#Which is the single funniest string of words to ever be said

[emile-hides]

Hizashi dated Nemuri right after highschool, and Sekijiro when he first started working at UA; neither relationship lasted long but he still goes out of his way to make sure people know they’re all exes.

One of his favorites is calling Sekijiro’s new partner, Ryo, his ex-boyfriend in law

[retvenkos]

“are you always this chaotic?”

A/N: i have an inquisitive anon in my ask box that deserves the whole world, and i decided their amazing (sometime hilarious) ask deserved better formatting, so here we are. sweet anon, this is for you.

tw: language

@bladesappreciationweek​​ A COLLECTION OF RANDOM HEADCANONS AND MEMES FOR THE INCOMPARABLE BLADES COMPANY...

who reserves the right to say “fuck”?

mal does not deserve the right. 10/10 he would use it every other word just for the effect of it all (scandalizing tyril who is upper class and thinks there are “better, more intellectual insults” and upsetting nia who tries to play it off like it doesn’t bother her, but she doesn’t like it). no rights, we’re censoring mal.

nia deserves the right, but she would never use it. not even in her dreadlord state did she utter it (the dreadlord is also an upper class elitist, fight me) but she argues with mal that she can say it and she would, but scholar vash is watching over her right now and she can’t disgrace him (scholar vash would be vvv proud if she said it, though, don’t even lie). olinda egged her on one night and she whispered it, dissolving into a fit of giggles afterward, but neither of them speak of it afterward.

tyril does not deserve the right. he believes himself too good™ for such a word, so he doesn’t get rights. he says he’s better than banal vernacular, thank you very much, but that’s awfully presumptuous of him and fails to take into account that, at all times he’s 5 seconds away from saying it, now that mal has entered his life. 100%, mal is trying to get tyril to say it by startling him at unnecessary times or just being generally irritating, and he never gets tyril to crack. i imagine tyril does end up saying it, though. aerin turns out to be the bad guy and nia falls into the portal or whatever and tyril is just like “...... fuck.” mal is bitter he wasn’t the one to make it happen, but he doesn’t whine about it until after the dreadlord has been defeated. nia is slightly upset that she was the reason tyril broke his solemn vow, but she also laughed thoroughly at mal’s rendition of the moment and regrets that she wasn’t there to see it.

imtura deserves the right and uses it. imtura curses like a sailor. .....get it? because she’s a— alright, you get it. but yes, imtura gets to the right to say fuck and she says it enough for everyone. if mal ever wants to express himself using the expletive, imtura will gladly say it for him. solidarity. but she’s also sweet, deep down, and she keeps her swearing to a minimum when nia is around. 

olinda deserves the right, 100%. she doesn’t say it often, but when she does, it has such power. mal wishes he had the commanding presence. olinda is generally too intent on finding a solution to the problem to ever dwell on failure, but when she goes into battle and realizes her group is terrible outnumbered? oop, there it is.

kade. oh, my sweet summer child, who swears often enough to rival imtura. 100%, he deserves the say “fuck” because every bard deserves free access to every word they can get their hands on. it’s rather funny that kade has a terrible mouth, since he’s like the golden retriever of the group (barring nia, ofc), but it’s also rather fitting. imtura was taken aback and mal had mad respect after hearing one of his tirades (directed at threep, ofc) and tyril is just like,,,,,, will i ever rEsT? anyway, let kade say fuck.

threep does not, under any circumstance deserve the right. threep will go off if given the right to swear, and it’s terribly annoying. everyone is trying to travel through a small town and then, out of the priestess of light’s travel bag you hear the worst string of curses you’ve ever heard - so many outdated and upper class curses picked up through the millennia and then you hear the most country, farmer swears (thanks, kade). it scandalizes everyone and nia is the poor girl who has to carry threep around. don’t let threep swear, whatever you do. it’s a power far too strong for this world.

what they get a tattoo of...

mal tries desperately to have the ~aesthetic~ so you know he gets something like a compass or a dagger or something equally as wanderlust and vague. it’s hella intricate and it’s probably on his forearm or something. i feel like mal is 100% that guy who has a tattoo for his mom on his chest but is also deeply terrified of commitment so the mere idea of getting a tattoo for someone else paralyzes him with intense fear. i don’t feel like mal is the guy to have writing for tattoos - he’s much more open to drawings than words. he’s all about the imagery. mal probably has a couple of tattoos though - he might be starting a sleeve or something, idk.

nia would deliberate long and hard before getting a tattoo - it’s permanent, after all, so she wants it to be something special. she 100% puts it on her lower back, which she grows to regret because she can’t actually see it? it is probably a flower a drawing of the temple of light, or a light crystal or something. i have a feeling there’s a prayer written in cursive that kind of wraps around the image she has tattooed. mal took her to get her tattoo and he was a proud brother™.

tyril was 100% that emo kid who wrote angsty song lyrics in a notebook, and that has not changed. i 100% guarantee that his first tattoo is a poem or something that he either wrote himself or desperately wishes he had written. he probably has it tattooed on his side or something equally as dramatic. mal wishes he had the flair that tyril just naturally carries. he’s iconic™ without even trying. he probably only has a few tattoos and most of them are small. he was one big tattoo on his back - it’s elaborate and kind of works like a family tree. it’s unique to him - he likes the idea that he carries his ancestors with him, no matter where he goes. nia notices one night that the company is on it, too, and she never says anything, but she’s touched.

imtura gets all the NAUTICAL IMAGERY. she 100% has one of those bands wrapping around her bicep, made of waves. i also imagine that imtura has a lot of ink? it’s what she deserves, and i feel like orcs are really artistic with their tattoos - their tattoos are culturally relevant and she has a story for every single one. mal knows every single story - they get sentimental on night watches. i imagine that imtura also knows how to give tattoos, so i headcanon that she gave olinda one that represents the company. imtura thought it was very sappy, but deep down, she was honored to do it.

olinda. similar to imtura, olinda has a lot of ink. the only difference is that she gets hers later on. there is one (1) person who knows how to tattoo in riverbend, and olinda got a few from them, but once she goes out to see the world? she’s going to the good™ tattoo artists and she’s fulfilling her dreams. i feel like olinda get’s her tattoos in very pointed spots - she definitely has a sleeve and you can “read” it from top to bottom - the story of her life. kade jokes that olinda’s memory is shot and so she has to get tattoos to remember her story, but he also really admires them. olinda has a lot of constellation tattoos, including some of the ones that kade made up. she’s very sappy, tbh.

kade got one (1) tattoo when he and olinda were piss drunk. it’s a matching tattoo with olinda that’s very weird and makes no sense at all. you had to be there, and tbh, even if you were there, it doesn’t make sense. to top it all off, it’s on his bicep so that when he flexes, it wiggles. at the time, olinda and kade thought it was the funniest thing and they died of laughter. does he regret it? kade maintains that he doesn’t. does he know the story behind it? he likes to say he does, but he actually doesn’t. olinda knows, and sometimes she’ll drop vague hints to see if it jogs his memory. kade maintains that he’ll never get another tattoo. once was enough.

modern! au ethnicities

disclaimer that there are a lot of great headcanons out there, and i’m here for most of them, these are just my ideas..

i imagine that mal is indian or pakistani, nia is brazilian or dominican, tyril is japanese or mongolian, imtura is maori or samoan, olinda is latina, and kade is half hispanic, half filipino.

when texting.... (and some handwriting thoughts)...

a modern! au? idk, maybe just an au where they somehow have modern technology? anyway...

mal grossly overuses emojis. his favorites are these: 🤑🔪😎😏. he also never uses proper capitalization and punctuation, and he uses abbreviations far too often. you need a key to figure out some of his texts, but imtura and olinda just know what he means. his philosophy is style and speed over substance. when he writes handwritten notes, though, his handwriting is a very fancy cursive and the care he puts into each letter is amazing. he only ever handwrites love letters to olinda and “i hate you <3″ letters to tyril, though. he did write a heartfelt birthday letter to nia, once. she framed it.

nia is my favorite because she texts like a grandparent, where they format texts like a letter and have perfect punctuation and capitalization. when she got a text from mal, she was very confused by what he was trying to express, but she wanted to know how he got the “cute faces” and mal immediately dropped everything to teach her how to use emojis. she loves them and probably uses a string of emojis at the end of her text as a part of her signature, like: [ the body of the text ] Best, Nia 😇🥰👑💖🌸 but her handwriting! it’s very nice. the temple of light had penmanship classes and nia excelled. ngl, she probably does caligraphy.

tyril uses no capitalization. punctuation only. you can hear the sarcasm through his text. he also hates emojis and memes with a burning passion. he has used this, though: -.-  he did it for nia. she loved it and now every time they text, he ends his texts with his “emoji”. mal teases him because it’s dumb and now it’s a running gag that everyone send the weird emoji to each other. it’s the tyril face! tyril wants to jump off a bridge, but also finds it very sweet? he has people giving him emoji’s? is that like.... friendship? anyway, his handwriting is terrible. glorified chicken scratch. it’s efficient and nearly illegible. perfect.

imtura, on the other hand texts the most “traditionally”. she doesn’t really adhere to capitalization, and she never has the ending period, but you know what she’s saying. it’s decent. she doesn’t like to complicate things, but kade introduced her to memes and now she and him communicate together solely using low resolution memes that no one else likes. it’s very annoying but very endearing. her handwriting is nice - simple and easy to understand. she uses a lot of shorthand and a lot of sailor jargon that goes over some people’s (read: tyril’s) heads, but is smart and to the point.

olinda, actually, is the one to have proper punctuation and capitalization, with little flavor to her texts. occasionally she’ll send an emoji or two, but mostly it’s just... communication. she much prefers calling, and will call you 20 times in a row until you answer. she forces tyril to facetime her and he rolls his eyes but secretly loves it. communication is much more efficient when you can see each others facial expressions, and boy, does context go a long way when talking with tyril. oH! I FORGOT TO MENTION - olinda grew up on a rural farm. olinda chronically says “y’all” and has all of those weird, farm related sayings. kade doesn’t have this problem because he “trained himself in verse” and said that he had to be “worldly” not “farm chic.” anyway, her handwriting is kind of careless in nature - not especially nice, but not especially terrible, either. it’s a hybrid between cursive and print (whatever is fastest is best).

kade texts solely in dank memes and lengthy prose. he is the most chaotic person in the group chat, either bidding the company to draw near by sending them four stanzas of incredibly vague meaning (only tyril and olinda understand) or he’s sending “vroom vroom bitch” memes that mal and imtura adore. the blades book may not have given kade flavor, but on GOD i will give it to him because a bard requires chaotic vibes, even if he has a tragic backstory. you know what? especially because he has a tragic backstory, kade deserves some chaos. give me chaotic kade or give me death. as for handwriting, i like to think that kade has two modes: “drafting” handwriting (chicken scratch to rival tyril) and “final product” handwriting that is purposefully and beautifully penned. he had a lot of time to perfect his writing, being sick, and boy did it pay off.

threep deserves to be in this line up, despite not being able to write. in this chaotic technology au, nia has created an instagram page for threep, and because he’s one of the last living nespers, it goes viral. when olinda and mal stumble upon it they have to laugh because it’s full of really expertly done ~aesthetic~ photos with really sweet captions - things threep wouldn’t say in a million years. the account is only up for a few months and at first the posting is really consistent, and then it suddenly falls apart and the account is deleted soon after. apparently, threep didn’t know the instagram account existed and when he found out, he and nia had legendary fights and wouldn’t speak for like, 2 weeks after. nia made a very shady and slightly vague call out post and it was the first time the company really saw her get petty. the instagram page was the perfect fuel for kade’s scathing and petty remarks at threep, and threep came out hard, making a dig at kade’s writing and his stupid tattoo. threep nearly died at the hands of the two sweetest - kade and nia. it was certainly one for the books.

high school! au

(you are right, anon, a high school au would be iconic™)

mal is 100% a band kid. he has the “i play the guitar to be cool” vibes. and besides, the guitar player in the band is always a little more ~rebellious~ than the other band kids (superseded only by the standing bass kids in orchestra, who had unrivaled chaotic evil energy). plus, mal has a flair for the dramatic, which the band kids have in spades. mal is a little too much of a rule breaker to have been on any teams or anything super structured like that, and while we all know that he’s a heartbreaker, he’s not a popular kid™ because (at least in my school) the popular kids are always rich kids who run in the “right” circles. mal is too cool for that.

nia on the other hand is the smart prep that’s really sweet. like, the girl who’s friends with the cheerleaders and could have been one, too, if she wasn’t so shy™. she’s mostly overlooked in favor of the more glamorous, but everyone knows nia and they’re all like, “yeah! she’s cute! and smart, and nice.” she’s probably in like, robotics club or something equally as estranged but smart. 100%, nia is the gabriella montez archetype. she’s in a few clubs, including choir, where her angelic voice earns her a few solos. people are always trying to give her positions of power in their clubs, but she graciously declines because she’s stretched too thin and stress is a thing.

tyril. i know you all want him to be like, the smart one who’s in debate club and is really charming, but tyril’s social skills are not cut out for that. tyril is like that smart kid who sits at the back of history class and knows all the answers but never raises his hand. he has one (1) popular friend who has been close with him since they were both in diapers, but he doesn’t feel comfortable with their friends so he just kinda sits alone for the most part. he was picked up once by the emo artsy kids, but it didn’t really stick. he likes poetry class and does a metal working class because he can be alone with his headphones and thoughts™. in high school he’s just brooding without the mystery. tyril cringes at his youth. he’s too strong and iconic in his current age, so he had to be cringeworthy in his teen years. perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

imtura was 100% that cool, slightly edgy girl on the volleyball team. she was popular with the students and the teachers - like, this is the student that the school mentions is going places, and yet are also like,,,, “let’s try to guide you over here, imtura. you have such potential! don’t squander it!” and imtura hates nothing more than their incessant pleas for her to be the model student. she just wants to travel the world, maybe join a punk band, and get lost at sea. that’s not too much to ask, right? she’s also on the football team, and she’s team captain. she lives in sweatpants and workout clothes, and they actually really suit her? definitely crush material, this one. she’s probably also throws some killer weekend parties with mal’s input.

olinda was harder to place, but i imagine that she’s one of those hands on kids, taking woodworking, metal working, and auto mechanics classes. maybe she was on the soccer team, one year, but that didn’t really work out. she’s a team player and all, but she likes something with a little more purpose. she met tyril in metalworking, she met mal when helping with sets for the school play (he was annoying the theatre kids, as per usual), she met imtura in gym class because imtura picked her to be on her flag football team (which was a great choice, really), and she met nia when she went to the choir room, looking for kade. she’s not popular, per se, but people know her face and they think she’s pretty cool.

kade on the other hand, is 100% an artsy theatre kid. he’s not the super obnoxious theatre kid, and he’s not the snobby theatre kid either, he’s kind of like the older sibling theatre kid who’s infinitely cooler than you, incredibly talented, but also really down to earth and ready to create an elaborate inside joke with you over the course of the year. he has it all: the tragic backstory that adds flavor and depth to his writing, the kind personality that gets him friends wherever he goes, the amazing vocals that make him a shoe in for every performance..... but he often gets overlooked. why? it’s one of those injustices that just don’t make sense. he’s decently popular among the art nerds, and everyone wonders why he doesn’t get lead roles. a real ryan evans, if we want to go with a hsm reference.

AND FLUFF ENSUES.

-- taglist: @musicallisto​, @missameliep​ // message me if you want to be added!

[bettsfic]

Hi Betts, hoping for your guidance if you have the time. No pressure really. But my course will be focusing quite a bit on Shakespeare for the rest of this year. Do you have any advice for someone who isn’t really a writer on how to understand Shakespeare better? Have you read much of it? How did you tackle understanding the language? Is it just reading a lot more of it and looking up words? I struggle getting through one play, but is it just pushing through it? Resources you found helpful?

i feel like i’ve been waiting my whole life for this question. 

i’m feral for shakespeare. i have a hamlet tattoo. i have an unfortunate number of monologues memorized on the off-chance someone at some point goes “hey does anyone know any good monologues?” and i can be all “TO BE OR FUCKING NOT TO BE, BITCHES” or “ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH DEAR FRIENDS, ONCE FUCKING MORE.” i have an actual literal lecture on how richard ii is a greedy glamazon bitch, and an outline for an article on how lady macbeth can teach us everything we need to know about sympathy in fiction.

like many people, high school made me despise shakespeare. i can’t tell if it was the simple coercion of being forced to read things, period, or that we were made to treat everything so seriously, and expected to understand the use of language as if it were like anything else we were reading. 

then when i was 23ish, i got obsessed with doctor who, which led me to david tennant’s filmography, and david tennant happens to have done really a lot of shakespeare. when i geared up to watch his hamlet, however, i thought, i want to read this first, so i can see how different it is from my perception of it.

cue me surreptitiously scrolling through the wikisource version of hamlet while pretending to listen to conference calls at work. i think that helped, making it something i wasn’t allowed to do. it made reading feel like an indulgence. 

free of the constraints of “i’m going to have to write a five-paragraph essay about this when i’m done,” i began to read very casually, only trying to understand what was going on and not trying to find any profound meaning in it. 

in doing that, i realized i was actually doing it correctly. these are plays, meant to be performed on a stage, to entertain, immerse, and evoke feeling. you’re supposed to be sad at the end of tragedies and happy at the end of comedies. however, reading the plays is a far different experience than watching them, and in many ways more of a challenge.

you can’t read a play, especially a shakespeare play, like a book. prose and poetry both lend themselves to crafting intentional images. the entire thing exists to be and only be read. but plays and scripts are just one piece of a much larger puzzle, involving directors and actors and costume designers and set designers. bringing a play to life is a team effort. when you’re reading, you’re only seeing the skeleton of the story. it’s like reading a guidebook for a vacation destination. you can get the gist of it but only truly know a place by going there.

you can’t read shakespeare as a reader. you have to read as a director. you have to envision each actor, and after every line, decide where they are standing on stage, how they deliver their line, and what happens between each line. shakespeare gives almost no stage direction, so you have a lot of creative license in interpretation.

another thing to remember is that shakespeare is first and foremost a rhetorician. he wanted his words to be memorable and beautiful, to persuade and delight. if he wanted to be understood simply, he would have written simply. but instead, he uses 17 lines where 1 would have sufficed. it’s helpful, after every line, to consciously ask yourself, “what has just been said?” and very often the answer is simple. a yes or a no, i agree or disagree, or even sometimes banal statements.

consider hamlet’s “to be or not to be.” he goes on and on and on, but he’s really just being the “guess i’ll just die” meme. in the comedies, shakespeare often uses this effect as a joke. one character will go on and on, and another character gives a simple and curt and blunt reply, and depending on the delivery, it’s hilarious. 

you’re not supposed to love hamlet, or richard ii, or macbeth, or any other character. the tragedies are train wrecks that make you go “i get why you’re doing this but you need to Stop.” the comedies are similar, in that the characters sometimes make you go “you are being so fucking stupid.” it’s the sense of irony, the “i know what’s right in this situation but you don’t” that creates a huge amount of engagement. we’re always bracing ourselves for what comes next.

so here’s how i recommend reading shakespeare:

pick a play, and pick a version or two to watch afterward. here’s a really great list of productions. personally, i’d stick to ones where you’re familiar with the actors, which heightens the engagement. 

before you start reading, consciously cast each character, using actors you really like. or, instead of actors, you can cast your favorite characters as if they were in an AU version of your current fandom. reading shakespeare as fanfic is a speedy way of ensuring your emotional investment.

pull up the wikipedia plot summary of the play to have on hand while you read. every few pages or so, line your reading up with the summary to make sure you’ve caught onto what’s been happening.

as you read, direct the actors you’ve chosen. how do they deliver the line? sometimes this takes a few tries. you can’t let your eyes move left to right across the page and just expect to miraculously understand it as if it were prose. you have to puzzle it out.

if you’re really stuck on something, pull up the spark notes version. there’s no shame in that. if you compare with spark notes enough, you begin to get a sense of the language and begin to need it less and less.

when you’re done, order a pizza, pour a glass of wine, and watch your chosen production version. delight in already understanding what’s happening, figure out where you might have been wrong or confused, and revel in the places you were right. 

watch another production and see how your version, the last version, and this version all differ. 

if you get all the way to this point and you’re not utterly in love, i don’t know what to tell you. i think i watched wyndham theater’s much ado over a hundred times. rsc’s hamlet probably just as much. i have yet to watch or read a single play i didn’t at least appreciate. i’m one of the few people who even enjoys titus andronicus. 

shakespeare takes a lot of energy, but it’s worth it. once you get a feel for the strings he pulls and how he pulls them, it’s like opening a door to a whole other world. you see clips of phrases from this play or that, understand subtle references, and see how his influence exists in nearly everything. you can use his characters and plots and dynamics in all your own work. you can reach backward to see his own influences in greek plays, and forward to see his influences throughout all of literature. it’s amazing, not just who he was, but how his plays are still both so beautiful and so human. 

i’ve skipped over rhetoric, craft, the sonnets, and a few other things that i really enjoy about shakespeare, but those are probably topics for another time. if you’re looking for somewhere to start, i highly recommend much ado about nothing, particularly the wyndham 2009 production with david tennant and catherine tate which is genuinely one of the funniest things i’ve ever watched. it’s fun to compare it to the 1994 kenneth branaugh film and then rage against whedon’s 2013 travesty. 

best of luck in your shakespearean pursuit!

[unstoppableforcce]

how wonderful

pairing: Poe Dameron x doctor! reader

a commission for @cammisanders: the song Your Song by Elton John ft. a doctor with Poe Dameron thats sickenly sweet :)

masterlist | ko-fi | commissions

a/n: I’m so excited for this that I accidentally made it so long! it’s okay though! there are worse problems to have! thanks so much babe !!

It’s a little bit funny, this feeling inside

The second he dipped his head over the edge of the trash receptacle, he knew it had to be the green meat that did him in.

He didn’t want it in the first place, but Snap insisted.

It’s a delicacy, he said, you have to try it, the local girls are staring.

Who was he to say no to that? He ate the green meat, much to the dismay of his stomach and the laughing locals who were mulling around in the market. At first, it was even good. The flavors were mind-blowing.

Unfortunately, it now felt like his stomach was on the verge of blowing.

And he had absolutely nothing to wash it down with now, sat in the cargo hold as they were being shuttled back to base with the rest of the squadron. He drank the last of his water the minute he began to feel sick, now that was also in the trash receptacle and all he had left were the expectant stares of all the soldiers waiting around, crammed too tightly in the small hull of the ship.

“Are you alright Commander?” One of the twi’lek fighters had the audacity to question as he wiped the persistent string of spit from his hung open mouth.

And Snap, kriffing Snap, he was laughing as if it was the funniest thing he had ever laid eyes on. Clearly the green meat was not disagreeing with him.

A smart, and incredibly witty, well-thought-out response made it’s way to his tongue, unfortunately, so did the next wave of sickness, so instead of putting the laughing squadron in their place, he returned his head to the receptacle and suffered the rest of the way to base.

Screw debrief, (Don’t tell Leia he said it), but he had to head to medical. The overwhelmingly crowded and understaffed medical bay which was the exact place he did not want to be.

Because you were there.

And he had no charm, nothing to work with. He was as green as the meat was, a never-ending coating of saliva across his lips and from what he could tell, breath that smelled worse than a bantha pit.

You weren’t falling for him when he was charismatic and saving the galaxy, this certainly wasn’t going to help.

The only thing he could hope for was that you were somehow off-duty, or that stupid sicknesses were far below your paygrade. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t even see you.

If he was lucky—

“Is the CMO around? This is a pretty important case, you know.” Snap slapped him on the back as he appeared from behind him at the front desk.

The poor pink-skinned nurse nodded approvingly before grabbing her communicator and dialing you, the chief medical officer, directly. Because of course.

“Snap, I swear to—” He was bent back over the nearest receptacle before he could even get the rest out, and again, Snap’s laughter could not be quenched.

His head was still over the bin when it finally dissipated, and he actually took a deep breath before spitting one last time. Except Snap had only stopped because, of course, you were there, dressed in uniform and now doing your best impression of the man who had gotten him into this in the first place with that goddamn green meat—

“Sick isn’t a very good look on you, Dameron.” You mocked, having a hard time stifling your laugh.

He went to pass a very angry side-eyed glance to Snap, but the man of the hour had conveniently turned away, leaving Poe to wallow through the trenches alone.

“What are you talking about, I look great—” Another roar of his stomach tore through him before he could finish again, earning another earnest chuckle from you before you stepped forward and placed your hand on his back.

“I look better than I feel.” He defended with an exhausted sigh into the receptacle.

“That isn’t saying much.”

Laughter. That was a bad idea. The second the corners of his lips made any hint of an upturn, his stomach flipped over on itself once again.

“You know, this isn’t normally the kind of sick I feel when you’re around.” As soon as the words fell with the next string of saliva, he clenched his eyes shut realizing how it sounded.

“Oh really?”

“That isn’t what I meant. I meant like butterflies.”

“Sure, you did.”

He laughed again, actually able to lift his head from the bin this time. Your hand still stayed on his back, rubbing small circles over and over.

“I did.” He sighed, rubbing over his mess of a face.

You gave a small smirk in response, “Alright, come on, sickie, you can tell me what you ate as we get you to a room.”

“You don’t want to know.”

I’m not one of those who can easily hide

It was the fourteenth time he mentioned that he would like to take you out that you said yes.

Well, technically, you had said yes the fourth time, but as CMO, it was almost impossible to get time alone with you during normal work weeks unless he considered private examinations where you stitched him up or pumped his stomach. Even when you were off, you were being called in.

So, by time fourteen, when he asked and you had time, you said yes.

And he figured if he could get you off base, they couldn’t call you back. The local cantina it was then.

Unfortunately, it seemed the rest of the base had the exact same idea.

He was already running late, his meeting with the General running longer than he expected, and the second he walked in, the entirety of the already monstrous crowd roared a greeting. They cheered, glasses raised in the air, all shouting his name and forming a dense crowd around him, making it impossible to find you anywhere.

A drink was forced into his hand and it was subsequently clinked by the next twelve people he passed, not a single one of them you, no matter how hard he looked around the crowd.

Not until Snap, and his towering form, grabbing him from behind and pointed him towards the back corner. To you. Alone in a booth, snickering into your drink as you watched commotion going down around him.

Snap gave a quick salute and you easily reciprocated it.

“Don’t mess this up.” Snap minded into his ear as he pushed him in your direction.

As if he wasn’t already terrified. Of messing it up, that was.

Fighting the crowd, he finally got to you, sliding into the booth across from you, but not before a waiter could wander by and give him another free drink, muttering something about its origin, but Poe didn’t hear it. The second he sat down, his attention was all on you.

“I’m so sorry I’m late.” He sighed, finally looking to the glass in his hand and giving it a brief sniff before sipping at the sour flavor. “There was the General, and this crowd, I didn’t—”

“You are quite popular, Commander.” You muttered back, almost inaudible over the still roaring crowd. “You do something noteworthy recently that I missed?”

A playful quick of your brow came with the question. He sighed out a deep breath, you weren’t mad. That was good.

“I threw up on your floor, is that the kind of thing you mean?” He chuckled out, smoothing back over his hair with a hand, trying to compose himself, but the cheers in the background only continued raging on.

You had to lean forward to even catch his quip, even then, he wasn’t sure you even heard it as you laughed back.

“That was something.” You muttered as your stare fell back to your glass, swirling the liquid back and forth, not even drinking it.

He did a brief scan of the crowd, half the eyes looking his way. It seemed that against all odds, Snap was the only one not paying any attention to him at the moment, the only one trying to give him his privacy.

“Do you want to get out of here?” He made sure you heard him loud and clear, that was for sure. One brow raised his way and again, he realized how what he said sounded. He waved his hands, shaking his head with a laugh. “I mean, somewhere quieter?”

You let a small smile crawl back to your lips and shrugged, taking the last of your drink in one go and standing as he did.

“Are we going to have to fight our way out of here?” You asked, allowing him to take your hand as the two of you moved for the door, you in front of him.

“Don’t worry, I think I can take them.” He leaned into you, breath hot on the side of your face as he spoke directly into your ear, still guiding you with your hand in his, but now an added hand on your waist.

“You sure? You’re still recovering from that deadly food poisoning attack—”

He chuckled out, shaking his head as you laughed.

“I had a good doctor.” He added back before he reached ahead of you and pushed the door open.

I know it’s not much, but it’s the best I can do

Nights on D’kar could get cold and had you known you were going to have to be out in it, you would have dressed accordingly.

But in your defense, it was hot in the cantina, and you had dressed for that.

Poe didn’t mind shedding his jacket though, draping it over your shoulders before you even had to ask as you walked back towards base.

He led you towards base, but at the last second, he made a turn, skirting along the edge of the hanger, following the metal wall all the way around to the back of the base. It was a much better view of the expansive green landscape that the small planet had to offer. A view enough to take your breath away as you pulled out of the jungle to a small clearing.

Certainly a better view than the sterile walls which had been the majority of your view since you were transferred there.

“Not exactly the typical first date location…” He muttered, sticking his hands into his pocket as he scanned the view but quickly came back to land his stare on you. “They don’t serve liquor here, so, unfortunately, you’ll have to deal with me sober for the rest of the night.”

It didn’t sound like a joke, it sounded like it was his best attempt to make his alternative as attractive as the cantina he ruined by simply being who he was. But he tried to make it a joke, giving a brief smile as you looked back to him.

You simply grabbed back for his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “There are worse things.” You mock sarcastically, incapable of keeping a straight face as a real smile pulls at his bright face.

“Like me throwing up?” He challenged.

“Well, on the same day, I had to treat a few wounds worse than even that, so you don’t even make the list I’m afraid.”

“A comforting sentiment.” He smirked, gently pulling you closer, his thumb skimming the skin where his jacket hung too long on your arms.

“It’s probably worth mentioning that food poisoning falls a bit beneath my paygrade anyways, you know.” You laughed some, allowing him to draw you closer. “Chief medical officer and all…”

“I was trying to avoid you actually.” He shook his head, a few of his longer curls falling into his face.

“Oh yeah? Because of the butterflies?”

He chuckled, carefully grazing around your waist with his other hand, tugging you into slowly until there was no room left between the two of you. “Because I thought that I couldn’t be charming with my head in the trash.”

“You underestimate yourself, Dameron.” It seemed that the smirk was now permanent on your lips. Or maybe that was just because he was having trouble looking anywhere else. “You’re plenty charming, even—”

“Even while throwing up?”

“You’d be surprised.”

He couldn’t help himself as the last stifled laugh fought from your lips. He had to lean in, and you eagerly met him there.

So excuse me forgetting

The soldier flinched as the cool bacta met his skin, but it didn’t stop you. Your focus remained absolute.

Even as the wild pilot came bursting into the examination room, out of breath, double over upon entry, holding up a hand to buy himself some time.

“I know—” He took in a heaving breath, trying to stand back upright but failing again, still recovering. “I know that I’m late…”

You kept working, the soldier receiving the treatment reacting more than you did.

“I didn’t forget, see I’m here, I didn’t forget…”

“You didn’t forget?” You mused, finishing up and pulling your gloves off, moving to the nearby pad to check his vitals.

“No, I didn’t forget.”

“Poe, you’re six hours late.” You answered without even looking up from the pad. “And you’ve been on base all day.

His face fell. “I thought we said lunch.”

“Breakfast.” You answered, hitting a few buttons, then dismissing the poor soldier caught in the middle.

“Breakfast.” He shook his head, wiping the sweat from his brow as he had just come from training. “Right, yes, I knew that. Breakfast.”

“You’d be two hours late for lunch anyways.” You continued, setting everything down and crossing your arms over your chest.

He sighed. He’d been in drills, then training. But that wasn’t an excuse. He could’ve sent a message, he could have rescheduled—

“It’s okay.” You sighed, shaking your head.

“No, it’s not. I should have told you—”

“Poe.” He walked straight to you and grabbed you by the sides of your face, holding you in close.

“I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you.”

You nodded and he immediately kissed you. A kiss with the hunger of someone who missed both breakfast and lunch.

“I didn’t mean now.” You giggled slightly as he continued kissing even as you pulled back to talk. “Poe.”

“Then tonight.” He sighed, reluctantly pulling back.

“I’ll be working.” You sighed back, hanging onto his flight suit. “It’s okay.”

Leaning forward, he pressed his forehead to yours and nodded gently, just enough for you to feel the motion.

“I have to get back to work.”

He stole one last kiss before letting you go.

Yours are the sweetest eyes I’ve ever seen

“Doctor?”

Humming out a brief response, you continued scrolling through the chart in your hand until the question turned into an adamant tap on your shoulder, forcing you around, a pink-skinned nurse waiting with nervous and shaking hands.

“What’s wrong?” You couldn’t distance your focus from the wringing of their hands, their entire disposition emitting waves of nerves, putting you immediately on edge. “Nurse-”

“There’s a patient waiting for you.” They ranted out, the words tumbling from their lips in a burst, barely distinct. But they took a deep breath and repeated, “There’s a patient in room 204 for you.”

You let your brow furrow on your face, setting the pad down. “A patient?”

It had been a relatively slow night, you wouldn’t jinx it by calling it quiet, knowing one word would send a barrage of patients surely, but it was slow. Slow enough that you thought you would know if there was a patient in the back room usually left open for medical staff on long shifts.

In fact, you were sure you would know if there was a patient in there.

“Yes, a patient waiting for you.” They held to their obvious lie, the nervousness melting to a slight smirk almost, though that did nothing to ease your hesitance.

You shrugged, crossing your arms over your chest, “They’re waiting for me? This patient?”

“Doctor, I think that you should just go check it out.”

And with that, they evacuated the area without another word, leaving you to stew in your confusion. Or to stew for a brief second before you caved and reluctantly headed towards the back examination room.

Upon approach, the lack of light under the door was all you needed to know there was no actual patient in there, but you were certain it was some cruel prank from the nurses and interns, it had to be. They had gotten your second just a few days previous, trapping him in the examination room with the vicious smell of a decaying parasite that had been pulled from a patient earlier in the day.

Slow days were primed for pranks of the sort. And as you walked towards what you were sure was something similar, you reminded yourself you were doing it for morale.

If torturing the CMO was what it took to keep spirits up during the hard times, then you had no choice but to comply.

Opening the door, you reached for the light switch by the door immediately but something warm caught your hand, making you yelp out in surprise though you knew to anticipate something. You widened your eyes in search of the source but instead, you were spun by the hand on yours into a firm body.

A firm body you knew very well.

“Poe?” You practically scoffed out, reaching your hand up into his curls to confirm, eliciting a short chuckle from his lips as he nodded. Though in the dark, you couldn’t make it out, no matter how hard you squinted.

He shushed you, hesitantly holding a finger to your lips, “Yeah, it’s me.”

“What the hell are you doing in here, I thought this was some kind of prank.” Your voice turned to a whisper as he pulled your further into the dark room.

He merely chuckled again “I’m not here to prank you.”

“What are you here for?”

“I heard it was a slow night,” releasing your hand, he moved to grip tightly onto the lapels of your uniform. “And I had a missed date to make up for.”

“So you bribed a nurse to send me in here?” You giggled into his grip, only growing more and more effervescent as he began pushing the coat off your shoulders, letting it fall with the clank of your supplies to the floor.

“I…” He pressed another short kiss to your lips, barely there as the two of you were smiling too much. “I didn’t bribe them, I just asked really really nicely.”

“With that good ole Dameron charm?” Your brow quirked, just the one in a challenge, he couldn’t see it but he could hear it in the playful shift of your tone.

“I thought you liked my charm?”

The back of your legs hit the bed behind you, and you laughed , loud enough to force him to shush you again, this time with his lips onto yours. His fingers began playing with your belt, then moving to pull out your tucked shirt from the line of your pants, continually trying to get it over your head as you fought it gently.

“This is irresponsible, Poe, I’m CMO—”

He interrupted you with a kiss, moving from the hem of your shirt to his own, pulling it over his head. As he moved back in, you laid your hands back onto his bare chest, trailing down along his abdomen even as your words argued in the opposite direction.

“Poe—”

“Even the CMO gets a ten-minute break, right?” He pulled that charm back out again and moved his lips to your throat.

“Ten minutes? Overestimating yourself a little, aren’t we?”

This time it was him who chuckled loud enough for you to need to shush him, lacing your fingers back into his curls and tugging his lips back up to yours. When he moved for your shirt again, you let him tug it off and over your head.

“You lock the door?” You breathed out as he moved for your belt buckle again.

“Nah…” He looked back up at you, pulling away equally as breathless, “It’s more fun this way, right?”

With him this close, and your eyes finally given enough time to adjust, the two of you could see each other, your eyes standing out in the darkness. He was caught in them, completely immersed until you brought your lips back to his.

Ten minutes. He had ten minutes now, he could stare into your eyes later.

I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words

You hadn’t slept in a week. Things got busy again much faster than you expected.

A ship full of refugees came in the morning after your brief break with Poe in room 204, and from then on out, the only sleep you got was in that exact room. Pillows and sheets lined cots and the floor, every member of medical staff sneaking away whenever timed allowed to grab a few minutes, which was far less often than healthy.

The whole of the department was running on fumes and you were the worst of them all.

Every responsibility was your responsibility, every patient teetering on the verge of stability but never quite there, every time supplies ran out, everytime something broke...

You were exhausted. And you hadn’t seen Poe since that night.

You missed him. You’d messaged him a few times in the few seconds you had to spare, but it wasn’t enough now that you had grown accustomed to falling asleep in his bed, kissing him in passing…

Missing all the strategy meetings left you completely in the dark on where he was, what kind of dangers he was facing, and you couldn’t exactly say it didn’t worry you because it scared you out of your mind. Had you any more time in your schedule, you figured the not-knowing would drive you insane. It was strange to be thankful for the busy distraction that caused your need for distraction in the first place.

“—Doctor?”

Your head snapped off the datapad you hadn’t even realized you fell asleep against. Swiping at your mouth, you pushed away the drool trail and then rubbed at your eyes, trying to prove you weren’t asleep though you didn’t imagine it made much difference to whoever was hailing you.

“Yeah?” You tried to snap back fully awake, turning to the pink-skinned nurse again.

One day you’d learn their name, as soon as you had the time.

“You’re needed in your office.”

Your heart skipped a beat. They didn’t even say it was Poe, but that was where you immediately jumped, were you really that desperate?

Your heart did it again. Yeah, maybe you were.

Nodding, you stood, grabbing the pad and moving off with a quickened pace at the mere idea of him being there. Six days and you were dying to see him, it was absurd and yet you really were desperate to see him—

“Doctor.”

Oh. Not Poe.

“General,” you addressed with a nod of your head, trying not to let your shoulders sag too much as you entered your office. Rubbing at your eyes again, you turned all focus to her, “What can I do for you?”

But her stare was pointedly not directed your way, instead it remained on your hanging board behind your desk, typically riddled with charts and reports.

Not today, however. No, it was completely cleared spare a message typed out in the largest font.

“I know what you’re doing is important, but I miss you and stopped in to say I love you.”

Your eyes fell to the desk, to the small package sat there.

“Is this from you?” You muttered out as you approached your desk, finally gaining the General’s attention back. She merely smiled and shook her head.

“No, I came to discuss the most recent supply counts.” With your eyes pinned to the package, you didn’t look up to see her smug smirk, but you could hear it, you just chose to ignore it.

It was a stupid question, you knew who it was from.

You pulled open the package and again, your heart skipped a beat. Turning it over, the necklace that remained a constant around his neck, the one you often twirled in your fingers as you laid across him, the one holding his mother’s ring around it, fell out into your hand.

There weren’t words to say anyways, even less now that the General was looking over your shoulder.

Turning towards her, you stuttered out, searching for something but coming up blank as you were weighed down by the metal in your hand.

“Black squadron is about to leave...” She said softly, placing a gentle hand on your shoulder, a gentle comfort you didn’t think your purely professional relationship with her garnered but in the moment, you didn’t mind.

“I have to talk to him—”

“You’ll have to hurry.”

“The supply count—”

“Go.”

You didn’t have to be told twice. Not even stripping your coat, you took off running, straight out of the hustling medical bay and down the halls, all the way to the hanger, as fast as your exhausted legs could carry you.

His curls gave him away out of the crowd he was definitely losing the height game against, and you sprinted with the last of the energy you had left, leaping into his arms before he even had time to see you coming.

But in a second, he reacted, changing as much as he could under your intense grip in order to hold you better, to grip you even tighter than before.

“Poe…” You sighed into his neck, making him laugh out somberly.

“I have to go.” He continued to chuckle out, and you could hear his tears without pulling out of his tight embrace. “I didn’t want to distract you from your—”

You pulled back just enough to kiss him, as intensely as you could manage, throwing the last of your energy at him. He made you light-headed on a regular basis, though you figured you couldn’t exactly attribute everything you were feeling to him at the moment. It was disorienting but you fought through it, holding onto the collar of his uniform even tighter.

But he kissed back with the same ferocity.

“Dameron, we have to go!” Someone called out, eventually forcing you to pull away, though leaving your forehead pressed against his.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back, so you’ll keep that safe for me right?” He grabbed your hand still holding the necklace and pulled it from your grasp, draping it around you neck. “I’m not opposed to proposing, I mean, this isn’t necessarily a proposal, I mean it can be…”

He huffed, not being able to think of the words as he gazed into your perfect eyes. But you nodded, encouraging him to keep going.

“I just needed you to know, because I don’t know when I’ll be back—” He chuckled nervously. “I needed you to know that—”

He couldn’t get the words out, but you leaned in and pressed another short kiss to his smiling lips.

“I know.”

How wonderful life is while you’re in the world

[ubernoxa]

The Sip: A GNR Modern Name AU

Chapter 7: An Award Show Interview

Previous Chapters: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Taglist: @str4nge-haze

Chapter Summary: Alanah still has doubts that Duff likes her. Sandy is getting annoyed with how stupid Alanah is.

“What do you mean it only takes you a couple of minutes to get ready?” I stared at Duff in bewilderment as I continued to get ready. I had already finished my hair, and was currently attempting to do my eyeshadow,

My stomach performed backflips as his laughter filled my bathroom. I smiled as I looked at my phone. I wished we weren’t FaceTiming. I wished I was sitting on his couch next to him giggling at his stupid jokes.

It had been two weeks since he came over to the apartment and helped me cook for my livestream. The first week was filled with hopeful texts of hanging out that were quickly canceled because Axl had scheduled time for them to work on some band related stuff. The second week was mainly filled with text and late night calls with no attempt at meeting up.

I didn’t ever ask him to elaborate because he seemed rather...frustrated by it. After the second time he canceled our hangout time (or as Sandy teased, our date), he left me a couple of voicemails that consisted of him drunkly telling me about how his day was or some crazy shit him and Izzy got into. There was always an apology though, he always apologized for canceling our plans.

“I just take a quick shower and then throw on some clothing,” He casually replied. How could this not be a big deal to him.

“Hey Alanah, do you have a sec to zip up my dress?” I froze when I heard Sandy call from the other room.

“One sec, I’ll be back in a moment or two,” I said to Duff as I went to Sandy’s bedroom.

Sandy had been freaking out for the past month about this event, and the fact that it was actually happening didn’t feel real. A few months back YouTube had asked us to perform some red carpet interviews at the AMAs, and we quickly agreed. A little while later Mark, my ex boyfriend (which still feels weird to say), informed me that he was the reason we received the opportunity.

Was it because Sandy and I were borderline influencers? Nope.

Was it all our hard work, late nights, and taking multiple jobs to get the YouTube channel to where it is now? Nope.

According to him, it was because his manager was having sex with some high up at YouTube manager, and was able to pull some strings to get us the opportunity.

I never found out the real answer to if we got it because of him or not, and part of me doesn’t want to know it.

“You okay?” I turned to Sandy as she spoke.

“Yeah why? This is a huge huge opportunity for us!” I faked a smile as if I had Vaseline on my teeth.

“God, you’re a terrible actress,” I could feel Sandy’s eyes on me as I tried to avoid her gaze.

“You’re thinking about Mark?” I continued to avoid looking at her not wanting to tell her she was right.

She leaned in close and whispered, “you are so much better off without him. You two were barely even dating for crying out loud. Thanks for zipping up my dress and say goodbye to your tipsy future boyfriend. We have an awards show to get to.”

I felt a smile cross my face as I walked back to the bathroom to say goodbye before heading out.

“Hey stranger,” I giggled as I spoke into my phone hoping to pull his attention from talking to Slash who also sounded tipsy.

“Hey, what does your dress look like so I can easily find you at the after party?” My cheeks felt like fire as he spoke.

“Umm I’m not invited to the after party,” my heart was racing from embarrassment as I admitted to him I wasn’t invited. He was a rockstar and I was practically no one.

“Wanna come as my plus one?” My heart skipped a beat. We were finally going to hang out in person again.

To say he caught me off guard was an understatement. I was screaming at myself to say yes, but words couldn’t come out.

“Or...” before he could continue talking I interrupted him saying, “yeah, yes, of course! I’d love to.”

My heart melted as a smile crossed his face.

FRIENDS.

He just wants to hang out. If it was he would have called it that. Friends, remember? There is a difference between being called a plus one and a girlfriend or date for the night. Plus I don’t have any feelings for him, not a single ounce. We were just friends, plus I just had a messy breakup. I should for I on my work right now.

I heard him shush someone who was in the room with him which only made me giggle. It was cute. It was cute, not him, it.

“So that dress? What does it look like, so I can find you?” He asked again, his smile never leaving her face. He was excited which only made my stomach, once again, perform backflips.

“I’ll give you three hints, okay? It’s sparkly, long and tight,” I grinned as he I watched him jokingly put on a thinking face.

“I like the choice. Can’t wait to see you in it,” he wasn’t helping the whole friends thing with comments like that, but he was a rockstar. Aren’t all rockstars just flirty? He probably had some groupie or supermodel he was spending time with as well.

————

“Who are you looking forward to performing tonight?”

Sandy and I stood at the red carpet for the non A list celebrities interviewing an up and coming indie artist. She was sweet, and it was a lot of fun interviewing her. I was defiantly going to buy her album when I got home.

“I would have to say I’m excited to see Motley Crue perform tonight...I can’t explain it, but something about bag boys,” my interviewee giggled as Sandy sent me a teasing look.

“Yeah, we get what you mean,” Sandy then smirked while looking at the camera.

Jesus Christ, I swore that she shipped Duff and I harder than our fans after the Duff’s and my cooking video.

“Good luck tonight,” I smiled as she left heading off to get her picture taken.

“So I take it you have been reading the comments on some of our videos?” I watched as a smirk formed on her face.

“We are just friends,” I whispered back as we waited for our next interviewee.

“Honey, are you in Egypt right now?”

I turned towards Sandy in confusion as she spoke. What was she getting on about?

“Because you’re in De-Nile! Get it because denial sounds like the Nile River,” Sandy laughed as if she thought it was the funniest joke in the world. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

“If Duff has said that you would have laughed,” she teased as she playfully pushed me.

“Speak of the Devil...” I looked over to see Duff and Slash at the fork in the carpet traffic. From what I gathered there were two paths. The first path was the one that the A list celebrities would take like Motley Crue, Beyoncé, Ed Shereen or even the Kardashians would walk down. Anybody who was anybody went down that path. We were standing on the second path where the minor internet stars, influencers, and smaller artists were sent.

I smiled as Duff sent me a small wave and weaved through the pack of people despite people clearly telling them to go down the other path. He looked excited to see me which didn’t help the nerves that filled me.

He looked hot. Did rockstars not need to wear a shirt under their jackets? Was that a thing?

FRIENDS, Alanah, FRIENDS.

Oh God I was staring, was it okay to stare? Were people noticing I was staring?

“Hey, ‘Lanah,” Duff smirked as he wrapped his arm around my waist.

FRIENDS

F R I E N D S.

He is just being flirty because he is tipsy.

“Hey Duff, hey Slash how’s it going,” Sandy cut in as I slowly began to panic on the inside. She could read me like a book.

“Can’t fucking complain, how about you?” Slash responded. I could barely focus as I felt Duff’s eyes undressing me as Sandy continued to interview Slash.

I wasn’t thinking when I touched his ass. I don’t know why I did it, I just did it. I looked up at Duff, worried to see a confused look on his face. I felt a smirk grow on my face as I saw Duff’s reaction. He liked it.

I was pulled from my thoughts as I felt Sandy lightly bump into me, prompting me to actually participate in the interview.

“Congrats on being nominated for two awards, favorite heavy metal artists and best heavy metal video. What do you think of your competition?” I asked earning a smile from Sandy who was growing tired of interviewing a drunk Slash who was borderline rambling. He was still a sweetheart thought.

“Well, if Axl was here he would say something cockily and condescending like...we don’t have competition. We’re in a league of our own, or we don’t pay attention to our competition,” Duff said with Slash joining him in laughter.

I sent Sandy a quick glance before Duff continued talking, “All joking aside, we are here for music, not the awards. We do what we do because we love what we do.”

“The nominations and awards are nice though,” Slash added before a security guy came by.

“Look like we’re getting kicked out, it was nice seeing you girls,” Slash commented as he watched the security guard walking directly towards them.

“I love the dress, can’t wait to rip it off you tonight,” Duff whispered in my ear sending goosebumps down my spine before his hand grazed across my ass. He sent me a smirk and followed Slash towards the security guard, so we wouldn’t get in trouble.

“Yup...just friends,” I turned to Sandy as she wore a smirk that would put Nikki Sixx’s smirk to shame.

[mrsunderhill678]

Haha! I’ve written more shit!

“Tragedy don't define us, we do, and if we learn to define ourselves and stand above what others say you are, then you'll find, you're always gonna be uniquely, and beautifully, you." - Santa Levenson

“I, am not tethered to reality, I cut my strings and I'm floating up, up and away, gazing upon Earth as I burn amongst the stars.” - Melias Skinwalker

“Sweet dreams are woven of sinister means.” - Melias Skinwalker

"Our minds seek to undo us, shatter us, and show us that we ain't immortal, so must we too, conquer ourselves? That's all humans are, after all, conquerors of their own dynasty.” - Ben Stiltz

“There is a crushing weight on my chest, and yet, I rise every morning as if it were light as a feather.” - Rosalinda Kluskens

“It's often I wonder why scars are immortal but those who wear em ain't.” - Roan Scorpio

“I've always said when two wolves find themselves in the forest, they scratch and they tear at each other until only one remains, so I wonder, why is it, that I hold mah own heart from my maw, black blood drippin' from my damn lip?” - Roan Scorpio

“Every day, I'm facing a new girl in the mirror... But that's not a bad thing, I don't think.” - Lillian Graves

“To my family, I ain’t nuthin’ but my last name.” - Mikaelson Graves

“I live for a single reason, to protect my sister from the tragedy of this world, for her mind is fragile. A single blade of grass easily crushed beneath a boot. I have walked through the valley of death to protect that girl, and I've long since learned I am not he who walks through the valley, but the shadow cast over it.” - Starolf Wolfdiggson

“I ask the raven of my mind to sing to me a pretty serenade, but it gives unto me only dark poetry and words of the wise. My mind is my foe, battling against me as Odin battles against Fenrisúlfr, and it is often that I wonder, if my soul is my own ragnarok, the end of my times, but the start of a new beginning.” - Starolf Wolfdiggson

“I gaze upon the many stars in the sky and I wonder, are they fractured pieces of our wishes? And are we, fractured pieces of there's? Do we gaze upon the stars in wonder, while they gaze upon us in horror?” - Astrid Wolfdiggson

 “Perhaps the dead have claimed the hearts of the living, and sought to make the world a grave.” - Astrid Wolfdiggson

 “I am a sinner in the worst way, cause these days, I've managed to make murder inta monotony, the spillin' 'a blood is commonplace in this broken life I live. I could bury my hands in the snow and still I wouldn't feel a damn thing, I've quite simply put, gone numb. Don't remember what joy feels like, I used ta say it'd be better not ta feel, but now, I'm out here, runnin' my hands 'cross razors in a desperate attempt ta remember how humanity feels.” - Sampson O’Connel

 “I'm locked up inside 'a myself, rattlin' this cage while holdin' the damn key. I'm sick, my throat's etched with anger and misery, an envious serenade of everythin' I ever were. I've spilled blood in anger, bled em just bout as red as the hate inside 'a me. Black and white melted inta crimson, leavin' my bootprints bloodied in the damn snow.” - Clayborne Pettygore

“Though justice ain't an easy road to take, it's a necessary one.” - Spike Francisco

 “My skin is black and blue with bruises of the past.” - Spike Francisco

"We find ourselves in the funniest of ways now don't we? One man can be pushed to be the bravest hero you ever saw, and a man that walks the same path, can be twisted and corrupted until he's no longer recognizable... Take a gander at which man I am." - Cyrus Hollow

  "You know, for all the wrong I's done, I ain't never asked forgiveness for the rights I done that ended wrong." - Sam Elltz

“Here we are, face to face with fear incarnate, battling darkness without a single star in sight. Guess heroes always do pay the price, huh?" - Austin Mulcrone

“Line us up one by one, kill all of us, burn every fucking bridge, Zafavri. Because someday, you're gonna wear that crown, and you're gonna learn that all a crown does, is add more weight.” - Troy Savarino

“Ya know, if I wanted ta torture you, all I'd have to do is give ya one step inside my God damn mind.” - Malik Druvebecker

"Fifteen years ago, the world went cold, and only the strongest 'a men and women survived. You lot, are lucky, to be standin' here today, cause far as I'm concerned, the world wants ya dead." - Sampson O’Connel

"The future is what you should be worried about, cause that's where I'll be with my revolver and my revenge." - Myrtle O’Kain

“He gave me his first draft and asked me to be a masterpiece.” - Merrick Stinson

“A dreamer's best is usually a fairytale.” - Sherwood Stinson

"This is war, brother, hero's blood is spilt more commonly than the opposer." - Sherwood Stinson

"What did I say? You pull that hammer back, you squeeze that trigger, I swear to God Randy, I'll make this town the next God damn Chernobyl." - Milos Fellwitz

"I'm sorry to say, Randy, but, someone's gonna die, and it ain't gonna be you! No. You get to live with the fact that you could'a done this the easier fucking way." - Romirez Fellwitz

"I've known that the day I ran with my child in my fucking arms, Tabatha, I knew I was dead the day I traded my life for hers, so, go on, swing that blade of yours at me, see how black your blood bleeds." - Walt Burrick

"I'm a warrior, bravery's in my blood and proven by my blade.” - Emily Cleave

“Her name was Labriel... She was mine for... For five minutes, for five beautiful fucking minutes, and that's all I have to cling onto... Five beautiful, fucking, minutes.” - Sheila Dakota

[dustedmagazine]

Dust, Volume 6, Number 11

HAAi

As it was with September, so it is with October. After what felt like the dam breaking on all those albums optimistically held back by the pandemic, October continued to rain down releases and there was no shortage of them to cover. As ever, if diversity’s your thing, we have it: From pimp-rap to free jazz, death-metal to AM gold, jungle to Azerbaijani guitar jams, we got it all for you to peruse. Contributions this go ‘round come care of Ray Garraty, Ian Mathers, Bill Meyer, Jonathan Shaw, Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Justin Cober-Lake, Patrick Masterson and MIchael Rosenstein.

AllBlack — No Shame 3 (Play Runners Association/Empire)

Just when we thought that pimp-rap was going out of business, AllBlack blessed us with No Shame 3. It is a lot of what it claims: playfulness with no shame, ignorant beefs, endless balling during California nights and showing off in earnest. AllBlack alludes to the fact that even though he’s getting that rap check, he’s far from quitting the pimp game: “Made 40K in eight days, that was just off pimpin'.” But behind this happy façade is something darker that’s looming on: “As I got older, I ain't scared, I guess I'm cool with death / You speak the truth and they gon' knock you down like Malcolm X.” While admitting that rap is a cutthroat game, AllBlack is only one of the few artists of a younger generation who is ready to pay respects in his songs to the OGs — the godfathers of pimp-rap, to Willie D, Dru Down and Too $hort. The standout track here is “Pizza Rolls,” where DaBoii and Cash Kidd drop in to deliver the funniest lines. 

Ray Garraty

Bardo Pond — Adrop/Circuit VIII (Three Lobed Recordings)

Adrop / Circuit VIII by Bardo Pond

There are plenty of reasons to do small, limited runs of certain releases, in music as in other artistic fields, ranging from the brutally practical/logistical to the aesthetic, but when the material released in that fashion is good enough, it can be a relief to see it given further life (and not just digitally). This year saw the mighty Three Lobed Recordings (who we featured in an anniversary Listed here) has seen fit to reissue on vinyl two Bardo Pond LP-length pieces that were originally issued in limited run series back in 2006 and 2008. They were in good (and varied) company then, but resonate together in a pretty special way, whether it’s the tripartite Adrop wandering from gnarled, crepuscular grind to violin-powered epiphany or back down to delicate nocturnal acoustics. The longer Circuit VIII doesn’t have as distinct phases but still builds to an all-time Bardo Pond-style crescendo, featuring Isabel Sollenberger’s only vocals of the duo. Even with a band and label this consistently on point, these particular recordings are worth the wider dissemination, whether considered as archival releases or just a hell of a double album.

Ian Mathers

John Butcher & Rhodri Davies — Japanese Duets (Weight of Wax)

Japanese Duets by John Butcher & Rhodri Davies

There’s a bittersweetness about Japanese Duets that’s as pungent as the puckered, perfectly placed reports that English saxophonist John Butcher sometimes punches out of his horns. This is the third in an ongoing series of download-only releases that Butcher, idled by COVID-19, has culled from his archive, The Memory of Live Music, and the unbearable lightness of its format, only accentuates the sense of lost opportunities and experiences. One of the things that a touring musician gains in exchange for their embrace of uncertainty is the chance to go to some unlikely place and undergo something extraordinary. The four-page PDF that comes with this download reproduces photos from Butcher and Welsh harpist Rhodri Davies’ 2004 tour of Japan, which took in swanky museums and shoebox-sized jazz cafes; each image looks like a moment worth living. But if all you can do is hear the evidence, that’s not exactly settling. This improvising duo was audibly on a roll, pushing reeds and strings to sound quite unlike their usual selves, and challenging each other to move beyond logic to the rightness of jointly made and imagined moments. Thanks, guys, for sharing the memories. 

Bill Meyer

Ceremonial Bloodbath — The Tides of Blood (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

The Tides of Blood by Ceremonial Bloodbath

Yikes — talk about truth in advertising. Canadian death-metal band Ceremonial Bloodbath delivers the goods promised by their moniker and this new LP’s title. It’s a repellent record created by dudes that play in a bunch of other death-metal bands based in British Columbia: Grave Infestation, Encoffinate (not Encoffination), Nightfucker and numerous others that tunnel even further under the broader public’s attention. Give these guys credit for their single-mindedness: None of those bands is likely to make you feel any happier about the human condition. Neither will listening to The Tides of Blood, but it’s a better record than any that those other acts have released. The songs are low-tech, dissonant and about as subtle as a bulldozer’s blade knocking through your front door. In other words, the record is largely in line with what we’ve come to expect from the death-metal recently dug up by Sentient Ruin Laboratories, and for a certain kind of listener, that’s a good thing. Check out “The Throat of Belial,” which comes on hard and fast, then downshifts into second gear and unleashes a tangled, coruscating sort-of-guitar-solo. The mechanical chug reasserts itself, then speeds up again, unleashing steam and the smell of something… organic. The song has a ruthless momentum, as does the rest of the record. Pretty good Halloween music if you want to scare all the trick-or-treaters off your lawn.

Jonathan Shaw

Cut Worms – Nobody Lives Here Anymore (Jagjaguwar)

Max Clarke evokes a wistful nostalgia for an America that existed perhaps only in the mind, the warm campfire glow of an era personified by The Everly Brothers’ harmonies, the twanging guitars of country rock and 1970s singer songwriters. On his new album as Cut Worms, Clarke literally doubles down on his musical project. Nobody Lives Here Anymore comes in at 17 songs that, while individually fine enough, meld into one another and gradually fade from the memory as the album unwinds. Clarke never quite transcends his influences and is not a strong enough lyricist to engage at this length. The effect is similar to that of The Traveling Wilburys where the whole is lesser than the sum of its parts. That said, Clarke is engaging company with a voice that splits the difference between the aforementioned siblings, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty. He has an ear for a melody and skillfully recreates an AM radio sound that trips the memory for anyone who grew up with this music either as inescapable background of their lives or soundtrack for their teen dreams and heartaches. 

Andrew Forell

Dead End America — Crush the Machine (Southern Lord)

Crush the Machine by Dead End America

This new EP by Dead End America (DEA — see what they did there?) comprises four short, piledriving hardcore songs, all directly addressed to the current occupant of the Oval Office. “Bullet for 45 (Straight From a .45)” neatly captures the EP’s essential sentiments, and also suggests the general level of restraint exercised by the whole enterprise. Hint: Restraint and nuance are not Dead End America’s strong suits. That’s not surprising, given the folks involved. The band and record were conceived by Steve “Thee Hippy Slayer” Hanford, late of Poison Idea, and of this world. It’s pretty wonderful that this is some of the last music Hanford produced — pissed off and irreverent to the very end. Additional contributors include Nick “Rex Everything” Oliveri (the Dwarves), Mike IX Williams (Eyehategod), Blaine Cook (the Fartz) and Tony Avila (World of Lies). Sort of remarkable that a record including players from all those legendarily vile, venomous bands doesn’t just spontaneously self-combust; maybe it helps that they focus their collective rage on such a deserving target. RIP Steve Hanford. The wrong people are dying.

Jonathan Shaw

Chloe Alison Escott — Stars Under Contract (Chapter Music)

Stars Under Contract by Chloe Alison Escott

Chloe Alison Escott is the frontwoman of Tasmanian post-punk duo The Native Cats, and her pre-transition solo album, The Long O, released on Bedroom Suck back in 2014, received justified plaudits upon its release. (It remains a low-key favorite of mine.) New solo piano-and-vocals album Stars Under Contract was all recorded in one day by Evelyn Ida Morris (Pikelet), which lends these performances an on-the-fly liveliness. For the most part, it’s rollicking fun, with some wryly funny lyrics that betray Escott’s sideline in standup comedy. This performative confidence comes through in early highlight “There’s Money in the Basement,” which has the jaunty barroom bounce of “Benny and the Jets.” Later, Escott reaches for the heavens on single “Back Behind the Eyes Again,” with a truly heartbreaking piano progression. Though the 16 tracks are wisely interspersed with short instrumentals such as “What Are You Reaching For,” “Evening, Sunshine” and “Playfair,” 43 minutes is a lot of piano-and-vocals songs to get through in a single sitting. On closing track “Permanent Thief,” there’s a tantalizing flash of drum machine and bass, which could be a nod there’s another Native Cats album on the way soon. 

Tim Clarke

Eiko Ishibashi — Mugen no Juunin - Immortal - Original Soundtrack (King)

If you sit up nights fretting about how Eiko Ishibashi and her partner, Jim O’Rourke, pay the bills, this music may be your melatonin for your worried mind. Immortal is the soundtrack for Blade of the Immortal, an anime adaption of a popular manga that’s been picked up by Amazon Prime. Ishibashi composed and played the music with contributions from Tetuzi Akiyama, joe Talia, Atsuko Hatano, and O’Rourke, who also mixed the music. Ishibashi’s music echoes the affect-stirring melodies of her song-oriented material and the careful sound placement of her recent electro-acoustic work for Black Truffle; when the swirl of keyboard tones looms over her piano on “Animal,” there’s no mistaking it for anyone else’s work. But this is still made for a mass market, with unabashed classical music lifts and big, booming electronic percussion that would make a multiplex’s walls throb if you gave it a chance. There’s no physical release or Bandcamp option, so if you want to check this out, Apple Music and iTunes are your options. 

Bill Meyer

Ela Minus — Acts of Rebellion (Domino)

Colombian musician Gabriela Jimeno’s debut album as Ela Minus is a collection of original tracks that merge songcraft and club sounds into an assured mix of electronica on which she plays all the instruments and sings in both Spanish and English. After spending her teenage years drumming for hardcore band Ratón Pérez, Jimeno studied jazz drums as well as the design and construction of synthesizers, and she eschews the use of computers to create her music. She brings a DIY spirit to her work combined with meticulous production style that gives acts of rebellion the experimental edge of early 1980s independent synthpop. The highlight "Megapunk” is musically close in spirit to Cabaret Voltaire, its defiant lyrics — “There’s No Way Out But to Fight” — tying freedom of expression to wider human progress. A textured and nuanced album, Ela Minus joins an ever-growing group of South American producers to tune into.

Andrew Forell

Erik Friedlander — Sentinel (Skipstone)

Sentinel by Erik Friedlander

Cellist Erik Friedlander seems to pop up in the oddest places, playing now with the Mountain Goats, then with Dave Douglas, and finding a little time for film scoring on the side. It's reasonable that for new album Sentinel, he'd connect with a couple of other artists — guitarist Ava Mendoza and percussionist Diego Espinosa — equally comfortable with finding unexpected sounds in a variety of styles. The group, given their background, sounds their best when they're blending genres. “Flash” starts off as new jazz, turns into rock for a moment, then some strange cello lead pushes it into alien territory. At the edges of the trio's work, heavy rock often feels about to break out, but the group refrains from ever indulging that impulse. “Feeling You” even provides some light, pretty pop, allowing the band to show its full breadth.

Friedlander's compositions provide the basis for the album, but Sentinel never feels like just his album. The band, assembled for what sounds like a hurried set of takes, found their partnership quickly, turning the pieces into fluid performances. “Bristle Cone” lets all three members shine and functions like a microcosm of the disc as a whole: As soon as you think it's a guitar album, you start paying attention to the percussive elements; as soon as you remember it's experimental cello work, you're back to guitar rock. The trio's engagement with the music and with each other comes through, the playful innovation guiding each piece into a multifaceted whole.

Justin Cober-Lake

HAAi — Put Your Head Above the Parakeets EP (Mute) 

Put Your Head Above The Parakeets by HAAi

Though it was Teneil Throssell’s mixes that initially made her name as HAAi (and remain strong even amid the pandemic, her latest for XLR8R another beauty), her own productions are a wonder unto themselves that demand repeat listens even as they come a trickling single or carefully cultivated EP at a time. The Karratha, Australia native, Coconut Beats hostess and Rinse and Worldwide FM veteran’s latest is the delightfully titled Keep Your Head Above the Parakeets EP, pure headphones music meant for sunrises, sunsets, walks in deep snow, rain-swept moors, you name it. Her talent is in balancing airy synth melodies with ever-shifting percussion influenced primarily by jungle, breaks and (ultimately) house; when people talk about psychedelic dance music, this is something like what I always hope to hear. Another unmissable missive.

Patrick Masterson

Hübsch, Martel, Zoubek — Ize (Insub)

Ize by HÜBSCH, MARTEL, ZOUBEK

Decades have passed since Derek Bailey wrote his book, Improvisation. At that time, it was already clear that the intentionally non-idiomatic music he pioneered and practiced was a subset of the more universal matter of improvising as a necessary aspect of playing music. It was also becoming clear that non-idiomatic improvisation’s aspirations and proscriptions amounted to a new but quite identifiable idiom, and this Swiss trio is okay with that. If you told Carl Ludwig Hübsch (tuba, objects),Pierre-Yves Martel (viola da gamba harmonica, pitch pipes) and Philip Zoubek (piano, synthesizer) that the music on Ize sounds a bit like the British ensemble AMM’s, they’d likely nod and thank you for noticing. They’re not trying to make a new kind of music, they’re trying to be good at a kind of music that they love, and on those terms, they succeed. Aside from the occasional Feldman-esque piano phrase, they mostly trade in layers of tone and texture, operating in complementary parallel to one another, taking the listener through states of meditative stillness and slow-motion vertigo. 

Bill Meyer

J Majik — Your Sound - Photek & Digital V​.​I​.​P 12” (Infrared) 

J Majik - Your Sound - Photek & Digital V.I.P by J Majik / Photek / Digital

Released on the same day as the “This Sound” single that allegedly was refashioned from “unfinished jungle project from the vaults,” “Your Sound” was further proof that UK drum n’ bass vet Jamie Spratling bka J Majik still has plenty of material from the golden era to get out into the world. The original is a certified mid-’90s Metalheadz classic, but Photek and Digital’s reworking on the a-side “originally only destined for the dubplate boxes of the ultra-elite” has been floating in the ether for years as an alternative; its light Amen sequences and booming bass will have you yearning for every closed club you can’t attend. J Majik’s remix of his own tune on the flip was originally the b-side to a 1997 Goldie VIP edit, so having a more readily available remaster here does it a world of good. One for the headz, obviously.

Patrick Masterson

KTL — VII (Editions Mego)

VII by KTL

Most of KTL’s recordings have been seeded by theater and film soundtrack commissions. But when Stephen O’Malley (Sunn 0))), Khanate) and Peter Rehberg (Pita, Fenn O’Berg) found themselves in Berlin this past March with more time on their hands than they expected, they booked themselves into Mouse On Mars’ MOM Paraverse Studio sans portfolio and set to work. The first track, “The Director,” seems to acknowledge the situation by introducing the Shephard-Risset glissando, a repeated scale that sounds like it is endlessly ascending or descending. The titular figure never arrives, but while you’re waiting, fat looped electronics impart the experience of going somewhere while leaving you exactly where you’re at. The director isn’t the only value missing from this equation; O’Malley’s default sonic signature, a massive metallic wall of sound, has been softened to a close-shaving buzz that rattles and circles around within Rehberg’s synthetic/sonic biodome. That’s right, while you’ve been baking bread and putting on that COVID-15, KTL has actually lost weight! 

Bill Meyer

Lisa Cay Miller/Vicky Mettler/Raphaël Foisy-Couture — Grind Halts (Notice Recordings)

Grind Halts by Lisa Cay Miller/Vicky Mettler/Raphaël Foisy-Couture

Montreal-based guitarist Vicky Mettler, bassist Raphaël Foisy-Couture and Vancouver-based pianist Lisa Cay Miller are all new names to me. For their trio collaboration on Notice Recordings, the three work their way through a set of eight free improvisations that range from one and a half minutes to eight minutes long. The combination of piano, guitar and upright bass is striking from the start: Miller slips seamlessly between the keyboard and inside-string preparations, mostly eschewing readily identifiable sonorities of her instrument. Mettler’s resonant, brittle electric guitar is the perfect foil to Miller’s piano and one often has a hard time teasing apart where inside piano strings end and guitar strings begin. Add to that Foisy-Couture’s dark low-end bass, which he attacks with groaning scrapes, shuddering arco and assorted string treatments. The three engage in active improvisations, plying their respective instruments into a collective whole while steering clear of garrulous interaction. The fourth piece, “Lower” is as close to trio exchanges as things get, opening up the ensemble sound to allow shredded guitar textures, resounding piano chords and scabrous bass abrasions to accrue into pulsating timbral layers. A piece like “As It Spins” is more about process, adding in the rumble and clatter of assorted percussive detritus, used on their own and to activate the strings of the instruments, which jangle with resultant shimmering overtones. The pieces often segue one into the other, creating an enveloping sound-space throughout. Based on this one, I look forward to hearing more from each of the participants.

Michael Rosenstein

Mint Field — Sentimiento Mundial (Felte)

Sentimiento Mundial by Mint Field

Mexico City-based duo Estrella del Sol Sánchez (voice, guitar) and Sebastian Neyra (bass) enlist drummer Callum Brown to expand the range of their dreamily psychedelic shoegaze on Mint Field’s second album Sentimiento Mundial. Sánchez has the breathy cadence of Rachel Goswell and moves easily between an almost folky introspection in her guitar playing to squalling walls of sound underpinned by Brown’s often motorik drums on tracks like “Contingenicia” and “No te caigas.” The bulk of the album is more reflective, Sánchez’ Spanish vocals close to your ear as she concentrates on atmosphere and dynamics. The result is a dreamscape that lulls, then hits with febrile bursts of restless dread, an impressive collection that fans of 4AD in particular should recognize and embrace. 

Andrew Forell

Takuji Naka/Tim Olive — Minouragatake (Notice Recordings)

Minouragatake by Takuji Naka/Tim Olive

Minouragatake (a mountain outside of Kyoto, Japan) is the fourth recording by Takuji Naka and Tim Olive, a duo that has played together for close to a decade now, melding together music of slowly evolving rich timbral abstraction. Each are consummate collaborators and for this session, they make their way across the seven untitled tracks with steadfast focus to the nuanced details of their respective sound sources. Naka utilizes “long loops of sagging/distressed cassette tape winding into and out of similarly distressed portable tape players, with real-time analog processing.” Olive uses his regular array of magnetic pickups and low-tech analog electronics, drawing out volatile hums and changeable striations that coalesce with his partner’s slowly devolving layers of sound. These pieces are imbued with unflappable deliberation, each sound integrated into the cohesive, gradually unfolding improvisations. Each of the pieces sound as if one is tuning in mid-stream and end with a sense that they could continue on indefinitely. Rather than adhering to any formal developmental arcs, the two patiently sit within unfurling sonic worlds as layers ebb and flow. Naka’s degraded tapes lend an aura of catching wafts from some distant celestial emission which Olive subtly shades and colors with hisses, whispered mutable fuzzed gradations and aural grit. Snatches of scumbled lyricism morph into static-laden swirls; washes of flaked and tattered textures disperse into shuddering thrums. Naka doesn’t record much so it’s good to hear another project from him. Olive has been on a particular roll as of late and this one is a laudable addition to his discography.

Michael Rosenstein

Okuden Quartet — Every Dog Has Its Day But It Doesn’t Matter Because Fat Cat Is Getting Fatter (ESP-Disk)

Every Dog Has Its Day But It Doesn't Matter Because Fat Cat Is Getting Fatter by Okuden Quartet: Mat Walerian/Matthew Shipp/William Parker/ Hamid Drake

Put aside the bleakness of this double album’s title because this music embodies the idea that things can get better. Not that there was anything wrong with Polish woodwinds player Mat Walerian’s previous recordings, which have all involved some combination of the musicians on this one. But Walerian has never sounded so strong on his various instruments (alto saxophone, bass and soprano clarinets, flute); so clear on how to get the most out of Matthew Shipp, William Parker and Hamid Drake; or so engaged with jazz, and not just the free jazz that he’s made with these gentlemen to date. By turns subdued, impassioned and bathed in all the shades of the blues, Walerian no longer sounds like a guy who has great taste in sidemen who happen to have played with some of the greats of our time, but a guy who sounds like he belongs in their company. Each lengthy track (they range from 11 to 18 minutes long) imparts a narrative feel without dispelling the mystery that makes you want to hear them again. Here’s hoping that when things start moving again, this band finds a way to move around the world and move us in person. 

Bill Meyer

Om — It’s About Time (Intakt) 

It’s About Time by OM - Urs Leimgruber, Christy Doran, Bobby Burri, Fredy Studer

To a fan, It’s About Time might sum up the feeling upon learning that the Swiss quartet Om finally recorded a new studio album 40 years after its predecessor, Cerberus (ECM). It also captures the existential question facing a quartet of improvisers, some of whose paths have often crossed during that time, but some of whom have taken very different roads. On the one hand, drummer Fredy Studer and guitarist Christy Doran play in a Jim Hendrix cover band with Jamaladeen Tacuma; on the other, soprano saxophonist Urs Leimgruber works mainly in freely improvised settings with the likes of Alvin Curran and Joelle Leandre these days. Burri seems to be the guy who has maintained connections with everybody. How to make sense of such a history without denying anyone’s musical identity? During their first go-around, between 1972 and 1982, Om was played polyrhythmic electric jazz. During the mostly low-profile gigs they’ve played since reconvening in 2008, they’ve had time to forge an updated vocabulary that is less groove-oriented but takes full advantage of the timbral resources on hand. While it’s evident that time has passed, it’s by no means a waste of time. 

Bill Meyer

Rüstəm Quliyev — Azerbaijani Gitara (Bongo Joe)

Azerbaijani music, by and large, hasn't broken through to the American mainstream. That might not change, but the new anthology release of Rüstəm Quliyev's work, titled Azerbaijani Gitara, at least makes a case against our insularity. Quliyev's work, even for an insider, would be hard to pin down given that the overriding goal seems to be the synthesis of as many styles of music as possible. Western ears will be most comfortable with the psych-rock influences here. Quliyev also reworks Bollywood, folk, Middle Eastern dance and more on his electric guitar. Taken from recordings from 1999-2004, this nine-song collection sounds more coherent than that idea might suggest, but no less frantic. Quliyev plays with a persistent energy, his kinetic approach matched my his chops, often with a tone reminiscent of Carlos Santana (if we reach a little). On songs like “İran Təranələri,” he allows the piece to develop patiently, but these cuts rely on movement and virtuosity. Quliyev had a challenging life cut short by lung cancer, but his music finds itself unleashed through apparent joy.

Justin Cober-Lake

ShooterGang Kony — Still Kony 2 (Empire) 

A fortnight shy of his 22nd birthday (this coming Wednesday, mark your calendars and send best wishes), Sacramento rapper ShooterGang Kony has dropped his second full-length project of the year in Still Kony 2, a skit-free set of songs with a Biggie homage as the cover that explores further his emotional depths while still retaining the bouncy Bay Area nature of his livelier side. There’s stuff like “Red Ice” and “Fasholy Good,” of course, but there’s also the stretch of sobering songs later in the tracklist, including “Overdose,” “Flaggin” and the particularly affecting “Do or Die.” No matter the type of beat, though, Kony feels completely at ease with his cadence and wholly in control of his verses despite occasionally verging on a Detroit-like dismissal of the beat. Even if you can’t see the geekin’, you can certainly feel it.

Patrick Masterson

Suuns — Fiction EP (Joyful Noise)

FICTION EP by SUUNS

For better or worse, Suuns’ new Fiction EP is pretty much the sound of 2020 encapsulated, not in the sense of distilling current musical trends, but rather in succinctly conveying the disorientating feeling of living through a year that has been such a traumatic mess. Across these six tracks, the Montreal-based band creates a fuzzy, feedback-streaked, claustrophobic racket that just about coalesces into song forms around breakneck rhythm tracks. “Fiction” and “Pray” will meet the expectations of anyone expecting Suuns to continue sounding like fellow noise-rockers Clinic, but elsewhere there’s surprising variation to the band’s sound palette. Opener “Look” emerges out of the darkness like a warped apparition, concluding with a chant of what sounds like “Sheep, sheep, sheep.” They enlist the help of Jerusalem In My Heart for droning instrumental “Breathe,” and Amber Webber lends ghostly vocals to “Death.” At the EP’s end, the Mothers of Invention’s wailing blues-rock classic “Trouble Every Day” is barely recognizable, foregrounding Zappa’s lyrics and chewing them up into a garbled rush of splenetic invective. Though short, there’s something satisfyingly ghastly and cathartic about this EP that really cuts through.

Tim Clarke

Women — Rarities 2007-2010 (Flemish Eye/Jagjaguwar) 

Rarities 2007 - 2010 by Women

Some outlets rode much harder for Women than others when the band was still a dysfunctioning unit (RIP Cokemachineglow, namely), but there’s little doubt left a decade on that what the Calgary quartet had going was a volatile yet beautiful indie-rock ideal that hasn’t been duplicated in Viet Cong/Preoccupations or Cindy Lee since. These rarities, affixed to a deluxe decennial reissue of Public Strain due out in November, could all have made the final tracklistings of either of their full-lengths. The music veers between sunny ‘60s singalongs and dark guitar dissonance; I find myself thinking of The Walkmen’s first LP on “Bullfight” (a free release from 2011 in the aftermath of the band’s collapse the year before) and of The Chameleons on “Group Transport,” which is considerably more Janus-faced with its juxtaposed harmonies, for example. It took me much longer than it should have to come around on Women, but in case you’re still on the fence or also just never got around to them in the first place, perhaps this small coda will sway you in their favor once and for all.

Patrick Masterson

Yo La Tengo — Sleepless Night EP (Matador)

In July, Yo La Tengo released the abstract, droning instrumental EP We Have Amnesia Sometimes, harking back to the sound of their excellent soundtrack album The Sounds of the Sounds of Science (2002). This new Sleepless Night EP brings together five covers and one original, first released in conjunction with an L.A. exhibition by Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara, who helped the band pick the songs. Sleepless Night opens with “Blues Stay Away” by The Delmore Brothers and “Wasn’t Born to Follow” by The Byrds, both fairly straight renditions of the blues and country-rock originals. The real keeper in this collection comes next in the form of Ronnie Lane’s “Roll On Babe,” beautifully sung by Georgia, which hypnotizes with its languid sway. Their cover of Dylan’s “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” also has Georgia take the lead over beatless organ, bass and guitar. “Bleeding” is the sole original, a shimmering atmospheric piece with ghostly vocals from Ira, which dissolves in a pool of pitchshifted reverb. Finally, “Smile a Little Smile for Me” strips out the rhythm section from the Flying Machine original and slows the tempo, Ira’s measured vocal performance lending the song an affectingly forlorn slant. Though the material here offers few surprises, it’s a reassuring release from a justifiably loved band at a time when we could all use a little more reassurance.

Tim Clarke

[xxisxxisxxis]

Gateway Drug | Part Twelve

Part Eleven

Pairing: Douglas Booth!Nikki Sixx x OC

Words: 3k

Warnings: Mentions of drug use, implied sexual situations, language

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She was out of her ever-loving mind.

I watch from the corner of the loud penthouse suite as Tansy dances provocatively on the bar of the kitchen island with Sparkie, a sea of bodies surrounding them and having their own raunch fest as loud pop music blares out over the stereo system.

Every girl here is a model of some sort, everything from Vogue to the cheap porn magazines you get at a check out line of a grocery store, and I'm pretty sure every guy here is a drug dealer judging by the excessive amount of narcotics laying around, and I've witnessed Tansy doing every single one after another.

Worry builds a home in my gut, my eyes watching as the bleach blonde escapes to her own world and zones out, keeping her eyes closed as she clings to Sparkie to keep from losing her balance.

Tansy never touched drugs when we were in high school and she didn't drink that much, yet here she is, acting as if she could be the long lost member of Nikki and Tommy's Terror Twin duo.

I take a swig of my water, watching Tansy start pulling at her tight, Sky blue dress. Knowing better than to try to stop her, I'm left watching her strip down to absolutely nothing. I learned quickly that she's mean when enough drugs get in to her system, trying to stab me with her keys when I tried to get her to keep her clothes on. She knows how she acts when she's messed up, and she's not ashamed of it in the least, so I let her do as she pleases.

I do, however, avert my gaze as Sparkie starts trying to get his pants down to screw her.

Inevitably this will turn in to a huge orgy like every other night we've partied. Plenty of parties in L.A. get this nasty, but Nikki usually keeps stray hands from groping at me. I'm defenseless here, so I know to slip to the balcony out by the master bedroom.

I kick my heels off as I step through Tansy's room, sliding the glass door open at the balcony and step on to the cement, looking over at the shining city.

I look up, unable to see a single star in the sky due to the brightness of the neon lights.

"Well, that's stupid." I mumble, rolling my eyes, looking down at the city over the side of the railing.

"Don't jump," A woman's voice says and I snap around, seeing someone I recognize immediately, not only from Tansy's modeling circle, but from Vanity 6.

"I'm not, I just needed some air." I explain to her, looking back to the city. She stumbles to me slightly, gripping at my shoulder with a shaking hand as she stands next to me before holding on to the metal bar in front of us for support.

Denise Matthews a.k.a...

"Vanity," she introduces herself, extending her hand with the energy of an excited puppy.

Judging by her fidgeting and slight jitteriness, it's drug induced.

"I know." I say back, glancing at her. "I'm Vivian."

"Tansalyn's told me about you." She states with a nod. I frown at her using Tansy's government name, not able to recall the last time I actually called her that. "Why aren't you inside having fun?" She blatantly asks me and I smirk.

"Has she not mentioned I don't do sex parties?" I ask innocently, waiting for her answer.

"Ha!" She laughs humorously, her eyes squeezing closed as if I just said the funniest joke she's ever heard.

"What?" I furrow my brows and she calms down with a hum, her dark red nails pressing to her lips.

"It's pretty impossible to be in this industry and not have a thing, is all." She shrugs and I look at her, confused.

"A thing?"

"A thing to distract you. Like relationships or drugs or alcohol or money...or all of it, if you're like Tansalyn." She suggests, still chuckling. "A thing to help kinda numb you from everything once they strip away every ounce of innocence you have left and turn you in to their pretty little dolly and have you dancing up on their strings." Her dark words are said with a light as air touch to them and I slightly shake my head.

"Oh, I—I'm not in the industry at all. Tansy and some friends back home are my only connections to the entertainment world." I tell her gently.

"You're pretty. They'll snatch you up in the blink of an eye and get something outta you, too, before you can stop any of them, I promise." She tells me, relentless in her attempt to warn me, still speaking as if what she's saying isn't a big deal. She even giggles a little and waves her hand a couple times, dismissively.

"What's your thing?" I ask.

Her candidness fades quickly and she's putting her mask back on, smoothing down her dark hair and licking her glossy lips.

"I don't need one. I just really like what I do." It's bullshit coming from her lips as she gives me the same fake smile she probably gives everyone else to try to help her deny the fact that she’s trapped.

I thought she was a lunatic when I met her. I thought she was a lunatic when I found out she taught Nikki how to freebase cocaine. And I thought she was a lunatic when she and Nikki started hanging out when I wasn't home. Of course all of that happened years after I met her, but had I known I was having a conversation with the one woman who would go on to make my marriage even more of a living hell, I would've thrown her off the balcony.

However, I always felt sorry for her because she reminded me so much of Tansy. And Tansy was in a similar situation as Denise, except Tansy was way too prideful to even hint that anything was wrong. She didn't want to burden any of us with her struggles. I suspected something was off when she informed me of her heroin usage, but she denied it had anything to do with her modeling, so she continued to be used and abused but didn’t reach out for help until she and Sparkie broke up in ‘87.

The next few nights consist of the same type of parties, just at different locations. It isn’t until I sit one of them out and stay at the apartment by myself that I’m actually able to have time for phone calls.

“Viv?" Nikki's voice sounds through the other line once I answer.

"Hey!" I pipe out enthusiastically, glancing at the clock to see it's 2:00am here, which means it's 11:00pm in L.A. "I figured you'd be out with the guys by now." I add.

"Uh, yeah, me and Tommy are about to head out, I was just calling to check up on you." He explains, a quiet moment settling between us before he clears his throat. "You know, I tried calling last night and the night before and you never answered."

I squeeze my eyes shut and rub my forehead with my free hand, breathing out.

"Yeah, we haven't been here very much, actually." I say to him truthfully. "Tansy's a hell of a lot more busy than I think any of us thought she was. She has to wake up at eight o'clock in the morning and she works all day and parties all night. We only come back to her apartment to make a quick clothing change, and then again when we get back in the middle of the night to go to bed."

"Tansy parties all night?" He asks me skeptically and I scoff.

"So badly that the Terror Twins might have to turn in to the Terror Triplets." I state.

"Oh, damn." He chuckles and I rub my lips together.

"Also," I start nervously. "Tansy's asked me to stay an extra week."

The other line is silent, and I begin to think I lost his call or something, but I hear his heavy breath sigh out.

"I know I've already been here for over a week and I said I'd only be gone for two weeks but I never get to see her, Nikki." I point out.

"Well, we don't necessarily see each other as much as we use to either, Viv, even when you're here." He argues.

"And neither of us can really help that. Unless you want to quit music and work a nine to five while I go back to school."

"I just thought the point of you quitting school was to avoid leaving us but none of us have gotten to see you much any this past month." He argues.

"Because you're working on an album and I have my own things I want to do, like visit my friend when she needs me to." I try to keep from getting too defensive. "If you can't go three weeks without seeing me then how are we gonna raise a baby with you traveling everywhere because I'm not taking a baby all over the world, Nikki."

"That's not even anything to be worried about. We'll cross that bridge when we get there a very, very, very long time from now." He's matter of fact and I roll my jaw, about to throw a wrench in to his plans.

"Well, then God has a sense of humor because I'm pregnant, Nikki. And I would like to cross that bridge before I'm in labor with my husband in a completely different country."

I can't stop myself from blurting it out, and the line's an ear shattering silence for God knows how long before he suddenly hangs up the phone.

I didn't blame him for lack of communication after that. I had basically told him, over the phone, he couldn't afford to be a Rockstar the way he dreamt of for years. It was the one time I had told him I was pregnant, out of seven pregnancies, and it wasn't in the way I had wanted to tell him, and that was my fault. I couldn't blame him for it.

I got through half of the next week, which was the third week I had been in New York with Tansy before the unattempted phone calls from Nikki and blatant ignoring of my calls to Nikki, got the best of me.

I head to the doors of the airport, my bags in hand as I step outside and see Vince's car, with him leaned against it with crossed arms. I let out a relieved breath that he didn't forget about me.

He gives me a closed mouth grin as I approach him with a similar expression. I'm not sure if Nikki's told him or not, but he doesn't seem to make a big deal about it if he does know.

I set my bags down as he takes a step closer to me and hugs me.

I'm used to Vince's playful little passes, like randomly holding my hand for a few seconds, putting his arm around me, biting me, trying to lick me, and hugging me with the same energy of a horny Chihuahua humping a pillow. But this is a genuine hug without teasing intentions, which is something I don't recall ever getting from him.

He smells like tanning oil and light liquor, his exposed arms, chest and abdomen from his opened white button down shirt, are extremely warm and he has the tiniest hint of a sunburn on his nose.

"You left the beach for me." I state, pulling away to look at his freshly sun-kissed skin.

"I was your only hope being that the other guys are in the studio." He explains with a shrug, grabbing my bags and putting them in to the trunk of his car.

"Oh, I bet Nikki loves the fact his singer isn't putting forth any effort." I add and he rolls his eyes behind his brown tinted aviator sunglasses as the two of us get in to this car.

"Once Nikki stops bitching and actually writes me some fuckin' music to sing, I'll get in the studio." He says and I buckle my seatbelt and hold back a laugh. "So, what're the wedding plans, now?" He asks me casually after a moment of driving.

"If we even get married. Nikki might just run for the hills and pretend he doesn't know I exist while chasing his dreams." I comment, rubbing my eye and Vince takes in a sharp breath. "Probably end up getting married this month like he wanted to do originally. I don't want to be fat at my wedding."

"There's always Vegas." Vince suggests, trying to lighten the mood. "Holy shit your mom's gonna stroke out, Viv." He laughs at the realization and I eventually join him, the two of us sadistically finding humor in my mother's disapproval.

"...Is he mad at me?" I ask after we calm down and he shakes his head.

"I've been needing an excuse to kick his fucking ass and him being pissed at you is a good one."

"The hell happened between you two?" I ask him and he scoffs.

"He's just being an asshole."

There's a pause that passes between us and I think of one thing that's against Vince if he and Nikki are to ever get in to a physical altercation.

"He's a little taller than you, Vince." I remind him.

"Which means I swing low, Viv." He assures me and I raise my brows.

Once we get to the parking lot of the studio, he pulls a flash from his glove box and takes a few sips, offering it to me.

I raise a brow and look at him, then at the flask, and back to him.

"Oh," He closes it. "I forgot you don't drink."

I want to say, "I'm also pregnant" but decide against it, letting him have his moment.

We get out of the car and head inside, seeing Doc and

one of the sound engineers heading back inside the studio.

Doc stops when we get to the door, holding it open for Vince and greeting him.

"Vivian," He says to me next as I'm about to walk in to the room. "Congratulations."

I don't say anything in return, only giving him a small smile as I prepare to face Nikki.

My eyes catch on him before he even notices I'm here and I watch with cut eyes as he and Tommy cut up a couple of lines together and take turns snorting it, being adored and doted on by two incredibly scantily clad women hanging off each of them.

A part of me wants to knock Nikki and the brunette in the back of the head, but another part of me doesn't feel like she's worth the wasted breath it would require to tell her to screw off, if Nikki clearly won't reinforce it. And the fact that he won't pisses me off.

"Down, kitty." Vince mumbles teasingly as he pats my shoulder before brushing past me to get to the sound booth and Doc glances at me, noticing my discomfort.

He deliberately hits the intercom before clearing his throat, catching Tommy's, Mick's and Nikki's attention just as Vince walks in.

Like a toddler, Tommy's squealing when he sees me, discarding the blonde woman next to him as he trips over the back of the couch, trying to jump over it in order to get in here to me.

He's snatching the door open in a heartbeat and attacking me, nearly taking me to the ground with his weight as he clings to me as if for dear life.

I close my eyes after a second of him squeezing me to him and telling me how much he's missed me, trying to fill me in on what all's happened here while I've been away.

My calmness is short lived as I open my eyes and see that Nikki hasn't even given me a second glance, continuing to strum at his bass as he shows something about it to Mick.

"You excited or what, Viv?" Tommy nudges me with his elbow, showing me a wide smile. Of course Tommy's stoked. I didn't expect any less from him.

"Very." I tell Tommy. It's a partial lie, but I can't bring myself to ruin his positivity.

When Nikki and Mick finish up, Mick's kicking at his leg, causing Nikki to finally look at me.

He brushes it off and goes back to work, shaking his head a little.

Everyone seems to be oblivious about what's going on, aside from Mick, who just gives me a glance and says something to himself, picking at his guitar and scribbling another note down.

I just want to go home.

I step to the door of the sound booth and swing it open, causing Vince, Mick and the two girls to look at me as I step towards Nikki, holding my hand out to him.

"Keys." I say blankly, raising a brow as he stops playing.

He finally acknowledges me, looking up at me blankly as I start tapping my foot on the floor, knowing it'll piss him off if I do it enough. Ignoring me, he turns back to strum on his bass and ask Mick's opinion about a lyric.

"May I have the car keys, please, Nikki." I ask him venomously, knowing he's ignoring me to be spiteful about my attitude.

"You're not driving my Porsche." He states and I cross my arms.

"You mean the Porsche I begged you not to buy?" I ask.

"I mean the Porsche I've worked my ass off for." He snaps around to face me.

"Well, I want to go home." I argue.

"You can always walk." The brunette, that was practically dry humping Nikki earlier, speaks up from the couch she's seated on.

"You can always suck my clit." I shoot back and she rolls her jaw.

"Better yet, go back to New York." She's borderline raising her voice at me.

"Better yet, go back to the street corner you were scraped off of."

"Cunt." She states.

"Hey! Shut your goddamn mouth!” He yells at the girl, pointing his finger at her.

She closes her mouth, glaring at me, and I wait for Nikki to give me the car keys so I can leave.

He looks at me, letting out a frustrated breath before handing me the keys to his Porsche.

“Just go.” He says as waves me off, irritated.

“I'll see you when you get home, then." I tell him, giving the strange girl one last cut of my eyes before storming out and slamming the door.

[musingsby-night]

Musings

Summary: In the wake of meeting his Soulmate, Thor muses on their new bond. 

This one is chapter 3 in a series of vignettes of Thor and his Soulmate attempting to navigate their new life together. Read chapter 1 here, and chapter 2 here !

Pairing: Thor x OC

Warnings: fluff city y’all 

Since the day that Thor’s Soulmark had formed on his arm, he had been utterly enamoured with the unknown woman. This mysterious Ellie Brookes, who was designed by fate to be his.

His Mother, Frigga, had sat her sons down one day and explained to them what their Soulmarks meant. Loki, ever the pessimist even at the tender age of nine, had loudly proclaimed that the entire Soulmate thing seemed altogether a bit droll. He had complained to his Mother that he had to have one at all; he said that he wished he did not have a Soulmark, that he was not interested in the mysterious woman who bore the name tattooed onto his flesh.

Thor and his brother were very different people. They had disagreed on many things over their long lives together, but never more so than on this. Thor simply could not understand his brothers utter disinterest, which persisted well into adulthood; since the day Thor’s own Soulmark had formed on his arm, it had been at the centre of his attention and the unknown woman had been at the centre of his universe.

Frigga had continued on to explain what they should expect when the time eventually came when they met their Soulmates. To feel not just yourself, but the presence of another just beneath your skin. To feel emotions at times that were not your own, to instinctively understand thoughts and knowledge that did not belong to you. To know and have ones Soulmate was, Frigga explained, to feel true peace.

…Eventually. The whole feeling-true-peace thing, apparently, would happen eventually.

To be brutally honest, the first few weeks of knowing ones Soulmate was borderline chaotic.

“The joining of two souls is no simple matter,” Frigga had told her sons seriously. “Until the point when you meet your Soulmates, your souls exist on their own. The second the two of you meet, your souls must stretch to accommodate the presence of the other. It’s not a comfortable experience.”

At the time, Thor had not fully understood.

Then, years later Thor had met Ellie Brookes during the battle of New York, and slowly he begun to understand exactly what his Mother had been trying to explain.

Thor didn’t really know what a soul was; he didn’t believe it to be a physical object, but in the weeks following his meeting with Ellie, he swore he could physically feel it deep inside of his chest, could feel his soul shifting to accommodate her own.

Thor knew that his Soulbond would settle soon enough (his Mother had assured him of this), but for the moment it just felt like a constant tightness deep in his chest. It felt as though a string had been coiled tightly around his organs, the other end of which was connected to Ellie, constantly pulling him in her direction.

Even when he was nowhere near Ellie, Thor swore that he could feel her. It felt strange, and a bit uncomfortable, but to feel Ellie was as natural as breathing.

The only time when the Soulbond felt truly calm was when he was in her presence. The further away he was, the more chaotic it felt- like the string was pulling tighter and tighter against him and causing a constant underlying feeling of strain. His body, his Soul, demanded to be close to her.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t always possible.

Ellie had told Thor that in Midgard, humans received a month of paid leave from work when they met their Soulmate. During this time their Soulbond was all over the place, making it hard for them to concentrate on anything, so Midgardian culture encouraged them to take time to allow their bond to settle.

Asgard had a similar rule. Six weeks unquestioned freedom from all roles and responsibilities, compensated by the King, to settle into their new Bond.

Thor, however, was not an ordinary Asgardian; he was the Prince. And as he quickly came to find out, his Soulmate was expected to be ranked second to his Princely duties.

After the destruction of the Bifrost two years ago, the nine realms had fallen into chaos without Odin’s armies to keep the peace. Groups of bandits capturing cities, armies leading campaigns to conquer planets…. Since the rebuilding of the Bifrost, Thor had been responsible for leading Asgard’s armed forces to restore the lost peace to the realms. These battles could forge on for weeks, if not months.

Then, when Thor wasn’t in another realm doing battle, his presence was demanded on Asgard to assist the Allfather to draw up new systems of rule in order to maintain the peace in the territories which Thor was winning back.

And then as if this wasn’t enough already, there was his pain in the goddamn ass brother who kept attempting to stage breakouts from his fucking prison cell. In between breakout attempts, Loki also kept encouraging riots among the rest of the prisoners as a form of personal entertainment.

To put it simply, Loki was (as per usual) being an enormous pain in Thor’s ass.

This was truly an awful time in Thor’s life. In all the hundreds of years he’d been alive, he’d never been so bogged down with responsibilities. And although Thor could never regret finally finding his Ellie, sometimes as he lay awake in his chambers in Asgard, billions of lightyears away from her and missing her so terribly his heart ached with it, he cursed the Fates for bringing her to him at the time when they did… at the time when he could never give her what she deserved.

Thor could acknowledge now that he’d always been a little bit naïve in how he thought about his Soulmate, prior to meeting her. In his head, Thor had always thought that his Soulmate would just fit into his life like a puzzle piece, slotting into place.

As it turns out, life didn’t really work like that. Ellie wasn’t an object for Thor to do with as he wished; she was a person, with her own life on Midgard. Just as he was a Prince, with his own responsibilities on Asgard and to the nine realms which needed to take priority right now.

Those were the facts, as Odin had presented them to him. Just because it was the truth though, didn’t mean Thor had to like it.

And he didn’t. He really didn’t. He just missed her. Missed her, and loved her, and Lord he just wanted her.

It had been 78 days exactly since the Battle of New York, since he had found his Ellie. And in that time, he’d only managed to spend a grand total of 22 days with her.

Those 22 days had been unarguably the brightest of his entire existence. Thor had been alive for 863 years, and yet nothing in his long life could compare to the joy his Soulmate brought to his days.

She was clever, his mortal. Odin, was she smart. She’d proven that on their fifth day together, three weeks after New York- a day which Thor was sure would remain forever one of his favourites with her.

Ellie had told Thor that she held a PhD in forensic archaeology and a second one in ancient mythology (which Thor was very impressed by when she explained to him what a PhD was, and the fact that it was irregular for a 24-year-old to be so qualified).

Her speciality? Norse mythology.

“Ever since I was a kid, I loved all the ancient myths,” she had confessed to him, her big blue eyes blinking up at him in the dim light. “I used to make my Mom and Dad read me the same stories, over and over again.”

She bit her lip, glancing down shyly. “There was one story I loved more than all the others. I was almost obsessed, I read it every single day, even when I got too old for those stories I couldn’t let it go,” she said, and Thor brought his fingers up to her chin, pushing her gaze back up to meet his.

“Which one was it?” he questioned, and she grinned rather cheekily.

“The story of the thunder God, Thor,” she revealed. “When my Soulmark manifested a few years later I thought it was the funniest coincidence.”

Thor hardly had words to respond to this. Ducking his head, Thor pressed his lips firmly against hers, and Ellie opened herself willingly to him. Threading his arms around her waist, Thor firmly clutched her hips and hoisted Ellie up onto his lap. Her surprise caused her mouth to open with a cry, and he took full advantage of her momentary surprise to press his tongue against hers.

He was completely overwhelmed with a need to be close to her, as close as he could possibly get. He wanted to merge his body with her own, to be so close that there was no longer any distinction between he and her. Before her Soulmark had appeared on her body, before she had ever even thought of him, her soul had been reaching out to him through the cosmos.

This was a thought which soothed him in his long days away from her.

But where she was clever, she matched it in toughness.

It wasn’t a brute physical strength like which Thor possessed, but a real strength of character. A conviction in herself which was rare, particularly among Midgardians. She’d shown this to him for the first time on their twelfth day together, six weeks after New York.

Thor had made a joking comment about her tiny stature (which he couldn’t exactly be blamed for- she was undeniably short, to the extent that it was almost possible to mistake her for a child from behind) and she’d verbally chewed him out so fiercely he’d been left well and truly apoogetic.

He’d watched her numerous times in their 22 days together fiercely stand up for herself and her beliefs to those who attempted to challenge them. Her ferocity in the battle of New York had been incredible to witness. Yes, despite her small stature, Thor’s Soulmate was quite the spitfire. 

But she was also kind, too. He saw that in her on their seventeenth day together, eight weeks after New York, when Thor had arrived to her home and found her busy feeding a lost baby bird with an eyedropper and settling the small feathered creature in a nest she had made herself.

Her kindness shone out from her every day, in the friendly way she addressed complete strangers, in the care she showed to her loved ones, in the helpfulness she displayed to others almost constantly. Ellie was far kinder and sweeter than he himself had ever been. 

Thor had dreamed of Ellie before he met her, pictured her in millions of different ways over the 863 years he’d waited for her, and yet the amalgamation of characteristics which made her exactly who and what she was were so lovely if he had had to wait a thousand more years to meet her, he still didn’t think his imagination would ever have come anywhere close to the real thing.

Every moment that he spent with her, he spent in awe of her.

And 22 days was not enough. She belonged to him, he deserved to have her every moment of every day, and more than once Thor had become so fed up with the distance that he’d come dangerously close to telling his Father that he was done, that he didn’t want the crown or the duties or the responsibilities, he just wanted her.

She missed him when he was gone, too. Missed him greatly, and wished beyond anything that he would stay with her. She would never say the words aloud though, remained careful to never once ask him to stay, and he silently had to thank her for that. She knew that it wasn’t fair to put that on him, and they both knew that the moment she spoke the words aloud, the moment she asked that of him, he’d never leave her side again.

If Ellie asked it of him, Thor would find a way to capture the moon and all the stars and present them to her as a gift. He was completely and utterly devoted to her, his fragile mortal Soulmate, and he would unquestionably do anything she wished of him. Even if that meant renouncing the throne of Asgard, renouncing his homeworld, and remaining forever with her here.

She knew the depth of his love, and so she dared not ask, could not ask it of him.

Thor was a Prince and God, responsible to his people and the nine realms his Father ruled. But Thor knew without any doubt in his mind that if it came down to it, he would trade his title, he would betray Asgard, and he would sacrifice every life in all the nine realms, all for the love of one single mortal girl.

[kpopandcream]

Moon Day IX

Pairing: Dongmin x Reader & Yoongi x Reader

Genre: Fluff, Angst, Humour.

Warnings: Strong language, Implied smut, some dark themes.

Jungkook told you about Min Yoongi many times. How he didn’t take to strangers. How he preferred to stay unknown. How he thrived in the underbelly of society where he could do what he wanted without anyone caring. Yet, after many short talks about him, all of that information still seemed to land on deaf ears. You couldn’t remember a single thing about him except for his name, which landed you in a puddle full of milk and under a confused stare.

Word Count: 7.9k

Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 , 7, 8, 9

Masterlist

Dongmin walked you home from the small fast food restaurant. SOojin gave you a flimsy hug before leaving, whispering to call her later. Ahro didn’t say a word at all but the war her arms slithered around you and squeezed unsettled you. There was an odd urgency in their movements, a want so deep but you didn’t understand. You couldn’t piece it together. There weren’t enough clues. There weren’t any half finished ideas. You were stuck, grasping at quickly falling strings that frayed at your touch, causing you to think the worst of things.

For the walk, you tried to participate in an active conversation but the whispers in the back of your mind consumed you. you were being eaten by half-words, half-sentences, half-nothings. Dongmin noticed, like he always did, and his fountain of words slowly trickled to a stop. The few beats that passed were filled with a thick silence that might have been comfortable for him but it was quite the opposite for you. You didn’t know for how long you’d been connected at your hands but it did make something in your heart settle. The clouds in your head were lowered so you floated just above the ground, letting you live in reality but only partially.

When his finger traced its way down your palm, you realized you were near home. Dongmin glanced at you from the corner of his eye, as he usually did when he didn’t want you to see it. The little smile that reached his lips looked a little sour and you could guess the words he was going to say.

“Finally remember I exist?”

With your free hand, you pushed your hair out of your face and let out an embarrassed breath, screwing your eyes shut for a moment. Shivering lightly because of the winter chill, you apologized and leaned into him, shoulder bumping into his arm.

“There’s just a lot happening up here,” you murmured, pointing to your head half-heartedly. He nodded, saying that there always is a lot happening in your head while his free hand fell in his pocket. You looked as he handed you a small box filled with toothpicks from his coat and the weight pressed in your palm was odd. Nearly forming the question he knew was coming, you furrowed your eyebrows and looked up at him, mouth perched and confused. His little grin spread further across his lips, eyes mimicking crescent moons and voice filling with amusement.

“I’d like to pick your mind,” he stated so obviously, finding himself the funniest he could be and you blinked, caught between the stupidity of the joke but also the bubbling laughter in your throat. Quickly, you pressed the small box against his chest, trying not to show him the growing smile on your lips but he laughed nonetheless, pulling you closer to wrap an arm around you as he did so.

“I’m telling you nothing,” you chuckled, eliciting a small pout from those rounded lips of his. Coming to the front of your building, you turned to face him slowly. His thin fingers ticked a stray piece of hair behind your ear and you found yourself resting into his touch. He led you slowly to the wall of your building, hands moving from your neck to your hips and holding them gingerly. He crooned small pleads to get you to speak your mind, slipping his arms further around you and bringing you so close that it felt like he was sheltering you- to make you feel comfortable.

The light outside your building was a blinding white but it gave him a sort of halo as he tilted his head down to look at you. Little sparks of light danced in his eyes, making him looked so alive, and you were entrapped in the way he was looking at you like you were the only thing that could ever catch his eye. It was less so wonder than it was a comfortable realization that the person he was in front of was something he’d been waiting for. It was a pure and baren stare that consumed your whole soul and made you want to give yourself up to him. If not for the realist in you that fought the romance floating in your brain, you might have just let yourself forget every worry that night.

Yet, your hands still came to press lightly against his chest and fidget with the many layers of his coat and vest, adjusting them all as you spoke. “It’s just something Soojin said.”

Tearing your eyes from his, you focused on his clothing, buttoning and unbuttoning them to reveal and hide the white dress shirt underneath. He hummed lightly, urging you to continue with an encouraging nod. You never felt his eyes leave your face but the embarrassment in your cheeks forced you to keep your eyes down.

“And it was about you. Well, she didn’t even really say anything, she just tried to but then Jungkook interrupted and you guys came and she stopped. I know we promised to talk about problems when they came up so I didn’t want to hide this from you or anything- like, I meant to ask you what she might have said. I just get worked up sometimes though and really in my head and I guess it scared me more than it should have because I… I really like you, Dongmin.” You paused here, tilting your head up to gauge his expression at this obvious statement. When there was no immediate shift in his gaze, you bit down on your lip and looked back down again, fidgeting with your sleeves as you muttered, “I don’t want to get hurt is all.”

The mechanical movement of fingers that had come to fix your hair behind your ears stopped slowly but his breathing remained calm. You found that keeping these words within you hurt more than letting them out and a portion of you was so proud for saying it so calmly. You had an idea of yourself as a radically expressive person who let their feelings control them but, in this, you felt matured. Dongmin didn’t say anything, seemingly to figure out how to progress. You were well aware that he avoided confrontation and he wouldn’t want a fight out of this but that didn’t stop the worry from building in your heart. If he had to think about it this much, did he really mess up that bad?

“Look,” he started and the tone was enough to make your stomach fall at a sickening rate, “I was going to tell you but I needed their opinion because I- I didn’t want you to be upset.”

With those words and the dipping of his eyes, blood coursed through your ears louder. He shouldn’t have prefaced his speech with that and it caused worry to build a knot in your chest like a poorly knit ball. He pressed his lips together and stepped the smallest bit away, seeming almost embarrassed to say what he was going to say. You brought your hands behind your back, palms pressed against the wall to keep you perched upwards with a large pout on your lips.

“It’s just that I kind of,” he trailed off here, keeping his gaze on the ground and hands not knowing what to do with themselves, “I was in a sort of relationship with this girl when we weren’t talking. It was mostly physical and I needed comfort and I was mad because I’d never broken out of my comfort zone before. I thought it would help but it didn’t and I stopped seeing her immediately after Jungkook’s party. I promise I did.

“I doubt she even remembers my name, that’s how meaningless it was. I wouldn’t even remember hers if I didn’t feel guilty about it- about lying and keeping it from you.” Dongmin looked like he had more to say after finishing his sentence but refrained from it, looking at you through his eyelashes and the fringes of his hair.

You let out the breath you were holding, stuck between an odd relief and slight anger. While you were glad it wasn’t anything too serious, you couldn’t help but be annoyed he didn’t tell you in the first place. Finding out about it would’ve been worse through Soojin and Ahro though, so you were glad to have asked him. It was just unfortunate that he thought he needed to hide it from you in the first place, like you were some fragile thing that needed to be handled with care. You understood he cared but it was mildly annoying that he needed other people’s opinions on what he could or could not tell you.

For a brief moment, you wondered what else he was keeping secret from you and wanted to press to ask. The caged up part of you wanted to interrogate him, see if he had anymore left to tell you but you kept that part of you in check. It was irrational and crazy to believe he was hiding something else from you. Thinking any of that would lead to distrust and that was the very last thing you could ever want. So, you simply reached out to him again and felt the weight of his body in your hands.

“I’m not that upset,” you admitted, hiding the part of you that you hated the most from him. He didn’t deserve to see the controlling person you tried hard not to be so, when he exhaled in relief and came closer to you, your heart settled for the moment. His eyes fluttered shut as you brushed the hair that had fallen into his eyes away. “I just need to ask why.”

“I missed you,” he murmured, coming closer to lean his forehead against yours. Thee tilting of your chin upwards was coupled with the slow blinking of his eyes. His hands came into yours, knitting your fingers with his as he continued, “and I needed some sort of comfort. I wanted to feel closer to someone and that’s how I thought I could.”

“It didn’t work,” you deadpanned, voice quiet and he huffed a laugh.

“Yeah.”

You simply hummed and tilted your head up more, causing a slight bump of your noses. His eyes lightened as he looked at you, moonlight filtering through the small spaces between your bodies. He let go of your hands to let them wrap themselves around his shoulders while his wandered to the bottom of your back. In that moment, your heart seemed to understand that, under the moon, you two thrived. You were those that lived in the night and had souls as old as the years, finding each other again and again in the depths of the darkness. You became each other’s light and you basked in it like the lilies in your heart couldn’t bloom without it. The way he looked at you could cause water to ripple and you could see yourself in those eyes of his: and you looked happy.

“I understand,” you whispered lightly, though you were sure both of you weren’t following a real conversation by now. He swayed slowly to the music in his head, breathing an apology onto your lips as they touched. Threatening lighting, your skin touched his and you stayed his way for a long beat. Your eyes closed and his head leaned in further, fitting just beside yours in the warm embrace.

Your previous worry didn’t subside but any form of anger dissipated into the lazy wind as it blew by. Though, the moment was beautiful and you let the romantic in your soul sweep you off your feet. The two of you were wrapped in years of unspoken words and emotions and lost time.  Everything about you gave into the sweetness of his touch and you handed him the very heart you’d given to so many people before that night. Whether he knew it or not, he was responsible for the beating of it, the pounding of which becoming the tune to which you march across all lines of friendship into a perfect little something else.

Yes, you were worried and for all the right reasons, you decided. You were right to be but it was okay. You figured if you were worried, it was a good sign. You wanted it to be okay so bad that the idea of everything taking the wrong turn scared you. It wasn’t that it couldn’t but what ifs would gnaw at you and you supposed that maybe, this was love: being scared for your life but taking every step forward to something that could be great. Being scared was natural but you knew that, as your fingers laced together, you were going to be okay. You knew more than anything that you were most definitely going to be okay.

“Are you sure you want to come to this?” Jungkook looked at you from the driver’s seat, hands loosely on the steering wheel. He was leading you to a cabin just out of the city and the streets you were on were no longer concrete. You slowly turned your head to face him, feet up on the dashboard and bored look on your face.

“We’re nearly two hours away from home and you decide to ask me now?” You quirked up an eyebrow at him and he pressed his lips together, leaning forward to look at something a little ways down the road. You couldn’t read the sign from where you were but, with an apology from Jungkook’s mouth and the constant peddling of the car forward, it became clear.

It was a makeshift sign with large letters and bright colours stuck in the snow. The large trees covered a lot of the bright sunlight but from the rays seeping through the needles, you could make out the words:

Namjoon’s Super Cool Super Awesome One Day Retreat!!!

This caused a small smile to appear on your face and, as you passed it, you pointed to finalize your argument. “I was invited and I took the day off work… plus how could you deny me from having a super cool super awesome one day retreat?”

Jungkook simply gave you a look and the smile you expected from your little joke was replaced with a frown. You didn’t understand why he was so against you coming. If he didn’t want you here, he shouldn’t have offered to drive and yet, here you were in his car, listening to his shitty pop music with the heat cranked all the way up that made you regret wearing clothes at all. Though, it got you thinking. There were many things Jungkook didn’t want you to do but that you ended up doing despite him. The question was always why and it always puzzled you when you asked, but it didn’t necessarily stop you.

“Why didn’t you want me to meet Min Yoongi?” you managed as the car wound through tiny back streets. There were signs stuck along the path to help people through but Jungkook wasn’t even looking at them, eyes landing on you for a moment before they returned to the road.

He tightened his hands around the wheel slowly and muttered, “it’s a long story.”

“How cryptic,” you mused, turning in your seat to face him and dragging your feet off the dash. You leaned forward, chin resting in your palm now as you narrowed your eyes. “Tell me more.”

“They’re just not the people you think they are, okay?” His words snapped at yours and for the rest of the short ride, he stayed silent. You were taken aback by how sharp he’d been. Usually he was snippy and it was funny but this was serious. There was no twinge of a joke in this and you found it unsettling. You sat back in your seat, tucking your chin into your chest and pouting until the lights of a cabin hit your eyes.

It was stunning. The whole house was made of wood, panelled and antique looking as if no one should ever live inside. It was a deep brown with a large porch running around the entire house. The porch was covered by the roofing, allowing for the small swing and porch chairs to be set up all year round. From the chimney and behind the house, smoke rose in a twirl, like it was dancing with the sky and you watched it with an opened mouth. Remnants of snow hung to the railings and the top of the roof but bright, orange lights shone within the house. The house even stood in a clearing so it seemed illuminated more by the sun and you were in awe.

“Namjoon is this rich?” you asked without even thinking, absolutely starstruck as the car stopped in the pebble driveway. Jungkook fidgeted in his seat before finally turning off the ignition. As he exited the car, he have you a wary look.

“Kind of,” was all he said before closing the door behind him and pocketing his keys. You slipped on your coat and quickly got out too, excited to see the inside and all the wonders it held. There was faint music and laughter at the back of the house, which Jungkook made his way to. You followed, finding a game in stepping in his footsteps.

“Taehyung, stop it! Don’t put your hand on the gri- TAEHYUNG!”

“One! Two! Three!” The man’s voice sounded pained but the yell of pure glory after was all that really mattered in the end. It brought a silly grin to your lips as you rounded the corner to see Taehyung high five Jimin before wincing and saying it hurt.

“Well, Namjoon did tell you to stop,” Yoongi muttered, back to you and sipping a cup of water. Namjoon was going off about irresponsibility, absolutely red in the face as he ran into his house to get bandages, coming back just as quickly. Jimin was the only one besides Taehyung who was amused, almost saying something but spotting Jungkook and you.

Completely abandoning Taehyung, Jimin came to wrap his arms around Jungkook, saying he just missed the best part of the night.

“Well, no, I think I just saw it,” Jungkook chuckled before turning to you and introducing you, although they already knew who you were. Jimin hugged you as well before smiling politely and stepping away. Yoongi gave you a curt nod and lifted his glass before going inside and closing the door behind him. Namjoon didn’t really seem to care, giving a short hello before tending to Taehyung sloppily, messing up his bandage but trying his hardest. You nearly offered to help but Tae’s grin was wide as he waved from you and distracted you.

“You know, I’m really happy Shareen’s in town again,” Jimin said excitedly, taking Jungkook with him inside as they began to speak. Jungkook mentioned Jimin’s girlfriend would be there and you were happy to see Jimin’s smile as he spoke about her.

“So you put your hand on the grill?” you asked, dropping your bag on a chair near the barbeque and opening the hood again as Tae nodded, going to explain why but getting cut off. You felt the heat waft out immediately and shook your head, getting an earful from Namjoon who was struggling to pin the bandage around Tae’s hand.

“Ouch, that hurts,” Taehyung whined, pouting and you caught the look of annoyance on Namjoon’s face with a light smile.

“Well, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much if you didn’t do stupid things,” he began but you simply placed a hand on his shoulder and he closed his mouth. He gave you a stern look and then Taehyung and muttered, “we’ll talk about this later.”

As he left, the door rattling shut behind him, you gave Tae a sympathetic look. Those rounded eyes of his stared back at you, slightly upset but you worked at the bandage to not embarrass him. You slowly unravelled it, looking in the small medical kit beside him for any balm to put on the burn. Applying it slowly, you had the whistling wind to accompany you, silence filling the air between you. You could feel the tension in Taehyung and pretended not to notice the way his lips shook before he pulled them in between his teeth. Keeping your eyes down, you wrapped the bandage around exactly how Seokjin taught you. When you reached for the scissors to cut the material, Taehyung’s voice came lightly.

“All I do is disappoint him, you know?” This caused you to look him dead in the eye, confused but also understanding of exactly what that meant. Chatter inside distracted you as Taehyung leaned away and avoided your gaze once more. He muttered lightly, “I want to be just like him but all I do is make him upset that we’re friends.”

“I’m sure that’s not it at all,” you whispered lightly, not knowing what else to say while cutting the bandage so you could fasten it with the pin. Tae simply scoffed, turning his head to the side so he faced the looming trees not too far off. The sun was a little lower in the sky and you saw the way it filtered through his hair and painted shadows across his forehead.

“I guess you wouldn’t know anymore,” he murmured lightly. You furrowed your eyebrows, pinning the bandage together. The second you did so, Tae retracted his arm and gave you a kind thank you as he lowered his head. He made his way inside as well and you were left with the cleaning supplies, utterly confused. Anymore?

The chattering from inside seemed muffled compared to the wind blowing outside that was picking up speed. While you tidied up, you let the whipping of it move past your body, shifting the hairs that stuck out of the hat placed tightly on your ears. Everything seemed to have its exact place in the little box Namjoon had set up for himself in emergencies. There wasn’t a thing too big or too small, everything fitting exactly where it should. You paused for a moment, looking at the completed box and feeling an overwhelmed wave wash over you. You couldn’t understand it but staring at the medical kit made you uncomfortable so you shut it quickly, picked up the light duffle-bag from the chair and proceeded inside yourself.

Sounds and smells and the bright orange that was overshadowed by the high sun before was now bleeding into the snow outside due to the high trees and evening coming over the earth. There was laughter further into the kitchen and the brightest smiles you’d seen from two girls you met at Jungkook’s party a little while ago. They introduced themselves to you as Heeji and Devina with hair long and black but soft as silk. They moved as one and spoke in high voices but it was comforting to have some familiar faces. They led you to the room you needed to be in and sat with you as you unpacked, happily getting to know you.

“So you’re Seokjin’s younger sister?” Heeji asked brightly, leaning against a bedpost with both arms wrapped around it like a sloth. Her eyes were wide and kind and boring into you. With a shy smile, eyes averting hers and folding a shirt, you nodded.

“Yeah, I am. How do you-”

“Oh, Taehyung talks about him a lot,” Devina assured, using her hand to gesture down the stairs to the others. Your mouth curled into a small ‘o’ though it didn’t fully click for you why he would. Devina spoke more than she needed to and would disclose it to you anyways.

“I think he really looks up to your brother. He talks about Seokjin like he wants to be him sometimes and is always praising how far ahead in his career he is. It’s weird that your brother is so young but so successful, you know?”

Heeji hummed in agreeance, closing her large eyes and opening them slowly. She looked at you expectantly, touching on Devina’s darker skin with her nails lightly as she spoke. “Is he coming tonight?”

“My brother?” Your eyebrows shot up at the question, pretending not to notice the eagerness in Devina’s face. Her skin seemed to light up at the idea of him, nodding lightly and you repeated the action. As you turned from them to fit your clothes in a small wardrobe, you added, “he wanted to bring his girlfriend but she couldn’t make it so he’s bringing another friend of his.”

“Oh,” Heeji breathed, saving Devina the disappointment. You gave them a kind small, uncomfortable with the situation. It wasn’t that you didn’t like the two girls but more so that their kindness came off as a bit overpowering. Though it was welcome, you weren’t always open to those people. At one point in your conversation where you seemed to fade into the background, they left you to finish unpacking, claiming they were going to get drinks.

“We’ll see you at dinner?” Heeji asked rather than stating but didn’t wait for a response. She simply disappeared down the padded stairs with a wave and a thin smile. You returned it before sitting on the small bed and exhaling lightly.

The outside of the cottage was a deep colour but inside, the walls were panelled with a light wood and they were lacquered to shine. You ran a hand over the wall, feeling where the pieces came together and where imperfections in the wood were. Some light brown and black stains covered the walls but it was more so a design than anything else. The lamps and rooms all held orange lightbulbs as well, making the insides look like a warm hearth. It was comfortable and beautiful but the bathrooms were a bright white that hurt to stand under. Though, it would be good for makeup, you supposed.

The other side of the room held a larger bed, made for two people. Heeji and Devina informed you that they would charitably take the larger bed and give you the single so as to not make you uncomfortable. You nearly snorted at the thought, leaning back on the soft covers and closing your eyes. Everything about this reminded you of an old memory, where your parts would rent out a winter cottage for the entire two weeks of winter break and you’d spend time in the snow, laughing until you couldn’t breath. You remembered Seokjin disappearing into a large mound of snow and screeching for help. You remembered going skating on large hills and dipping under tables as you had snowball fights. You remembered old family friends and getting perched on top of tall snowmen with your friends and taking stupid pictures. There was a spreading of fondness in your heart and suddenly, you were happy to be here.

Amongst most things, everyone kept pressing in on you and Dongmin. There was Seokjin from one side, and your parents from another, and sometimes there would be Soojin disapproving of it. Ahro was as sweet as they came but you could tell even she had her reservations. You cared but also it bothered you that you couldn’t just be happy- that everyone’s opinion weighed down on you like this. You needed some time alone but not home, where everything still felt oppressive. You needed to just have a small vacation where you could think for yourself and really realize the happiness that was sprouting in your heart. You needed a simple escape and you hoped that Namjoon’s super cool, super awesome one day retreat would give you that.

A knock on the door to your room alerted you and you opened one eye to see Yoongi standing in the doorway. He still had that tall glass in his hand but it was filled now and his hand was clutching it from the bottom. The smile that touched his lips was quiet and overshadowed by the darkness of the doorframe. The light shining behind him did give him a beautiful glow and you couldn’t help but wave fondly.

“Can I come in?” His voice was soft and low but familiar. You hummed, hoping he’d take it as a yes, and sat up slowly. One hand moved to rub sleep out of the corner of your eye as he walked into the room, looking around you.

“Tough luck, huh? You’re rooming with Heeji and Devina and they never shut up,” he informed you, a little chuckle forming at his teeth. You groaned, pouting and giving him a helpless look.

“Save me,” you drew out and this elicited another chuckle. He motioned to sit beside you and you nodded, moving over your charger and phone to make space for him. As he sat, he whined and rubbed at his knees with his free hand, making you smile lightly.

“I would if I could but we have a strict ‘no purple’ rule here at Namjoon’s outing this year.” He used finger quotations while he spoke, taking the moment you leaned to plug in your charger and phone to take a sip. As the picture of you and Dongmin making silly faces at each other lit up, indicating your phone was charging, he spoke again but it was cautious and slower, almost hesitant.

“It’s to make the single people feel less lonely or some stupid shit like that.”

You simply turned, moving the pillow so it was standing upright against the wall the bed was propped against. You pressed your back to it, crossing your legs and leaning forward. “But Jimin and Shareen are sleeping together, I’m assuming?”

Yoongi simply nodded deeply, making an ‘isn’t it obvious’ face as he brought his legs up onto your bed too. He leaned against the backboard, facing you as he crossed his legs. Your toes nearly touched and it seemed like a coy gesture when they did so you looked away. A beat of silence fell between you two and the clinking of his rings against his glass filled them until his voice came again, pristine and still like a river.

“Namjoon told me you and Dongmin were dating.” He looked up at you for confirmation. You didn’t say anything but the way his eyes darted between yours seemed to give him everything he needed to know. He changed his position, bringing on leg up against his chest while the other fell off the bed and he wrapped his arm around it as he thought. You were unsure where this was going but he suddenly looked saddened and it somehow broke your heart, watching his head dip down and the hair that had grown long rest over his eyes.

“I think that makes sense for you though,” he said rather cryptically, twining his words together to make them coherent but they didn’t click in your head, “and I think he’s good for you.”

He didn’t look at you once in this, finger picked at a string in the blanket. The sleeves of his shirt covered most of his large hands so he seemed smaller than he was, and the shirt was oversized in and of itself. He seemed swallowed in the material, his only saving grace being the place where he tucked it into the front of his jeans. You watched him for a moment, not understanding, and the words slipped out without you controlling them.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that Dongmin is kind and you need that. You wouldn’t be suited for someone like Namjoon or like me.” He lifted his head at this, staring at you to gauge your response. You chose your words carefully here, unsure of why but you came closer to him. This caused a straightening of his back and an electricity sparked in your heart that scared you.

“Do you want me to be?” you asked, wanting it to sound like an innocent question but you knew it didn’t.

You were facing each other, your legs folded under you and his head matching up to yours, just a hand’s distance away from yours. He was craning forward too but there was something that stopped the both of you, a sort of obligation and an understanding of an otherworldly force. His eyes were laying themselves bare to you, parting clouds you never thought you’d see past. There was such vulnerability there and such terror in being this close because what if? The darkness didn’t help with the allure of his deep skin, the only light source coming from a lamp further into the room and the hallway behind him. He looked so mysterious but somehow, the hand that found its way onto your own felt so familiar. It traced its way up your arm and then back down, looking for your fingers and something so desperately within in him broke.

His voice shook in the slightest, quieter and more personal than ever. His breath hit the skin below your chin, whispering, “honestly? Yes. I want that very much.”

The ropes that had tethered themselves around your hearts pulled on themselves, tugging you so close that you nearly wanted to let those lips of your touch his, to experience the fire you felt you’d given up on, to feel so passionately alive. You nearly made the biggest mistake of your life, so close to Yoongi and so far from your responsibilities. Your heart bent at the tugging, bent so far in two that it hurt to be this close and you leaned away. Dongmin’s face flickered in your mind like a flashlight, soft eyes and words that rippled water and reminded you of the best things in the world.

You clenched your hands into fists and sat back, back pressed against the pillow now. The two of you seemed far away, the glass Yoongi was holding now spilling water onto the floor. The sound seemed to be the only thing filling the void, your chests falling up and down. His eyes bore into you, begging for something you didn’t know how to give. Then suddenly, he got up, collected his cup and whispered an apology. His feet carried him away, down the steps into a world that wasn’t your own. You remained in that thick universe, full of regret and confusion and needing to call Dongmin.

“Hello?”

The voice on the other side of the phone was enough to encourage your heart to slow and you lay down, pressing your ear against your pillow and breathed out deeply. “I miss you.”

He chuckled lowly, the smile on his lips so evident through the static. “I knew you would.”

Snow fell like diamonds from the sky and drifted closer and closer, dancing with each other before melting in the fire that crackled. You were sat between Taehyung, who was in a happier mood now thanks to the alcohol, and Namjoon, who was somehow talking about the complexity of burning firewood and how it related to life. You listened without hearing what he was saying but nodded along nonetheless. Seokjin was across the fire, roasting marshmallows for everyone very loudly and saying he was the best at it. Though, he burned one and Hoseok hadn’t let it go since. Heeji and Devina were in deep conversation with Jimin and Shareen, talking about the most superficial of things but it was funny to watch Jimin’s reactions. It seemed only you were silent amongst everyone, Yoongi even participating and cracking a laugh here and there with Jungkook, the both of them teasing your brother mercilessly. Yet, when your eyes met, Yoongi’s smile would melt and the snow he was made of parted to show someone so fragile. You could only look away or twidle with your phone.

“Thank you about my hand, by the way,” Taehyung sang, stringing an arm behind you to rest on the logs made for people to sit on them. You raised your eyebrows from your phone, texting Ahro a funny picture but giving him a tight lipped smile.

“It’s no problem.”

You hoped to turn back to your phone, unsure why you were still outside but somehow being inside made you feel trapped. There was no knowing what other mistakes were around every corner and you didn’t want to take any risks. The beauty of being outside was the crisp air that kept you awake and alert. The warmth was what harmed you the most, you were convinced, but sleeping was also such a dream of yours. You were caught between these thoughts but Tae didn’t seem to notice, continuing his little speech.

“Seokjin used to patch me up all the time, you know? Whenever the seven of us went outside and we would do crazy shit. He used to bring me to your house and complain and complain but he was always there. Him and Jimin,” he hummed, looking across the fire before looking at you. He had such a childish expression, cheeks plump and lips spread out over a soft smile. There was an innocence about him that made you feel at peace, like you were friends in some alternate universe.

“I don’t remember that,” you admitted, feeling bad. Taehyung’s brown hair shifted and he shook his head as he leaned back, shrugging.

“You weren’t home much.”

You nodded, taking his word for it before pausing and furrowing your eyebrows. Seokjin and you had lived together for a fair amount of time, your parents pushing the two of you to be independent and free. They really pressed for this so you were always at his beck and call, wanting to do the best for him. You had a curfew, you had a job, you had structure. It made no sense for you not to be home much.

“Are you sure?” A concern built in your chest, wondering if your memory was acting up again, if you were having some sort of lapse. You had been doing so well lately that it would have broken your heart if you were missing something again. You were just starting to move past this.

Taehyung nodded, skin crumpling around his chin as he stuck his bottom lip out. “Yeah. I never saw you and Jin-hyung said it was for the best- that I’d try to steal you or something.”

This was supposed to be a joke, Tae being the only one laughing lightly. You simply stared at him intently, hoping to get more but there was nothing. He rambled about something else while Namjoon drank his beer and Seokjin was preoccupied. Hoseok screeched a laugh, clapping as he doubled over. Someone threw a snowball. Jungkook ate his snacks. Everything moved forward before you and you seemed stuck in that spot. An inexplicable anxiety built and built its way up and you were glued to your seat as everyone left. Shareen and Jimin were the first to leave and Devina and Heeji were the last, this order absolutely not shocking at all. The only people left around the simmering fire were you and Namjoon, who was intently staring at the embers like he had something to say.

You poked at his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

He didn’t respond to this, only looking up and narrowing his eyes before brimming a smile. “Want to look at some pictures with me?”

Slowly, you agreed, lifting the blanket off your knees and shaking it. Namjoon began collecting the clothes left behind as well, cleaning up as he kicked some snow onto the embers. He spoke while he did so, telling you this cottage had been in his family for many long years and they’d been taking people there every winter break. He said he was excited to have his friends over after such a long time, echoing what Seokjin had said earlier about missing everyone. There seemed to be a brotherly connection among them and it filled your heart but also broke it because you just couldn’t understand why they stopped seeing each other. You listened intently, nodding and adding in comments and happy to hear him speak. Last time you saw him, he looked very upset but that night, he looked like a flower blooming in the moonlight. It made you smile.

You hurried inside, towards the small lights and the warmth. He waved his hands around and placed them on your shoulders to rub them warm on the way, your hand drawing circles on his back. This was out of character for you but every touch seemed friendly, like Joon was simply looking out for you. It held none of the gravity of Yoongi’s touch and none of the coursing electricity. your heart was still, beating at no pace and not existing at all.

He removed boxes from boxes once you were inside, digging out from under the television set and the bookshelves that lined the walls for all the photo albums he could find. He handed you a bright yellow box, claiming it held its favourite ones. You sat there on the floor, watching him open the box and excitedly talk about every photograph he could.

“Look! With this one, we all saved up and went on a trip to different parts of Scandinavia- is it still called that? I don’t know, either way…” and he’d trail off, telling stories about Taehyung and Jungkook and their skills with cameras.

“Jungkook edited this one,” Namjoon grinned, looking so proud and touching the pictures at the edges. He held everything so gingerly but thrusted them into your hands like they were nothing. You held them like they were treasures, smiling and seeing Hoseok grinning with a plushie sun wrapped around his head. Jimin had black hair, which you recalled lightly, and he was wearing completely ripped jeans and squatting in front of the camera like he owned the world. There was a Yoongi, midway laughing with his mouth open. There was even one of four of them wearing face masks and making ridiculous faces to the camera. You could almost feel the life within them, flipping through so many pictures of Namjoon in beautiful scenes and parks.

“This one is one of my favourites,” Namjoon hummed, pointing at one of all seven boys, your brother included, taking pictures near a beach. There was sand behind them and the were all posing cutely with differently coloured striped tees. Hoseok was wearing a bright yellow and Taehyung wasn’t even looking at the camera. Jimin looked like he was throwing up a peace sign and Yoongi had his chin tilted up as he grinned. Seokjin looked so peaceful, smile bright and full. Everyone looked so happy. You felt your heart clench.

“I love it,” you whispered. Namjoon placed a hand on your shoulder and gave you an encouraging squeeze before stating he needed to go to the bathroom.

“Can I keep looking?”

He shrugged, getting up and away from you down a little hall. He threw these words behind him:

“Do whatever you want!”

You moved a few pictures over, still burrowing through that yellow box in front of you. It seemed small but it held so many wonders, like a gold mine. Your hands sifted through scenery and Namjoon and a bigger, brutish man. Turning it around, you saw the words ‘Jackjoon’s day out!’ scrawled on the back in terrible cursive. The whole thing made you smile still, this comfort in these pictures stealing away all previous thoughts in your head. You let the images dance around, creating possible scenarios for them and wondering how each and every one of them felt.

He had so many photos of your brother too, some you’d never seen before. In fact, this entire box seemed to keep an entire years worth of travels and adventure and fun. There was a date at the bottom of every picture, dating back to nearly two years ago. Yet, everything seemed so wonderful. It seemed like a world you wanted to live in and you desperately wanted to turn back time and jump into these lives- these smiles that stretched into seas of happiness.

Moving another picture over, you found a wrapped collection. Slowly, you removed them to get a good look, taking the casing off to count only four photos. This caused a furrowing of your eyebrows and you wondered how important they were that they needed to be hid. The first picture was sweet though, just all seven of them again. Four were lined up on a bench, side by side and squishing into each other though there was more than enough space. Yoongi was pressed against Jungkook, arm up in the air and mouth wide in a scream. The other three were above, shooting peace signs and little finger hearts, some halfway through talking. You laughed lightly at how sweet it was before flipping to the next one.

This had hair clouding the camera and it seemed to scream chaos, eyes diverted to the person running in. There was a waving of blurry arms and Jimin doubled over in laughter. You traced this lightly, hating the blurriness and flipping again. This one had the whole girl’s body, running with outstretched arms and coming beside Yoongi. His arm bowed for her, creating a place. Dust from the tan ground was kicked up into this picture but somehow, it made your heart race; and so you flipped.

The racing of your heart stopped. Your hands shook. The breath in your lungs was stolen and you felt almost cheated, looking at this picture and not understanding. You gasped for air, darting your eyes between the picture and the other ones. That hair looked so familiar. The face pressed into Yoongi’s, planting the biggest kiss on it. The look of disgust and the way Seokjin’s hand came to push them apart. You didn’t know what to think about it, feeling the world spin and the rug from under you run away. You tried to put your feet down again, to make your head come down from the clouds but it didn’t work. Nothing worked. Not even the tear that dripped onto the laminated photo.

“Y/n? Are you okay?” Namjoon’s voice sliced through the air and his footsteps seemed to shake the very foundations which you held onto. You felt like someone had thrown you over a cliff and the nails you were hanging on by were shattering one by one. Meeting his eyes hurt you more than anything ever would.

“When was this?” you whispered, showing him the picture only to have his face drop. The picture that faced him was one of you and them, looking so unbearably happy with each other. Namjoon was even between yells in this and you could remember what he said.

“Get a room already!”

The tears that were on the verge of spilling came down when he said your name again, crumpling beside you and trying to explain. His words reached deaf ears, your heart devastated and cracking. All the cement in the world couldn’t fill the holes in it now and no bandage could fit it together. You felt naked and alone, shrouded by a familiar darkness. The worst bit about it was that you remembered exactly how you felt in that moment and that happiness was unparalleled with anything you’d ever felt since.

A/N: so hey! um I know this took me lowkey forever to do and I’m sorry but I hope you can understand why! I was listening to my vinyl the entire time for this and I had to be home alone and ah, full stress man but I hope you enjoyed! Please remember there are only a few more chapters left so hang in there! See you in the next one! Feel free to inbox me any of your questions!

[tessatechaitea]

Cerebus #14 (1980)

This is what happens to Cerebus because he still hasn't taken my advice to stab everybody he meets before they become a huge annoyance.

I'm not suggesting everybody stab everybody they meet so that they'll never have to deal with any non-stabbing drama because then everybody I meet would be trying to stab me. That sounds like a bad social contract. A good social contract is to not talk to anybody at all in public unless they work in the service industry and also maybe don't make such aggressive eye contact with people on the street? I'm just trying to get from Point A to Point B with as little human contact as possible. I wouldn't mind interacting with people except for one huge problem: most people are way more terrible than they realize. And the more enthusiastic and social a person is, the more likely that they're the real life version of Red Sophia or Elrod. On a similar note, I really love this thing where we're all wearing masks. Now if we can just develop a virus that spreads through eye contact so we're all forced to constantly wear dark glasses, I'll be pretty fucking happy about the state of the world. I mean I'd be happy with the state of the world in regards to what I have to deal with when I go outside (which is people trying to talk to me and looking into my eyes). I don't mean I'd be overall happy with the state of the world which is fucking terrible because a bunch of assholes think teenagers telling them they can't say retard on the Internet is worse than Donald Trump and the GOP's self-serving style of governing where they think taxes shouldn't be used to make the country better but should just go back into the pockets of corporations and Wall Street pricks and other politicians and the already extremely wealthy. Also, a lot of centrist Democrats think the same way. They're only more acceptable because they mostly aren't racist, sexist homophobes. Now that all the snowflakes have stopped reading and went to hug their guns in consolation of my mean Internet words, I can get to the review. In "A Note from the Publisher," Deni claims this is the funniest issue of Cerebus to date. Since it's Cerebus' first visit to Palnu, I'm not even questioning her claim. It's almost certainly true. Dave Sim's Swords of Cerebus essay is a textual stroking of Prince Valiant creator Hal Foster's dick. Sim's mostly talking about Foster's art style but he obviously decided to mimic some of Foster's story telling style as well. See, Prince Valiant was a continuous story that ran (or has run? Is it still going by his son or grandson or something?) for decades, a story which chronicled the life of Prince Valiant and, eventually, his children. Cerebus is a comic book that didn't run for as long but whose continuing story was easier to follow and had a drunk aardvark as the main character. So there are some similarities there, right? This was also the first issue of Cerebus after going to a monthly schedule. Dave Sim would now have to do 300 issues instead of the 150-something he had been planning. Ha ha! Sucker.

This would have been a most opportune time for Cerebus to start his stabbing people upon meeting them practice.

I knew at some point I was going to have to admit this so I might as well begin with it: I don't think I've ever sat through an entire Marx Brothers movie. It's possible I have but I just don't really remember because it happened so long ago. But I need to also reveal this: I loved Groucho Marx as a kid. I've revealed before that I had a grandfather fetish as a child. I loved hanging out with old men and I loved watching old men on television. Going in Style was one of my favorite movies and I simply adored Art Carney. I also loved The Shining because it was about a young kid who got to hang out with one of my other favorite older guys, Scatman Crothers. Groucho Marx in You Bet Your Life fit into the old guy category. I don't think he was as old as the oldest men I loved but, as a young kid, he certainly seemed ancient. I think the duck that dropped down when somebody said the secret word helped a lot. But I would watch reruns of You Bet Your Life whenever I found them on television because it was like hanging out with an old man, my favorite pastime from around four to ten or so. As for Groucho's movies? I've definitely watched parts of some of them as I stumbled on them on television and realized he was in it. But I've never made the effort to start one from the beginning and watch it all the way through. I should probably rectify that. Cerebus has wound up in Palnu thanks to a short diversion in a comic strip that appeared in The Comic Buyers Guide. He wound up marooned on an island with Lord Julius' son, Lord Silverspoon. Upon being rescued, Lord Julius decided to reward Cerebus for saving his son. I don't have the issue of Swords of Cerebus with that story so I can't comment on how annoying Lord Silverspoon almost certainly was. Cerebus' reward is to be put in charge of Lord Julius' security forces and granted the title of "Kitchen Staff Supervisor." It doesn't make any sense because Lord Julius invented bureaucracy. He realized the only thing that can really keep a leader safe is to make sure that nobody else knows what the fuck is going on.

Oh, see? I suppose I could have just read a few more panels and realized Lord Julius explains it himself.

As Kitchen Staff Supervisor, Cerebus' job is to keep assassins from assassinating Lord Julius. Aside from that, he was pretty much free to do whatever he wanted. Unless he only thought he was free to do whatever he wanted and whatever he wanted was whatever Lord Julius was manipulating him into wanting. Lord Julius is a master of getting people to accidentally do the thing they didn't think they would ever do that Lord Julius also didn't want them to do but actually secretly did want them to do. Basically anybody who has recently spoken with Lord Julius is actively doing Lord Julius' bidding, whether they know it or not. For some reason, Cerebus decides to take on the role of Kitchen Staff Supervisor even though it's the most boring thing he's ever done in his life. At least it's entertaining for the reader because nearly every line out of Lord Julius' mouth is a solid gag. And since I haven't really seen any of Groucho's movies, I can't say how many of the gags were stolen outright! I have to assume it's all new material and only Groucho Marx parody. Some people, in an attempt to never be fooled by anybody, never believe anything at all. I am not one of those people. I believe everything I hear until somebody slaps me and yells, "How can you believe that obviously falsified tripe, you fucking moron?!" Assassins try to poison Lord Julius and Cerebus tracks them down to an underground group trying to free the city from the clutches of Lord Julius. When the assassin, Cerebus, and Lord Julius wind up in the same place, Cerebus outs himself as a spineless centrist.

The Centrist loves to believe that not taking sides is the only logical conclusion to any matter that doesn't seem to immediately affect their lives.

Some people are probably wondering how that previous caption is a negative criticism. "Um, yeah. Seems about right. If it doesn't affect me, why should I offer up an opinion!" And yet when a situation exists where one side is full of abusive and manipulative people controlling the reins of power and the economic purse strings of the country and the other side is being bullied, cheated, and abused by that side, not taking a side is siding with the powerful and the abusive. Even if your life hasn't been affected. Of course, Cerebus doesn't need to take a side here. I mean, he does take a side: he sides with the people who have all the money. But he doesn't really care is the point. You'll see he retains this philosophy of rich people winning every argument later when he's Pope and gives out his wisdom that "God loves rich people which is why they're rich and hates poor people which is why they're poor." Pretty much the philosophy of evangelicals in the U.S. Cerebus survives the battle with the assassin and then gives Lord Julius some free advice about running the country. So Cerebus kind of does agree with the assassin but also the assassin wasn't paying him anything so he deserved to be thrown five stories to his death. Lord Julius says, "You can rest assured that I'll give the matter all the attention I feel it deserves." Is there a better way to tell somebody to shove it than that? It's so elegant! In Aardvark Comments, Dave Sim answers a letter on how to go about self-publishing. And so his role as Independent Comic Book Publishing Mentor begins! In his list of things you'll need to get together to successfully publish your own comic book, he kindly leaves out "talent." Obviously Dave understood how to go about getting something published but he also put in the hard work and had the talent to produce a comic book that began well above mediocre or average. I can't imagine a lot of self-published books began at this high of a plateau. And even if they were eventually capable of Cerebus quality, how long are readers going to give them to get there? Probably not even two issues, would be my guess.

The Single Page had a comic called "Sex Education" by April. I thought the first two panels were cute.

Cerebus #14 Rating: A+. As with Elrod and Red Sophia and The Cockroach, Lord Julius' first appearance is a banger. Dave Sim never once falters with Lord Julius' repartee. Solid gags throughout. Sim really is a master of dialogue and, to think, it only gets better.

[thirteenthspirit]

Hold My Hand While I Climate Change

I just came back from my first-ever road trip via electric vehicle. I had ridden electric cars before, but never actually taken a long voyage by means of one. It wasn’t a very long trip, covering only about ~300km (about 186 miles for my non-existent American readers) and spanning a whopping 5 hours. We were going sightseeing in the city of Guimarães, the birthplace of Portugal, a place ridden with history and beautiful sights, with churches and sanctuaries hidden atop mountains, covered in lush forests draped in autumn’s colors.

Just to get it out of the way – my experience was positive. We didn’t waste any money on gas, which we would’ve whether we had taken my 2009 VW Polo, instead of the 2016 Nissan Leaf. But by no means do I think Portugal is fully prepared for the switch to electric-powered vehicles. Charging posts are still far and few (although growing at a much-needed rate) and still cost us a couple of hours amid waiting times and available fast-charging stations.

One of the funniest yet most awkward parts was having people gawk at us when we charged the car, mostly out of curiosity and wonder. The talk and build-up for electric cars has been increasing exponentially but many people – myself included, are still somewhat in the dark about it. We know it has been growing but had never really been confronted with the reality of it.

This got me thinking – and exchanging views with my companion, the owner of the car, for him it was almost unfathomable that I was such a sceptic about electric cars, or at least that I had never considered it as a viable option, because I was very isolated from it, just a matter of lack of exposure. When my mother called and asked why we had taken his car instead of mine, after “to save money on gas” I said (at my companion’s urge) “also to avoid polluting”. Which was followed by a heartening and ear-shattering (thanks for that mom) laugh. Not with the intent of making fun, but out of sheer surprise out of something that, for her, was so responsible and (dare I say) over-the-top environmentally sustainable, that had never crossed her mind before.

So why does this divide persist? I consider myself an informed person and I think I have a responsibility with minimizing my environmental footprint, but I was met with the realization that there are people WAY ahead of me. There is a clear divide in the spectrum, with the “most sustainable” at the top and the “less informed” at the bottom. Note I do not say “less interested”, rather “less informed” – I believe it’s just a matter of coming to terms with what we need to do and the consequences of our actions, to spurn each and every one of us to action.

So it’s a matter of conveying just how important this matter is. It is why Greta Thunberg’s voice and many more like her are so necessary – because it’s about getting the message across. To only one person, if that’s the extent of our reach, but it’s already worth it to convince one individual about the seriousness of this topic. Not only how much our input and cooperation is needed, but also to contextualize as to how the world is evolving and there are sustainable options and solutions for your everyday needs.

Someone compared it to the technological revolution, a couple of days ago (in my little finance ‘bubble’), how the developed world is shifting to prioritize sustainable solutions and how everyone who doesn’t get the picture (like the people who shunned the internet’s power at first) are going to have a tough time, being left behind in the dust and struggling to maintain their old-fashioned ways.

My argument here is a double-edged one – on one hand, it is important to get the message across. It is vital, it is my generation’s fight and every single one of us, no matter how little, can play a big role in empowering the voice for the need to change. We do have to point out what is wrong, what can be changed and what needs to be improved. But on the other hand, we cannot forget to help each other. Our struggle is to get people to hear our voice, to empathize with our plight and in that way come to our side and join us.

When people were gawking at us in gas stations, stripping us and commenting while our Leafy was charging, my immediate reaction (stemming from a couple of unhealthy social anxiety issues) was the typical “What are you staring at?”. But my companion’s reply was “No, it’s ok, it means they’re interested and want to know more. It’s a bit awkward for me too, but it’s an important part we have to play. Sometimes they come and ask me about the car, and I am more than glad to answer their questions. This is how we get the message across.”

This is how we get the message across.

That simple gas station conversation will get someone more sensitized to the viability of an electric car – say, a middle-aged couple with a few children. From the children, naturally, the parents will receive constant reminder of the need for environmental awareness, starting “simple” with recycling issues (taught around 5th grade at my time) and then evolving to updates on new technological developments prioritizing sustainability. The bubble of awareness grows.

Now – aside from the cooldown from my weekend trip, another reason that spurned me to write about this topic was a news piece I just saw on LinkedIn, basically listing the top 20 firms behind a third of all carbon emissions, by The Guardian. The list is comprised almost entirely of drilling and oil-exploration companies, public and/or privately-owned ones. The piece highlights the amount of money and time these corporate giants spend on lobbying and cozying-up to local governments, to make sure their interests are prioritized, over others such as “that whole hippy plant-loving environmental thing”. And it does make me mad. It does enrage me. And there should be a channel for that rage. Why am I out here doing my part for some corporate lobbyist to keep fueling their innate greed and selfishness, effectively undoing all my efforts just like that?

So what to do with this rage? Do I email general@oilcompany.com with a well-funded and sustained rant? Do I try my best to go on the news and the ‘public eye’ so I can point a finger at these corporations? I don’t know… But what I propose is this – out of the, let’s say, 2000 employees in the company, the intern that is tasked with replying to the emails from the general corporate inbox, is probably aware of this issue. He just doesn’t have enough decisive power within the organization, to effect change. And neither do 99% of the rest of the employees.

The 1% do. The board members do. The CFO’s and CEO’s and CIO’s and CTO’s and how-many-more-Oh’s you want to come up with, have the power to make a change. So they’re the ones we should be pointing fingers at. They and the ones hiding in the shadows, pulling strings with corporations and governments to ensure their ‘organizations’ keep turning a different kind of ‘sustainable wheel’ – the kind of sustainable that ensure money keeps flowing, not the actual and true sustainability we’re trying to preach. They will always look after their own interests first and if our worst fears come to pass, say and energetic crisis or a global extinction-level event, the rich will always be the most protected. It will eat through each of us first, before it gets to them.

So these hidden powers and ‘influencers’ (not the kind we idolatrize) are the real people we need to reach. But as much finger-pointing and corporate bashing and public ostracizing that (maybe) can be done, something tells me that isn’t nearly as effective as these people having their own family members go like “Dad, can’t we do something about this?”. And hey, I know those guys take their own private cars and planes to go places, but their 3rd cousin Bill usually goes through the interstate.

Maybe he stops at the same gas station as I did. And maybe there he learns about how much better (for the environment and his pocket) an electric car is. So maybe he then comments about it to his 2nd cousin Mike.

Mike had already heard about it from his teenage daughter Anne and is quite versed on climatic issues, he follows Elon Musk on twitter after all, so he decides to get an electric car. He likes his experience and becomes quite advocate on it, actually gaining some pride on doing something good for the environment as well. So maybe he keeps telling his half-sister Lisa at family gatherings.

And Lisa hears it from him. And from her children. And from her friends. And from her neighbors. And from Greta on the TV. And so she becomes convinced and afraid – she comes into the bubble.

Here’s the catcher – Lisa sits on the board of a large energy producing company, even being featured on the “Forbes 50 people to watch in 2020”. So she conveys all her beliefs and ideas to the rest of her fellow stakeholders. The result? Setting the following 2025 goal: shifting 90% of the company’s energy production to renewables. And in that way, effect impact on a global scale. And all of that from a simple conversation at a gas station – at least where my part is concerned.

My point is a very simple and human one – help each other. Be patient with each other. Never patronizing. People say things or maybe they’re less attuned to environmental issues than we are, and they have their reasons, valid or not. But the way we can get them to realize the validity of our fight is through dialogue. We should adapt our speech to their struggles and skepticisms, before throwing hostile arguments in their face.

Aside from the global movement, the part we individuals can play is a very simple and easy one.

Maybe just answering a couple of questions about why you’re plugging in your car through the nose. Social anxiety or not, I think even I can do that one!

Here’s to using words as our biggest tool,

                                                                                                 -João A. (Pachiren)

[anderslarsson-blog1]

The Beginning of it All | Self-Para

For the last seven years, Anders has avoided exclusive, long term relationships like the plague. From Madison to New York to Boston, he’s known to many as a playboy, often having sex with several girls each week, and on some occasions, all at once. Though he claims he adores his no qualms, no attachments, no commitment-free lifestyle, underneath it all, he sleeps around because he’s scared of all of the things that accompany love, namely heartbreak. From his sophomore through his junior year of college, he dated Anne, a member of the women’s soccer team at Wisconsin. Anne was his best friend, his confidant, his personal cheerleader and his first love. Anders truly believed that she was the one, and planned on proposing once they graduated. Instead, she broke his heart unexpectedly, and seven years later, he’s still not over it.

Wind whipped Anders’ face as he headed home after a long day of classes, the February Wisconsin air making his cheeks burn and his eyes water as he rounded the corner onto State Street. It was Tuesday, which meant practice at 6AM, classes at 8:30, 11:15, and 1:30, followed by workouts, tutoring and then another night class. Needless to say, he was exhausted, and as always, hungry. With a quick stop at Chipotle on the way home, Anders arrived back to his apartment at 9:30, ready to spend a chill date night with his girlfriend, Anne. 

No matter the stressor, whether it was hockey or school or family, Anne was always the perfect answer. One of the sweetest, funniest, kindest and most talented girls Anders had ever met, it was easy to see why he was so taken with her. She was the kind of girl that you took home to meet mom, the one that you envision a future with, the one that always impresses whoever she meets and makes the people around her better, and he couldn’t wait to wind down his day by spending some alone time with her.

Anders shivered as he unlocked his door, immediately heading for his room to add an extra layer of clothes and grab a blanket before settling in on the couch to eat his dinner. A text from Anne indicated she’d be along in 20 minutes, having to finish up a last minute paper before spending the night with him. Ders turned on the TV while he waited, mindlessly watching a re-run of MTV’s College Life as he ate, downing the entire burrito in less than five minutes. 

A few minutes later there was a small knock on the door as Anne let herself in, looking beautiful as ever, bundled up in her winter coat and hat, cheeks pink and chapped from the wind. “Hey beautiful,” Anders grinned, leaning in to kiss her as she sat down next to him, her return kiss rather bored and noncommittal, the look in her eye indicating mild annoyance. “How’s the paper coming?” he asked, taking in her body language that clearly indicated she didn’t want him touching her. “Fine,” she replied, avoiding eye contact and instead turning towards the TV as she removed her winter gear. What the hell? Anders thought to himself. Is she mad at me? What for? They sat for the next ten minutes in silence, the TV still highlighting various debaucherous things their classmates did on Tuesday nights, Anders mentally going through every interaction from the last week, trying to figure out what was wrong.

When the show ended, Ders turned to Anne, hoping that maybe some cuddling would do her some good. Papers were stressful, he knew that. It was probably just school that was bothering her, right? With a big smile on his face, he shifted his body, pulling Anne’s into his chest, playfully kissing her face. “Stop it, Ders,” she snapped trying to pull away. “Stop it!” she yelled again, freeing herself from his grip as if his touch disgusted her. “Anne, babe, what’s wrong? Did I do something? Tell me what’s up, please?” he asked, her reaction stinging him deeply. “It’s nothing,” she murmured, keeping her head down. “It’s not nothing,” he replied softly. Anne sat there staring at him for a moment, her facial expression a mix of sad and irritated, her fingers playing with her necklace, a tell-tale tick that something was bothering her. “We need to talk about us,” she said finally. 

Those simple words cut through Anders like a knife. He knew what was coming, and it wasn’t going to be pretty. Tears filled his eyes as confusion filled his face. “W-w-what d-do you m-mean? W-what did I d-do?” he whimpered, his eyes panicked. “I think we should break up, Ders,” she said quietly, avoiding eye contact with him. Immediately, the tears began streaming down his face, his breathing staggered and shallow. “Anne, why?!” he wailed, reaching out to touch her, her body moving to avoid his hands. “I love you, we l-love each other. W-we were just talking ab-bout s-spening a weekend in Door County t-together on S-Sunday. Why would you do this?” he added as the pain continued to build. “I...,” she paused, thinking over her statement before she said it. “I just don’t love you anymore,” she murmured. Instantly, it felt as though the world had completely tipped, everything coming crashing down around Anders at once. “Anne, b-baby, please. Tell m-me w-what I did wr-wrong. I can f-fix it. I’m s-sorry!” he continued to wail, and she stood up and began putting on her coat again, making a move for the door. “Anne!” he yelled after her, following her as she walked to the front door. “Please,” he whispered desperately. “I love you. I want a life with you in it!” he wept, her face remaining unchanged. “I’m sorry,” she said simply, closing the door behind her. 

Anders felt dizzy and sick as he stumbled his way back to the couch, clutching his churning stomach. He searched his mind again for anything he could have done to make Anne sad or angry at him, going over small details repeatedly, obsessively in his head. “What did I do? What did I do?” he whispered over and over again between the tears, his body now horizontal. He tried calling Anne’s phone a dozen times, but it proved futile as she red-buttoned him on every single one, his 20 or so texts also going unanswered. The night very quickly became a long one, Ders finally crying himself out as his feelings went from shock, horror and sadness to emptiness and devastation. The girl of his dreams breaking up with him was one thing, the girl of his dreams breaking up with him with no explanation at all, was another.

Over the course of the next few weeks, Anders continued to try and reach Anne, but his attempts were either returned by silence or angry messages telling him to leave her alone. Soon, he eventually gave up, but the pain didn’t stop and wouldn’t stop, only dull a bit. Anne moved on within a few months, and found a new guy, some 5th year, 2nd second string football player who could probably suffocate Anders with one hand if he tried hard enough. All the while, Ders felt broken, sad, and useless. That was until a buddy suggested he go home with a dance team member, and for a few hours, the pain didn’t quite feel as painful anymore. Sex was a distraction, and one that he soon discovered a lot of women were willing to offer him. So he continued sleeping around, burying the pain. A different girl every night became the norm, no real relationship wanted or necessary. 7 years later, he still feels the pain of that night, especially given that recently Anne married the guy that she began dating soon after Anders. The sex is still there, but the pain is far off, buried, hiding below the surface, ready to make an appearance again at any time, should he chose to try another relationship again.

[max177blog-blog]

VBUCKS And Other Items

Fortnite Hack & Mobile Vbucks And More ITems IOS

There is a good news for those who proposal on holding a Samsung Galaxy Note 9. Samsung has already partnered with Epic Games to offer every Note 9 buyer 15,000 Fortnite V-Bucks for free, then a Galaxy skin. The game structure in Fortnite is based on close co-operation. Gameplay depends in fight against opponents, erecting fortifications, gathering reserves and background exploration. Players can make using various items that make that likely to set up constant and well-secured buildings. Opportunities of co-operation are basically unlimited, which goes players a substantial edge in the adversaries. Stores with tackle are creating specifically for the game road, in a casual way. Inside campaign players gain accessibility to numerous forms of white branches and guns, such as guns, rifles, katanas or sabers.

Head with principal, a new Playground mode will be coming to Fortnite Battle Royale. The party said Playground manner with behind May, depicting a sort that would enable users load into the road and simply carry out the sport show, whether that learning to build quickly or follow the goal. With Friendly Fire enabled, users can squad in place with scrimmage against one another, or merely wander about also gather the spaces and crannies on the plan.

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When a video match that depends Drake among its fans has breakfast TELEVISION shows around the world discussing the impact on younger players, it has truly made it. No, we're not dealing with Grand Theft Auto , but Fortnite, Epic Games' mass-multiplayer shooter that produces over 40 million players around consoles and COMPUTER, and continues to increase at a fast rate.

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While each identity in Fortnite can make up, examine, and place the work on the battle zone, every session is matched with a point style of play on account of an mixture of skills and bonuses unlocked during their expertise tree. Fortnite esp do sound too. There's in present only some fundamental playable classes, but because amusement creates through Alpha, Beta, early get to, and past, there's intended to get many special classes. Every principle class includes numerous Sub Halls on the two sexual orientations.

Fortnite is a hit PS4, Xbox One, LAPTOP and Mac online game of which lives streaming in recognition. Fortnite's Save The World mode will become free to play later this year, while Battle Royale is open right now. Battle Royale is a big rival to another hit online game - PUBG, also called Battlegrounds. Developers Epic Games have recently added Fortnite Cell near their present, which is for iOS and Android devices. You may find Fortnite news, updates, server status latest, downtime alerts, weekly challenge guides, map latest, Fortnite Mobile information, tips and tricks and more below.

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Every evening, more and more players moved ahead in common media to say they'd been hacked, too. The tendency exploded before this month. There's no hard data how many, but a jump into sites where Fortnite players congregate suggests the number of alleged fraud bases in the world's most popular sport is considerable. Hackers I interviewed say that's because defense for Epic Games' software is present, happening John's words, 'œtop kek.' Epic Games doesn't ask for a lot of verification before players make in-game purchases, which, hackers say, paves a clear opening regarding their own arguments.

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For months, Sony didn't allow full Fortnite cross-platform games with the other main consoles, angering players isolated by friends while still playing on the world's most popular console. Sony repeatedly claimed players' experiences might be diminished, but it later posted a cross-platform beta would allow PS4 players to connect with both Xbox and Transition participants. The software currently covers PlayStation 4, Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows and Mac platforms.

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Fortnite Battle Royale has what is known as, virtual currency in the game known as V-Bucks. You buy V-Bucks with real world money through credit cards, PayPal, or gift cards. V-Bucks are needed to buy virtual goods like Skins” (A fancier avatar) or accessories of which live significantly part of the culture on the activity. Looking cool then controlling cool with these personal add-ons is positively part of Fortnite's appeal.

The lobbying one here is the meeting requirement up top, indicating that you need to have had two of the accounts around a PS4 with an Xbox or Control before the time Sony first published cross-play and string. Another really significant individual becomes that the actual in-game progress doesn't transfer, so be sure you're not nuking an account with a nearly finished battle pass when you may easily start the cosmetics over by a different system instead. All in all, it's not a perfect solution, but it seems to be the best we've find at the moment, with the idea absolutely a benefit compared to inoperable platform nightmare Fortnite players faced when the Switch version first launched past June.

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If you're not quite really exactly what the story is, let's have a second to talk about Fortnite and sweat — don't worry, it's not as clear as it appears. In the Fortnite community, some participants are called sweats” or sweaty.” These players are kind of like tryhards. They aren't necessarily good, except they reason they live — and they want to make sure you realize it. These are the kinds of players who are more likely to do a fancy play poorly than a simple act that would really do during a shootout.

People need to now know all to you need to know about V-Bucks, including getting them, how to spend them, and even how much they charged in their different packages. If you're still baffled in something from the sport, be sure to check out the detailed Fortnite guide , where we have the collection of something else guides available from the entertainment. We also have some really big guides about how to heighten the right level , along with a direct on how to use the elements in the sport —like Fire, Water, Kind, and Power.

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Fortnite Battle Royale is without a suspicion the biggest game in the world today. In this Fortnite V-Bucks guide, we'll be walking you in everything there is to know about the micro currency for Fortnite. We'll be detailing if there are ways to get Fortnite V-Bucks for free, as well as how we could watch out for free Fortnite V-Bucks scams.

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: The Black Watch

The Black Watch plays jangly power pop with a psychedelic haze. Its sole continuous member, songwriter John Andrew Fredrick, has made 18 Black Watch albums so far, full of gem-like, oddball songs that evoke Teenage Fanclub and the Bevis Frond. Of the latest, Brilliant Failures, Jennifer Kelly wrote, “If you like smart lyrics tossed casually over the shoulder, exquisite melodies blurred and buried under guitar wail, ephemeral pop pleasures that latch on stubbornly and enduringly in your ear, you’ll probably like The Black Watch.”

The Beatles—Revolver

To start at the start, my love for The Beatles simply can’t be overestimated/understated. If their almighty double album evinces in a “writ large” way just how ambitious (and with what astonishing range) the Fabs could be, Revolver is also a record that simply has everything: rocking, bouncing-jolly songs; a stringsy storytelling session; peppy horns for pumped-up people; a drone to die for (those “Indian” whoops!); and my favorite song of all time (And Your Bird Can Sing). Gone is the mystery behind most bands that we so very cherished/lived for in the 60s as kids. How we’d simply kill for any tidbits of info on J, P, G, & R. It’s a rare day that I don’t listen to The Beatles. I was lunching with band mate (and lead guitarist) Andy Creighton (who fronts his own wonderful band, The World Record) and our mutual friend Ben Eshbach from The Sugarplastic and Ben said: “Whenever someone dismisses The Beatles in some highfalutin way, I always think it’s mere posturing.” Truer words, sir. Truer words.

My Bloody Valentine—Isn’t Anything

When I first relocated to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara I got a job as an assistant editor at a paper that, quixotically, was trying to compete with the LA Weekly. The Relativity label was really good about sending me cassettes (!!!!) of “alt” bands. So in ’88 came a tape that changed my life nearly as much as The Beatles had done when I was a kid. Loveless has its proper apologists for greatest-shoegaze-LP-of-all-time but Isn’t Anything affects me more on account of—I think—it’s about the mystery (there’s that word again) of sex. I could not believe the news when I was told that MBV were playing the Club Lingerie. I think there were eleven or twelve people there—not many more. Old chum Craig Costigan was at that show with me (as well as The Lucy Show’s Santa Barbara debut—which made me form my band), as was then-band mate J’Anna Jacoby and future band mate Steven Schayer. The Valentines were so mind-blowing I can’t even tell you. Having lived in LA so long now, I’m never ever starstruck, but I remember just gawking at this Irish-English outfit. We went backstage just to look at those four heroes. This LP makes me crazy with happiness—and I still have it on cassette (for playing in the jeep).

Shelley—“Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples”

Shelley’s my second favorite poet (top spot would go to T.S. Eliot) but this gorgeous lyric poem haunts me as it haunted me first time I read it in class as an undergrad at UCSB. Whenever I taught it in my poetry classes, I’m sure I waxed rhapsodic over it—much to the eye-rolling dismay or in some few cases delight of the students. Despite his uber-generous nature, Shelley seemed perpetually to find ways to F up his life and to occasion chaos (especially with the turnstile, as it were, of pretty women in his life) whithersoever he roamed. And roam he certainly did. I’ve myself sat on the shores round the bay of Naples; and the majestic beauty you find there doubtless induces a kind of melancholic state of mind, a la what you find in this incredible poem.

Stanley Kubrick—Barry Lyndon

Hands down my favorite film—by my favorite director. Have you not seen it? Oh, you’re in for such a treat. What an eye-banquet it is. Legendary stuff. Saw it in the theater in Goleta when it came out. And when I came out of that theater, I made plans to see it again the next day. Cue one’s obsessive-compulsive nature when it comes to great art. I really am the sort of person who can watch or listen to something I love again and again and again.

Echo and The Bunnymen—A Promise

The Bunnymen, along with The Lucy Show, were my greatest inspirations when we were starting out as the black watch. And to write a song like this—one that’s essentially one chord—is a veritable ambition to this day. The “cool” station in Santa Barbara, KTYD, played “Never Stop” from time to time, and that’s how I came upon these wonderful scousers. You try wearing a houndstooth greatcoat like Mac’s in summertime SB! It takes a heap of gumption and goofiness. But those were the days. Poseur days of callow alternative youth!

T.S. Eliot—Complete Poems and Plays

Wanna write above-average lyrics? Read as much Old Possum as you can. Despair that you’ll ever write half as well. Despair some more. Repeat. Rinse yourself of the literary influences you’ll never wash off. Repeat ad infinitum. Enjoy the silence and the majesty. See how I’m floundering to say anything worth noting? Impossibly powerful. Cue Wittgenstein’s observation about how whereof we cannot speak thereof we must not. No words. Eliot took them all. We’re just his flailing heirs.

Nabokov—Pale Fire

Here we have my favorite novel by my favorite novelist. And short story writer. Obsessively, I write on the first page of books the season/place I’ve read them in: I’ve read this book seventeen times now—in London, LA, Santa Barbara, New Zealand, Canada, and France. I love novelists who play games/tricks on the reader. My own humble works of comic fiction, admittedly, aren’t a patch on this towering giant of a book. One can but try! And never reach these heights. One of the wittiest, funniest, most puzzling-till-you-get-it books you’ll ever. Don’t wait till the world ends to read N’s masterpiece. Lolita—sure. But this thing? I mean, come on.

Justin Hayward and John Lodge—Blue Jays LP

Producer Rob Campanella and I often, while we’re tracking, take breaks to listen to The Moody Blues whom we love, love, love. They aren’t cool now and they weren’t cool when this side project first came out, but goddam if it didn’t get me through the music-snobby super-preppy high school I went to. Everyone was listening to Foghat or—I dunno—Zeppelin. Bellbottomy stuff with gobs of facial hair. I got laughed at for liking The Beach Boys too. Harken to the Harrisonian lead here by Justin Hayward (a very very under-rated guitarist); and oh the swooping-soaring strings. Gorgeousnessity. That’s not a word—and it shouldn’t be—but it fits.

The Black Watch—Brilliant Failures

I include this as I am a massive fan of what I do. Unabashedly. What’s the point of making something you’re not super into? I throw this in in order to point up how near the end of recording an album I almost always write one more song that becomes a single of sorts. I loved reading Robert Smith saying, “When I want to hear a great song, I write one.” He was—natch—winding up the press people and the punters, but he was also stating a truism: an artist makes something for him or herself. This eponymous song was the last one we tracked for the self-same LP. Rob went: “How in the world could you even think of leaving this off the LP, John!” And I said: “Well, I just wrote it last night. I always write a big fat catchy song after we think we’re done making the album.”

The Novels of Jean Rhys

Pick one. Any one. She’s addicting! Me, I’m in love with a dead woman!

[electricdazemag]

Bob Fossil: Interview

by Tasha Bielaga

photo by Symone Camargo

Bellingham based rockers Bob Fossil are ready to foss the entire Northwest of the US, and the rest of the world while they’re at it. Making noise in everywhere from people’s homes in northern Washington to bars in San Diego, vocalist Kenny Clarkson, bassist Hank Miller, guitarist Joe Canfield, pianist Corey Teply, and drummer Alan Schellenberger have been together for about 3 years. The quintet’s groovy guitar lines and spunky keyboard features are evocative of the rock’n’roll of the 70′s, a place where the band’s fashion sense may actually fit in. We talk about bouncing around in basements, what’s going on in the studio where their new album is being birthed, and paying the rent.

Electric Daze: Congrats on raising over $2,000 on your live stream for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society! Super cool that it was for such a good cause too. How’d you feel about doing it? Is it something you would like to do again?

Really awesome! The fact that people were actually interested was fun, and we think the cause did a lot of the work itself. We weren’t sure what the amount of money would look like or how attainable it was, but it happened. We’re going to work on making it an annual event. As time goes on we’ll get more of a viewer audience participation, so we’ll get to raise more money and help more people as a band.  We would like to say thank you to all the people that tuned in and supported, it meant a lot to all of us

ED: I saw you guys played some covers in it. What’s your favorite cover to play live? How does the crowd react to it?

Africa by Toto is a crowd pleaser. 3 years ago when we started out, we would play 2 covers a show. Since then, we really don’t do it as much, other than when we wanna play 40sec of a cover here or there to throw people off their feet. We like to jam on a cover between songs to give ourselves a little break or while we’re tuning. We kinda use covers as a fake out. When we play Africa we play the chorus and it’s fun, and then all of a sudden we’ll throw them a curve ball and start one of our own songs. Next I think we’re gonna try a Limp Bizkit cover, that’d suit us. Corey remembers right before Sasquatch in 2014 when Outkast was headlining, we covered “Hey Ya!” and these white boys did a mighty fine job of covering it.  The same can’t be said when we tried to cover “Thriller”, that was a disaster of catastrophic proportions.  Thankfully everyone at the house show we were playing at was drunk beyond what the body should probably be able to withstand, so no one really talks about our attempt of “Thriller” much anymore.

ED: Since you guys are self-proclaimed “Fossil Rock”, what exactly does that mean to you as a genre?

The only reason we did that originally, was because we knew we were rock, and we knew that rocks were fossils. It also kind of symbolizes every influence we put in our music: old, and buried in dirt for hundreds of thousands of years then dug up for your enjoyment. We look at it as an organically-genetically-modified crossbreed of rock, funk, grunge, jazz, and whatever the hell the kids are listening to these days.  Everyone in the band has different influences musically, which is really cool, and we all are able to incorporate the styles we most relate to individually to something that is a mixing pot full of all five of ours. Our goal is to churn the smoothest butter possible so your ears are pleased with every bite. Sometimes the butter is a little chunky, but once we work out the kinks in certain parts of jams we come up with, it turns to something that is probably worthy of spreading on your toast. We definitely hear different band names from different people, especially age groups, about who we sound like. They’ll be like “OH you guys remind me of  _____” and it’ll be something different each time.  “Fossil Rock” is a way to avoid the question of what genre are you, because fuck genres. One Kenny thought of recently was “emo grandpa core”. We have influences from the late 60’s to 70’s to early 80’s, but at the same time if we hadn’t listened to these indie and alt rock of the 90’s and early 2000’s, we wouldn’t be the same, at least vocally and lyrically.

ED: Have you ever as a band or personally, pursued or thought about pursuing a different genre of music?

We as a band have a few songs that are more math rock, which are fun to play, but we don’t spend as much time on those. We love what we’re doing. Alan plays bass in a folk rock band, and it’s nice for him to taste some other flavors. Joe plays sitar is a 60’s Indian cover band. Kenny was in a pop punk band in high school, before he ever listened to anything else. He was at that point where he was like “this is all I like, this is all I know, everything else sucks”, and he was 15. The years leading up to when we formed this band really gave him a growing period to open his mind up to playing more than 3 power chord rock music. Corey’s been told he should think about playing piano at the local Nordstroms, so that’s something to maybe consider in his future- but for now, he’ll stick to this.

ED: Being based in Bellingham and living in a college town, do you find there’s a big difference in demographic or vibes between playing a show in Bellingham vs. a show in Seattle? How does that affect your playing?

Bellingham has a really big underage venue and house show scene. House shows are always more wild and more fun. Under age kids just love to get wasted and bounce around in a sweaty packed room, they feel comfortable dancing crazily. People will go to any show in Bellingham, even if they don’t know the band playing. You don’t need to convince a 19 year old to go to a show, they just go. When we first came to Bellingham, 5 years ago, the scene was considerably smaller. We were freshmen going to house shows and there were certain bands that we would go see multiple times, but it’s definitely the biggest it’s ever been right now, besides maybe in the 90’s. These days, every single house show is packed. It’s really cool though, this scene is something that the people who are a part of it will remember for the rest of their lives. But, a show in Seattle has a much for professional aura to it, maybe that might be due to us looking at is as going to the big city and playing a show that has higher stakes to it.  At the end of the day, a show is a show, and we’re going to have a good time regardless and treat each as important as any other.

ED: With your latest tour in August, did you see a variation in the music scenes between each city?

It really depends on the demographic of the crowd vs. where we are. Older crowds tolerate and appreciate jamming a bit more. 20 year olds may not appreciate that as much. We try to be in a happy middle, and be a rock band that can jam. City to city, it’s more about who we can get out to our shows. Right now, we do a lot of asking our friends in that city to come out, rather than making a post on social media and having fans come out. But whether it’s 1 person (which did happen to us, we played a show in Olympia that ended up being us, the other band playing, and a guy named Cory. We bought him a tequila shot) or 1,000 people, we try to play our best and make an impact.

ED: What was your favorite show out of that tour?

Actually, Alan got us a really sweet gig in Los Angeles at a smoothie shop. It called itself a cafe, and if you look at photos of the live music there, it looks like there’s some sort of stage and/or corner of a reasonable size. That wasn’t true. It was like if you took a Jamba Juice, and cut it in half. So with that situation, we did have to say “Oh, okay, let’s play music in a way we don’t normally, in a way we don’t practice. Use less of your drum kit, turn your amps down, and get drunk (optional).” But our favorite show was probably in San Francisco at the Boom Boom Room. Hank and Alan are both from there, so they got to see a lot of their family and friends. We played top notch that night and ended up jamming past closing for the owner and manager. It was really special to Alan because all these people who took care of him when he was young got to watch him play the drums and scream at them. Although we don’t give Alan a microphone, he quite enjoys screaming his lungs out to the lyrics.

ED: Do you have any crazy fun stories from tour?

One of the funniest stories was when we were in Oregon, we had two shows in Portland with a day off in between. We decided it would be really smart to not book any places to stay in advance for this tour, we’re gonna camp, we’re gonna crash at houses, and it’s going to be totally fine to go to Cannon Beach in August and find camping. Every campsite in a ten mile radius was full, and we had no cell service. So we end up camping east of Cannon Beach, not in a camp site, on a turnout on the side of the road in the middle of the woods. We have the trailer with the gear, the SUV, and the Kia Soul. We created a buffer with our vehicles around where we slept on the gravel, so if a car did come off the road, it would hit one of the cars first, maybe saving us some damage to our bodies. We woke up several times to this unearthly sound, which turned out to be cars going around the corner at 30 miles an hour which was just terrifying. It was a beautiful area though.

On your website, there’s these really awesome band member bios. If you made one for the entire band, what would it say?

Our friend Mitch who made our website wrote those actually! Let’s call him and get his nice Mitch diction, so it’s authentic.

Mitch: If I was going to describe Bob Fossil, the word fucking comes along. The photo of all five of you on the forest floor with the wood string going across is the connection of the life, beauty, and emotion in your music. The face paint on Hank is the inspiration for his peers for the music that they create. How Allen has a slight grin and Corey has a big open smile, but Hank and Kenny are serious, show that some people find joy while others find subdued excitement.

photo by Ryan Rothaus

ED: You’re “Survival Kit” video is pretty tight. Exactly what I would want if I was lost in the woods. What was the inspiration for that?

The idea was to do a video a month, in this day and age people want to look at stuff. It kind of allows us to be relevant not only as a band but also on another spectrum. With that video, our first goal was to advertise merch. But after a few beers at the local tap house, our friend Jake and us got some goofy video game ideas. Conor O’Keefe from Walking Distance Media LLC shoots all our videos. He’s been doing movies and touring with us for a while now. They wouldn’t be what they are without his vision and hard work. So we give Conor our ideas that we aren’t sure are always doable, and he brings them to life! We want these videos to be really funny and stand alone entertaining. Next month we’re releasing a in-studio video with a few interviews about the upcoming album. We’re also working with Conor on a music video for our upcoming single off our next album.

ED: You guys have so many intricate parts, especially keyboard and guitar lines. How do you go about making it all cohesive and not overwhelming?

We’re working with Russ Fish (producer & engineer) right now. Last record we did it in 3 days, and spent all day there working, just trying to get it done because we didn’t have much money. We had Russ for 16 hours last time, and this time we have him for the entire time we’re recording. He’s a big factor in helping us piece things together and cutting down on extra notes. It’s not that we’re going to shift everything we do, but it can always get better and cleaner. We do have a lot of parts going on, but that’s our sound. For our new album, we had 15 songs written by September. We got to Russ and he wanted 10, but we said we were doing 11. We took a vote for what songs to cut so it was a very mutual decision. We’ve been together as a band long enough that we’re comfortable telling each other what we think about everyone’s parts. Being constructive is going to make this record a lot better. We’re able to pick out a specific part and discuss it between the band and Russ, and then we decide if we should keep it or not. That’s something we didn’t do on the first two records.

ED: Who brings the first draft?

Kenny writes the bare bones: rhythm guitar & vocals, sometimes he gets crazy and writes other guitar parts. He also writes the general structure, like how many times we repeat this section and how we transition. Once he’s comfortable with what he’s written he’ll bring it to practice and everyone will start layering their parts and everyone can had their own flavor and take it in their own direction. Everyone’s responsible for their own parts, and now that we’re getting better at communicating, we can mold things together. We’re finally able to democratically talk about how we think a song should go. Democracy may be failing, but not in this band; democracy is alive and well in Bob Fossil.

ED: I’ve noticed you guys have such high quality recordings, compared to a lot of other smaller local bands who have a much more lo-fi sound? Is there a particular reason you went with this direction, and do you think it separates you from the others?

We have such high quality audio because Joe did the first album but we mic’d every instrument individually. Now we’re spending a lot more money. The aesthetic of indie bands like Neutral Milk Hotel or early Pavement, it’s lofi. It’s a certain character, a certain attitude, and we do listen to that. But, a lot of the music that we really draw inspiration from is more high quality sounding.  The DIY lofi works nicely for a lot of bands, gives it a good raw feel. Plus it's cheap and there's an enormous amount of pride that comes out of something you do all yourself. But we do have all those intricate parts, so we have to make sure that you can hear every last thing, lofi would mask and muddle these puppies up. Another big thing is our long term goals. We want to go far in this industry, and in this day and age a lot of music that people listen to like EDM or rap is electronically made. The sound quality on these songs are going to be, for lack of a better word, perfect, because it’s all done on computers. As a rock band, we have to have high quality recordings to excel and compete with other bands.

ED: What are your goals for this year?

We want to become a regional band. Wanting to be recognized across the whole Northwest, and play shows consistently in Seattle is a big one. We also gain traction with this new album we are recording currently. We want to be able to pay the rent with the money we make from the band, so we can save our money from our other jobs, or quit them. But paying the rent is probably a life goal for everyone, unfortunately.

photo by Symone Carmargo

Connect with Bob Fossil on their website bobfossilmusic.com, on Instagram at @bobfossilmusic, and on twitter at @bobfossilmusic. 

Listen to their music on bandcamp here and on Spotify here. 

This is the second installment of features on Washington based bands. Check back here soon to read the rest!