling comfortable, and I felt like getting greedy.

Pride before the fall. Full Icarus mode. You know how it goes.

The school itself was…alright. Satellite campus, mid-pandemic, hybrid learning. Close enough to commute comfortably, classes just long enough for masks to not give me a headache, and the handful of remote courses helped keep my medical problems at bay. Problems that the school was a little unequipped to help with, though the disability office did their best. I had to drop a class because my body, at the time, couldn’t handle eight hours of classes without some Crazy Side Effects. 

(Keep in mind that every class was, minimum, four hours. And I had to take at least five a semester. Each class also saw me make an entire game from scratch. My body was already at its limit.)

If you knew me in high school, you’re probably waiting for the shoe to drop: I was, famously, the worst at academics. Never did homework, rarely finished projects, slept through first period at least once a week. Surprise, though: I was fucking great at this. My GPA doubled. Turns out that going to school for a discipline you already have a career in, and are kinda obsessed with, kinda does wonders for you. Unfortunately, I picked the worst time to care about school, since my commercial game’s release was the same exact night that my five school games were due.

TL;DR, I didn’t sleep for a week, almost fucked both up, and got burnout so bad that I couldn’t do anything for a calendar year. So I dropped out! Now, about a year of job hunting later (the game’s industry is imploding right now, and the only studios that considered me were… questionable, to say the least), the expensive art school wants me back. So badly. Turns out the whole school is so broke and understaffed right now that they’re basically chomping at the bit for that tuition money. Got a week to decide. Jury’s still out.

VALIDATE POST-MORTEM

So, if you couldn’t tell from the above section, we released a game in 2022!  I was supposed to write a post-mortem for it, but… burnout from the above, combined with general “post-release depression,” and I didn’t feel like touching it. 

Part of me still doesn’t! 

Yet I kinda think the feeling of me not wanting to talk about ValiDate is still worth discussing, so here we go:

For those of you that aren’t aware, I was a head dev on ValiDate, a dating sim that released in 2022. Volume 1 (of 3) did, anyway.

Did a lot of music, did a lot of writing, created some characters people really care about, created some characters people really want to fuck, made a couple Tweets that my boss hated, got accused of being reverse racist a few times. It was truly one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life. And, yes, we’re still working on Vol. 2 behind the scenes. 

That’s actually the reason why it’s kinda hard to talk about Vol. 1!

It was my first commercial game, my first publicly released game, and I think there’s always gonna be a… natural embarrassment toward your first “real” project. Combine that with my natural “if you stare at me for too long, I will kill myself” tendencies, and the game’s release was a special type of torture. It’s one thing to watch people play through a game that you poured your blood, sweat, and tears into, knowing full well that they might hate it (or just misunderstand it), but shit gets so much worse when you know that you could have done better. 

It’s a very special kind of psychological torture to have creative decisions you feel were mistakes, things you half-assed because of burnout or deadlines, or things you did wrong because you just didn’t know any better! The embarrassment was overwhelming, so I just… dipped for a while. Didn’t watch gameplay or read reviews, didn’t do much of anything.

Took me a while to realize that me being embarrassed about the project isn’t because ValiDate was bad or anything. I was embarrassed because it was an incredible learning opportunity for me. The amount that I picked up on game design, community management, leadership, marketing, pitching, porting, etc. in two years is more than any school could teach you in four. Volume 1 was a game made by amateurs, still wet behind the ears, trying to build something from grassroots. 

But Volume 2 is a game-ass game. 

And having done all the work we have on Vol. 2 (which, while I can’t talk about it publicly, is a lot!), looking back at our first release feels like… revisiting your awkward middle school photos. Sometimes it’s hard to not feel contempt for who you were when your biggest struggle was becoming, but learning to choke down that shame? It taught me to feel grateful for the you of yesterday, who clawed their way through uncertainty so that you, today, can stand on sturdier ground. Growing up is embarrassing, and it turns out you keep doing it well into your twenties! Sucks. 

For the past few days, Dani and I have been watching a Twitch streamer play through Volume 1. We’ve been so deep in planning for the future that we figured, hey, may as well revisit the past. Detached from all that embarrassment of becoming, I gotta admit: we made a fun little dating sim. People like it. Hell, I like it. Sure, I know all of its flaws and shortcuts, and I have my fair share of critiques… but fact of the matter is, if I have a problem with something, I can just fix it. 

Admittedly, In the past, that attitude of mine has actually been more of a problem than a solution. “I can fix this myself!” is all fine and good when you’re a solo dev trying to throw something together, but it turns out taking on excess responsibility in a collaborative setting is a way to make shit suck for you and your team. During the Kickstarter demo era, I was literally on every team besides art. Writing, programming, music, I got my fingers in all those pies. It was fun to me, and more importantly, it was sustainable. 

Until it wasn’t.

Volume 1 coinciding with my tenure at [art school], using a (finicky and, frankly, shitty) new game engine, being much larger in scope, introducing minigames (which, surprise, I was team lead on)... I pretty much killed myself trying to get it all done. Honestly, I blame half of our day-one bugfixes on me specifically. Every single one of them was an oversight made because I was pulling the classic “I’m unmedicated so crunching is the only way I can feel alive” type shit. 

Except for the OST. That one sucked because art school sucks all the joy out of creating.

Happy to say that our workflow for Volume 2 has been much more sustainable for me, even if I’ve officially broken my “no art” rule for it. Yeah, turns out I’m finally making use of that animation major. Sucks.

Self reflection over. Except for one last note:

If you’ve followed ValiDate, played our demo, donated to the Kickstarter, replied to our Tweets, played our second demo, bought our game, or just talked about us to a friend… I am so, so grateful. Beyond what words could possibly describe. It’s been my dream for as long as I can remember become a game developer, and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you guys. Vd8 wasn’t what I expected the cornerstone of my career to be, but honestly? I couldn’t have asked for a better one. We have Vriska in our game. How many people can possibly say that?

And to those of you still waiting for Volume 2:

You haven’t seen anything yet.

GAYMING AWARDS

Speaking of ValiDate… Did you hear we were nominated for some Gayming Awards last year? We were! 

Three other head Vd8 devs (Dani: Production, Alexis: Art, Cam: Code) flew out to beautiful New York City for the award show last March, which was actually our first time actually meeting up IRL. Really funny how I’ve known Dani since I was fifteen, but here we were, a decade later, finally meeting face to face. She’s so much taller in person. I’m still taller, but barely.

Meeting up with internet friends is one thing (and more on that later!), but meeting up with internet coworkers? It’s interesting. This was the first moment that ValiDate felt “real,” seeing as it was suddenly important enough to give us comp’d flights and a hotel room, but more than that: the people I’ve been working with for years exist? We’re all hanging out together? We’re wandering through Manhattan all day? We’re eating the most disgusting food at Junior’s in Times Square? We’re trying to figure out what this mystery liquid is? How much did this food cost again? (Seriously, my onion rings were 90% dough and 10% onion.)

While I won’t bore you with the minutiae—I think my friends would prefer the privacy anyway—the entire trip to NYC was fun, exhausting, and a dream-come-true.

Except for that goddamn award show. Jesus CHRIST, what a trainwreck.

No, I’m not saying that just because we lost. We did lose, though. (Personally, I was fine with it, but I also had to travel the least distance to get there. So…) I’m saying that because the entire Gayming Awards industrial complex was, uh, kinda busted this year?

So imagine, you’re us: bunch of twenty-somethings on your Sex and the City shit. Big award show tonight, formal attire. We’re talking high heels, long dresses, full suits, the whole nine yards. Now what do you do in Manhattan? Walk. Sure, we weren’t walking in formal attire the entire time, but it was still a good five blocks to the award center where—wait, what do you mean they relocated the ceremony? The hall they rented is closed for mysterious reasons? Where the hell are we doing the award show?

If you answered “the drag bar where the afterparty was supposed to take place,” congrats, here’s $20. Way further away from our hotel, which meant more walking, and also a way smaller venue with a lot less… formality, let’s say. But we’re young gay people, we don’t care about formalities, who gives a shit! As long as it can seat all of us, then—oh there’s no seating. Ohhhh. Oh! Okay.

I’ll admit, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. There were a handful of couches, VIPs only. Realizing quickly that, oh shit, we’re VIPs, we managed to snag some front-seat couches before any of the pesky old people could. (We’re young! We deserve to sit! You’ve had your entire lives to sit, established games industry people! Let the new generation have a turn!) Unfortunately, when I got up to cash in my free-drink voucher, my seat was stolen by some white lady. 

So I sat on the floor.

March 2023. You, sitting at home, have decided to tune into the Gayming Awards “live” on Twitch, curious to see what Britain’s premiere gayming magazine had to say about, uh, esports. 

This is important to you. 

Fortunately, this year you’re watching a decently shot and scripted award show filmed in a (noticeably claustrophobic) little bar, complete with charming presenters (many of whom are local drag queens) and a myriad of corporate sponsors. You can hardly tell that the entire show was uprooted and moved hours prior!

Yet, for some reason, whenever the cameras cut to the audience… There’s some large man, right in front of the crowd, slumped down on the floor as if he’s bleeding out. With every award given, his clapping grows weaker. The more the camera cuts to him, the more life drains from his body, as if his existence itself is anathema to “gayming.”

Imagine, for a moment, that this man is nominated for an award. 

Imagine that he, after a lifetime of potassium deficiency, has been teetering on the edge of a Charlie Horse Reckoning for hours.

Imagine that the microsecond that his game’s name is called as a nominee, the Reckoning begins. 

Now imagine a world where he wins that award. 

A world where he is forced to stand—from his corpse’s rightful place on the ground!—in front of his peers and superiors, pretending as if he’s not afflicted with a life-ending muscle cramp.

So, yeah. I was pretty fine with losing.

Later, we ditched the “afterparty” to drink at Applebees. (Turns out “green tea shots” don’t have any green tea in ‘em?)

EULOGY FOR THE GOLDEN GIRLS TAKE MANHATTAN DX

Big announcement! I was a team lead on The Golden Girls Take Manhattan DX, a certified Tumblr Gold™ fan-project (by the immortal Grawly) about the eponymous Gold Girls in a Persona-esque parody game! 

Slightly bigger announcement! The game got cancelled. Sorry.

Feels a little weird talking about this, since the year-ish I spent working on the game passed in the blink of an eye, and I’m not going to lie and say that I was an instrumental piece of the team or whatever. I was lucky enough to lead a very talented team, and to play with some very fun devtools, but the game was definitely more important to me than I was to it. (Grawly, if by some off-chance you’re reading this, please click off now. You can peek back in at the Jaw Explosion Disease subheader. I promise I’m very nice and respectful.)

I was in high school when I was first made aware of TGGTMDX. My friend group was very into Persona (in the pre-P5 days), and one of our favorite video subgenres was “videogame UI on top of sitcom scenes.” It didn’t take us long to stumble onto early-build footage of TGGTMDX on Tumblr, and what spawned was a years-long fascination. I’d even consider it one of my many… game dev awakenings? The idea that the only thing stopping me from making “American Persona”—one of my many white whales—was commitment to the bit. Just one of the many things that fueled my teenaged suicidal overconfidence.

Speaking of suicidal overconfidence, about a decade later, I was invited to work on the game! Coming fresh off ValiDate, I was desperate for a chance to make a real portfolio piece (visual novels, while popular, will never get you a job), and this sort of opportunity only presents itself once in a lifetime. Fulfilling a teenage dream while furthering your career? What could possibly go wrong!

That makes it seem like there was some explosive drama behind the scenes that ruined everything. Sorry to say that most game cancellations aren’t that exciting, and that this game’s death was by a thousand microscopic cuts. Most of which are not my place to talk about: this game wasn’t my baby, and cancelling it wasn’t my choice to make! Many people worked on this for much, much longer than I even knew how to code, and they deserve to have their feelings prioritized. Whenever that post mortem gets published, I’ll be the first to reblog it, trust me. 

Instead, I’d prefer to talk a little about this as being my first real “loss” as a game dev. Certainly not my first project to go under, and I’ve had my fair share of shelved prototypes, but something about this cancellation was… different. Working on your dream project is all fun and games until you feel partially responsible for it dying, y’know? It felt Sisyphean at a point, like trying to dig a hole in the sand with a pitchfork. I would work at the game, and work at the game, but nothing I did felt like it made a dent. 

Part of me knew I wasn’t giving it my all, between the school-based burnout (above), jaw explosion disease (below), and ValiDate (omnipresent), it’s not like I could’ve afforded to put more of myself into it. Besides, I was literally a team lead, half my job was telling other people what to do. But the spectre of “you’re not doing enough” was hard to shake. Even when all these other responsibilities ebbed and I could afford to give this game my all, the difference felt minimal. 

We spend a lot of time pitying Sisyphus for having to push that boulder uphill over and over, but none of us ask ourselves “could we even move that big fucking rock in the first place?” Apparently, I couldn’t.

I wasn’t the only one that felt that way, it turned out. In fact, pretty much all the friends I made on the project felt the same. If there’s any “real” reason why the project got cancelled, it’s that. No big falling out, Disney didn’t give us a cease and desist, no secret rebrand going on in the background. Just a bunch of lads getting sick of pushing a boulder. Hell, Grawly’s been doing it for a decade. Let him rest.

Not too much rest, though: we’re already working on a different game together (Date Knight: check it out if you haven’t!), and some of us ex-Golden Girls devs have some ideas for what else we can cook up. 

For money, this time.

JAW EXPLOSION DISEASE

Probably the biggest “development” of 2023 was my sudden horrible nerve pain in July, which started as a sinus infection on the left side of my face, and soon became a horrific jaw pain. Long after my sinus infection healed, the jaw pain remained, which is a pretty bad hand to draw when a considerable portion of your day is spent “talking,” or “eating.” So, for the back half of 2023, I didn’t do much of either.

Instead, I had to take a considerable amount of ibuprofen, visit one doctor, three dentists, two hospitals, and four oral surgeons to figure out what the hell is wrong with me. The dentists discovered an exposed nerve, caused by wisdom tooth removal complications (sick!), the oral surgeons went “okay, we can fix that,” got me all numbed up. But it turns out that my left jaw is immune to local anesthesia! Thinking this was an infection, they kept putting me on antibiotics over and over in the hopes that it’d suddenly work. Took a note from my childhood dentist explaining that, “no, he’s always been like this” to find a surgeon willing to put me all the way under. (And then, the first time they tried, I woke up in the middle anyway! I got a full refund on the copay, at least.) 

Ultimately, I found a very nice surgeon in December that treated me same-day, and did it perfectly, but the damage to my liver from all that ibuprofen was… bad. But it turns out that livers just… regenerate naturally? So, give it a few months, I’ll be at 100%. Hopefully.

OOMFCON

Hilariously, six months after we met up for the Gayming Awards, Dani and Alexis found their way back to NYC for a little combination meet-up/vacation we affectionately titled “Oomfcon 2023.” This time, with bonus friends! Our entire friend server, whose name I’ve been advised not to post publicly, had rented an AirBnB for anyone willing to drop everything and go to Brooklyn. 

It took about a year of planning (mostly by Alexis) to get us all out there, but Jesus Christ, it actually worked.

Admittedly I’m a bit hesitant to talk at length about “taking a vacation”—even though I’m already… from here?—but it really was the highlight of my year. First for actually happening, when most friend groups I’ve had would have written the idea off as a pipedream, but mostly for being a really good time. A lot of walking, a lot of talking, a lot of drinking, a lot of dining. (This was during Jaw Explosion Disease, so you can imagine how my body took most of that.)

To Dani, Alexis, Miles, Haven, Grim, Xtine, and Ty: thanks for coming up here! The city is a lot more boring without you guys in it. I promise to have less health issues when we do this again!

And to everyone else outside the groupchat that I met and bored with my job hunt stories: Nice meeting you guys! Sorry that fate decided every single one of you is forced to keep in touch with me. (And I didn’t even get the shitty corporate job!)

[omegaremix]

Omega WUSB Year Ten.

When one of our long-time dee-jays Xtina called it quits after 21 years at WUSB, I decided to return to radio better and brighter. Things around me were on an upturn despite suffering through a toxic dead-end job. Co-workers became friends who I discovered started a metalcore band. I found some key albums that would show me the light. And by then Cath- was in the picture; both of us waiting for a highly anticipated, urgent second chance with each other. Two Jacks, a couple of 10′s, and a Queen of Diamonds. The time was right to play the hand.

I told myself that if I did return to WUSB I’d do it better. My last on-air tenure as 9.20 Radio was a disorganized mess - a weekly all-out anything-goes show where everything stuck and nothing made sense. I acknowledge it but had disowned it since. I’m all about doing 100% and then more. I had time to think of a new way to do my new show: play new, current, and relevant. Play everything possible. Stay focused and more organized while going against the grain. I contacted then-program director Ari to see if I could re-enter the grid. Sure enough, I got his approval. I would now do for the listening public the same way WUSB did for me as a listener. The four-and-a-half-year hiatus was over. On December 12, 2012 (12/12/12) Alpha Omega Radio (AΩ)was on the air for the first time.

On December 2021, we entered Year Ten.

It felt like we only started yesterday. It’s the longest personal project I ever held on to, lasting longer than any job I had. Since then, Omega makes itself the most diverse station on WUSB’s grid. It’s an extension of who I am and what I’m into. Almost any artist, genre, label, or idea you could think of that’s not being played on corporate radio but should, we play it. We still do what no other show on our station or rarely anywhere else in the states can or is willing to do. At that point, we’ve almost notched 300 shows and that's no small accomplishment. We survived the worst of presidencies, pandemics, and even studio changes (more on that later) to bring you new, fresh, and exciting sounds to the listening community and fanbase. Indie, post-punk, d.i.y., noise rock, metalcore, hardcore, punk, hip-hop, street, legacy artists, hyperpop, electronic, shoegaze, darkness, punk, jazz, sampling treasures, even noise - no matter what’s going in the world, the music kepted going and slowed down for nothing or no one. Like a Veneno bull, there was absolutely no stopping us.

As Omega is influenced by what goes on around it, in return it has influenced me, my listening habits, and supports my never-ending campaign for diversity and identity. That goes for you, too. It’s all made possible because WUSB opens the door for underexposed bands, rare sounds, non-mainstream programming, and independent news to be heard. We refuse to do our show any other way or on any other station, and it wouldn’t be possible without it.

Here, we give all of our listeners, followers, and supporters of Omega an idea of how it all works, and still does. Who or what do we play? How do we do it and why? There’s so much to get into that the best way to explain it is to lay out a timeline of sorts and cover as much ground as possible.

Our original name (Alpha Omega) was cut in half when a listener reminded us that it a biblical reference. We’re simply Omega. It did make sense three-fold: “Ω“ not only resembled a pair of headphones, but also symbolized resistance. Eventually, we moved from our original bi-weekly Wednesday 8-10PM slot to a bi-weekly Saturday 10PM-midnight one. Right then and there our show lived up to its name by being the final show of WUSB’s programming week.

Our original Wednesday show lasted two hours, then later on two-and-a-half when we moved to Saturdays. We agreed to cut back to two hours again so that we lessened the chance of being short with how much we play on-air. When necessary, we do one-hour shows. (Combined) with fill-ins, we do as much as four to five-hour broadcasts.

Our first song we ever played was Killing Joke’s “Rapture”. After that, The Melvins, Unsane, Mika Miko, Death Grips, How To Destroy Angels, Cold Cave, Prurient, Consumer Electronics, Sonic Youth, Merzbow, and Atari Teenage Riot - all in our first show. How did all these artists co-exist? In our first two to three years, it was all about getting it out of my system. Four-and-a-half years of being off-the-air meant having all that backlog wanting to come out.

Along the way, Omega has been influenced by its own in-house dee-jays and even fans. Mix Tape Radio’s Christine introduced me to Italians Do It Better and Asteroids Galaxy Tour which I played in return. Our other former staffers who moved on influenced us on post-punk, d.i.y. and safe-space music. My biggest real-life influence and best friend handed me Death Grips and Crystal Castles. Their friends became my connections and gave us many electronics leads. We even had our listeners respond to our playlists and in turn gave us their favorites to feature. That’s why we feature shoegaze, dreampop, and alternative even to this day.

Conversely, we have a “no-calls, no-requests” policy. Our show is edited and assembled ahead of time and disallows listeners in getting carried away or asking for things out of our focus. No one gets Operation Ivy, two songs from Dropkick Murphys, the Ramones’ first album and also some Skrewdriver in one shot. And absolutely no Michael Jackson.

We subscribe to an uncountable amount of music sites, pages, video channels, and streaming sites. We do, at times, reach back into our personal music library in all formats. Whatever we find, if we like it, it goes. As you see above, that first show laid the blueprint that all others followed.

Since our very first fill-in (a Christmas showcase), we decided to split our show into two different types of broadcasts. Our “deluxe” line is where all new, current, and relevant sounds are featured on our home slot; while our “bonus” lines allow us to play other artists, sounds, and genres that normally wouldn’t fit into our deluxe shows. Our bonus shows allow us to play hardcore, punk, crate-digging, and golden-era hip-hop which to this day are still featured. Other genres such as aggrotech, white-label hip-hop, classic industrial, and breakbeats were discontinued either because it didn’t fit overall, realized there was too much to be discovered, or we simply just ran out. We periodically also feature labels and special artist tributes.

We featured holiday shows such as Saint Patrick’s Day, Halloween, and Christmas. We also played non-themed shows on Valentine’s Day, The 4th of July, and Juneteeth and even crossed over the New Year’s line twice. Only once had we done a one-time only Leap Day (deluxe) show featuring relevant noise artists.

Our only no-show? Broadcast #13.

We introduced our Best Of- / Winners Of- broadcasts to begin Year Two and forward, and also to help end WUSB’s broadcasting year. Once only a two-hour show, we split it up into two deluxe broadcasts and sometimes in bonus territory if we had to or if we were pressed for opportunities.

Year Two also marked the beginning of Ω+ (hello). Established a year after Omega,Ω+ became a music blog where I share music reviews, real-life mixtapes and playlists, and personal takes on everything I experience. It’s evolved so much since its genesis and it’s something I take great pains in doing things no other blog could.

Unlike our music blog Ω+, we didn’t start with a #0, a valid number we used here. There were no demos to hand in to pass the test so hence why there was no broadcast #0.

By Year Three, we decided to better re-organize ourselves. With our personal plays now out of our system, we simplified our deluxe shows and workload by giving each genre its own deluxe broadcast.

Due to extreme weather, we weren’t in the studio for our Valentine’s Day broadcast; marking the first time Omega sent in its show remotely to be played on-air. For times when we couldn’t be in the studio for months on end such as personal health reasons or the pandemic, Omega still sent in broadcasts on a regular basis without fail.

We once had our own Mixcloud for those who missed our broadcasts and were interested in what we did. That allowed us to have total freedom in posting shows without subscriber listening limits or paid accounts. After five years, we closed it down due to putting in lots of work and getting miniscule returns for it. We also had an 8Tracks that also gave us the same freedom to easily post whatever songs and playlists we wanted. 8Tracks closed down but later re-opened but without the same freedoms before, so we discontinued that as well.

Our ‘darkness’ broadcasts (industrial, electronics, noise, -wave) originated in our first year (#4) and even had a very rare summer appearance (#21). Since then, we made it a point to do these shows at minimum once a year during our colder months. Halloween-themed bonus shows showcased death metal, black metal, grind, classic goth, and death rock. 

Why? In between Omega and Ω+, our biggest, most notable demographic that stands out are industrialists and noise fans. 

Our final show at the old Stony Brook Union Studios aired on New Year’s Eve 2016 into New Year’s Day 2017, the second time we did such a broadcast. WUSB later relocated to its newly constructed studios at the West Dining Hall where we aired since.

We had two permanent slots for Year Nine: our usual alternating Saturdays from 10PM-midnight and alternating Wednesdays from midnight to 3AM in the spring. Our busiest broadcasting season ever was Summer 2021 when we did 17 shows in three months. It was when we featured our first-ever African music expo-.

The most popular / favorited broadcasts liked across Omega and Ω+? Our Summer 2018 noise broadcast rules them all. Our Wu-Tang 25th anniversary tribute is a very close second. Two more Summer (2021) hip-hop broadcasts in street / backpacker and golden-era, and another Summer (2014) noise broadcast round out the top five. An honorable mention: our classic Spring 2016 marquee broadcast as voted by hundreds of Tumblr robots.

Of all of our followers across all things Omega, only one has been featured on our show (False Maria). This number will be doubled very soon.

We do have a stockpile of golden-era hip-hop waiting to be played. When it’s over, it’s over. We’ve also been contemplating on whether or not to play bonus Nineties’ alternative / grunge shows.

And yes, we still owe you a Nirvana tribute. Thanks for asking.

After nine years of changes and 290 broadcasts later, Omega WUSB strived into Year Ten for what was one of the busiest broadcasting years we ever had. 

The idea of broadcasting from the heart, always finding and playing music with no rules or guidelines, and seeing the results is what really keeps us going. The limitless amounts of music to be found and waiting to be discovered constantly fuels the project. The feelings of driving through a quiet empty campus to the studios on warm sunny evenings or driving back home down empty roads through clear cold Winter nights symbolized the soul of our show. There are times when we’re exhausted and feels like it’s a chore, but it comes and goes when we find new ways to separate ourselves from the others around us and look forward to seeing who’s listening. Omega and Ω+ will still continue with no quit in the foreseeable future. For as long as there’s new sounds, music, and artists coming out, we’re still going to play our cards and go for the win every time.

To all of our listeners, followers, and supporters of all things Omega, we cannot thank you enough. Thank you for supporting us to this day.

(Originally published in Winter '21 and edited for the right now.)

[ystk-archive]

A behind-the-scenes look at CAPSULE's VR concert "CAPSULE Live in VRChat 'Metro Pulse'" (Sound & Recording Magazine, 23.08.17)

On August 5th, 2023, electro duo CAPSULE held their concert for the album Metro Pulse. The location was a metaverse space known as VRChat. An audience of around 1,200 people gathered, many from overseas, in spite of the high technological requirements for entry. People shared their excitement for the event via social networking websites (SNS), but as artists have increasingly returned to in-person concerts following the coronavirus pandemic, how did Nakata Yasutaka, the brains behind CAPSULE, decide to go with a virtual performance instead? We'll take a look at the story behind the production with Nakata and the show's director, computer graphics artist ReeeznD.

Translation by ystk-archive ・ 3,712 words ・ Original interview ・ Concert

【Start of VR live project】 The virtualization that stemmed from VR meetings

I'm going to start off with some basic information about VRChat. Also known as "VR SNS," VRChat is a platform where users create avatars and communicate with one another. Areas in VRChat called "worlds" serve various purposes that range from conversation hubs, to places where one can enjoy beautiful virtual scenery, to hosting fashion shows or, in this case, live concert events. Putting it simply, VRChat is being improved by the day through social input, and its cutting-edge atmosphere is part of its allure.

─ When did the plan for this VR concert start?

Nakata: The music videos for our latest album Metro Pulse already featured virtual worlds, but the MV creator Saisho Kentarou-san suggested that if we could use a videogame engine, it'd be possible to move around those worlds in real-time. The music videos had to be done using Cinema 4D, but I kept thinking about getting more usage out of my virtual avatar. So it didn't start with the idea of doing a concert in VR, but rather it came about from wanting to make stuff that could go into a CAPSULE music video.

─ In addition to the VR concert hall area, you also created a space called the "CAPSULE HOUSE" for users to explore.

Nakata: It's a building that looks exactly as it did in the "Virtual Freedom" music video. I designed it alongside the director [Saisho] with a "resort studio" concept, and I proposed that we use it as a sort of lobby area for the concert hall since we already had the data.

─ At what point did you earnestly begin working on this VR concert?

ReeeznD: I was asked to work on it sometime in March this year. Since the most important thing was to make sure the concert would be a success, I started by considering how much could be put into it, all while being conscientious of how much time I had until the concert date. Because of that, I suggested a realistic duration of four songs/fifteen minutes, but even with it being that short it was still worked on up to the last second (laughs).

─ What sorts of back-and-forth conversations did you two have?

Nakata: Those took place in VR without us realizing we were in VR.

─ What do you mean?

Nakata: Everyone wore headsets and entered the VR space to work on it, just like if it was a venue in real life. We had discussions like "it'd be better if the height was like that" and "the view from the audience seating should be more like this" and whatnot. Instead of everyone discussing while having one screen to look at, each of us could move around in the 3D environment and gesture towards things. It was pretty different from how we made the music videos.

─ So you held your meetings as avatars in the VR world.

Nakata: Yep, that's right. It was an interesting hands-on experience, but it's difficult to explain how fun VR is to people who haven't tried it. I think it's hard to convey the coolness of it to people reading this article and looking at the screenshots on a flatscreen monitor, so I hope they'll get ahold of a headset and jump in, no matter what it takes (laughs).

─ Lots of users on SNS who had never been in VR before were posting about their excitement for the show. The experience has an impact that's indescribable.

Nakata: That's true. I think it's important for a VR concert to be seen in VR in order to be fully experienced, just like live shows in real life. If you don't see it in person, you can't appreciate it properly. And it's amazing that VR concerts have gotten to the point where they can give attendees the same sort of feeling they'd get at concerts in the real world.

─ Being there as it's happening is now the same experience whether it's VR or in real life.

Nakata: It is different from just watching something on a screen by yourself; users can chit-chat together before the concert starts. In the early stages of development when ReeeznD-san and I were going over what they'd made so far, I altered the sound accordingly. You could say the audio initially sounded sort of dry, like it was left as-is the way it sounds on the CD release, but I wanted the audience to get the sense that there was more space for the music to permeate. VR differs from in-person concerts in that it's up to the user how they experience the music, but we still consulted about sound effects, like "how would it sound if someone moved over here?" and "we should alter it depending on how wide or small that part of the soundstage is." So from there ReeeznD-san would show me his progress and I'd add sound effects as I saw fit.

ReeeznD: Here's an example for you: during "Give me a ride," Nakata-san added an explosion sound when the logo appears.

─ So not only does Nakata-san handle the music for the performance itself, he also does sound effects. That's very like him, considering how much he loves film.

Nakata: That logo scene was originally supposed to happen at a key moment (laughs). But since it shows up after the song ends, I could put in a sound effect without messing up the music.

ReeeznD: Sound effects were supervised by Kinu-san. He works on his own VR concert projects, doing everything from sound to stage direction, and if the sound effects aren't good enough he'll add them in himself. But other artists' music is untouchable in a sense, people on the production side can't do whatever they want to it without getting permission. The two of us talked about how sound effects were going to be difficult to pull off for this particular show, so we added the logo and explosion visual when there was a lull in the action. I was really impressed when Nakata-san put his own sound effect in that part because we didn't ask him to — Kinu-san was excited too (laughs).

─ That's some valuable insight into what it's like for people working on a creative team together.

Nakata: Also while we're talking about it, I added a 40-50Hz, rumbling sort of low sound effect between each song. Just for the sake of giving it some ambience. I don't even know how many users could hear it, but I think if you wear headphones it's audible. I'd like for people to listen to the show using their best possible audio set-up.

【Building VR sounds】 Sounds that can "only be heard in that spot" while accounting for attenuation and venue dimensions

Although you could watch this concert with only a PC, it's infinitely more enjoyable to connect via VR headset and get immersed in the environment. Compared to VR's first year on the market (in 2016; so nostalgic...), with offerings like the Meta (Oculus) Quest 2 and HTC Vive et cetera, the technology is now widely available: Apple just announced their Vision Pro, and the Meta Quest 3 goes on sale this year. The only major disappointment is that VRChat is currently only available on Windows, with no Mac support. Regarding audio, you can listen via the headset's internal mic or, as Nakata suggested, connect your preferred DA converter and use your headphones.

─ How did you tackle the issue of sound quality?

ReeeznD: In VRChat, worlds are created using an engine called Unity, and many creators leave the audio up to Unity as well. However, since this was a concert, we wanted to retain as much quality as possible. What's challenging about doing a concert is the amount of people in the audience can cause the frame rate to lag, which slows down the visuals of the show, so because of that we were searching for a way to maintain sound quality without weighing down the processing. We compressed the audio while checking the quality and processing load in Unity.

─ You set it up with speakers on the left and right sides of the stage.

Nakata: We sourced it via stereo, but ReeeznD-san adjusted the sound within the world to give it a stereophonic, 3D effect. I added ambience to the stereo source, and ReeeznD-san set up attenuation processing on his side of things.

─ Of course the way head tracking works causes the left and right sides where the sound comes in to change, but height and distance also impact how things are heard. How did you go about managing that?

Nakata: Because the space itself is interactive by nature, users aren't, for example, looking at pre-rendered visuals, but are seeing things moving in real time. The music side of things also involves real-time positional processing. When we first did a VR soundcheck, it sounded like the music was coming from a tape deck that was left onstage. I wanted it to feel encompassing, so ReeeznD-san focused more intently on sound sources, and from there adjustments were made to things like from how many meters away sound is heard and so on.

─ In regards to a sense of distance, was there a particular tool you used to tweak the sound?

ReeeznD: Using VRC Spatial Audio Source, I was able to simulate the music in a 3D environment and make it stereophonic. The attenuation is essentially a graph that simulates the actual real sound, but for our purposes I rewrote the whole thing to create a live listening environment that's pleasant on the ears. However, only using stereophonic sound would cause the audio quality to drop, so I mixed in an unnoticeable amount of non-3D sound to balance it out.

Nakata: The concert audio is different depending on where you're listening to it from. I wanted to get that aspect of it right. There may be people who want to hear it the exact same way from no matter where they're standing in the venue, but I want it to be a listening experience you can only have in VR.

ReeeznD: Initially the floor of the concert hall was completely level instead of being an amphitheater. Partway through development, Nakata-san suggested changing it, and this altered the acoustics as well. Since my background is in music video production, I was thinking at first that people would be happy with a final stereo mix like you hear in a video, but Nakata-san was very considerate of the fact that this was a VR concert and made suggestions to capitalize on that, so we kept coming up with ways to match his expectations.

Nakata: There a lot of things you could call VR, like fixed images that have a 360° camera but won't allow the viewer to move around in the environment, or even non-3D objects, but in that sense of the term I think this was the most "VR" live show I've seen so far. Users could have conversations with each other and them moving around would change what they could see and hear. I'd like as many people as possible to know about the world of VR.

【VR and DTM* production environment】 An amazing era where you can do anything with a modern PC *DTM = desktop music, or music that's created using MIDI/computers

With the mention of the game engine Unity, a DTMer reading this may think that VR is a whole separate world from music creation. On the contrary, Nakata sees similarities between the two fields. ReeeznD agrees: "Actually, the difference isn't that great."

─ From the sound production side of things, producing VR content seems extremely challenging. Being able to do both would make one a force to be reckoned with...

Nakata: Basically, people who do music and people who create VR content are not entirely dissimilar. Both can be done in real time without the need for rendering. Just a CPU is enough for today's DAWs, and you can work on projects in real time without having to write things out in advance; there's a lot you can achieve. I think we live in a time where we have an incredible amount of power to take advantage of that. It's huge that someone could do this in their own individual environment.

─ It's a time where anyone with motivation could do anything.

ReeeznD: Yes. The path is open, and there are outlets to showcase it.

Nakata: Of course having skills and good taste are important, but the means to create are widely available now. That's amazing, to me. ReeeznD-san, how did you get to the point where you can create content like this using game engines? From studying Unity, right?

ReeeznD: I worked as a director at a game company for about ten years. Afterwards, I went freelance, doing CG and music video production. I first started using Unity as part of motion capture work with lower-priced consumer goods; I'd bought an HTC Vive for somewhere around seventy- to eighty-thousand yen to do mo-cap with. After that, I started seeing screenshots on SNS from VRChat servers like Ghost Club and thought it looked really fun, so that's how I got into the world of VRChat.

Nakata: It's interesting to me how in VRChat, you have hobbyists' work intermingling with that of professionals. It'd be fun if I could get to the point where I can make my own world.

ReeeznD: I was influenced the most by hobbyist worlds while making this VR concert, rather than pros. There are a massive amount of music worlds in VRChat and I've been to a lot of them. Kinu-san, production team member tanitta-san, and cap.-san, they've all got more experience in VR than I have, and they've made worlds as well as avatars.

Nakata: You see the same sort of thing in music. When you're trying to create something, it's not helpful to take cues from what the people at the top are doing. I think the more interesting creations come from regular people.

─ That seems to be how it goes with new cultures, they spread out from a grassroots origin but eventually become commercialized.

Nakata: I think a whole lot of people would agree with that (laughs). VR as a platform is relatively young, isn't it? I was really lucky to be able to work with ReeeznD-san and Kinu-san along with numerous other people active in the field. If I only concerned myself with music production and nothing else, I don't think I would've done this, but I'm interested in the tech part of it and I think the culture around VR and the user experience are important. VRChat wasn't designed for music performances in the first place. If we'd just thrown the songs into a VR concert without any care, we wouldn't have been able to accomplish so many things. I learned — and goofed off — with others throughout the whole process and it was a very meaningful experience. I really want to learn how to make my own world. Even though I know how hard it is to start from zero when learning something like DTM (laughs), it's easy to blindly dive into a new thing.

─ For someone starting out with no knowledge of it, how long would it take to learn Unity well enough to create a VRChat world?

ReeeznD: Assuming it's their first time ever using Unity... I think it's doable in about a month.

─ In that short amount of time?

ReeeznD: Making your own VRChat world is a daunting task, but resources for them are plentiful, so I recommend starting there by changing things to suit your preferences. That way you'll learn the basics, like adding music and placing a video player, and it'll most likely be about a month until you feel ready to publish the world. Once you've done all that, you can gradually make it more original by replacing purchased assets with your own modeled ones.

Nakata: Similarly in DTM there's something called a construction kit that has pre-made loops in it that you can use as a basis when making your own songs.

【Possibilities of VR live】 A future where avatars can switch the presets on a synthesizer in real time

I experienced firsthand through attending this concert that it's a different experience from simply watching something on a screen. Terms such as "virtual" and "immersive" are overused, and it's understandable how someone only familiar with VR in its current early stage of development would write it off or just imagine what it's like before they've seen it. To be entirely honest, I was one of those people. However, Nakata points out the tremendous entertainment potential of VR live shows, which brings to mind certain prejudices myself and others have about the superiority of "real concerts." Maybe a lot of creators who read this interview will come away from it wanting to learn more about this new field immediately.

─ Before, you mentioned that the production during the concert was done in real time. In which specific parts is this noticeable?

ReeeznD: An easy example is during the chorus parts of "Hikari no Disco," you can see streaks of light going every which way, and since the only instruction given was for light to scatter within a certain area, there's an element of randomness. But above all, the true random element is how users can view the performance from any vantage point they like. Even the sound changes depending on where in the 3D environment they're standing. It's difficult to notice because this kind of thing is obvious in real life concerts, but it's only possible here because a computer is undergoing real-time processing to achieve it.

Nakata: It's important not only to create the environment in real time, but to be actively working on behalf of the user's experience too. If I learn a bit more about the sound aspect of it, I think I'll be able to amp up the interactive elements. For this concert I prepared the music ahead of time, but if we could do it in real time I could make it more interactive and it would better convey the advantages of the VR format. If we really wanted to, we should be able to have the avatar up on stage push a preset button on the synth and change the music.

ReeeznD: Actually, there is a world called Fractone where you can play the synthesizer and program a sequencer.

Nakata: But if we try to implement things like that, your workload is gradually gonna increase (laughs). Honestly, out of all my performances, this show was the one that utilized the most of my ideas. When you try to do it in real life, it's difficult to find a venue to begin with, or what you want to do is flat-out physically impossible, or you just can't do it regardless of budget. However, in VR there aren't limitations like these. Rather, you can add aspects that give it a more realistic feel.

ReeeznD: When I talk to people familiar with the VR experience, nowadays they aren't sure if what they're seeing is fiction or reality. Another way you could look at it is Disneyland was made from fiction, but going to Disneyland is a real-life experience. I think that's the kind of sensation happening in VR. It may be a world created with CG, but it's still a place you can experience with your friends that isn't any different from reality.

Nakata: For example, when an online meeting concludes, I just think "it's done." But when I've been in a VR world, I take off my headset and think "I'm heading back." Like I'm going home (laughs). I can really tell the difference. It's as if I left the house for a bit.

─ Between ReeeznD-san and Kinu-san's talents and Nakata-san connecting with them, this turned out to be a great collaboration between fellow creators.

Nakata: Oh, no, not at all, it's more like I was lucky to get mixed up with some VRChat pioneers.

─ How are you planning to make use of VR in your future activities?

Nakata: Places where music is played bring with them a set of experiences, I think. Festivals are definitely like this, but there's a lot of people who just enjoy the process of going to them in itself. So I consider music to be a part of the production of an event like that, and I feel it's best to create things that suit each respective platform. In VR's case — as we were talking about sound effects a little while ago — sound doesn't have to be created under the assumption that it'll only be coming out of two speakers, so it's necessary to create a different mix specifically for a VR environment. It's been a rule-of-thumb to do things like increase the low end for songs meant to be played in clubs, or to make a song slightly louder for karaoke purposes; this is just the VR equivalent of that. It's just like how a film's multi-channel audio is mixed differently from its soundtrack. Since I mastered a stereo file this time, I want to try parallel processing for the next one.

─ With Nakata-san having cut the ribbon, if other artists get involved in the VR concert arena, I get the feeling we'll be able to see a new sort of future.

Nakata: I think so too. Then again, I'm worried about ReeeznD's schedule if everyone starts doing this (laughs).

[kyndaris]

Country Lights

It’s a yearly tradition that when the weather gets cold and the nights lengthen, Sydney celebrates the coming of winter with a light festival. VIVID has been an annual event for many long years, although I couldn’t tell you when exactly it all began. During the pandemic years, of course, VIVID was cancelled as people were shut inside, but since the ‘official’ end of the COVID-19 pandemic, VIVID has returned with a vengeance. 

Events have even sprung up in other parts of the state of New South Wales. One, of course, was held in the country town of Bowral. Known for its flower festival in October, the town is about a ninety minute drive from Sydney.

So, upon hearing of the event, my mother most definitely wanted to take a look and experience it for herself. She had seen a few videos and photos on the most holiest of phone apps: WeChat and wanted in. Thus, I and a few of her friends were roped in to accompany her for an all-women day trip to Bowral to see the sights and make some great memories along the way!

Of course, knowing that the lights wouldn’t be on until night covered the land, we had set up an itinerary for the day that would take us all around the Southern Highlands.

Our first stop was actually a town just past Bowral. One of my mother’s friends had done a search online for places that would tickle our tastebuds or be visually appealing. After driving down from Sydney, we headed to Berrima. There, we visited a small patisserie shop renowned in the area: Gumnut Patisserie.

As my mother was a lover of all things pecan, she ordered a pecan tart (although a perusal of their website actually advises that it’s a macadamia tart, so who can say), and one of our other members put in an order for a passionfruit tart. Once our coffees, and hot chocolate, arrived, we dug in. After all, life’s short so dessert ought to come first.

Once we had warmed ourselves up, we headed towards Harper’s Mansion. Bult in 1834 by James and Mary Harper, it is now a heritage-listed house. What made it stand out in little Berrima, of course, was the fact that the house was much grander than the other residences in the villages during the time it was built. Most houses in the area were slab cottages. In fact, it was modelled on those favoured by the middle-classes in Sydney with walls that were three bricks thick, laid upon a foundation of sandstone. 

After the Harpers passed away, it was bought by the Catholic Church in 1853 nd was used as a presbytery for the nuns of Daughters of Lady of the Sacred Heart. Later, it was rented out before being sold in 1970.

In 1978, it was acquired by the National Trust who repaired the house and it is now managed by local volunteers that provide simple tours of the house. On its land, however, a hedge maze was built along with an impressive garden. The maze, of course, was a must see and our small group of four Asian women found our way to its centre as well as out without too much trouble.

Our tour of Harper’s Mansion over, we decided to take a gander at the Book Barn. The Berkelouw Book Shop is located on the Bendooley estate, which is a winery. As for the book shop itself, it also serves as a restaurant. Sandwiched between the stacks, tables had been placed allowing guests to wander through and pick up whatever they may wish to peruse for lunch or an evening meal.

If there was a place akin to heaven, this would have been it.

From there, we headed to Bowral properly to check out a family-run vintage and antiques market called Dirty Janes. Lunch would be had at Harry’s @ Green Lane in the 2 PM slot. Why the restaurant only had two lunch slots was a mystery but I had to say that its main selling feature, which I wasn’t able to see a lot of, were the books that were crammed on shelves. 

But while the ones at Berkelouw could be flipped through and read, I had a feeling that the ones at Harry’s were most likely props to sell a particular atmosphere. Which is honestly a shame.

Still, it didn’t detract me from the collection of knives and beautifully displayed insect taxidermy cases that could have been bought at Dirty Janes. I, unfortunately, didn’t buy anything to commemorate it but I must admit that there were some pretty good paper weights to be had. Although, there were also pinned spiders...and that’s a real big fat no from me because they’re terrifying. AND WHAT IF IT WAS REAL?!

After looking through the wares of Dirty Janes, we strolled through the heart of Bowral before heading to the nearby lookout to see the sunset.

Once the sun had set, we headed to Centennial Vineyards where the light show would begin.

Words fail to describe the beautiful array of lights that shone up onto the sky. In an attempt to recreate the Aurora Borealis, so named from Boreas, the personification of the North Wind, the clever minds at the vineyards used light and smoke. To be perfectly honest, I’m unsure why it was called Borealis as Australia has its own name for phenomena that can be seen in Tasmania: Aurora Australis, but I suppose Borealis is the one that most people can identify.

This, however, was no show. Rather, it was a whole event with food trucks and space for families to lay out the picnic blanket to watch the sky above them change from red to green to blue to purple. Were it not so cold, it might have been a lovely night out.

As it was, my hands were near frozen until one of our group went and bought us some hot tea from a nearby vendor.

After about thirty minutes of admiring the colourful night sky, we headed back home to Sydney, which was a whole lot warmer than frosty old Bowral. And where I could catch up on some gaming as I raced to finish off a short indie game as Diablo IV had just released that Tuesday.

And also because SOMEONE bought it for me - the DELUXE edition, no less - despite the fact that I had only joked about friends getting it for me as an early birthday present. I wasn’t serious! And I didn’t expect it to be bought! 

I am, after all, an independent young woman who could have afforded it if I had really wanted it (which, I mean, I was probably going to buy it on the day of its actual release).

So, I’m warning you! They-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named! You know who you are! You read this blog!

I AM WATCHING YOU!

Stop being nice to me! I don’t deserve it!

Okay, now that my rant is over, I have to say that the Bowral light show, while not as comprehensive as the one in Sydney still had its highlights. Beyond that, it was a good day out with family and friends in what would prove to be a hectic long weekend in June.

[graylinesspam]

That period of life where your supposed to buckle down and get serious about your life has been getting progressively pushed back to younger and younger years.

It used to be late 20s after you've finished college (and all the dumb stuff people did while they were young).

Then it was pushed back to the college years, forcing new adults to leap into responsibility without even the opportunity to make mistakes or else it would effect them for the rest of their careers. And that was for the millennials.

Now for GenZ that all happened while they were in high school, or now while they are still in high school. Only no one fucking told us that was going to happen. the oldest of us had to figure it out by fucking it up.

I graduated high school with an A B average, Medals in Visual arts UIL, and having finished all my required courses before my senior year then voluntarily taking two advanced sciences classes as extra curricular. Almost everyone in my graduating class flopped so hard out of highschool that it made our fucking heads spin. Just about all of us are either unemployed and living with our parents or working two plus jobs and renting a shitty apartment with roommates.

We graduated during the pandemic and also became adults during a horrible economic crisis, so I'm sure that has a lot to do with it. But that does not change the fact that the only people I know of who actually made anything of themselves after graduation were the ones already taking dual enrollment and college courses when they were in highschool.

just a few years later my little sister and all of her friends are taking college courses in highschool. She's graduating from highschool with a medical degree and going straight into a career.

Which don't get me wrong, I'm so proud of her, but god damn, where did the time go? She went through four years of medical classes while still too young to drive. to drink. to do anything resembling Adulthood. Where did her fucking childhood go? The one thing she did for enjoyment was having an extra curricular. Either dance or competitive theater UIL.

And my sister is certainly not what you'd consider a nerd. I was the nerdy sibling. I had the college reading level in the 4th grade. I had honor role grades and took pre AP/ AP courses. I was the high achiever. I did community service and won awards and competed.

She was just a normal kid. Totally average. Which I do not say disparagingly. I say it to illustrate just how serious things are getting out here. The reason she knew she had to step up is because I failed. And I failed because they are making things so much harder all the time and they aren't bothering to tell us until it's too late.

It's great that she has the security of that degree. But she's only 18, what if she hates it? What if college continues being so expensive that she can't afford a degree in anything else? What happens then? She's only 18 and the most pivotal decision she'd made about her future was when she was 14.

What happens next? How are they going to push this responsibility off on even younger kids? And how many are going to fall through the cracks when they do?

Maybe this is the wrong platform to pose this question given the average tumblr user but

Is it just me or did our generation (those of is who are currently 20-30 ish) just not get the opportunity to be young in the 'standard' sense?

Like, everyone I talk to who's over 40 has all their wild stories about their teens and 20s, being young and dumb, and then I talk to my friends and coworkers and classmates, and we just... dont.

[dontyoutrytocalmmedown]

Alexandra McDermott, known by her middle name Savior, is making the music she always wanted to make, though the journey to getting here has been anything but easy. By Noa Jamir

A survivor in every sense of the word, the Portland-born turned LA based singer/songwriter has undergone a major label drop at the tender age of twenty-four, crippling arthritis in her hands that has, at times, made it impossible to play guitar, and a manic psychosis that left her hospitalized and mentally trapped in-between worlds. Though these hardships could be enough to break a person’s spirit, Alexandra Savior has turned them into something beautiful, telling her story for the first time on her third LP, Beneath the Lilypad (May 16 via RCA Records), in hopes of helping someone else facing similar battles.

It all started in 2012 when Courtney Love – founder and front woman of beloved ‘90s alt-rock band Hole – discovered a then seventeen-year-old Alexandra Savior on YouTube. The singer describes the unexpected yet wholesome mentorship formed between her and Love in a past interview, saying, “We had a landline at my house, and the phone was shaped like a big tomato. So she [Courtney Love] would call me on the tomato phone, and I would sit in the kitchen and we’d talk and talk. She gave me good advice. She told me not to let anybody turn me into a puppet.”

From there, things would only get more surreal for Alexandra Savior. After catching the attention of Arctic Monkeys’ frontman Alex Turner, who would go on to co-produce her 2017 debut Belladonna of Sadness, Savior, for the first time, got a taste of commercial success. It seemed she had caught lightning in a bottle; her wildest dreams were coming true by the minute. This success, however, wouldn’t come without struggle.

Just two years later in 2019, while in the throes of making her sophomore record, The Archer, Savior was dropped from Columbia Records. This was a devastating loss for Savior as it meant she’d have virtually no financial or managerial support to finish the album. On top of this, the pandemic hit the States, and along with it came a series of chronic health issues for the singer. Left to fend for herself, Savior pitched her music to a handful of independent labels and landed a deal with 30th Century Records, through which her sophomore record would be released.

Five years later, Alexandra Savior is returning perhaps more brilliantly than ever before with her haunting and radically honest LP, Beneath The Lilypad, released via RCA.

Written and produced over the past few years alongside her partner, Drew Erickson (Lana del Rey, Father John Misty), Beneath The Lilypad is a product of perseverance and unwavering determination – a true labor of love. Although this is Savior’s third album, it feels like a debut– a reintroduction to the artist we’ve come to know and adore. Only this time, she’s the one in the driver’s seat, introducing us to the artist she’s always been all along. Sitting in her LA bedroom with her dog, Marvin, at her side, Alexandria Savior opens up to Atwood Magazine about the stories behind Beneath The Lilypad and the laborious journey that helped shape her into the profound artist she is today.

Atwood Magazine: Who is Alexandra Savior? What are her likes and dislikes? Where is her happy place?

Alexandra Savior: That’s a good question. Alexandra Savior is, in a way, a persona. I think it’s sort of like twelve-year-old me, like the most raw version of me. I feel like in general I glaze over the deep feelings in life, so I think that my music is a way for me to be more serious within my emotions. And I think that my happy place is when I’m making things. I like to make stuff. It doesn’t even matter what it is. Just being focused on creating is the thing that makes me feel the most joy.

Speaking on that, I read that you made the cover art for Beneath the Lilypad, as well as the cover art for many of your past releases too. What role does visual art play into your music?

Alexandra Savior: I think that they both lend to each other. I guess I would say that the music comes first, because that’s my main priority for the most part, and then the visuals kind of surround it. When I’m making music, it comes out like vapor; it comes out really organically. But I have to think about visual art more, because it’s not my job necessarily.

What does the album title Beneath The Lilypad mean to you?

Alexandra Savior: I was hospitalized – I went into a manic psychosis – and when I got out of the hospital, the first song that I wrote was called “My Mockingbird.” The first line of that song was: “Beneath the lilypad, I find it hard to last.” It was not a very good song. It turns out when you’re in psychosis, you’re kind of all over the place [laughs]. So it wasn’t the best song in the world, but lyrically I was attracted to that line and how it really represented being separate from reality and being separate from how other people experience the world and looking through this blurred perspective – knowing that the beauty of the lilypad is above the surface – knowing that you’re beneath it, and you can’t see it. It’s suffocating, in a way.

It’s so interesting because my own meaning that I made from the title is so different!

Alexandra Savior: What did you think? I’d be interested to hear.

While listening to the album, I was instantly teleported into this mystical place in time. Even though the songs deal with heavy subjects, I felt like I was floating in this very mystical realm that felt soft and light. So it’s really interesting to hear that it came from such a painful time in your life. 

Alexandra Savior: It’s beautiful to be able to see things in a different way, so that’s nice to hear.

What emotional state were you in while writing Beneath the Lilypad?

Alexandra Savior: I was all over the place [laughs]. It’s really been a journey, which started when I was 24, and I’m gonna be 30 in the next week. I think it’s really just about growth. I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder a year before I started writing this record, and I went through so many cycles of being completely unstable. “You Make It Easier” – which is the last song that’s on the record – I wrote when I was released from the hospital, and it’s about recovery. So I think it’s really about a journey through instability to recovery. It’s just about my life.

That’s really beautiful. If this album were a world, what kind of place would it be? Who or what would live there? What would it look like?

Alexandra Savior: I feel like there would be no cellphones. That would be the number one thing I would hope for, just because I get so tired of that. My dreamworld is to just live on a plot of land in the middle of nature somewhere and have it be essentially all women. I think a lot of this album is about my femininity and trying to express that, because I had subdued it for so long. I think it would just be a place of full expression. The only man would be young Leonard Cohen.

That’s so awesome, I’d want to live there. Many songs on Beneath the Lilypad are reminiscent of 1950s ballads, and there’s hints of western influence in there too. They all have this ethereal yet slightly eerie mood about them, like something you’d hear on a Julie London or Billie Holiday record. What were some of the records and artists you recall listening to while making this album? Who are some of the artists that inspired that sound?

Alexandra Savior: It’s interesting that you say “western” because at the time I was writing it, I was listening to a lot of really early folk music, like Jean Ritchie who is an Appalachian folk singer. I was listening to a lot of her. I was listening to Benny Goodman and this one record called “Small Groups 1941-1945” – it’s a compilation record. I was listening to just very pure jazz. I was drawing inspiration from more of a soft palette of music, which I think lends to why the album is not as fast-paced and loud.

There are many orchestral elements to this record, which is part of what makes the instrumentation on each song so full and captivating. How were those string parts written and was the process like recording them?

Alexandra Savior: Drew Erickson, who also produced the album and helped me write a couple of the songs, did all of the orchestra parts. Basically, we booked the studio, and then the night before, I laid on the ground in this room and pretended like I was paying attention while he wrote everything. It’s really interesting because he wrote an entire string part in the studio while we were recording other things without listening to anything. It’s really interesting how he was able to do that. We have almost exactly the same taste in music, so I didn’t have to give him any direction, which was nice.

That’s incredible. The album opens with “Unforgivable,” which is a song that sounds cheerful at first glance, but when listening to lyrics, you’re actually singing about quite a grave subject matter, such as the mistreatment you faced at a vulnerable age. What does this song mean to you, and was it a conscious decision to make it the opener?

Alexandra Savior: Yeah it was. It was me saying, “This is my f*ing album.” It was the last song that I wrote for the album. I think I needed it to be a happy-sounding thing so that I could touch on a very serious subject while also expressing my power within that. That was just a coping mechanism, it being more of a happy sound.

Track 4, “All of the Girls,” is a personal favorite of mine. The lyrics really struck me, particularly when you sing: “No more transformations / the dead of myself / she calls, silently waiting for anyone else to become.” I thought those lyrics were really beautiful and resonated with me. I’d love to hear the story behind that song.

Alexandra Savior: That’s really sweet, thank you for saying that. When I was around twenty-five, I was constantly comparing myself to other people, and I think a lot of that was through Instagram and how toxic that whole thing is. I think when it first started out, it was harder for us to see how clearly the algorithm manipulates us. So I think it was from a perspective of feeling like I was comparing myself and just wanting to stop caring so much about what other women are doing – wanting to stop feeling hatred towards people that I didn’t know because they had something that I wanted. I wanted to just be able to be who I really am and express that to the world without feeling inadequate. I just wanted to stop feeling like other people had more than I did.

I think that’s why that song resonated so much with me, because I sometimes feel trapped by those feelings as well. It’s a growing pain.

Alexandra Savior: Once you find who you are, you stop caring who other people are and just appreciate them. And going to therapy helps [laughs].

There’s a song on the album called “Old Oregon,” which is a tribute to your home in Portland. What is your relationship like with your home?

Alexandra Savior: I miss home a lot. I feel really lonely when I’m away from home. It’s just the most beautiful place in the world, the most beautiful place I’ve ever been in the world, and I’ve been to some places – not that many, but I’ve been to a good chunk of places – and I just still feel like there’s something special energetically there. The people are not concerned with fame or money or vanity. It’s a very down-to-earth place. I miss it a lot, because L.A. can be really challenging. But yeah, it’s my home. It’s hard to explain what home feels like. It just is.

Do you find that where you are in the world brings out a different side of you creatively and in your day-to-day living?

Alexandra Savior: Yeah, I feel that being connected to nature is one of the most important things for me to be happy. Growing up in a rainforest and then moving to a desert is a really big jump. It took me a long time to understand how to navigate accessing nature in Los Angeles. But I feel like wherever I go, I wanna bottle it up whenever I get that feeling of being in the woods or on a lake or by the river or the ocean.

If there was a song you’d want someone to hear from Beneath the Lilypad, a song that you feel encapsulates the record’s overall sound and meaning, which song would it be?

Alexandra Savior: It’s so hard to pick ‘cause they’re all my babies. I think I feel really proud of “Venus,” and it’s also an example of something being born from love, which is something I’ve never done before I don’t think. I feel lyrically really proud of that one, and I’m proud of Drew [Erickson] for the composition that he did.

I know that you’ve been through so much on your musical journey, not only battling mental health and debilitating illnesses, but also having to deal with exploitation and mistreatment in the music industry at a young age. What is your relationship now with the industry, and what are some of your hopes and dreams moving forward?

Alexandra Savior: I feel like it’s changed a lot since I started. It’s been thirteen or fourteen years since I entered into this industry, and it’s just so vastly different than it used to be. I feel really grateful to be surrounded by so many young women now within this project and to see how creative people really are. But it’s also challenging because everything is on social media now. I hadn’t thought that that was what I’d end up being or having to focus on. It has a lot of changes in a really beautiful way, and I feel good about it. And my biggest hope is to be able to buy a house.

Thank you for sharing and for being so open. Any final words? Anything you’d like to share with our readers?

Alexandra Savior: Just thank you for listening is really what I want to say. Or “Go listen, please, I beg you.” That’s what I’d also want to say.

[bardofsomerset]

Allison Russel at Omeara, Part Three: A Tale of Two Concerts

In part one, I discovered Allison Russell and made an effort to listen to everything she’d ever recorded. In part two, I took you on a tour through every other concert I’d ever seen, culminating with my journey to the Bath Forum and Imelda May. Now, both of those ladies finally get the concert reviews I meant to write years ago.

Would I have walked into Omeara if I hadn’t stepped into The Forum first? Maybe not. I’d kind of forgotten what live music could be when I first looked up Imelda May’s tour. If it hadn’t been in a place as familiar as Bath, if a friend I knew so well hadn’t been so enthused about coming too, if it wasn’t the artist who created a piece as important to me as Life Love Flesh Blood, I might not have gone as far as buying tickets.

The memory of that night in Bath was part of what drove me to search for Allison Russell’s UK dates. London wasn’t so close to home, this friend wasn’t one I knew as well, but I remembered how I’d felt when I heard Outside Child, and the idea that it could be elevated like that, that I could mix it with that kind of atmosphere, was irresistible.

It wasn’t until we were in The Forum, in the foyer, right next to the displayed merchandise, that the actuality of our chance to see Imelda May finally took hold. There was nothing stuffy or crowded in that space, they’d improved ventilation and air filtration to deal with the pandemic, so it was easy to taste the simmering anticipation. We waited, and we waited, with the conversation between me and him still continuing as it had for so many years, and then the woman in charge came to make sure we were ready not just for a concert, but for an experience. There were things to be distributed, things that couldn’t be found on that long spread of the merchandise table: our golden lanyards proclaiming us VIPs, and our mystery gifts hidden inside cardboard boxes. The bounce of excitement was becoming unbearable.

From the foyer into the hall and the choice of any seat we wanted. My friend, a drummer to his soul, picked the side where we’d have the best view of the drumkit, and our conversation flowed on as we waited some more. We sat, and a concert auditorium is a very different place when it’s all normal lighting rather than puddled shadows, and when instead of a crowd there isn’t enough of an audience to fill the first four rows. The instruments are on stage, but not the band, there are technical people going about doing technical things, and it’s all very much a place unfinished, like you’ve been allowed entry into somewhere you’re not supposed to see. A concert is magic, but here you could see it being built on the bones of the real.

Then the instrumentalists took their positions, and can you imagine what was happening to that simmer of anticipation now? And then there she was, except it took a minute, because she walked on like a normal human being and she dressed like a normal human being and if you hadn’t know why you were here and if she hadn’t been right at the centre of the stage, if she’d been back on those regular streets, then you probably could have gone right past Imelda May without even noticing.

Of course, she wasn’t on a regular street, she was at the heart of an auditorium, with everyone else revolving around her, and if that didn’t give you enough of a clue, well, she started to sing.

Three tracks for the soundcheck, just enough to ensure every instrument had the chance to jam, just long enough to confirm that yes, this was definitely Imelda May, because there was no power on earth that could hide that voice or make it small, just time enough to remember how much I loved this music before it stopped again, because it was only the soundcheck, not the gig. Talk about a whetted appetite. All it took was the enticement of “Sixth Sense” and the brief bounce of Johnny’s bass line.

The first words she actually spoke to us, talking like an ordinary human, weren’t about the music but about being a tourist in Bath. It seemed she’d been wandering the city too, and she’d noticed how all that Roman history was built on the memory of something Pagan. It was so delightfully unexpected. I’m always down for belittling the Romans.

I knew before the Q&A started that I wouldn’t personally be asking anything, but I was eager to hear what she had to say to everyone else. Some questions would probably be the same that you could hear in any interview, and I’d watched and read more than a few of those, but there was always a chance I’d learn something new.

For instance, the questions about influences and collaborators, which led to the fun story of how Ronnie Wood (he of Rolling Stones fame) likes to claim he discovered Imelda May when he saw her singing as a teenager:

“But Ronnie,” she told him, “You didn’t tell anyone! I still had to spend years working my way up.”

One highlight was the woman who asked how to encourage her own daughter, who was very early in her guitar playing career, to keep going in the face of inevitable challenges. The general gist of the answer was that if she was meant to be a musician, it’d happen regardless of encouragement, because:

“Music’s a bit like that romantic partner who you know is bad for you, but you just can’t let them go.”

That got some laughs, especially from my friend and not least from Imelda May’s own guitarist.

It was a good-humoured session as well as an interesting one, but it was still only a tiny part of the evening to come. Eventually, the questions ran to the natural close and we had some time to kill before the show proper, so the two of us made our way past the merchandise table, this time stopping long enough to make a choice between the many t-shirt options (I went for the A Lick and a Promise curling serpent) and, on a bit of an impulse, acquiring the tea towel inscribed with the verses of “Home”, probably because the moment I reread it I wanted to own it again, in as many forms as possible:

“It’s choosing kindness over being right.”

That line hits me every time.

Then we headed to the café and, guess what? We talked some more. And some more. We didn’t go too far, because it wasn’t that long until the music started officially, but our conversation spans every corner of the multiverse.

*

This time, when we stepped back into the auditorium, it was less half-finished and more on edge. You could feel it. A little keyboard had settled itself in the middle of the stage ready for the supporting act. I’d never heard of Rachel Sage before Imelda May announced she’d be accompanying her on tour, but I’d taken a peek at YouTube to give me a little idea what to expect. It was a colourful and fun setup, the kind that’s full of flowers, and the music was just as bright. I don’t understand the people who don’t show up until the main event when they’ve paid for the whole thing, because getting to see someone new (especially someone so clearly recommended by the artist you already like) is always exciting.

We only spent half an hour with her, then it was time for another breather. Another moment for even more anticipation to build. Back to the auditorium as the aisles filled with more and more people and the atmosphere thickened. When the lights changed, the half-empty, half-finished space that we’d seen before vanished completely. We were somewhere new. That building, nearly 90 years old, was reborn yet again, into something ancient and immediate all at once.

This time she didn’t just walk onto stage like an ordinary human. She emerged like a goddess summoned, like some divine figure of Irish mythology: the Morrigan in her crow form with black wings outstretched, Bridget the goddess of poets in full voice. She spoke before she sang, before she even appeared, the opening of a story, the drawing in of the crowd:

“It’s eleven past the hour.”

This wasn’t just a concert, it was a work of art. The lighting, the smoke, the visualisations on the screen at the back, the poetry interspersing the songs. Her voice was like music even when she spoke, when it poured over verses like “Home”, when curled it into melody as a whisper that you hang onto with every breath and when it punched into rhythm like a dance in a thunderstorm.

Before the concert had begun, probably months earlier, Imelda May had talked on Twitter and Facebook about planning the setlist for this particular tour. She’d told us which of the old songs she’d play: “Mayhem” and Johnny and “Big Bad Handsome Man”, setting realistic expectations for those of us who might have been wishing for more of the classics, but my big question was how much of Life Love Flesh Blood would be made manifest?

More than any of the older albums, probably, as it was part of the new era, but not as much as 11 Past the Hour. The most recent songs were clearly going to the focus. My friend was particularly hopeful that he’d get to hear “Breathe”. He talked about the arrangement in all its interesting details and debated how she’d transform it to fit the confines of the tour stage, highlighting the things I’d never have thought to notice. My ears have always been much less attuned to the technicalities of music than him.

I didn’t want to anticipate too much. I didn’t want to get excited about songs that then didn’t appear, and I was pretty sure that she could just sing her way through a shopping list and I’d be happy to hear it. How much of Life Love Flesh Blood could fit into one gig anyway?

The likely suspects seemed to be “Black Tears”, “Call Me” and “Human”. They were the bigger hits, the most recognisable tunes. I’d already decided most people probably didn’t love “When It’s My Time” as much as me and therefore it might not be a priority. With absolutely no expectations about which songs were going to appear, every time one I particularly liked showed up, it meant extra excitement. I successfully avoided disappointing myself.

And so Imelda May wove her spell in so many different songs, and we the enchanted masses followed, through love and loss and laughter in a dozen shapes, recolouring the world every time. All those words that already meant so much to me, like the chorus of “Human”, had an intensity like never before. The sounds that had already poured through my blood in “Black Tears”, in both voice and melody, reverberated anew. As for that new album, for 11 Past the Hour which didn’t yet have the same sentimental value, it crystalised into life, even as its mysteries opened ever deeper.

Then came the moment my friend had been waiting for:

“A lot of my songs are about personal experiences. This one is about pretending I’m a tree.”

My friend grinned and I grinned for him. What I was saying earlier, about how some songs click more naturally than others? For 11 Past the Hour, for me, that had been the title song, and “Made to Love” (I’d seen that one on the telly, which always helps), and “Diamonds”. “Breathe” had taken me a little longer, and it was hearing it in that auditorium that made it grow on me (pardon the pun). For my friend, with his musical ears, it was the other way round, and the live version was part of the point.

There was this one woman in the audience, she had a different purpose. Dancing was the reason she was there. She was just looking for the excuse, and the moment the tempo crept up by a few beats, she was down the row and out into the aisle, moving like this evening was everything her body had been waiting for and like freedom was the sound of a band.

She was the first but no, of course she wasn’t the only. There must be very few people alive who can hold in stillness when “Mayhem” plays. In the latter half of the evening, when the older songs and the more rhythmic of the new were all stacked together, it was like someone had called us all to rise, like one of those old fairy tales where a whole town is enchanted in their souls and in their feet, like the red shoes had been gifted to every one of us so we could stand on the fire.

I didn’t step into the open, I wasn’t one of the many who filled the space in front of the stage with their movement and their energy and their celebration, but even from my seat I had to rise and release some of what I felt surging through me. As I said to my friend, if nothing else, my view of the musicians was hindered by all the people now standing above me, but this was about much more than practical considerations. Imelda May might have changed her hair since the rockabilly days, but that look in her eye was inescapable. It wasn’t one you could ignore. You weren’t allowed to be still when that music roared.

There was one moment, not long after the standing, when I let myself anticipate a specific song, because I’d been waiting all evening for the bodhrán to reappear. I’d seen it in the soundcheck, so I knew it was coming. Its arrival could only mean one thing. This time, “Johnny’s Got a Boom Boom” didn’t just bounce off my bones, it thumped inside them, vibrating in my toes and atop the crown of my head and through every inch of flesh and sinew in between.

It also went to show that the old and the new could partner each other; that energy could happily zip and zap between the two without stuttering. “Should Have Been You” and “Made to Love” also came in that latter half of the show with all their triumph and defiance, and they were just as good for sparking feet and snapping hands as any of those rockabilly tracks. When they hit the air the whole room burst.

You can’t leave a concert on that sort of note, with everyone still crackling. Sheer emotion just explodes out of your skin. Like when you’re exercising, so hard and intense, but you need to gradually reign it in before you can go home. Things started to slow again, not losing energy but redirecting it, narrowing the feeling back into the line of a melody.

She’d told us she didn’t often do covers. Now, I’d heard her smashing “Tainted Love”, originally by Gloria Jones but perhaps more familiar by Soft Cell, so I knew that not often didn’t mean impossible. I knew that that she could fill an old song just as well as anyone who’d previously given it voice. I was also aware that the “Tainted Love” energy was just the sort of thing that could thunder through you like her rockabilly tunes, perfect for the rhythm and the dance.

But this was just a couple of months after Meat Loaf died, that master of the Gothic novel poured into music, singer of romance and horror in equal measure. She remembered him in her words, how they’d worked together and how he’d been everything she could have expected or hoped, the affection clear, and then her tribute to him soared into a song that came straight from his voice:

(This isn’t Bath, but it’s from the same tour so a similar staging.)

This was an evening about poetry, as much as it was any one thing, but not every artist would be willing to stop completely to read you a verse when you were there for a song. Nevertheless, there was one more chance to share in the beauty of “Home”. As much as I loved reading it on the page (or the tea towel), nothing could quite compare to when she delivered it in her own rhythms, the lyricism pouring through her voice.

There was also, by my reckoning, at least one song from 11 Past the Hour that I couldn’t imagine her leaving out of the setlist, but we all had yet to hear. The perfect, gleaming, grounded form of “Diamonds” would soon swell through the room and stay flowing with us as we embarked on the journey home, back to the train and the conversation, still carrying the touch of that night.

*

One major concert in a year should have been enough, right? Probably, but here I am, stepping into Omeara.

It’s like descending into a cave, into a vault, into the belly of a church and isn’t that appropriate? A sacred space, a place of communion? Isn’t that what we’re coming to experience? There must be a reason so many concert halls are houses of prayer.

The coolness, the murmur of voices, the anticipation. The stage, full of instruments but not a musician in sight. Walking in the spaces between the audience because there are no seats here. People wait, and they talk, and we circle them. Maybe it will be too crowded later, but for now it’s perfectly balanced. It’s simple to claim a spot, near the front but not too close, edging to the side so the wall is there for leaning. Now there’s finally time to talk properly, about books and music and all the other things we enjoy. It’s not a thirty-year conversation like with my other friend, I’m only approaching the mark of my first decade knowing her, but sometimes it seems so easy it could have been just as long.

There’s still a certain amount of pressure, because I’m very aware she’s only here because of me. It seems very important that she has a good time. And that isn’t the only expectation. So, you know how when you find a new favourite song, you listen and listen until the memory of it is a constant twist in your ear, until you’re sure you’ve shaken free all of its surprises and it becomes just as routine as your own name? I didn’t do that with “Nightflyer.”

No, what I did was I rationed it. After originally gobbling it all up, I carefully limited myself to one play at a time, no back-to-back relistens, and I spread those single plays out days, even weeks apart. Yes, I wanted to know the song, but even more I wanted to preserve that feeling from when it caught me the first time, that breathless, captivating astonishment. I didn’t want to risk it becoming tired, dull in its familiarity. After I’d purchased the concert tickets, I expanded that principle to the whole Outside Child album (not Our Native Daughters, or Birds of Chicago, or Po’ Girl. That was making life far too difficult). I haven’t listened to a note for months.

Has it been worth it?

When the moment comes for the lights to curl away and the first note to fall, it’s not Allison Russell. It’s time to be introduced to another voice, one with a colourful dress and a melodic guitar, the supporting artist: Lady Nade (as in lemonade, as she helpfully tells us in that Bristol accent that sounds like home). I had looked her up when I’d seen her name on the Omeara website, so I already know to expect a delightful sound. I’m also a little predisposed to like her because of Bristol. She talks about herself a little between songs, the kind of entertaining stories that make everything more human. They’re also helpful if you want to appreciate the lyrics even more (don’t betray your girlfriend or your best friend if she’s a songwriter. You’ll find yourself immortalised in all the wrong ways).

Of course, she’s the supporting artist, so her section of the evening is sweet but short. I could listen to more, but I’m also absolutely desperate for what comes next. The room settles back to murmuring voices, more people shuffling into the gaps of what until then was a reasonably spread-out audience. More fool them for missing Lady Nade. That enclosed chamber never reaches the point where I feel too crowded, even when the watchers fill it wall-to-wall, and that’s another of my worries brushed away.

“Have you seen Allison Russell before?” asks a woman on the other side of me, who isn’t my friend. It’s a bit of a startling moment, to say the least. I wouldn’t normally pursue a conversation with a stranger, but we do obviously have at least one interest in common.

“No,” I tell her. “I didn’t even realise she existed until earlier this year. Though I am a bit ahead of my friend. She’s only here because I needed somewhere to stay tonight, and she lives in London.”

We all laugh. It turns out this other woman had been meant to come and see this gig before the pandemic, then, well…yeah. Lockdown. In some ways, it’s a bit of a relief that earlier show hadn’t happened, because a couple of years, or even a few months earlier, I wouldn’t even have known that Allison Russell existed. Yet another way in which the universe seems to be aligning in an unusually friendly manner.

It turns out the woman’s story is similar to mine. She’d heard Allison Russell sing once on the radio and that was that. She had to immediately stop, then go away and listen to everything else she could find. It seems all three of us are on a voyage of discovery.

And now it’s finally time for the main event. The lights darken their warning. The conversations cease. On walks the woman we’re waiting to see, wrapped in silver and sparkles that brighten every reflection, and the stillness of the stage is alive.

“Our circle is unbroken. Our circle is whole. None above, none below, all of us equal under the listening sky.”

We all wait, breathless, until the slow, simple plucking of “Little Rebirth” begins with such simplicity. Until it stops, and her voice pours in with so much richness and depth. Until the whole sound rolls around that cavern, reverberating off those walls and plunging through our skin. We’re hypnotised, mesmerised, and that’s the place we stay, long past the end of the evening.

The first notes are strange to me. I said before, on a new album your ears always embrace some unexpected melodies before others, for reasons you might never fully understand. “Little Rebirth” had never been one of the tracks that just clicked. Not until that moment. “Little Rebirth”. “Poison Arrow”. “Joyful Motherfuckers” (I admit, that one, I was probably being a bit prudish about the title); I didn’t understand any of them properly in my own room. Now, in this space, I can feel the scope of them, and I revel in every chord.

“Little Rebirth” makes sense as an opener because it is about an awakening. For a world that hasn’t long come out of lockdown, for a people who have been denied live music and its touch for too long, that perhaps represents more than at any other time. And it means we can all change and rebuild together as we listen, just as the song invites. Remember, the lyrics say, “We’re all transforming”, not just the singer. It’s the “bonds of our works”, when “our” is every person in this world, and the Earth herself.

We reach “The Runner”, where Allison Russell says, far more succinctly than me (everyone’s more succinct than me), exactly what I’ve been trying to explain for all these thousands of words: the effect music can have when it hits you at exactly the right time, in exactly the right place. It’s the moment you’re not alone anymore, and the world is somewhere new, and everything that used to trouble you turns into freedom. It’s the feeling of being in Omeara on this night.

Allison Russell also explains “Poison Arrow” as she introduces it, perhaps realising that its tone of welcoming celebration may seem counterintuitive next to that title. It makes sense once she gives it voice. It becomes clearer still in the soothing repetition of that chorus. You taste the poison, and take its strength, and move beyond it, to the place where all the loneliness and the fear and the pain flow away. You heal.

Then “Joyful Motherfuckers”, with the most jarring of titles, a rather vehement statement compared to some of the more poetic metaphors and indirect allusions elsewhere on the album. It comes towards the end of the show, which also makes sense as a placement, because after Allison Russell spends an hour showing us the love in her heart, asking us to do the same seems a logical next step. She calls out and we respond, now part of her circle. She brings sunlight to our evening, and the vibrancy of a garden to the city’s narrowest streets. It’s a statement of how radical love can be.

There are some moments here that remind me of Imelda May. Those lines of poetry before the songs begin, the lyrics of love in the dark times, the lesson that happiness isn’t something that just happens but a choice that we make. Both artists make a comment about not really doing covers just before doing exceptional covers.

“We don’t really do covers,” says Allison Russell

By Your Side or Landslide? I barely have time to wonder.

“But when we do, we tend to do Sade.”

Every time I think I can’t be more excited, that I can’t enjoy the evening more, something else happens. “By Your Side” is one of the songs I hadn’t dared to hope would be on the setlist, because it wasn’t part of Outside Child. Spine-tingling on YouTube, here it penetrates even deeper under my skin.

On top of “By Your Side”, with its intensity so much greater in person, we have the luxury of hearing the two Native Daughters tracks that are mostly clearly Allison Russell’s: “Quasheba, Quasheba” and “You’re Not Alone”. They’re the bookends to Outside Child’s narrative, from turning back to the ancestors to gazing forwards at the next generation. Of them all, the performance of “Quasheba, Quasheba” is even more than I could have imagined.

What every single song has in common that night? A captive audience, singing and bobbing along when appropriate, transfixed at other times. And Allison Russell, there at the centre of is all, the linchpin for everyone: the band, the audience, quite possibly people walking past in the street outside who don’t realise what’s in the air around that building but can feel it anyway, Allison Russell, the guide from whom every single one of us takes our cue.

If you read any review of Allison Russell, whether of her recorded music or her live performances, the one word that you are almost guaranteed to hear is joy. Allison Russell is the human embodiment of joy, and when that smile and that voice are all around you, you can’t help but rise with it. One day, she’s probably going to outright levitate off the stage and when that happens, we won’t even blink. We’ll probably all just follow her up to wherever she takes us next.

Even those of you who are frequent listeners to the banjo in all its forms probably don’t think of it as a rock instrument, but the way she moves when she’s holding it is like she’s the lead guitarist in some raucous band. When she’s face to face with Mandy Fer, the actual guitarist, you can see the two of them pulling energy from each other, magnifying each other, until the explosion of sound rushes around them and hits every other person in the room.

The woman next to me, my new friend, makes a soft-voiced comment that she doesn’t think she could do those deep knee bends as part of her regular day, let alone whilst trying to play the banjo. We agree. I ask the friend I’ve brought with me, a clarinet player herself in another life, whether she’d ever tried to play the clarinet whilst still having a banjo hanging around her neck. The answer, you may be unsurprised to hear, is no. A clarinet on its own is more than trouble enough. There’s something very special going on here.

Special not just because of the music. With the exception of Tony Bennett and Willard White, every concert I’ve seen has involved a little bit of talk between the tracks, those moments where you and the artist connect in a very different way. Allison Russell speaks about the backstory, of course, because Outside Child is very much a narrative, and the horror and the hope are a huge part of what makes it distinct. She also expresses her delight to see us:

“You sold out! On a Wednesday! In a pandemic!”

Like it’s the most delightful surprise. Like her getting to be here with us is even more of a privilege than us being there with her.

She introduces the band, Mandy Fer who I recognise from some of the videos I’ve watched, Elena Canlas and (I think, based on my desperate internet search for viola players associated with Allison Russell) Nikki Shorts, who I do not.

Every time I’ve seen a clip of Allison Russell live, the line of musicians with her changes, twisting out new turns in every arrangement. I don’t realise at first that this particular iteration involves a viola player who’d only been called in a few days before. You’d never guess from the sound she makes. I have to laugh a bit when Allison tells us that she wouldn’t dream of telling the band what to play, that each of them is great enough in their own right that she has complete trust in their harmonies. I suppose you can do that when you have a “circle of goddesses”, as she likes to describe them, in unlimited supply.

Not only does she spend as much time telling us to go and look up her band’s other projects as she does promoting her own work, also spends a significant number of minutes pushing us to go and listen to Leyla McCalla’s latest album, Breaking the Thermometer. She’s right, of course, as I find out when I go home and do as I was told, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen any singer so enthusiastic about telling you to go and listen to other people.

I’m still keeping track of the songs as best as I can, trying to estimate what’s still to come without getting my hopes up. We haven’t heard “Montreal” or “The Hunters” and that’s fine, but we also haven’t heard “Nightflyer”, and I’m pretty certain she won’t miss that one from the set list.

Every time I listen to “Nightflyer”, the song I know meets one I’ve never heard before. Every reconstitution of the band means an arrangement remade, a slight shift in emphasis. Every tweak of a phrase from Allison Russell finds another corner of the song, and a new shade of her voice with it.

I can’t emphasise this enough to you, you need to play the whole album through, again and again, not just “Nightflyer”, and you need to watch live performances, as many of them as you can, on YouTube if you can’t make it to a venue, because you need to hear every nook and cranny her melody, and absorb what that does to the shaping of her story. There are more sides to it than you can imagine, especially not with only one listen.

Now though, it’s not about the rest of the album. All I’m waiting for is “Nightflyer”, just one time. It’s going to be the encore, isn’t it? We’re going to finish on the highest of highs.

“This record has taken us everywhere,” she says, “It’s taken us to the Junos, and the Grammys…Sing along if you know it. If you don’t know it, sing along anyway!”

We all laugh. We all know what’s coming and yes, we all sing along. Every member of the band, Lady Nade stepping back to the stage, Allison Russell herself, plus every member of the audience, together. Like that first time hearing “Willow”, really hearing it for the first time, all the way back in 2005, when the echoes of other people’s voices turned it into something it had never been before, when a room full of strangers became a single feeling that expanded to fill the world, when there was nothing more than those living minutes, nothing before or after, and when nothing else could matter; that’s what it is to hear “Nightflyer” in the belly of Omeara.

I look at my friend and she’s singing as enthusiastically as if she’s known the song forever, as though this isn’t something I’d pulled her into just weeks ago. I look at the woman I met just a few hours before and see the smile in every note she voices. I look around, turning my head to that entire congregation, and every single one of them is here, right here, and we’re all as one. Time disappears. It’s hard to believe that the music ever finally stills, that the stage empties as the musicians leave and we we’re left in the cool and the quiet again. The song is still in our throats.

I listened to this radio program, once. I was out in Oman with my parents as we drove the long, dusty road from Thumrait to Salalah. It was an English-language program by an Arab woman and she was explaining, for the benefit of her other Arab listeners, the concept of the “English understatement.” You know what she means: when “not great” translates to “kind of awful”, when you say something’s “not bad” to express that you find it brilliant, when “pretty good, actually,” means it’s the best thing you’ve ever heard. I’d never really thought of it as a thing, let alone something that would need clarifying for people who weren’t English, but it’s stuck with me for years.

Anyway, I say all this to explain the rationale for my first comment at the end of the show, as the musicians finally depart but the sound they played still echoes, when every member of that audience still has that energy radiating from their skin. I look back to my friend, anxious to know if dragging her here was worth it, and I know the answer as soon as I see her face. Still, I think I’d better check:

“She’s pretty good, isn’t she?”

“She’s incredible!”

My friend had apparently missed the lesson on English understatement.

Some advice, for the non-musicians among you who like to listen to live music. Take someone who knows what they’re doing as your guest whenever you go to a concert. They’ll pick out the things that you don’t notice, explain why certain arrangements are particularly interesting (my other friend dissecting “Breathe” in the audience of Imelda May), point out that there’s not actually a drummer – ok, I probably should have been able to notice that a standard instrument was outright missing – as this friend does on the way out of Omeara, expressing her admiration for that unusual construction, observing all the little percussive moments that came from the keys instead.

We manage to shuffle our way as far as the lobby, where the tables are out and the merch calls incessantly. It must know that the concert has left us vulnerable. I don’t actually have a physical copy of Outside Child yet, so that’s an easy enough decision to make. It’s the second question that needs a little more thought.

“Do I want a t-shirt?” I ask my friend.

It turns out my friend knows the answer better than me:

“You do want a t-shirt, it’s whether you’re going to buy it,” she says as she picks up her own copy of Outside Child.

Fair enough, I agree. I buy one. Then I turn to Lady Nade’s side of the table, where I have to choose between multiple CDs. That’s a bit much. I eventually decide on the most recent one. She’s handling the sales herself, and signing as she goes, so that’s an added bonus. It’s one of those moments again when I find myself explaining my name, something I can do by now almost by rote.

It seems that might be the end of everything, as we finally follow the pathway out into the crackle of a London night.

Well, apart from the fact that right next to the main doors is a stage door, and Allison Russell is standing right there. Just standing there, in her silver and sparkles like she’s still on the stage, but talking to everyone who goes by and letting them take pictures with her, like there’s no barrier between performer and audience. We end up in the queue without even thinking about it.

The trouble with this particular scenario is that if I’m a little bit awkward talking to people I know, I’m pretty much incapable of speech when meeting someone new. My friend takes a picture of me standing next to Allison Russell, but she also has to cover most of the conversation. She tells how she likes to use a cuddly toy to hide her face in family photos, and the story of the imaginary pet spider she had as a kid. That’s a fun listen while my tongue’s still all twisted and I make absolutely no contribution whatsoever.

Then the evening really does come to an end. Back to the tube, back to her flat, but the night still alive and my brain doing what it always does when it’s feeling a lot of things all at once. Balancing on the edge of a new set of words and turning those words into sentences and the sentences into this. Spending far too long writing it down until what’s on the page sounds approximately like what I felt in my head, and then leaving it here for you.

The end of an evening, maybe, but not the end of the story.